Janja Komljenovic
Biographic Data
| ID | 328670 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Janja Komljenovic |
| GIVEN NAMES | Janja |
| FAMILY NAME | Komljenovic |
| SIGNATURE | KOMLJENOVIC J |
| AFFILIATIONS | Lancaster University |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-5951-5189 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 18 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 46 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 18 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2016 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 4 |
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 promises of digital disruption and the absence of empirical evidence of disruption. This article juxtaposes two theses on the value of education to offer a theoretical explanation for why this imagined digital disruption may be difficult to achieve. The …
Assetizing academic content and the emergence of the ‘assetizen’: Education platforms, publisher databases, and AI model training
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 contemporary techno-capitalism. We analyse three cases of academic content being made into revenue-generating assets: (1) universities enclosing online learning content, (2) EdTech platform companies building databases of academic assignments and manuscripts, and (3) academic…
Mapping rentiership and assetisation in the digitalisation of education
Global economies have changed significantly over the last two decades. The rise of rentiership and assetisation has fundamentally changed the way we value and govern things and societies (Birch and
Turning universities into data-driven organisations: Seven dimensions of change
Universities are striving to become data-driven organisations, benefitting from data collection, analysis, and various data products, such as business intelligence, learning analytics, personalised recommendations, behavioural nudging, and automation. However, datafication of universities is not an easy process. We empirically explore the struggles and challenges of UK universities in making digital and personal data useful and valuable. We struc…
Architectures of assetization: Legacy infrastructures and the configuration of datafication in UK higher education
We outline the concept of ‘architectures of assetization’ as a way to get at the political-economic configuration of datafication in higher education through the layering of educational technology (‘edtech’) onto existing, legacy infrastructures. Edtech provides a useful empirical object of study because of the increasing deployment of new digital technologies in educational organizations; our focus is on higher education institutions (i.e. unive…
Digitalised higher education: Key Developments, Questions, and Concerns
Higher education is already profoundly digitalised. Students, academics, and university administrators routinely use digital technologies, many of which rely on data, including artificial intelligence. Universities aim to operate as data-powered organisations to support institutional efficiency and the personalisation of learning and student experience. These developments are occurring against the backdrop of university digital infrastructure mov…
Monetising Digital Data in Higher Education: Analysing the Strategies and Struggles of EdTech Startups
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 political-economic and socio-technical arrangements. While universities and policymakers aim to derive social benefits from digital data, we turn our attention to the economic value of digital data in the EdTech industry. In this article, we analyse the s…
Automating Learning Situations in EdTech: Techno-Commercial Logic of Assetisation
Critical scholarship has already shown how automation processes may be problematic, for example, by reproducing social inequalities instead of removing them or requiring intense labour from education institutions’ staff instead of easing the workload. Despite these critiques, automated interventions in education are expanding fast and often with limited scrutiny of the technological and commercial specificities of such processes. We build on exis…
Part 4: Universities in the Knowledge Economy
In this section, participants in the Universities in the Knowledge Economy project (UNIKE 2013–2017) and European Universities – Critical Futures (2019–2022) write about the distinctive features of these projects, their contribution to contemporary debates about the reform of higher education, and how Sue's ideas and ways of working influenced their own research and practice
When public policy ‘fails’ and venture capital ‘saves’ education: Edtech investors as economic and political actors
Educational technology (Edtech) investors have become increasingly influential in education; however, they remain under-researched.We address this deficit and introduce the grammar and landscape of Edtech investment into education research.We empirically examine venture capital Edtech investors and argue that they are economic and political actors.Investors construct the Edtech industry through their investment and advancing particular imaginarie…
The future of value in digitalised higher education: Why data privacy should not be our biggest concern
Universities around the world are increasingly digitalising all of their operations, with the current COVID-19 pandemic speeding up otherwise steady developments. This article focuses on the political economy of higher education (HE) digitalisation and suggests a new research programme. I foreground three principal arguments, which are empirically, theoretically, and politically crucial for HE scholars. First, most literature is examining the imp…
Market making and the (re)production of knowledge in public universities
This collection of short essays presents and examines six vignettes of organisational change in British, New Zealand and European universities. Drawing on the social studies of economisation literature, formal research projects and auto-ethnographic insights, the authors detail profound changes in how knowledge is produced in universities. They examine policy documents, calculative techniques and management practices to illustrate how proliferati…
Investing in imagined digital futures: The techno-financial ‘futuring’ of edtech investors in higher education
Educational technology is the focus of increasing financial investment. In this article, we examine how edtech investors imagine and invest in the future of higher education through an empirical case study of a UK investing company. Utilising concepts and methods from economic sociology, we analyse how investment companies engage in techno-financial ‘futuring’ practices. We identify two kinds of futuring practices. First, investors’ imaginary pra…
The rise of education rentiers: Digital platforms, digital data and rents
The education sector is fast digitalising all of its operations. A large part is driven by proprietary digital products and services developed and offered by for-profit companies that form the education technology industry. This article aims to introduce a theoretical focus of rentiership and assetization into the study of the political economy of education technology. It discusses five potential transformations that the education sector is under…
The employability dispositif, or the re-articulation of the relationship between universities and their environment
This paper focuses on how universities are increasingly made responsible for the employment of their students . Drawing on Governmentality Studies, we suggest framing this pressure as an employability dispositif. We join critical studies which link the employability imperative to a neo-liberal transformation of the higher education landscape. However, we criticise them for not paying enough attention to how the dispositif is put into practice by …
Linkedin, platforming labour, and the new employability mandate for universities
Students, academics and university administrators are increasingly using and producing digital platforms, including social media. This paper focuses on LinkedIn to start tackling the question of the effects on higher education as a sector, its actors and the established social practices. It argues that LinkedIn moves beyond the passivity of advertising to its users towards actively structuring digital labour markets, in which it strategically inc…
Making global education markets and trade
The dynamics of ‘market-making’ in higher education
This paper examines what to some is a well-worked furrow; the processes and outcomes involved in what is typically referred to as ‘marketization’ in the higher education sector. We do this through a case study of Newton University, where we reveal a rapid proliferation of market exchanges involving the administrative division of the university with the wider world. Our account of this process of ‘market making’ is developed in two (dialectically …
The dynamics of ‘market-making’ in higher education
This paper examines what to some is a well-worked furrow; the processes and outcomes involved in what is typically referred to as ‘marketization’ in the higher education sector. We do this through a case study of Newton University, where we reveal a rapid proliferation of market exchanges involving the administrative division of the university with the wider world. Our account of this process of ‘market making’ is developed in two (dialectically …
When public policy ‘fails’ and venture capital ‘saves’ education: Edtech investors as economic and political actors
Educational technology (Edtech) investors have become increasingly influential in education; however, they remain under-researched.We address this deficit and introduce the grammar and landscape of Edtech investment into education research.We empirically examine venture capital Edtech investors and argue that they are economic and political actors.Investors construct the Edtech industry through their investment and advancing particular imaginarie…
Linkedin, platforming labour, and the new employability mandate for universities
Students, academics and university administrators are increasingly using and producing digital platforms, including social media. This paper focuses on LinkedIn to start tackling the question of the effects on higher education as a sector, its actors and the established social practices. It argues that LinkedIn moves beyond the passivity of advertising to its users towards actively structuring digital labour markets, in which it strategically inc…
Investing in imagined digital futures: The techno-financial ‘futuring’ of edtech investors in higher education
Educational technology is the focus of increasing financial investment. In this article, we examine how edtech investors imagine and invest in the future of higher education through an empirical case study of a UK investing company. Utilising concepts and methods from economic sociology, we analyse how investment companies engage in techno-financial ‘futuring’ practices. We identify two kinds of futuring practices. First, investors’ imaginary pra…
Making global education markets and trade
Architectures of assetization: Legacy infrastructures and the configuration of datafication in UK higher education
We outline the concept of ‘architectures of assetization’ as a way to get at the political-economic configuration of datafication in higher education through the layering of educational technology (‘edtech’) onto existing, legacy infrastructures. Edtech provides a useful empirical object of study because of the increasing deployment of new digital technologies in educational organizations; our focus is on higher education institutions (i.e. unive…
Digitalised higher education: Key Developments, Questions, and Concerns
Higher education is already profoundly digitalised. Students, academics, and university administrators routinely use digital technologies, many of which rely on data, including artificial intelligence. Universities aim to operate as data-powered organisations to support institutional efficiency and the personalisation of learning and student experience. These developments are occurring against the backdrop of university digital infrastructure mov…
The employability dispositif, or the re-articulation of the relationship between universities and their environment
This paper focuses on how universities are increasingly made responsible for the employment of their students . Drawing on Governmentality Studies, we suggest framing this pressure as an employability dispositif. We join critical studies which link the employability imperative to a neo-liberal transformation of the higher education landscape. However, we criticise them for not paying enough attention to how the dispositif is put into practice by …
The dynamics of ‘market-making’ in higher education
This paper examines what to some is a well-worked furrow; the processes and outcomes involved in what is typically referred to as ‘marketization’ in the higher education sector. We do this through a case study of Newton University, where we reveal a rapid proliferation of market exchanges involving the administrative division of the university with the wider world. Our account of this process of ‘market making’ is developed in two (dialectically …
Making global education markets and trade
Linkedin, platforming labour, and the new employability mandate for universities
Students, academics and university administrators are increasingly using and producing digital platforms, including social media. This paper focuses on LinkedIn to start tackling the question of the effects on higher education as a sector, its actors and the established social practices. It argues that LinkedIn moves beyond the passivity of advertising to its users towards actively structuring digital labour markets, in which it strategically inc…
The rise of education rentiers: Digital platforms, digital data and rents
The education sector is fast digitalising all of its operations. A large part is driven by proprietary digital products and services developed and offered by for-profit companies that form the education technology industry. This article aims to introduce a theoretical focus of rentiership and assetization into the study of the political economy of education technology. It discusses five potential transformations that the education sector is under…
