Syllabus        Schedule      Resources     Project Requirements

Instructor: Chengkai Li

• Office Hours: Tuesday/Thursday 11am-12pm
• Office: Nedderman Hall 334
• Phone: (817) 272-0162
• E-mail: cli [AT] uta [DOT] edu

TA: Muhammed Miah

• Office hours: Monday 11am-1pm
• Office: Earth & Environmental Sciences (a.k.a GeoScience) Bldg, Room# 237
• Phone: (817) 272-0896
• E-mail: md.miah [AT] mavs.uta.edu, mzmiah [AT] yahoo.com

Course Description

We will study papers on Web Search, Mining, and Integration, covering topics in databases, data mining, information retrieval, and the intersections of these areas. The goals of the course are: to expose graduate students to the cutting-edge of research in these areas;  to equip them with the necessary skill sets for finding jobs; to help them identify research topics and come up with preliminary works through course projects; and to prepare new students for doing research with faculty in databases, data mining, and information retrieval. Detailed topics include:

• Web Search
  • search engine architecture
  • crawling
  • indexing
  • link analysis (HITS, PageRank)
  • large-scale systems (MapReduce)
• Wed Data Mining
  • classification and clustering
  • support vector machines
  • latent semantic indexing
• Web Data Integration
  • information extraction
  • answering queries using views
  • schema matching
  • Deep Web
• Other Topcis
  • Web 2.0
  • social networks
  • Semantic Web

Prerequisites

• CSE 4331/5331  Database Systems II     or     CSE 5334  Data Mining     or     consent of instructor

Textbook

• Christopher D. Manning, Prabhakar Raghavan and Hinrich Schütze, Introduction to Information Retrieval, Cambridge University Press. 2008. (This book is available online at http://www-csli.stanford.edu/~hinrich/information-retrieval-book.html)
• We will also use many research papers.

Grades

• Midterm Exam                           20%    (Thursday, March 12th, 9:30 - 10:50am, NH229)
• Final Exam                                 30%    (Thursday, May 14th, 8-10:30am, NH229)
• Paper Presentation                     20%    Must be done independently. Each student present one designated paper in one lecture. And must submit the presentation file before the class.
• Course Project                           30%    Can be done individually or in pairs.
  • Proposal                          4%
  • Progress Report               6%
• Presentation, Demo, and Final Report     20%
• Bonus (Class participation)         10%     Based on in-class and WebCT participation. Students are expected to attend classes and actively participate in discussions.

Announcements

Stay tuned and make sure to check WebCT frequently. Important announcements will be posted there.

Assignments and Deadlines

• All the assignments must be submitted through WebCT. We will NOT take hardcopy or email submission, unless the school verifies that WebCT was malfunctioning or unavailable.
• Everything is due by 11:55pm on the due date (listed in the schedule page). The deadline is automatically managed by WebCT. You can still turn in assignment after the deadline. However, you automatically lose 5 points per hour after the due time, till you get 0. (Each individual assignment is 100 points.) We cannot waive the penalty, unless there was a case of illness or other substantial impediment beyond your control, with proof in documents from the school.
• Before the deadline, WebCT allows you to submit as many times as you want. However, you are only allowed to submit once after the deadline. If you have already submitted before the deadline, you will not be allowed to submit again after the deadline.
• Every student must equally contribute to the group project. Only one student in a group needs to upload project-related assignments into WebCT.

Regrading

• Regrading request must be made within 7 days after we post scores on WebCT. TA will handle regrade requests.
• If student is not satisfied with the regarding results, you get 7 days to request again. The instructor will regrade, and the decision is final.

WebCT

(WebCT is not ready yet. You will be notified when it is ready.)

The WebCT page is http://www.uta.edu/webct. Use your NetID and password to login. We use WebCT for the following activities:

• Electronic assignment submission. Follow these steps exactly:

1. Click button "Upload file" to upload your file.
2. Fill in your email address (UTA email address only) in the "Notification" box.
3. Click button "submit assignment". Otherwise, your file will not be submitted.
4. Verify that your file is in WebCT. (You should see the file name after "Student files". Click the link to download the file and verify it.)
5. Make sure you receive a notification email from WebCT. You must keep the notification email.
6. If you don't find your submission or don't receive notification within 5 minutes, try step 1-5 again.
7. If step 6 still fails after you give it another try, email your file to the TA and yourself immediately. Make sure to keep the received email.

When we grade the assignment, if we cannot find your file in WebCT and we don't receive it in email, we will ask you for the copy of notification email. Without the notification email, we would assume that you didn't submit the assignment.

• Discussion group (bulletin board).

Various topics have been created for your discussion. Most of the names of the topics are self-describing.

• Posting course materials, assignment instructions and files, students scores and grades.

Ethics Policies and Academic Integrity

The College cannot and will not tolerate any form of academic dishonesty by its students. This includes, but is not limited to cheating on examinations, plagiarism, or collusion (explained in the document below).

Students are required to read the following document carefully, sign it, return the signed copy to the instructor, and keep a copy for their own records. Hardcopies of this document will be provided to the students in the first class, and also can be picked up in the instructor's office. If you print by yourself, please make it double-sided.

Statement on Ethics, Professionalism, and Conduct for Engineering Students

Miscellaneous

If you require accommodation based on disability, I would like to meet with you in the privacy of my office during the first week of the semester to ensure that you are appropriately accommodated. Please read the page of the office for students with disabilities.