Postgraduate Course: Applied Machine Learning (Distance Learning) (INFD11030)
Course Outline
| School | School of Informatics |
College | College of Science and Engineering |
| Credit level (Normal year taken) | SCQF Level 11 (Postgraduate) |
| Course type | Online Distance Learning |
Availability | Available to all students |
| SCQF Credits | 20 |
ECTS Credits | 10 |
| Summary | Machine learning is the study of computer algorithms that learn and adapt from data, as opposed to being programmed to explicitly follow instructions. This course will discuss two main branches
of machine learning: (1) Supervised Learning, which is concerned with learning to predict an output, given inputs, and (2) Unsupervised Learning, by which we wish to discover the structure embodied in data, without having access to additional information about the data, e.g. labels.
This course will equip the students with knowledge and a set of practical tools that can be applied to solve real-world machine learning problems. This achievement of this aim is underpinned by a principled approach to understanding the problem space and formulating a solution. |
| Course description |
Delivery:
The course will be delivered through a combination of: (1) pre-recorded videos lectures, (2) online synchronous question/answer and example sessions, (3) online practical labs, (4) online tutorials,
and (5) an online asynchronous discussion forum.
Content:
The exact set of methods and algorithms explored in the course will vary slightly from year to year, but will include many of the following topics:
- Introduction to machine learning
The learning problem, supervised vs unsupervised learning
- Representing data
Categorical vs real valued attributes, feature extraction, basis expansion
- Classification
Naive Bayes, logistic regression, nearest neighbours, decision trees, neural networks
- Regression
Linear regression
- Ethics of machine learning
Fairness, biases in data, responsible application of machine learning methods
- Fitting models to data
Optimization, generalization
- Unsupervised learning
Dimensionality reduction, PCA, clustering
- Evaluating machine learning models
Accuracy, precision and recall, ROC curves
|
Entry Requirements (not applicable to Visiting Students)
| Pre-requisites |
|
Co-requisites | |
| Prohibited Combinations | |
Other requirements | None |
Information for Visiting Students
| Pre-requisites | This course is only available to visiting students taking the majority of their credits in the School of Informatics who are either on a general or subject-specific exchange.
Maths requirements:
Linear algebra: Vectors: scalar (dot) product, transpose, unit vectors, vector length and orthogonality.
Matrices: addition, matrix multiplication, matrix inversion, eigenvectors and determinants.
Special functions: properties and combination rules for logarithm and exponential.
Calculus: Rules for differentiation of standard functions.
Geometry: Basics of lines, planes and hyperplanes. Coordinate geometry of circle, sphere, ellipse, and n-dimensional generalizations.
Probability theory: Discrete and continuous univariate random variables. Expectation and variance. Univariate and multivariate Gaussian distributions. Joint and conditional distributions.
Programming requirements:
Students should be familiar with programming in a modern object-oriented language, ideally Python which is the course language. |
| High Demand Course? |
Yes |
Course Delivery Information
| Not being delivered |
Learning Outcomes
On completion of this course, the student will be able to:
- explain the scope, goals, and limits of machine learning, and the main sub-areas of the field
- describe and critically compare the various techniques covered in the syllabus, and explain where they fit within the structure of the discipline
- apply the taught techniques to data sets to solve machine learning problems, using appropriate software
- analyse machine learning techniques in terms of their limitations and applicability to different machine learning problems and potential ethical concerns
- compare and evaluate the performance of applicable machine learning techniques in a systematic way
|
Reading List
Books that may be useful, but are not required:
"Probabilistic Machine Learning: An Introduction", Kevin Patrick Murphy "Pattern Recognition and Machine Learning", Christopher Bishop. |
Additional Information
| Graduate Attributes and Skills |
The student will be able to do the following:
- Apply critical and analytical thinking to real-world data problems
- Develop their problem-solving skills so they can better create, identify, and evaluate options in order to solve complex problems
- Develop the technical skills required to manipulate data and apply computational tools in order to make predictions from data
- Recognise and understand the ethical questions related to the application of machine learning algorithms |
| Keywords | Machine Learning,Supervised Learning,Unsupervised Learning,Data Science,AML |
Contacts
| Course organiser | Dr Nigel Goddard
Tel:
Email: |
Course secretary | |
|
|
University Homepage