Abstract: Information technology, such as Big Data and Cloud Computing, is widely used in the educational field, which makes educational data to grow at an exponential rate. We can discover new characteristics and laws hiding in the educational fields through educational data mining so as to improve the decision level and quality of education. This paper reviews the development situation in terms of characteristics, concept, processes, and methods. It also presents points of interest and trends of educational data mining based on the relevant literature from Web of Science between 1995 and 2015.