The rise of education rentiers: digital platforms, digital data and rents

Abstract

The rise of education rentiers: digital platforms, digital data and rentsThe 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 undergoing as a consequence of digital rentiership. These transformation address new rentee and potential rentier roles of education institutions, nestedness of digital platforms and their terms of use, a rise of contractual governance within the education sector, reinstitutionalising the sector, and tensions between competition and monopoly in digital education markets. These trends are not exhaustive and represent only the start of the analysis on rentiership in education. The paper concludes with an invitation for future research.

Big Tech: Four Emerging Forms of Digital Rentiership

“…Scholars are writing about rentiership in the digital economy across several fields, including STS (e.g. Srnicek, 2016;Langley and Leyshon, 2017;Birch, 2020aBirch, , 2020bBirch et al, 2020;Komljenovic, 2020Komljenovic, , 2021Rikap, 2020;Sadowski, 2020;Schwartz, 2020). Much of the earlier research focuses on digital platforms as the key site for conceptual development; we expand the analytical focus to digital ecosystems, which are heterogenous assemblages of diverse techno- economic components including devices, platforms, users, developers, legal rights, contractual agreements, standards, and so on.…”

Innovación Tecno-Educativa “Google”. Plataformas Digitales, Datos y Formación Docente

“…Para proseguir en el análisis tecnográfico de la innovación educativa de la API de Google Classroom, en lo que sigue se señalan algunas de las nuevas "relaciones rentistas" (Birch, 2019;Komljenovic, 2021;Sadowski, 2019) que genera la plataforma con la industria EdTech. La plataforma de Classroom no funciona solamente con las diversas herramientas que ofrece Google, sino que está interconectada con cientos de apps que tienen que ser programadas con la gramática de Classroom (Google, 2021d).…”

“…Estas operaciones que ofrece la API de Classroom con otras industrias tecnológicas son solo algunos ejemplos de las nuevas relaciones rentistas en educación de intermediarios y competencias que comienzan a aumentar en las agendas educativas globales (Komljenovic, 2021).…”

“…A través de ellas pretenden convertirse en una forma casi omnipresente de intermediarios e infraestructuras (Komljenovic, 2021) que recopilan y procesan los datos, el "oro" del siglo XXI (Couldry y Mejias, 2019). Su influencia se da en todos los procesos educativos, desde la infancia hasta la universidad, incluyendo la formación continua y permanente.…”

“…De toda la industria EdTech, Google es la corporación que está liderando la "innovación educativa global" a través de sus plataformas digitales educativas y mediante las relaciones rentistas que genera con los EdTech Unicorns (Ideland, 2021;Komljenovic, 2021) 3 . No obstante, hasta el momento, hay escasas investigaciones educativas que analicen su papel en educación.…”