The employability dispositif, or the re-articulation of the relationship between universities and their environment
This paper focuses on how universities are increasingly made responsible for the employment of their students . Drawing on Governmentality Studies, we suggest framing this pressure as an employability dispositif. We join critical studies which link the employability imperative to a neo-liberal transformation of the higher education landscape. However, we criticise them for not paying enough attention to how the dispositif is put into practice by …
The future of value in digitalised higher education: Why data privacy should not be our biggest concern
Universities around the world are increasingly digitalising all of their operations, with the current COVID-19 pandemic speeding up otherwise steady developments. This article focuses on the political economy of higher education (HE) digitalisation and suggests a new research programme. I foreground three principal arguments, which are empirically, theoretically, and politically crucial for HE scholars. First, most literature is examining the imp…
Market making and the (re)production of knowledge in public universities
This collection of short essays presents and examines six vignettes of organisational change in British, New Zealand and European universities. Drawing on the social studies of economisation literature, formal research projects and auto-ethnographic insights, the authors detail profound changes in how knowledge is produced in universities. They examine policy documents, calculative techniques and management practices to illustrate how proliferati…
Investing in imagined digital futures: The techno-financial ‘futuring’ of edtech investors in higher education
Educational technology is the focus of increasing financial investment. In this article, we examine how edtech investors imagine and invest in the future of higher education through an empirical case study of a UK investing company. Utilising concepts and methods from economic sociology, we analyse how investment companies engage in techno-financial ‘futuring’ practices. We identify two kinds of futuring practices. First, investors’ imaginary pra…
Automating Learning Situations in EdTech: Techno-Commercial Logic of Assetisation
Critical scholarship has already shown how automation processes may be problematic, for example, by reproducing social inequalities instead of removing them or requiring intense labour from education institutions’ staff instead of easing the workload. Despite these critiques, automated interventions in education are expanding fast and often with limited scrutiny of the technological and commercial specificities of such processes. We build on exis…
Part 4: Universities in the Knowledge Economy
In this section, participants in the Universities in the Knowledge Economy project (UNIKE 2013–2017) and European Universities – Critical Futures (2019–2022) write about the distinctive features of these projects, their contribution to contemporary debates about the reform of higher education, and how Sue's ideas and ways of working influenced their own research and practice
When public policy ‘fails’ and venture capital ‘saves’ education: Edtech investors as economic and political actors
Educational technology (Edtech) investors have become increasingly influential in education; however, they remain under-researched.We address this deficit and introduce the grammar and landscape of Edtech investment into education research.We empirically examine venture capital Edtech investors and argue that they are economic and political actors.Investors construct the Edtech industry through their investment and advancing particular imaginarie…
Monetising Digital Data in Higher Education: Analysing the Strategies and Struggles of EdTech Startups
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 political-economic and socio-technical arrangements. While universities and policymakers aim to derive social benefits from digital data, we turn our attention to the economic value of digital data in the EdTech industry. In this article, we analyse the s…
Mapping rentiership and assetisation in the digitalisation of education
Global economies have changed significantly over the last two decades. The rise of rentiership and assetisation has fundamentally changed the way we value and govern things and societies (Birch and
Turning universities into data-driven organisations: Seven dimensions of change
Universities are striving to become data-driven organisations, benefitting from data collection, analysis, and various data products, such as business intelligence, learning analytics, personalised recommendations, behavioural nudging, and automation. However, datafication of universities is not an easy process. We empirically explore the struggles and challenges of UK universities in making digital and personal data useful and valuable. We struc…
Architectures of assetization: Legacy infrastructures and the configuration of datafication in UK higher education
We outline the concept of ‘architectures of assetization’ as a way to get at the political-economic configuration of datafication in higher education through the layering of educational technology (‘edtech’) onto existing, legacy infrastructures. Edtech provides a useful empirical object of study because of the increasing deployment of new digital technologies in educational organizations; our focus is on higher education institutions (i.e. unive…
Digitalised higher education: Key Developments, Questions, and Concerns
Higher education is already profoundly digitalised. Students, academics, and university administrators routinely use digital technologies, many of which rely on data, including artificial intelligence. Universities aim to operate as data-powered organisations to support institutional efficiency and the personalisation of learning and student experience. These developments are occurring against the backdrop of university digital infrastructure mov…
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 promises of digital disruption and the absence of empirical evidence of disruption. This article juxtaposes two theses on the value of education to offer a theoretical explanation for why this imagined digital disruption may be difficult to achieve. The …
Assetizing academic content and the emergence of the ‘assetizen’: Education platforms, publisher databases, and AI model training
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 contemporary techno-capitalism. We analyse three cases of academic content being made into revenue-generating assets: (1) universities enclosing online learning content, (2) EdTech platform companies building databases of academic assignments and manuscripts, and (3) academic…
Political science (11 works) · Economics (10 works) · Sociology (10 works) · Business (9 works) · Higher education (7 works) · Public relations (7 works) · Computer Science (6 works) · Economic growth (6 works) · Digital Education and Society (5 works) · Corporate governance (4 works)