Janja Komljenovic
@jkom.bsky.social
Senior Lecturer | University of Edinburgh | higher education markets, assetization, EdTech | econ sociology, STS, political economy Web: https://www.ed.ac.uk/profile/janja-komljenovic
Just out w/ @jacobhell.bsky.social - "Cloud assets and the “unit of compute”: Market dominance in commercial computing" #assetization #cloudcomputing #datacentres #bigtech || journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...
Sage Journals: Discover world-class research
Subscription and open access journals from Sage, the world's leading independent academic publisher.
journals.sagepub.com
Happy to organise this event with @jkom.bsky.social THE LABOUR THE LAW FORGOT. THE COMMODIFICATION OF EVERYONE’S COGNITIVE-RELATIONAL WORK IN THE AI ECONOMY www.de.ed.ac.uk/event/michel... cc @uoe-sps.bsky.social
Michele Molè: The Labour the Law Forgot. The Commodification of Everyone’s Cognitive-Relational Work in the AI Economy | Digital Education
de.ed.ac.uk
I'm co-author on a new article about #edtech & #assetization: "EdTech futures: time, value and the promise of digital disruption in higher education" w/ Claire Murray, Sam Sellar + @jkom.bsky.social: www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
EdTech futures: time, value and the promise of digital disruption in higher education
The growth of the Education Technology (EdTech) sector in recent years has been accompanied by predictions that new digital platforms will disrupt HE. However, there remains a disjuncture between p...
tandfonline.com
Two years ago @jkom.bsky.social and I wrote a piece for @eduinternational.bsky.social on platforms and intellectual property in HE. Even if you don't care about IP or copyright, when schools or firms take it, that's how your work gets turned into a value-creating asset. www.ei-ie.org/en/item/2855...
Are edtech platforms threatening academic freedom and intellectual property rights?
Digital platforms are routinely used in universities to support teaching and learning, but they can also challenge academic freedom and intellectual property (IP) rights. In our new report for Educati...
ei-ie.org
Once academics were told to upload teaching materials to digital learning platforms, universities and tech firms alike were always going to monetize it. Now AI is being used to amplify the assetization of those digital archives of academic content. codeactsineducation.wordpress.com/2026/04/29/a...
AI and the amplification of academic content assetization
Photo by Viktor Forgacs on Unsplash A new AI-driven digital learning platform launched by Arizona State University has set off alarm bells among academics for its exploitation of scholarly work. AS…
codeactsineducation.wordpress.com
Part of our recent paper led by @jkom.bsky.social was on how academic papers are assetized by being licensed tp big tech for LLM training - and now we see the subscription products appearing from publishers to double the financial yield of those agreements link.springer.com/article/10.1...
Assetizing academic content and the emergence of the ‘assetizen’: education platforms, publisher databases, and AI model training - Higher Education
Higher Education - Academic content, such as teaching materials and academic publications, has become an economic resource. This has occurred through assetization as the key economic regime in...
link.springer.com
"Assetization of academic content (and assetization in HE more broadly) constructs students and staff as a new kind of economic actor – an ‘assetizen’...with diminished educational and social rights as assetization becomes a governance principle in higher education.”
Assetizing academic content and the emergence of the ‘assetizen’: education platforms, publisher databases, and AI model training - Higher Education
Higher Education - Academic content, such as teaching materials and academic publications, has become an economic resource. This has occurred through assetization as the key economic regime in...
link.springer.com
New OA article just out on "assetizing academic content" led by @jkom.bsky.social with me, @keanbirch.bsky.social & Klaus Beiter, exploring how academic materials are turned into value-generating digital assets by HE institutions, edtech platforms, and AI companies link.springer.com/article/10.1...
Assetizing academic content and the emergence of the ‘assetizen’: education platforms, publisher databases, and AI model training - Higher Education
Higher Education - Academic content, such as teaching materials and academic publications, has become an economic resource. This has occurred through assetization as the key economic regime in...
link.springer.com
I'm co-chairing the Society for Social Studies of Science @4sweb.bsky.social Conference in Toronto, Oct 2026. #STS #scipol #innovation Theme: "TechnoPower • Technoscientific Futures". Open panel submissions portal is open! ls! Deadline: 2nd February 2026 www.4sonline.org/about_the_co...
About the Conference
4sonline.org
The alarming aspect of this deliberate "anti-woke" algorithmic biasing of LLMs from an educational perspective is our institutions all bought in to an imaginary of innovation, then got locked in to enterprise contracts, and now the models are being recoded so they undermine educational values
Marcus Luther@marcusluther.bsky.social · 11mo agoGenuine question: for those enthusiastically pushing AI tools into every part of our education system—what checks/guardrails are there around algorithmic biases like this?
Another brilliant piece by @keanbirch.bsky.social
Kean Birch@keanbirch.bsky.social · last yr.I have a new article out: "Do artifacts have political economy?" It's a riff on an old argument by Langdon Winner about the embedding of politics in technology #STS #sociology #technoscience #technology #innovation journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...
Platforms, data, and AI are impacting higher education systems and universities internationally. @jkom.bsky.social and I have a short piece on the political economy of digital transformation in HE just out ihe.bc.edu/pub/499eknm0...
The Political Economy of Datafication and Platformization: Digital Transformation in Higher Education
Platforms, data, and artificial intelligence are impacting higher education systems and universities internationally. Future research is required to examine their concrete effects, and to understand t...
ihe.bc.edu
I’m looking forward to speak at the @work2025fi.bsky.social conference! I’ll be discussing academic labour and HE in the age of digital rentiership.
