The use of data mining in education environment

Modern technologies allow storage of large amounts of raw data which invariably contains usable information not yet discovered. Machine learning and data mining give us techniques which can be used to analyze that data and uncover previously unknown rules and associations, hidden knowledge which once acquired -and properly interpreted -can be used in multitude of ways. Even though data mining has mostly been used by the marketing field, lately it is not uncommon to use machine learning techniques in other environments. This paper presents how data mining algorithms and techniques can be used in the academic community to potentially improve some aspects of education quality.