Db reply OPPOSITION- not enough information. Due to technology advancements, the use of data analytics is growing in both the business world and society as a whole (Foster & Francis, 2020). Higher education has also dipped its feet into the world of data analytics. What does the research tell us about its usefulness in higher education as an indicator for student support services? According to Forster & Francis (2020), who conducted a review of primary research between the years of 2007 through 2018 on the use and efficacy of data analytics regarding student engagement, grades, and retention in higher education, that while many studies report improved student outcomes, the how the analytics supported this improvement is lacking. Therefore, the reason behind student improvement mostly relies on assumptions in past research. Additionally, there are not enough studies out there that report on the use of data analytics and student outcomes for underrepresented groups of students and high performing students (Foster & Francis, 2020). There certainly appears to be value in the use of data analytics in higher education, especially when existing methods for identifying at-risk students tend to be generalized, which can result in incorrect identification of students who need support services. However, the use of trace analytics within the broader more generalized categories can be refined to the students who are truly at risk based on their behavior patterns (Schuh et al., 2017). In our text, there are suggestions regarding tracking the amount of time a student spends reading, which can be done in real time to indicate student outcomes (Schuh et al., 2017). It is also noted that there are increasing ethical and operational challenges posed by using individuals data (Foster & Francis, 2020). The premise of tracking in real time, or even obtaining information on the amount of time a student spends reading an online textbook, seems to be an invasion of privacy- and something I am opposed to at the present time. While I acknowledge there may be value to the use of data analytics, I would ask to see results that can provide evidence of causation