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Janja Komljenovic

@jkom.bsky.social
1.2K followers 719 following 50 posts

Senior Lecturer | University of Edinburgh | higher education markets, assetization, EdTech | econ sociology, STS, political economy Web: www.ed.ac.uk/profile/janja-komljeno…

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Reposted by Janja Komljenovic
Kean Birch @keanbirch.bsky.social · 08/07/2026
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/...
journals.sagepub.com
Sage Journals: Discover world-class research
Subscription and open access journals from Sage, the world's leading independent academic publisher.
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Reposted by Janja Komljenovic
Karen Gregory @karengregory.bsky.social · 20/05/2026
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
de.ed.ac.uk
Michele Molè: The Labour the Law Forgot. The Commodification of Everyone’s Cognitive-Relational Work in the AI Economy | Digital Education
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Kean Birch @keanbirch.bsky.social · 13/05/2026
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....
tandfonline.com
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...
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Ben Williamson @benpatrickwill.bsky.social · 29/04/2026
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...
ei-ie.org
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...
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Ben Williamson @benpatrickwill.bsky.social · 29/04/2026
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...
codeactsineducation.wordpress.com
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…
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Ben Williamson @benpatrickwill.bsky.social · 20/02/2026
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...
link.springer.com
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...
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Charles Logan @charleswlogan.bsky.social · 09/02/2026
"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.”
link.springer.com
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...
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Ben Williamson @benpatrickwill.bsky.social · 10/02/2026
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...
link.springer.com
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...
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Kean Birch @keanbirch.bsky.social · 14/01/2026
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...
4sonline.org
About the Conference
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Ben Williamson @benpatrickwill.bsky.social · 11/10/2025
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
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Janja Komljenovic @jkom.bsky.social · 07/08/2025
Another brilliant piece by @keanbirch.bsky.social
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Ben Williamson @benpatrickwill.bsky.social · 20/06/2025
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...
ihe.bc.edu
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...
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Janja Komljenovic @jkom.bsky.social · 28/05/2025
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.
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Janja Komljenovic @jkom.bsky.social · 26/04/2025
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!
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Rachel Brooks @rachelbrooks.bsky.social · 16/04/2025
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
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Jana Bacevic 🌲🌳✊🏴 @unsocialtheory.bsky.social · 04/04/2025
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:
Presidential event description
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Janja Komljenovic @jkom.bsky.social · 03/04/2025
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!
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Reposted by Janja Komljenovic
Learning, Media and Technology @lmt-journal.bsky.social · 23/03/2025
🟨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
Learning, Media and Technology Mapping rentiership and assetisation in the digitalisation of education Edited by Janja Komljenovic, Kean Birch and Sam Sellar This special issue builds on emerging work on rentiership and assetisation in education to address the lack of analytical attention on these dynamics and to begin mapping a future research agenda for the field. To date, research in this field has introduced key concepts for understanding assetisation and has illuminated potential challenges for the digitalisation of higher education (Komljenovic 2021, 2022). Other areas of investigation include: how assetisation relates to other economic processes in education and how it remakes educational processes and subjects as com- modified entities (Grimaldi, Ball, and Peruzzo 2023); how automated interventions in education are calculated based on assetised resources (Hansen and Komljenovic 2023); the potential for, and challenges of, digital disruption in digital economies organised subject to assetised governance (Komljenovic et al. 2024a); the assetisation strategies of edupreneurs as they collaborate with edu- cation and research sectors (Ideland and Serder 2023); the futuring activities of EdTech investors (Komljenovic et al. 2023; Komljenovic, Sellar, and Birch 2024b; Williamson and Komljenovic 2023); and the translation of tuition fees into assets (Milyaeva and Neyland 2020)
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Ben Williamson @benpatrickwill.bsky.social · 21/03/2025
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.
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Janja Komljenovic @jkom.bsky.social · 21/03/2025
Our special issue ‘Rents, assets and governance in digitalised education’ is now published! Check it out: www.tandfonline.com/toc/cjem20/c...
tandfonline.com
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
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Marko Bevc @marko.social · 08/03/2025
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." 🤣 👏
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Ben Williamson @benpatrickwill.bsky.social · 03/03/2025
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...
Visual representation of an "Affect-Sensitive AutoTutor" system designed at MIT affective computing lab in 2007, featuring posture pattern, body pressure measurement, eye tracking and text lob analysis.
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Janja Komljenovic @jkom.bsky.social · 03/03/2025
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.
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Ben Williamson @benpatrickwill.bsky.social · 27/02/2025
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...
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Paul Langley @paullangley.bsky.social · 27/02/2025
Just in case you thought everything was hunky dory in UK universities ...
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Reposted by Janja Komljenovic
Ben Williamson @benpatrickwill.bsky.social · 27/02/2025
🔥Superb agenda-setting editorial on assetization and rentiership in education ⏬️
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Janja Komljenovic @jkom.bsky.social · 27/02/2025
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
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Ben Williamson @benpatrickwill.bsky.social · 24/01/2025
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.
Image of two people on a stage with a screen behind featuring text reading: " HE data: Reflect, research, rethink".
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Ben Williamson @benpatrickwill.bsky.social · 13/01/2025
