ADCET Webinar: Meeting Our Digital Duty of Care - Disability Data in Practice

Wed 7 May 2025 1:00 pm – 2:00 pm AEST

Online

Event details

In this interactive ADCET webinar, Dr Bret Stephenson presents key findings from the 2024 ACSES Equity Fellowship research project, Centring Equity in Data and AI Governance: Informing Policy to Empower Practice. A central focus of this work is understanding how Australian universities collect, use, and disclose the personal data of students with disabilities—data that are often highly sensitive, yet crucial to delivering timely and appropriate support. This information also plays a vital role in both institutional and national-level research and evaluation, shaping decisions about accessibility, disability policy, and the effectiveness of support services.

While these data play a vital role in providing effective student care, this research highlights the urgent need for better – more transparent and consistent – means of governing, managing and caring for the personal data we collect from students with disabilities. 

Drawing on over 20 in-depth interviews with disability advisors, equity practitioners, managers, and senior university leaders, this webinar highlights the challenges and opportunities that emerge in everyday professional practice. While this research includes an extensive analysis of relevant institutional policies and regulatory frameworks, this session will focus on the rich, practice-based insights offered by those working most closely with students, their data, and with emerging digital technologies.

To be certain, disability support practitioners are acutely aware of the double-edged nature of student data. Used well, it can empower students and improve access to support; mishandled, it can compromise trust, privacy, and wellbeing. This dilemma sits within a broader institutional context in which universities are increasingly adopting digital technologies, assistive tools, and AI-based systems. These developments bring both promise and risk—particularly for students with disabilities, who may stand to gain the most, but are also disproportionately exposed to potential harms.

A central concept underpinning this webinar is the notion of a “digital duty of care”—a way of understanding the legal, ethical, and professional responsibilities institutions have towards students’ and their “digital selves.” This session will explore what good governance looks like in this context, and what’s needed to ensure data and digital systems support, rather than undermine, equity and inclusion.

Audience: Disability Advisors, Senior University Leaders, Academic Learning Advisors, Lecturers, Tutors, Compliance and Risk Managers, Policy Advisers

Presenter

Dr Bret Stephenson is currently Principal Advisor, Data and Ethics at La Trobe University and has recently completed a 2024 ACSES Equity Fellowship project titled ‘Centring Equity in Data and AI Governance: Informing Policy to Empower Practice’. Having held a range of university teaching, research, and leadership roles, his work sits at the intersection of student equity, success and retention, higher education policy, and the responsible governance of student data and digital technologies. Bret's contributions to higher education have been recognised with multiple awards, including two Vice-Chancellor’s Awards and a Commonwealth Government Citation for Outstanding Contributions to Student Learning (2014).

The webinar is free to attend, and it will be live-captioned.

Registrations for this webinar are now open

ADCET is hosted by the University of Tasmania

Contact details

Event website
https://us06web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_7oZetk_gTAu2sEaGg3fTHA

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