This page is subject to change before the start of the course.

Spring 2023 Special Requirement (source)

During this pandemic, it is extremely important that you abide by the public health regulations, the University of Pittsburgh’s health standards and guidelines, and Pitt’s Health Rules. These rules have been developed to protect the health and safety of all of us. The University’s requirements for face coverings will at a minimum be consistent with CDC guidance and masks are required indoors (campus buildings and shuttles) on campuses in which COVID-19 Community Levels are High. This means that when COVID-19 Community Levels are High, you must wear a face covering that properly covers your nose and mouth when you are in the classroom. If you do not comply, you will be asked to leave class. It is your responsibility to have the required face covering when entering a university building or classroom. Masks are optional indoors for campuses in which county levels are Medium or Low. Be aware of your Community Level as it changes each Thursday. Read answers to frequently asked questions regarding face coverings. For the most up-to-date information and guidance, please visit the Power of Pitt site and check your Pitt email for updates before each class.

If you are required to isolate or quarantine, become sick, or are unable to come to class, contact me as soon as possible to discuss arrangements.

Learning Objectives

This course focuses on both concepts and practice. We will introduce (a) the core data mining concepts and (b) practical skills for applying data mining techniques to solve real-world problems.

Concepts

Study the major data mining problems as different types of computational tasks (prediction, classification, clustering, etc.) and the algorithms appropriate for addressing these tasks
Learn how to analyze data through statistical and graphical summarization, supervised and unsupervised learning algorithms
Systematically evaluate data mining algorithms and understand how to choose algorithms for different analysis tasks

Practice

Learn how to gather and process raw data into suitable input for a range of data mining algorithms
Critique the methods and results from a data mining practice
Design and implement data mining applications using real-world datasets, and evaluate and select proper data mining algorithms to apply to practical scenarios

Course Content

Topics to be covered:

Data exploration and visualization
Supervised learning (or predictive analysis): Regression, Classification
Unsupervised learning (or descriptive analysis): Clustering, Dimension reduction
Evaluation and model assessment
Special topics: Network mining, Text mining, Recommendation
Selected topics (TBD): advanced topics in clustering and classification techniques, outliner analysis, data science research trends, etc.

See the course schedule for weekly topics.

Computing

This course will use R for computing. R is freely available online. We will be using R Studio as our default IDE, which can be downloaded for free. We will use R Markdown for creating reproducible data science documents.

Prerequisites

Students are expected to be familiar with the basics of Linear Algebra, Probability and Statistics, and should be comfortable with programming. We will use R for computing, and hence familiarity of R is preferred. If you have never programmed before, get started by checking a list of learning resources on the course website here.

Grading

Grades are based on three major activities listed below. Assignments are due as scheduled, and grades on late work will be decreased by 10% per day late.

30% in-class & post-class participation (including quizzes and reading assignments)
40% homework and midterm
30% final project (including several milestones)

Class Participation

Class participation will be assessed through online quizzes assigned each week, as well as the students’ participation in class.

Readings

This course does not have a single textbook. It will use materials from several recommended books listed below. These books are available online (some are available online over Pitt network). There will be reading assignments over the course of the semester. Links to the electronic copies of these readings will be provided. There are also other recommended books for further reading and for learning R.

Optional Course Textbooks

Data Mining and Business Analytics with R, Johannes Ledolter, Wiley, 2013, ISBN: 978-1118447147 (online access via Pitt network) (hereafter referred as “DMR”)
Web Data Mining: Exploring Hyperlinks, Contents, and Usage Data (2nd ed.), Bing Liu, Springer, 2011, ISBN: 978-3642194597 (available online) (hereafter referred as “WDM”)
Practical Data Science with R, Nina Zumel and John Mount, Manning Publications 2014, ISBN: 9781617291562 (online access via Pitt network) (hereafter referred as “DSR”)

University Policies

See the university policies page.

Syllabus (Spring 2023)