Postgraduate Course: Data Mining and Exploration (INFR11007)
Course Outline
| School | School of Informatics | 
College | College of Science and Engineering | 
 
| Course type | Standard | 
Availability | Available to all students | 
 
| Credit level (Normal year taken) | SCQF Level 11 (Postgraduate) | 
Credits | 10 | 
 
| Home subject area | Informatics | 
Other subject area | None | 
   
| Course website | 
http://www.inf.ed.ac.uk/teaching/courses/dme | 
Taught in Gaelic? | No | 
 
| Course description | The aim of this course is to discuss modern techniques for analyzing, interpreting, visualizing and exploiting the data that is captured in scientific and commercial environments. The course will develop the ideas taught in the modules Learning from Data 1 and Probabilistic Modelling and Reasoning and discuss the issues in applying them to real-world data sets, as well as teaching about other techniques and data-visualization methods. The course will also feature case-study presentations and each student will undertake a mini-project on a real-world dataset. | 
 
 
Information for Visiting Students 
| Pre-requisites | None | 
 
| Displayed in Visiting Students Prospectus? | Yes | 
 
 
Course Delivery Information
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| Delivery period: 2012/13  Semester 2, Available to all students (SV1) 
  
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WebCT enabled:  No | 
Quota:  None | 
 
	
		| Location | 
		Activity | 
		Description | 
		Weeks | 
		Monday | 
		Tuesday | 
		Wednesday | 
		Thursday | 
		Friday | 
	 
| Central | Lecture |  | 1-11 |  |  |  |  |  14:00 - 15:50 |  
| First Class | 
First class information not currently available |  
| Exam Information | 
 
    | Exam Diet | 
    Paper Name | 
    Hours:Minutes | 
    
     | 
     |  
  
| Main Exam Diet S2 (April/May) |  | 2:00 |  |  |  
 
Summary of Intended Learning Outcomes 
1 - Describe the data mining process in overview, and demonstrate assessment of the challenges of a given data mining project 
2 - Describe methods used for exploratory data analysis, predictive modelling and performance evaluation 
3 - Critical evaluation of papers presented in the second part of the course 
4 - In the mini-project, demonstrate the ability to conduct experimental investigations and draw valid conclusions from them 
5 - Demonstrate use of data mining packages/computational environments such as weka and netlab in the mini-project phase | 
 
 
Assessment Information 
Written Examination	50 
Assessed Assignments	35 
Oral Presentations	15 
 
Assessment 
Two items, (1) the presentation of research paper on data mining to the class and (2) a mini-project on one dataset chosen from a list of datasets selected by the instructor. 
 
If delivered in semester 1, this course will have an option for semester 1 only visiting undergraduate students, providing assessment prior to the end of the calendar year. |  
 
Special Arrangements 
| None |   
 
Additional Information 
| Academic description | 
Not entered | 
 
| Syllabus | 
The course will consist of two parts, the first part being a series of lectures on what is outlined below. It is anticipated that there will also be one or two guest lectures from data mining practitioners. 
 
The second part will consist of student presentations of papers relating to relevant topics. Students will also carry out a practical mini-project on a real-world dataset. For both paper presentations and mini-projects, lists of suggestions will be available, but students may also propose their own, subject to approval from the instructor. 
 
* Introduction, overview 
* Data preprocessing and cleaning, dealing with missing data 
* Data visualization, exploratory data analysis 
* Data mining techniques, e.g. Association rules (Apriori algorithm), 
* Predictive modelling techniques (e.g. SVMs) 
* Performance evaluation (e.g. ROC curves) 
* Issues relating to large data sets 
* Application areas, e.g. text mining, collaborative filtering, retrieval-by-content, web mining, bioinformatics data, astronomy data  
 
Relevant QAA Computing Curriculum Sections:  Artificial Intelligence | 
 
| Transferable skills | 
Not entered | 
 
| Reading list | 
* Recommended text: Principles of Data Mining. David J. Hand, Heikki Mannila and Padhraic Smyth, MIT Press (2001) 
* Additional texts: Data Mining: Concepts and Techniques. Jiawei Han and Micheline Kamber, Morgan Kaufmann (2001) 
 | 
 
| Study Abroad | 
Not entered | 
 
| Study Pattern | 
Lectures	20 
Tutorials	0 
Timetabled Laboratories	4 
Non-timetabled assessed assignments	50 
Private Study/Other	26 
Total	100 | 
 
| Keywords | Not entered | 
 
 
Contacts 
| Course organiser | Dr Michael Rovatsos 
Tel: (0131 6)51 3263 
Email:  | 
Course secretary | Miss Kate Weston 
Tel: (0131 6)50 2701 
Email:  | 
   
 
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© Copyright 2012 The University of Edinburgh -  6 March 2012 6:10 am 
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