Course Information
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CS 232
Course Information |
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| Instructor: | Ellen Hildreth |
| Office: | SCI E112 |
| Phone: | x3025 |
| e-mail: | ehildreth@wellesley.edu |
| Office Hours: |
I will generally be available at the following times: Tuesday, Friday: 12:30-1:45 Wednesday: 11:00-2:00 Thursday: 10:00-1:45 The hours for a particular week may change, due to meetings, seminars, etc., so I will keep you posted about office hours each week. Appointments can also be made at other times. |
As expressed by Patrick Winston in his book, Artificial Intelligence, "Artificial Intelligence is the study of the computations that make it possible to perceive, reason and act." Winston further notes that the field of AI has two main goals:
The objectives for this course are to understand some of the exciting central problems being addressed by researchers in the field of AI, and to learn some of the technical tools that are used to tackle these problems. Topics include knowledge representation, problem solving and search, expert systems, planning, natural language understanding, common-sense reasoning, and learning. You will learn the programming language Common LISP to understand how AI systems are implemented.
The prerequisite for this course is CS230 Data Structures or Permission of Instructor.
There are two 70-minute lectures each week that meet on Tuesday and Friday at 11:10-12:20 in E211. In addition, students must register for and attend a weekly laboratory section that will be held either in the CS department Linux Lab (at the far end of the Mini Focus) or in Room SCI 121B. In the current schedule, there are two 70-minute laboratory sections on Wednesday to choose from, at 9:50-11:00 and 2:15-3:25. During the first week of the semester, we will arrange one or two lab times that accommodate everyone's schedule.
There will be no official textbook for CS232 this semester. Instead, I will provide textbook excerpts and articles that present background on AI methods and applications, some of which will be available online. Much of the background material will be drawn from the following books:
Artificial Intelligence (3rd edition), by Patrick Winston
Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach (2nd edition) by Stuart Russell and
Peter Norvig
Introduction to Expert Systems (3rd edition), by Peter Jackson
Natural Language Understanding (2nd edition), by James Allen
LISP (3rd edition), by Patrick Winston and Berthold Horn
There will be regular assignments that involve a combination of writing or modifying Common LISP programs, applying existing software, solving problems on paper, and writing short analyses. Each assignment will include computer exercises that you will work on during the Lab classes. Assignment handouts will be posted on the course schedule. Formal solutions will be distributed no later than one week after the due date.
Assignments are due in class on the advertised due date, which will usually be a Friday. An assignment due on a particular day will be accepted until 5:00pm on that day without penalty. After the due date, the assignment can still be submitted, but will lose 20% credit for each calendar day after the due date. In extenuating circumstances (e.g. sickness, personal crisis, family problems), you may request an extension without penalty. Please try to contact me before the due date. If I hand out solutions before you turn in a late assignment, you are bound by the honor code not to examine these solutions.
I believe that collaboration fosters a healthy and enjoyable educational environment, and encourage you to talk with other students about the course material and to form study groups. Unless otherwise instructed, you may discuss assignment problems with other students and exchange ideas about how to solve them. However, there is a thin line between collaboration and plagiarizing the work of others. Therefore, you must write up your own solution to each assignment problem. In particular, while you may discuss strategies for approaching problems with your classmates and may receive debugging help from them, you are required to write all of your own code and to write your own problem solutions. It is unacceptable to (1) write a program or problem solution together with another student and turn in two copies of the same solution or (2) copy code or a problem solution from a classmate.
There will be two take-home exams, both open book and open notes:
Please mark these dates in your calendar, and let me know as soon as possible if you have a scheduling conflict.
There will be no final exam in this course. There will instead be a final paper that is due at the end of the Final Exam period.
During the last few weeks of the semester, you will have the opportunity to explore an area of AI that is of special interest to you. This study can involve a deeper investigation of a topic that is already introduced in the course, or exploration of a new topic area that is not discussed in class. Your work should include reading one or more technical articles on some theory, technique or application area. This project could also involve work with Common LISP software, either implementing something from scratch or modifying and testing existing software. You are required to write an 8-10 page paper on your topic of investigation that will be due on the last day of the final exam period, December 21. During the last two classes of the semester, each of you will share the results of your investigation with the class through a 10-15 minute oral presentation. A description of the final project and suggestions for topics can be found here.
The course grade will be computed as follows:
| Class participation and preparation | 5% |
| Assignments | 40% |
| Exam 1 | 20% |
| Exam 2 | 20% |
| Final Paper | 15% |
All submitted work will be counted toward your final grade.
The class conference on FirstClass is
"Wellesley Conferences/Courses/CS/CS232-F06". There are two folders
in the course conference: Announcements and Q&A. You
should check these folders regularly. In the Announcements folder, I will post important
announcements about assignments, changes to office hours, and CS department
events such as seminars and parties. You are encouraged to post questions or
comments in the Q&A folder that are of general interest to
students in the course. Feel free to respond to questions posted by other
students. I will also read this folder on a regular basis
and post answers to questions there. Please do not post messages with
significant amounts of Common LISP code on the course conference. Inquiries
involving extended code can be sent to me by direct e-mail.
Programming will be done using Common LISP on the CS department Linux workstations. The
CS232 course directory is located at /home/cs232 on
puma. This directory contains
material relevant to the class, including course software, in the
download subdirectory.
If you have any questions at all about the class (whether big or small, whether on lectures, labs, assignments, reading, or whatever) please contact me. That's what I'm here for! Simple questions can often be answered via the FirstClass conference Q&A folder or via e-mail. If you have a complex question or need help with understanding the material, please try to meet with me in person. The best time to see me is during my office hours listed at the top of this document. If these times are not convenient, we can schedule an appointment for some other time. You can schedule an appointment in person, via phone, or via e-mail. Finally, when looking for help, do not overlook other students. Get to know your classmates early in the semester so that you can help each other out!
If you have special needs of any kind, please meet with me to discuss accommodations that may be helpful to you.