Business Intelligence and Learning Analytics as Contributors to a Data Driven Education Industry

In the fast pace of technological evolution, organizations need to become technology and data driven in order to be able to remain competitive in the future. The data is the core of this era, so they must be manipulated and utilized effectively in order to achieve the efficient use of technological tools and meet the desire goals. This change has affect education industry as well. The education institutions following this new reality must know what data they have and how they can use them. Their main source of the data is derived from students' learning experience; whether the student is participating in a face to face course or in an online course. Learning analytics is a concept of business intelligence that analyzes students learning data and present them in a meaningful manner. This research aims to study how learning analytics can be used as a part of a business intelligence system to support education institutions on how to understand the students and their study habits, and set a basic step on the paradigm of using the right data to get information, make decisions, and support the services that they offer.