Three paths for learning analytics and beyond : moving from rhetoric to reality

There is growing rhetoric about the potential of learning analytics in higher education. There is concern about what the growing hype around learning analytics will mean for the reality. Will learning analytics be a repeat of past mistakes where technology implementations fail to move beyond a transitory fad and provide meaningful and sustained contributions to learning and teaching? How can such a fate be avoided? This paper identifies three paths that learning analytics implementations might take, with particular consideration to their likely impact on learning and teaching. An ongoing learning analytics project – currently used by hundreds of teaching staff to support early interventions to improve student retention - at a regional Australian university is examined in relation to the three paths, and some implications, challenges and future directions are discussed.