Distance learning has assumed a relevant role in the educational scenario. The use of
Virtual Learning Environments contributes to obtaining a substantial amount of educational data.
In this sense, the analyzed data generate knowledge used by institutions to assist managers and
professors in strategic planning and teaching. The discovery of students’ behaviors enables a wide
variety of intelligent services for assisting in the learning process. This article presents a literature
review in order to identify the intelligent services applied in distance learning. The research covers
the period from January 2010 to May 2021. The initial search found 1316 articles, among which
51 were selected for further studies. Considering the selected articles, 33% (17/51) focus on learning
systems, 35% (18/51) propose recommendation systems, 26% (13/51) approach predictive systems
or models, and 6% (3/51) use assessment tools. This review allowed for the observation that the
principal services offered are recommendation systems and learning systems. In these services, the
analysis of student profiles stands out to identify patterns of behavior, detect low performance, and
identify probabilities of dropouts from courses.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio
