Learning Analytics Research, Theory and Practice: Widening the Discipline

Abstract

This article introduces the special issue presenting five papers from SoLAR’s Learning Analytics and Knowledge 2014 conference. The authors of these papers were invited to expand their original papers to provide a more in-depth view of their work and one that would reach out to a broad audience. The papers included here provide a view into the diversity of LA research presented at LAK 14 and demonstrate exciting new avenues by which the field is expanding. We believe that the papers presented here move the field ahead by contributing to a wider discourse about how we can effectively and ethically utilize “big data” to inform learning research and theory, and the resulting practices that support learning.