In a context where learning mediated by technology has gained prominence in higher education, learning analytics has become a powerful tool to collect and analyse data with the aim of improving students’ learning. However, learning analytics is part of a young community and its developments deserve further exploration. Some critical stances claim that learning analytics tends to underplay the complexity of teaching-learning processes. By means of both a bibliometric and a content analysis, this paper examines the publication patterns on learning analytics in higher education and their main challenges. 385 papers that were published in WoScc and SciELO indexes between 2013 and 2019 were identified and analysed. Learning analytics is a vibrant and fast-developing community. However, it continues to face multiple and complex challenges, especially regarding students’ learning and their implications. The paper concludes by distinguishing between a practice-based and management-oriented community of learning analytics and an academic-oriented community. Within both communities, though, it seems that the focus is more on analytics than on learning.

在以技术为中介的学习在高等教育中日益突出的背景下，学习分析已成为收集和分析数据以改善学生学习的强大工具。然而，学习分析是一个年轻社区的一部分，它的发展值得进一步探索。一些批评立场声称，学习分析往往低估了教学过程的复杂性。通过文献计量和内容分析，本文研究了高等教育学习分析的出版模式及其主要挑战。对 2013 年至 2019 年间在 WoScc 和 SciELO 索引中发表的 385 篇论文进行了识别和分析。学习分析是一个充满活力且发展迅速的社区。然而，它仍然面临着多重而复杂的挑战，特别是关于学生的学习及其影响。本文最后区分了基于实践和面向管理的学习分析社区和面向学术的社区。然而，在这两个社区中，似乎更关注分析而不是学习。