The Learning Analytics community holds its eighth annual conference in Sydney next month. And a very focussed gathering it will be, with a mass of papers on using data to measure and improve, teaching and learning.

But the organising committee, (all from the University of Sydney, including LA maven Abelardo Pardo) appears aware of how scary it can look to the uninitiated. A keynote speaker is learning analytics “outsider,” Neil Selwyn from Monash U, who will talk about “key concerns,” “as learning analytics becomes more embedded in education settings.

“These range from familiar debates over data reductionism and algorithmic transparency through to growing unease that learning analytics are implicit in the devaluing and demoralisation of education as a human pursuit.”