Welcome to COSC 329

Learning Analytics

Administration

Download the course syllabus.

Evaluation Criteria: Total 100%

  • 25-45% (Default 35%) Programming Assignments
  • 15-35% (Default 25%) Quizzes and Readings
  • 30-50% (Default 40%) Term Project

Other important dates, see University calendar dates

Available project options to choose from.

Modules

Every week will be structured as a module. Each module starts with a lecture, followed by a case study reading, a quiz, and a programming assignment. Every module has a quiz, but only selected modules will have an assignment. I recommended that you do the quiz (first attempt) before doing the assignment. You can always do the quiz again to improve your mark if needed after the assignment.

Tentative Schedule

Week (Lectures) Tuesdays:
Lecture Topics		 (Asynchronous) Fridays:
Case Study Readings
Due by Sun 11:59pm		 Quiz
Due by Sun 11:59pm		 Assignment
Due by Sun 11:59pm
1
(Sep 09/Sep 11)		 Introductions
  • What is Learning Analytics?
  • Course Logistics
  • Data Considerations
  • From Data to Behaviours
Example Applications Quiz 1 Grading Preferences Survey
2
(Sep 16/Sep 18)		 Recommendation Systems Case Study: Video Recommendation Quiz 2
3
(Sep 23/Sep 25)		 Classification
  • Types of Machine Learning
  • Decision Trees
  • Readings: Chapter on classification
Case Study: Best Studying Strategy Quiz 3 A1: Document Vectors due
4
(Sep 30/Oct 02)		 Holiday: No class Model Construction and Evaluation (In-person class)
  • Feature engineering
  • Evaluation metrics
  • Benchmarking
N/A
5
(Oct 07/Oct 09)		 Clustering
  • Hierarchical Agglomerative Clustering
  • k-Means Clustering
  • Cluster Validation
  • Readings: Chapter on cluster analysis
Case Study: Clustering Source Code Quiz 4
6
(Oct 14/Oct 16)		 Modeling Uncertainty
Away at conference
  • Modeling Beliefs over States
  • Bayes Rule
  • Independence and Conditional Independence
Case Study: Classifying Student Skills Quiz 5 A2: Clustering Story Texts due
7
(Oct 21/Oct 23)		 Bayesian Networks Case Study: Student Modeling Quiz 6
8
(Oct 28/Oct 30)		 Decision Making Under Uncertainty
  • Dynamic Bayesian Networks (DBN)
  • Expected Utility
  • Real Decision Problems
  • Readings: Intro to Rational Choice
Case Study: Preference Elicitation Quiz 7 A3: Bayes Nets due
9
(Nov 04/Nov 06)		 DBN Simulations
Away at award ceremony
  • DBNs in Action
Case Study: A Physics Tutor Quiz 8
10
(Nov 11/Nov 13)		 Reading Week: No classes this week A4: DBN Simulations due
11
(Nov 18/Nov 20)		 Plagiarism Detection (Essays) Case Study: Word Prediction Quiz 9
12
(Nov 25/Nov 27)		 Plagiarism Detection (Code)
  • GPLAG
  • Readings: The GPLAG algorithm
Case Study: Detecting Error Patterns in Source Code Quiz 10 A5: Plgarism Detection due
13
(Dec 02/Dec 04)		 Project Presentations
  • Video submissions due
Project Voting
14
(Dec 09)		 Course Summary
  • Key Take-aways
  • Future of LA
  • Course Evaluations
Project Deliverables,
Grading Preferences v2