Educational Data Mining / Learning Analytics: Methods, Tasks and Current Trends

The 1 international conference on “Educational Data Mining” (EDM) took place in Montreal in 2008 while the 1 international conference on “Learning Analytics and Knowledge” (LAK) took place in Banff in 2011. Since then the fields have grown and established themselves with an annual international conference, a journal and an association each, and gradually increase their overlapping. This paper begins with some considerations on big data in education. Then the principal analysis methods used with educational data are reviewed and are illustrated with some of the tasks they solve. Current emerging trends are presented. Analysis of educational data on a routine basis to understand learning and teaching better and to improve them is not a reality yet. The paper concludes with challenges on the way.