Syllabus & Policies
Instructor
Bamshad Mobasher
Email: mobasher@cs.depaul.edu
Office: Loop Campus, CDM Building, Room 833
Phone: (312) 362-5174
Office Hours: Tue, Thu 4:00-5:00 PM (held
online or by phone; appointments
required)
Course Description
An in-depth survey of important concepts, problems, and techniques in artificial intelligence, including search; adversarial search in games; logical inference and reasoning; reasoning with uncertainty; and machine learning. A particular focus and a unifying theme of the course will be the concept of intelligent agents. No prior knowledge of AI is required. The course is particularly suitable for graduate and advanced undergraduate students who want to gain the technical background necessary to build intelligent systems, or who want to prepare for more advanced work in AI and Machine Learning. The concepts and techniques learned in this course will be directly applicable to many other areas of computer science including software design, distributed systems, databases, and information retrieval.
Prerequisites
CSC 403 (or equivalent background in programming and data structures regardless of language).
Textbook
Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach, Fourth edition, by Stuart Russell and Peter Norvig. Prentice-Hall.
Course Management System
For assignment submission, general communication, and discussion, we will use DePaul University's Desire2Learn system (d2l.depaul.edu). The primary form of communication for this class will be through email and through the news widget on the D2L. Please make sure you subscribe to the widget using your DePaul email address. The class discussion forum on D2L is the preferred place to ask questions about or to discuss the assignments and class material. Lecture videos and other material will be posted on D2L throughout the quarter as they become available. Videos will typically be posted on or before Wednesday of each week. In addition to the D2L site, the following supplementary site is available where you can find course documents, lecture slides, supplementary reading material, and other resources.
http://facweb.cs.depaul.edu/mobasher/classes/CSC480/
Course Requirements
The structure and grading in the class will be centered around 4 assignments, several online quizzes, and a final exam.
The assignments will generally involve a
significant amount of programming, but may also include written
problems related to topics covered in class. The course is designed
specifically to be language independent. You can use the programming
language of your choice for programming assignments. While this
provides you with some flexibility, it also requires you to be
comfortable with your programming skills in your preferred language.
The lecture material will include detailed discussion of algorithms
and specific examples related to the assignments. However, in
general, we will not discuss implementation issues related to a
specific programming language. It will be up to you to implement and
code the necessary algorithms in your preferred language based on
specified requirements for each assignment. Please be sure to take
this information into account and allocated sufficient amount of
time for assignments.
You are welcome to discuss the assignments together with other students in class, including on the class discussion forums, but you must develop and submit your own solution. Feel free to post questions related to assignments on the assignment discussion boards. Also, feel free to answer questions posted by others and provide helpful suggestions (without posting solutions). Late assignments will be penalized 10% per day (with weekends counting as one day).
The quizzes are primarily designed for you to test your knowledge of the material related to topics covered in class. The online quizzes will be administered through D2L. Typically, the quizzes will be graded automatically and you will have an opportunity to submit them up to three times within a limited period of time. The final exam will be comprehensive and will include questions analogous to those on online quizzes. The final exam will be administered online, similarly to quizzes, at a designated time during the finals week.
The final grade will be determined (tentatively) based on the following scheme:
Assignments = 60%
Quizzes = 15%
Final Exam = 25%
The general grading scheme will be based on a
curve. At the end of the quarter, some adjustments may be made based on
overall class performance as well as signs of individual effort. Pluses and
minuses will be given at the high/low ends of each grade range.
General Policies
Academic Integrity Policy: This course will be subject to the academic
integrity policy passed by faculty. More information can be found at
http://academicintegrity.depaul.edu/.
Plagiarism: The university and school policy on plagiarism can
be summarized as follows: Students in this course should be aware of the strong
sanctions that can be imposed against someone guilty of plagiarism. If proven, a
charge of plagiarism could result in an automatic F in the course and possible
expulsion. The strongest of sanctions will be imposed on anyone who submits as
his/her own work any assignment which has been prepared by someone else. If you
have any questions or doubts about what plagiarism entails or how to properly
acknowledge source materials be sure to consult the instructor.
Incompletes: An incomplete grade is given only for an
exceptional reason such as a death in the family, a serious illness, etc. Any
such reason must be documented. Any incomplete request must be made at least two
weeks before the final, and approved by the office of the Dean of the College of
Computing and Digital Media. Any consequences resulting from a poor grade for
the course will not be considered as valid reasons for such a request.
Resources for Students with Disabilities: Students who feel
they may need an accommodation based on the impact of a disability should
contact the instructor privately to discuss their specific needs. All
discussions will remain confidential. To ensure that you receive the most
appropriate accommodation based on your needs, contact the instructor as early
as possible in the quarter (preferably within the first week of class), and make
sure that you have contacted the Center for Students with Disabilities (CSD) at:
Student Center, LPC, Suite #370
Phone number: (773)325.1677
Fax: (773)325.3720
TTY: (773)325.7296