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...
gov.uk
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.
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Signal @signal.org · 11/12/2024
And if you want to know more about the economic reality behind running high availability, actually innovative tech… signal.org/blog/signal-...
signal.org
Privacy is Priceless, but Signal is Expensive
Signal is the world’s most widely used truly private messaging app, and our cryptographic technologies provide extra layers of privacy beyond the Signal app itself. Since launching in 2013, the Signal...
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Janja Komljenovic @jkom.bsky.social · 10/01/2025
““Everybody thinks that AI will help us with our access and capacity and improve care and so on,” said Nigam Shah, chief data scientist at Stanford Health Care. “All of that is nice and good, but if it increases the cost of care by 20%, is that viable?”” Check out below
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Hypervisible @hypervisible.blacksky.app · 14/12/2024
Teenager is woken by police in the middle of the night. “As it turns out, a poem she had written years ago triggered the alarms of a software called GoGuardian Beacon, which its maker describes as a way to ‘safeguard students from physical harm.’”
futurism.com
Schools Using AI to Send Police to Students' Homes
Schools are employing dubious AI-powered software to accuse teenagers of wanting to harm themselves — and sending the police to their homes.
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Janja Komljenovic @jkom.bsky.social · 11/12/2024
Less than 2 hours to go before my webinar on the assetization of academic content. I think registration is still open. Join me and @liulei14.bsky.social, if you have time this afternoon. See here: tinyurl.com/y2nw6m2w
tinyurl.com
Talk by Dr. Janja Komljenovic
'Who profits from my lectures and why it matters?' – Talk by Dr. Janja Komljenovic at the zhb Higher Education Research Colloquium.
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Ben Williamson @benpatrickwill.bsky.social · 28/11/2024
Universities are trying to make data useful for purposes such as efficiency, while EdTech companies try to generate commercial value from data. @jkom.bsky.social and I will look at the problems of making data useful and valuable at the London BETT show in January!
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DT Cochrane @dtcochrane.bsky.social · 28/11/2024
It doesn’t matter if there are good, honest people inside the corporation. If a course of action will undermine returns, even if it is socially good, then it has to be rejected.
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DT Cochrane @dtcochrane.bsky.social · 28/11/2024
The corporation is not designed to be a “good citizen”. It is designed to be singularly focused on returns. That has to be the starting point of governing corporations.
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Janja Komljenovic @jkom.bsky.social · 28/11/2024
As @benpatrickwill.bsky.social and I prepare for our talk at the BETT UK in January, I reflect on our recent articles about digital data value in HE. One is on the economic value of data for EdTech start-ups and their strategies and struggles in monetising user data (1): shorturl.at/y4jOw
link.springer.com
Monetising Digital Data in Higher Education: Analysing the Strategies and Struggles of EdTech Startups - Postdigital Science and Education
Digital data are a building block of postdigital higher education and, as such, are believed to be economically and socially valuable. However, data need to be made valuable via a complex set of polit...
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Janja Komljenovic @jkom.bsky.social · 28/11/2024
I’m looking forward to this panel. Come along if you can!
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Kean Birch @keanbirch.bsky.social · 21/11/2024
Someone makes the great point in replies to this post that the next big business opportunity will be de-AI technologies (basically tech that unravels the mess AI is creating) #artificialintelligence
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Janja Komljenovic @jkom.bsky.social · 21/11/2024
Fiona invited me to tell her about why I left X and joined Bluesky. Her piece is now published:
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Ben Williamson @benpatrickwill.bsky.social · 20/11/2024
The new OpenAI training for teachers is also a strategy of making teachers into "friendly users" - the intended result is a synchronisation of AI with pedagogic routines and administrative procedures in AI-friendly schools www.norrag.org/making-educa...
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Kean Birch @keanbirch.bsky.social · 19/11/2024
Last week I participated in an event organized by CIGI on "The Role of Governance in Unleashing the Value of Data". #datagovernance #datavalue #DataAssets #solidarity #datawealthfund Check out my & others' contributions here: www.cigionline.org/the-role-of-...
cigionline.org
The Role of Governance in Unleashing the Value of Data
In 2018, the essay series Data Governance in the Digital Age anticipated some of the data governance issues that have emerged, such as surveillance capitalism and the economics of data, but did not co...
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Rhiannon Lockley (she/her) @illdoitanyway.bsky.social · 16/11/2024
Anyone UCU has started on Bluesky, I am trying to be organised as the Twitter connections are lost. I had a go at a ucu starter pack for activist accounts - I think a separate one is being worked on for branch accounts go.bsky.app/8cndNJm
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⊙⊝⊜ Carrieee ⊙⊝⊜ @carrieeemca.bsky.social · 15/11/2024
Some bsky tips for newbies! 🦋Hashtags don't trend, they're for finding likeminded posts. There are no trending topics here unless you subscribe to a feed. 🦋You can mute hashtags. 🦋You don't have to censure words like Shadowban etc because there is no censorship. 1/
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Marc Watkins @marcwatkins.bsky.social · 10/11/2024
With regulatory oversight of AI now likely off the table, faculty will continue to be left largely on our own to develop meaningful guardrails about AI's impact on learning. open.substack.com/pub/marcwatk...
open.substack.com
The Last Chance for AI Oversight Is Gone
What’s the state of AI oversight after the election .
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Hypervisible @hypervisible.blacksky.app · 08/11/2024
“‘It [NotebookLM] just flattens it — it misses all of this nuance,’… ’It sounds so intimate because it’s a voice and audio is such an intimate medium. But as soon as it was something that you knew a lot about it’s going to fall flat.’”
edsurge.com
New AI Tools Are Promoted As Study Aids for Students. Are They Doing More Harm Than Good? - EdSurge News
As more AI tools hit the market aimed at helping students study, some teaching experts raise concerns, as well as point to benefits for neurodivergent ...
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Janja Komljenovic @jkom.bsky.social · 07/11/2024
Do you know if there are starter packs available for critical data studies, critical EdTech, STS, econ sociology and similar? If so, please share. Thanks.
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Janja Komljenovic @jkom.bsky.social · 07/11/2024
This! I agree very much @lawriephipps.bsky.social. Check out this very useful resource on how to leave X.
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Janja Komljenovic @jkom.bsky.social · 07/11/2024
Yes, @ddubdrahcir.bsky.social! Great to see you here.
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