A promised land for educational decision-making? Present and future of learning analytics

There is increasing interest in Learning Analytics, a concept that has evolved in the last years from the status of buzzword or trend to the generation of a discipline within the educational field. In this paper, we introduce the Track on Learning Analytics within the Technological Ecosystems for Enhancing Multiculturality 2013 Conference. The paper provides a general overview of the motivations behind the proposal of this track, including a review of the current state of Learning Analytics, from its origins and a definition of the term to some pending issues for future research, which are addressed by the papers participating in the track and which hopefully will be expanded by future studies. The paper also includes an insight on the submission management and participants' selection process, which is followed by a detailed summary of the manuscripts accepted for participation in the conference and how they are linked to the track objectives.