CIS 4190/5190: Applied Machine Learning (Spring 2023)
syllabus      schedule      files      resources


logistics

time: Mon/Wed 1:45-3:15pm

location: Stiteler Hall, Room B6

instructors:
Prof. Dinesh Jayaraman (dineshj@seas.upenn.edu)
Prof. Osbert Bastani (obastani@seas.upenn.edu)

teaching assistants: We have the following wonderful team of TAs this semester (with bios introducing them here):
Benedict Florance Arockiaraj
Anish Bhattacharya
Brian Chen
Mudan Chen
Harsh Goel
Yiming Huang
Remy (Jongkook) Kim
Jinhui (Javion) Luo
Bharathrushab Manthripragada
Anisha Singrodia
Kausik Sivakumar
Anusha Srikanthan
Abriana Stewart-Height
Yufei Wang
Crescent (Zihan) Xiong
David Yan

office hours: We are currently holding the office hours listed below.

name time slot location
Anusha SrikanthanMon 10am - 11amLevine 612
Brian ChenMon 3:30pm - 4:30pmLevine 612
Yufei WangMon 5pm - 6pmLevine GRW 5th floor bump space
Bharathrushab ManthripragadaTue 10am - 11amGRW basement space
Jongkook Remy KimTue 1pm - 2pmLevine 501 bump space
David YanTue 3pm - 4pmLevine 612
Zihan Xiong (Crescent)Tue 6pm - 7pmLevine 612
Benedict Florance ArockiarajWed 10am - 11amLevine 612
Jinhui LuoWed 3:30pm - 4:30pmLevine 601 bump space
Harsh GoelWed 6pm - 7pmLevine 512
Abriana Stewart-HeightThu 11am - 12amLevine 601 bump space
Osbert BastaniThu 2pm - 3pmLevine 611
Anisha SingrodiaThu 3pm - 4pmLevine 612
Anish BhattacharyaThu 6pm - 7pmLevine 501 bump space
Dinesh JayaramanFri 9:15am - 10:15amLevine 401
Yiming HuangFri 10am - 11amLevine 501 bump space
Kausik Sivakumar Fri 4pm - 5pmLevine 501 bump space
Mudan ChenSat 9am - 10amOnline (Zoom)

masking policy: For the health and safety of everyone, we are requiring that all students wear a high-quality mask (N95, KN95, KF94, or surgical) in during class and office hours.

collaboration policy: You are responsible for knowing Penn's Code of Academic Integrity. In particular, copying solutions from other students or other resources (e.g. the web or from students who have taken the class in previous years) is NOT allowed. Making answers to homeworks or exams available to others either directly or by posting on the web is also NOT allowed. We will not have a sense of humor about violations of this policy!

links: We will use Ed Discussion for questions and communication, and GradeScope to submit assignments. Past exams and solutions, as well as lecture videos, will be posted on Canvas; all other materials will be posted on the course website. We encourage students to use Google Colab for coding assignments.

waitlist: We have a very large amount of demand for just a few remaining slots in the class. As such, we are currently only considering students who are graduating this fall and who need to take the course this fall for credit to graduate. In addition, all prerequisites must be satisfied and all waitlist application questions must have been answered correctly, and all decisions are at the discretion of the instructors. Please only reach out to us if you believe you qualify and have not yet heard back.

attendance: We expect students to attend classes regularly; weekly quizzes designed to make sure students are following course material. However, please do not come to class if you are not feeling well or test positive for Covid-19. We will provide course recordings (on Canvas) and lecture notes (on this website) for students unable to make it to class.


content

description: Machine learning has been essential to the success of many recent technologies, including autonomous vehicles, search engines, genomics, automated medical diagnosis, image recognition, and social network analysis. This course will introduce the fundamental concepts and algorithms that enable computers to learn from experience, with an emphasis on their practical application. It will introduce supervised learning (linear and logistic regression, decision trees, neural networks and deep learning, and Bayesian networks), unsupervised learning (clustering and dimensionality reduction), and reinforcement learning.

CIS 4190 vs. 5190: This course has an undergraduate version (CIS 4190) and a graduate version (CIS 5190). The lectures are the same, but you will be evaluated differently on your homeworks and projects; in particular, some homeworks will have components that are mandatory for CIS 5190 but optional for CIS 4190. Importantly, since the two versions have different requirements, you cannot complete the course as CIS 4190 and petition afterwards to have it changed to CIS 5190 for graduate credit.

CIS 5190 vs. 5200: Penn CIS offers two different introductory machine learning courses: CIS 4190/5190 (Applied Machine Learning) and CIS 5200 (Machine Learning). While there is overlap, the former (this course!) emphasizes practical application of existing machine learning methods, whereas the latter emphasizes the statistical foundations and theory of ML. CIS 5190 is NOT a prerequisite for CIS 5200. It makes little sense to take both courses (though taking CIS 4190/5190 and later CIS 5200 is possible).

CIS 5190 vs. 5450: Penn CIS also offers CIS 5450, which offers a holistic view of the data science pipeline, including data wrangling, data visualization, machine learning, and scalable data processing. In contrast, this course focuses primarily on machine learning, covering machine learning algorithms in greater breadth and depth. The two courses can be taken in either order, but students should consider taking CIS 5450 first.

prerequisites: Introductory probability and statistics, multivariable calculus, and linear algebra are required (HW 1 will test your knowledge of this material). In addition, you are expected to be able to program comfortably in some language. We will use Python throughout the course, and can help you pick it up (primer + office hours). If you are not confident of your coding skills in any language at all, the homework may be very difficult.

textbook: There is no required textbook, but you can find useful resources here.


grading

This grading scheme is tentative and will be finalized soon.

homework (30%): There will be 6 homework assignments, each containing both a written component and a coding component. The written portion will be submitted via GradeScope; the coding portion will be submitted both via GradeScope and programmatically to an autograder. Detailed instructions will be provided in the assignment.

project (20%): We will provide more details on the final project shortly.

final exam (35%): There will be a 2 hour long final exam during finals period, covering content from the entire course.

quizzes (10%): There will be 12 (roughly weekly) quizzes testing basic understanding of the material covered that week; these will be submitted on GradeScope. You will receive full credit if you correctly answer at least 50% of the questions.

participation (5%): You are expected to participate by coming to class, asking/answering questions on Ed Discussion, etc.

grading scheme: A+: 95+, A: 90-95, A-: 85-90, B+: 80-85, B: 75-80, B-: 70-75, lower passing grades: 50-70 (may be curved upwards)

late policy: For homework assignments, you will lose 0.5% per late hour (rounded up), with a maximum of 48 late hours per assignment. For example, if you submit HW 1 20 hours late, you lose 10% of points on HW 1 (which is 0.5% of your overall course grade). If you have medical reason for an extension, send both professors a copy of your medical visit report, and we will grant an extension (typically 2 days); we will consider other requests on a case-by-case basis.