The increasing availability of digital data in higher education provides an extraordinary resource for researchers to undertake educational research, targeted at understanding challenges facing the sector. Big data can stimulate new ways to transform processes relating to learning and teaching, and helps identify useful data, sources of evidence to support decision-making initiatives. However, in order to fully harness the potentials of big data, researchers must be able to make sense of this incredibly complex data, and pursue relevant questions, uncover patterns of interest, and identify and correct errors inherent in the processing and interpretation of big data. Furthermore, data governance, privacy, security, statistical algorithms, and analysis are processes that require contextualized human judgment. Researchers, therefore, must be able to tease out the specific significance of data and make valid and realistic interpretations of what the data offer. This article describes conceptual, technical, managerial, and educational opportunities and limitations associated with the use of big data in higher education. The article also identifies elements of a research agenda that could further the theoretical understanding of the relevance of big data within higher education discourse.