ABSTRACT
Data is everywhere, much as water in some form can be found in most places on Earth. In the same vein, the interactions of researcher and student, or, more precisely at present, researcher and student data, also need to be addressed. Student demographic and academic history information is provided at the time of admission. Financial information, via the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, is collected in the United States for most domestic students on a yearly basis. The chapter provides insight into things that should be thought about before investing in or employing learning analytics (LA). The landscape of LA tools is vast and growing rapidly, and many institutions are choosing to invest in some forms of technology that, in and of themselves, are analytics tools, or, at the very least, have some form of LA capabilities built into them. The chapter also presents some closing thoughts on the key concepts discussed in the preceding chapters of this book.
