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DEGREE REGULATIONS & PROGRAMMES OF STUDY 2013/2014
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DRPS : Course Catalogue : School of Informatics : Informatics

Postgraduate Course: Text Technologies (Level 11) (INFR11027)

Course Outline
SchoolSchool of Informatics CollegeCollege of Science and Engineering
Course typeStandard AvailabilityAvailable to all students
Credit level (Normal year taken)SCQF Level 11 (Year 4 Undergraduate) Credits10
Home subject areaInformatics Other subject areaNone
Course website http://course.inf.ed.ac.uk/tts Taught in Gaelic?No
Course descriptionThe course deals with retrieval technologies behind search engines, such as Google. The course will aim to strike a balance between theoretical and system-related aspects of the field. The course will cover:

1. Theoretical aspects, including properties of text, queries, relevance, major retrieval models and evaluation;
2. System-related aspects, including crawlers, text processing, index construction and retrieval algorithms.
Entry Requirements (not applicable to Visiting Students)
Pre-requisites Co-requisites
Prohibited Combinations Students MUST NOT also be taking Text Technologies (Level 10) (INFR10025)
Other requirements This course is open to all Informatics students including those on joint degrees. For external students where this course is not listed in your DPT, please seek special permission from the course organiser.

This course has the following mathematics prerequisites:

1. Probability theory: random variables, expectation, joint and conditional probabilities; discrete and continuous univariate distributions.

2. Algebra: definition of vectors and matrices; vector addition and inner product; matrix multiplication.

3. Calculus: functions of several variables, univariate integrals and derivatives, univariate maxima and minima.

4. Special functions: log, exp.
Additional Costs None
Information for Visiting Students
Pre-requisitesNone
Displayed in Visiting Students Prospectus?Yes
Course Delivery Information
Delivery period: 2013/14 Semester 1, Available to all students (SV1) Learn enabled:  No Quota:  None
Web Timetable Web Timetable
Course Start Date 16/09/2013
Breakdown of Learning and Teaching activities (Further Info) Total Hours: 100 ( Lecture Hours 20, Summative Assessment Hours 2, Programme Level Learning and Teaching Hours 2, Directed Learning and Independent Learning Hours 76 )
Additional Notes
Breakdown of Assessment Methods (Further Info) Written Exam 70 %, Coursework 30 %, Practical Exam 0 %
Exam Information
Exam Diet Paper Name Hours & Minutes
Main Exam Diet S2 (April/May)2:00
Delivery period: 2013/14 Semester 1, Part-year visiting students only (VV1) Learn enabled:  No Quota:  None
Web Timetable Web Timetable
Course Start Date 16/09/2013
Breakdown of Learning and Teaching activities (Further Info) Total Hours: 100 ( Lecture Hours 20, Summative Assessment Hours 2, Programme Level Learning and Teaching Hours 2, Directed Learning and Independent Learning Hours 76 )
Additional Notes
Breakdown of Assessment Methods (Further Info) Written Exam 70 %, Coursework 30 %, Practical Exam 0 %
Exam Information
Exam Diet Paper Name Hours & Minutes
Main Exam Diet S1 (December)2:00
Summary of Intended Learning Outcomes
1 - Describe the main algorithms for processing, storing and retrieving text.
2 - Show familiarity with theoretical aspects of IR, including the major retrieval models.
3 - Discuss the range of issues involved in building a real search engine
4 - Evaluate the effectiveness of a retrieval algorithm
Assessment Information
Written Examination 70
Assessed Assignments 30
Oral Presentations 0

Assessment
There will be a final exam, contributing 70% of the course mark. The remaining 30% will be assessed through a combination of problem sets and programming exercises involving application of existing algorithms and evalution techniques. Compared to the level 10 version of this course, level 11 students will undertake more challenging assignments and an increased programming load.
Special Arrangements
None
Additional Information
Academic description Not entered
Syllabus Lectures will cover the following topics, with a typical lecture integrating material from more than one aspect.

1. Theoretical aspects:
* The nature of text, Zipf and Heaps laws, clumping
* Information needs, queries and relevance
* Evaluation of retrieval systems
* Vector-space model and latent semantic indexing
* Probabilistic model and relevance feedback
* Language models or Relevance models

2. Systems aspects:
* Search engine architecture
* Crawling and content extraction
* Text processing and representation
* Indexing methods and compression
* Distributed search and meta-search
* Dealing with vocabulary mismatch
* Duplicate detection
Transferable skills Not entered
Reading list * ¿Search Engines: Information Retrieval in Practice¿, W.B. Croft, D. Metzler, T. Strohman, Addison Wesley, 2008. Primary text, photocopies will be provided by instructor.
* ¿Introduction to Information Retrieval¿, C.D. Manning, P. Raghavan and H. Schutze, Cambridge University Press, 2008.
* ¿Managing Gigabytes¿, I.H. Witten, A. Moffat, T.C. Bell, Morgan Kaufmann, 1999.
* ¿Information Retrieval¿, C. J. van Rijsbergen, Butterworths, 1979.
* ¿Recommended Reading for IR Research Students¿, A. Moffat, J. Zobel, D. Hawking. SIGIR Forum, 39(2), 2005.
Study Abroad Not entered
Study Pattern Lectures 20
Tutorials 0
Timetabled Laboratories 4
Non-timetabled assessed assignments 24
Private Study/Other 52
Total 100
KeywordsNot entered
Contacts
Course organiserDr Mary Cryan
Tel: (0131 6)50 5153
Email: mcryan@inf.ed.ac.uk
Course secretaryMiss Kate Farrow
Tel: (0131 6)50 2706
Email: Kate.Farrow@ed.ac.uk
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