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It's a pleasure to welcome you to Marist College and our scenic and historic Hudson River Valley. Since Marist was a founding member of the Society for Learning Analytics Research (SoLAR), we're delighted to welcome our friends and colleagues from around the world to the 5th International Learning Analytics and Knowledge (LAK) conference. Over the past 36 years, I have been privileged to serve as president of Marist, and I have witnessed how the College has grown from a local institution to one with an international reputation for excellence. It is from this perspective that we take great pride in hosting this gathering of the world's leading researchers and practitioners in the field of learning analytics. As we have prepared for the conference, I have been struck by this year's theme, " Scaling Up: Big Data to Big Impact, " as it is not only appropriate for the event but for Marist as well. Why? Just as the field of learning analytics is starting to have a big impact on some of higher education's biggest challenges, the College has also been scaling up our pioneering research in the area of open learning analytics, both across our campus and at campuses throughout the country. Of course, Marist could not be doing this work alone, which is why we are honored to be part of this innovative academic research community and host of this conference. 3 Welcome to Learning Analytics & Knowledge 2015 (LAK15), the fi fth edition of this international conference. This year LAK takes place at Marist College in Poughkeepsie, New York (USA), a city located on the banks of the majestic Hudson River, midway between Albany, the state capital, and New York City. The theme of LAK15, Scaling Up: Big Data to Big Impact, refl ects our growing community of researchers, practitioners, and learners and our success in leveraging the power of " big data " to create substanti al impact within higher education and learning at increasingly larger scales, while simultaneously refl ecting the need for analytics to be eff ective at the level of individual learning (n of 1). Building on the momentum generated in earlier conferences and in recognition of our growth and of our mission 'inventing eff ective means to improve the way students learn', we have introduced a practitioner track this year. We hope that addressing and discussing the learning from two points of …