A Workers’ Inquiry into Canvas and Zoom: Disrupting the Algorithmic University

Learning management systems (LMS) and teleconferencing technologies moved to the centre of teaching in Higher Education (HE) during the pandemic. Already on a rapid growth trajectory, these technologies were introduced into HE to rationalise, deskill, control, and manage academic labour by breaking it up into discreet tasks of course design, delivery and assessment. These discreet tasks are being redistributed to administrators, contractors, and other non-faculty technicians. This rationalisation is made possible by the ubiquitous dataveillance of teaching and learning built into the architecture of the Canvas LMS and Zoom teleconferencing app. These technologies are central to the production of more self-disciplined precarious platform workers who can labour remotely under the ubiquitous surveillance and control of algorithmic management. A workers’ inquiry of the new technical composition of capital in higher education is needed to analyse and organise against these attacks on academic workers.