Abstract. The growing interest in recent years towards Learning An-alytics (LA) and Educational Data Mining (EDM) has enabled novel ap-proaches and advancements in educational settings. The wide variety of research and practice in this context has enforced important possibilities and applications from adaptation and personalization of Technology En-hanced Learning (TEL) systems to improvement of instructional design and pedagogy choices based on students needs. LA and EDM play an im-portant role in enhancing learning processes by offering innovative methods of development and integration of more personalized, adaptive, and inter-active educational environments. This has motivated the organization of the ESANN 2015 Special Session in Advances in Learning Analytics and Educational Data Mining. Here, a review of research and practice in LA and EDM is presented accompanied by the most central methods, bene-fits, and challenges of the field. Additionally, this paper covers a review of novel contributions into the Special Session. 1