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DEGREE REGULATIONS & PROGRAMMES OF STUDY 2024/2025

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DRPS : Course Catalogue : School of Informatics : Informatics

Postgraduate Course: Researching Responsible and Trustworthy Natural Language Processing (INFR11259)

Course Outline
SchoolSchool of Informatics CollegeCollege of Science and Engineering
Credit level (Normal year taken)SCQF Level 11 (Postgraduate) AvailabilityNot available to visiting students
SCQF Credits20 ECTS Credits10
SummaryThis course introduces critical skills needed to do design, build, evaluate and deploy responsible and trustworthy natural language processing systems. This includes identifying research questions; proposing methods to answer research questions; and communicating results orally and in writing to a scientific audience. The course brings together methodologies from NLP and from design informatics, as well as covering legal, social, and ethical aspects of NLP systems. Key skills in public engagement and working with industry also feature in the course.
Course description This course is a compulsory course for first year students of the CDT in Designing Responsible NLP. Its key aim is to bring together the two methodologies at the heart of this CDT: engineering-oriented thinking as it¿s common in NLP and design thinking as it¿s common to design informatics. Key methods from law, social science, and philosophy are also covered, as well a topics such as public engagement and working with industry. The course will meet twice a week, and the sessions will be a mixture of student-led activities (e.g., presentations) and lecturer-led activities (e.g., methods tutorials). Students will take part in a small course project (done in groups), submit a project report an other written work, and also give oral presentations (either live or in the form of videos). These aspect of the course will be assessed.
Entry Requirements (not applicable to Visiting Students)
Pre-requisites Co-requisites
Prohibited Combinations Other requirements None
Course Delivery Information
Academic year 2024/25, Not available to visiting students (SS1) Quota:  None
Course Start Full Year
Timetable Timetable
Learning and Teaching activities (Further Info) Total Hours: 200 ( Lecture Hours 40, Programme Level Learning and Teaching Hours 4, Directed Learning and Independent Learning Hours 156 )
Assessment (Further Info) Written Exam 0 %, Coursework 100 %, Practical Exam 0 %
Additional Information (Assessment) Written Exam _____%
Coursework __100___%
Feedback Feedback on assessed coursework will be provided within two weeks, and will include formative comments on work in relation to concepts studied in the course.

Formative writing assignments will be reviewed by peers under a provided rubric.
No Exam Information
Learning Outcomes
On completion of this course, the student will be able to:
  1. Critically read, assess, and synthesize scientific literature in natural language processing and design informatics and related fields.
  2. Identify new research questions in responsible and trustworthy natural language processing and propose engineering or methods to answer them.
  3. Communicate research results orally and through media such as videos
  4. Communicate research results in writing to a range of audiences.
Reading List
The course will draw on readings from:
* Zobel, Writing for Computer Science
* Williams and Colomb. Style: Towards Clarity and Grace
Additional Information
Graduate Attributes and Skills Students on the course will develop skills in critically reviewing, consolidating, and extending knowledge; communicating with peers, more senior colleagues, and specialists; and undertaking critical evaluations of a wide range of numerical and graphical data.
KeywordsNatural language processing,research skills,responsible research and innovation
Contacts
Course organiserDr Frank Keller
Tel:
Email: Frank.Keller@ed.ac.uk
Course secretaryMs Lindsay Seal
Tel: (0131 6)50 2701
Email: lindsay.seal@ed.ac.uk
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