WORK2025 Conference@work2025fi.bsky.social · last yr.On the second day of the WORK2025 conference, we will hear an interesting keynote speech from Janja Komljenovic @jkom.bsky.social! Join us and register now at work2025.fi/registration/! Early bird registration deadline is June 10th.
Thanks very much for organising this excellent panel and for having me @rachelbrooks.bsky.social! So great to discuss the current matters in HE with @unsocialtheory.bsky.social, @alinecourtois.bsky.social and everyone there!
Rachel Brooks@rachelbrooks.bsky.social · last yr.Lovely few days in Manchester for @britsoci.bsky.social annual conference. #britsoc25 Enjoyed presenting prizes to Claire Alexander & Billy Holzberg 🏆 Many thanks to @unsocialtheory.bsky.social, @jkom.bsky.social & @alinecourtois.bsky.social for taking part in my symposium on the future of HE
if you're at the @britsoci.bsky.social annual conference next week, do come along to the session on The Future of Higher Education, with contributions from @unsocialtheory.bsky.social @jkom.bsky.social & @alinecourtois.bsky.social
If you happen to be at the @britsoci.bsky.social's annual conference and if you want to hear something beyond the moan about how "they" are destroying "our" higher education, I'll be speaking (alongside @jkom.bsky.social and @alinecourtois.bsky.social) at the Presidential event on the Future of HE:
Such a great pleasure to work with @keanbirch.bsky.social on this paper. I’m really pleased with it and think it brings important new insights. Check it out!
Kean Birch@keanbirch.bsky.social · last yr.Just out! Article on "Architectures of #assetization: Legacy infrastructures and the configuration of #datafication in UK #highereducation" w/ @jkom.bsky.social & Sam Sellar in New Media & Society #platforms #edtech #digital #bigtech journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...
🟨Volume 50, Issue 1 (2025) of LMT🟪 Let's introduce our new Special Issue! In their editorial @jkom.bsky.social, @keanbirch.bsky.social & Sam Sellar intruduce the dynamics of #rentiership and #assetisation in the digitalisation of education. Read all articles: tinyurl.com/a8bvzkxe
The promise of AI in education is it will save educators time. That's rubbish. It's sapping all our time already in working groups, committees, workshops, and marking anxiety. It's the most time-sapping, exhausting and frankly boring thing I've ever encountered in HE - and it's in my research area.
Our special issue ‘Rents, assets and governance in digitalised education’ is now published! Check it out: www.tandfonline.com/toc/cjem20/c...
Learning, Media and Technology
Rents, assets and governance in digitalised education. Guest Editor: Janja Komljenovic, Kean Birch and Sam Sellar.. Volume 50, Issue 1 of Learning, Media and Technology
tandfonline.com
The whole thing is amazing and absolutely worth watching until the end. But @meredithmeredith.bsky.social gave the best pitch for @signal.org answering if there are any downsides of using it: "No-none! It's free, classy and we're not shoving and weird #AI shit into it." 🤣 👏
SXSW@sxsw.com · last yr.Privacy isn’t about hiding—it’s about trust and control over our own information. In her #SXSW 2025 Keynote, Signal President, @meredithmeredith.bsky.social breaks down why our privacy matters.
Funny thing about this 360 degree multimodal surveillance classroom is it's absolutely nothing new conceptually, so it's not really to do with "innovative" tech but continuing a much longer history of intensifying student monitoring and teacher automation, eg www.computer.org/csdl/magazin...
Hypervisible @hypervisible.blacksky.app · 2y ago“The AI tool uses cameras and audio recordings to report on whether the teacher looked at or walked through each section of the classroom, how often they used group work, and many other techniques. Even the words the teacher and students use are tracked.”
New publication: we discuss different ways to think through and map assetization in education. i, we look at the variety of assets in education; ii, the production and monetization of assets; iii, the embeddedness of assets in everyday, mundane practices; and iv, the politics of assetization.
Chuffed our paper on edtech market forecasting - we called it "algorithmic futuring" - made it into this special issue on digital assetization in education doi.org/10.1080/1743...
Janja Komljenovic@jkom.bsky.social · 2y agoOur Introduction article with @keanbirch.bsky.social and Sam Sellar, “Mapping rentiership and assetization in the digitalisation of education” is now published and freely available. It explains how assetization manifests in education, its consequences and how to analyse this dynamic. Check it out
Our Introduction article with @keanbirch.bsky.social and Sam Sellar, “Mapping rentiership and assetization in the digitalisation of education” is now published and freely available. It explains how assetization manifests in education, its consequences and how to analyse this dynamic. Check it out
But edtech trade shows - sometimes - invite people like @jkom.bsky.social and me to offer a different, more "sociotechnical" perspective on why edtech, data, and AI are *not* going to inevitably or straightforwardly "transform" education. Hopefully at least a small dent in the industry bandwagon.
And, as expected, the official AI Plan document just makes a couple of refs to "AI assistants" reducing teachers' time spent planning and marking - but quite a lot on educating AI "talent" and wider AI skills training www.gov.uk/government/p...
AI Opportunities Action Plan
Recommendations for the government to capture the opportunities of AI to enhance growth and productivity and create tangible benefits for UK citizens.
gov.uk
Ben Williamson@benpatrickwill.bsky.social · 2y agoAs we wait for further details of the UK AI plan for sectors like education, here's a piece based on the AI experiments the Dept for Ed has already started - likely to be a blueprint of what's to come for schools codeactsineducation.wordpress.com/2024/08/29/a...