CS 430 Information Discovery Spring 2001 Professor William Y. Arms Lectures: Tuesday and Thursday, 12:20 to 1:10 pm Thurston Hall 203 Discussion class: Wednesday 7:30 to 8:30 p.m., Hollister 110 3 Credit Hours

• Notices
• Code of practice
• Syllabus
• Assignments
• Readings and references
• Slides
• Laptop computers

Check the Notices file regularly for information about schedule, assignments, etc.

Course Description

This course looks at the methods used to search for and discover information in digital libraries and web information systems. Methods that are covered include information retrieval, which includes techniques for searching, browsing and filtering information, descriptive metadata, the use of classification systems and thesauruses, and web search systems.

Basic Information

Lectures:	Tuesday and Thursday 12:20-1:10, Thurston Hall 203
Discussion classes:	Wednesday 7:30 to 8:30, Hollister 110
Instructor:	William Arms, wya@cs.cornell.edu, Upson 5159, 255-3046
Instructor's Office Hours:	Tuesday 1:00 to noon and Wednesday 2:30 to 3:30 or by appointment
Instructor's Assistant:	Rosemary Adessa, rosemary@cs.cornell.edu, Upson 5147, 255-9555
Teaching Assistant 1:	Kamen Yotov, kyotov@cs.cornell.edu, Upson 5142, 255-1165
Teaching Assistant 2:	Yukiko Yamashita, yukiko@cs.cornell.edu
Teaching Assistant 3:	Xiaozheng Zhong, xz30@cornell.edu

To communicate with the course team, please send email to the entire team: 

        cs430@cs.cornell.edu

Course Structure

• The course consists of:
      2 lectures per week
      1 discussion class per week
          readings before each discussion class
      4 homework assignments
      mid-term examination
      final examination

• Readings will be assigned to prepare for the discussion classes.  Contribution to the discussion classes is one of the factors that will be used to determine the final grade.

Text Book

William B. Frakes and Ricardo Baeza-Yates, Information Retrieval Data Structures and Algorithms.  Prentice Hall, 1992.

Assumed Background

• This is not a programming class, but requires a moderate level of maturity in understanding computer systems and architecture, such as CS211 (or equivalent). 

Nomadic Computing Experiment

• As part of an experiment in nomadic computing, everybody will be provided with a laptop computer with wireless modem.  

• Unix and NT computers with appropriate software are available in the Computer Science Undergraduate Lab, Upson Hall Room 315/317. MEng students may also use the MEng computing lab.

Assignments and Grading

The course grade will be based on course assignments, participation in the discussion classes, and the examinations (mid-term and final).  All assignments are individual assignments. The weightings given to these components are expected to be as follows, but these weightings may be changed:

Individual assignments	33%
Class participation	33%
Examinations	33%

(wya@cs.cornell.edu)
Last changed: February 13, 2001