HON 111.1 - Fall 2014 - Syllabus

Honors Topics Seminar - Computers playing Jeopardy!

http://www.cs.stonybrook.edu/~pfodor/courses/hon111.html

Course Objectives and Description

Honors topics course: these courses, which use alternative learning modes, are intended to enrich the Honors College experience by introducing students to specific aspects of community, academic, and creative life at the University, on Long Island, and in the New York metropolitan region. Past topics have included: the lives of scientists; current events; Long Island ecology; contemporary art; musical performance at Stony Brook; the language of dance; immigration; cultural diversity; entrepreneurship. Each course culminates in the writing of a short, substantive paper. May be repeated as the topic changes.

This Computers playing Jeopardy! class is about the IBM Watson project. IBM Watson is a computer system capable of answering rich natural language questions and estimating its confidence in those answers at a level of the best humans at the task. On Feb 14-16, 2011, in an televised event, Watson triumphed over the best human players of all time on the American quiz show, Jeopardy!. In this course we will discuss the main principles of natural language processing, computer representation of knowledge and discuss how Watson solved some of its answers (right and wrong).

Prerequisite: Acceptance into the Honors College

Staff

Instructor: Dr. Paul Fodor
1437 Computer Science Department, Stony Brook University
Office hours: Wednesdays&Fridays 9:00AM-10:30AM and By Appointment
Phone: (631) 632-9820
Email: pfodor (at) cs (dot) stonybrook (dot) edu

Class Time/Place

• Lectures: Mondays 9:00AM - 10:50AM, 7-week option, Computer Science Building 2116.

Learning Objectives 

• Provide a conceptual understanding of how IBM Watson software system works.
• Introduce the students to important natural language processing techniques such as parsers, question analysis, and text search.
• Improve critical thinking by developing evaluative, problem-solving, and expressive skills.
• Enhance group communication skills through discussions, small-group work, presentations or debates.
• Develop intellectual curiosity and better understand the role of a student in an academic community.

Course Outcomes

• Demonstrate knowledge and understanding of a conceptual understanding of how IBM Watson software system works.
• Demonstrate knowledge and understanding of important natural language processing techniques such as parsers, question analysis, and text search.

Textbook

• Jurafsky, D. and Martin, J. H. Speech and Language Processing. Prentice Hall. 2000. ISBN: 0130950696.
• Manning, C. D. and Schütze, H. Foundations of Statistical Natural Language Processing. The MIT Press. 1999. ISBN 0262133601.

Grading Schema

Students will be evaluated on the basis of homework and lab work, participation in discussion of lecture materials, and interaction with faculty and other students.  Because of the variety of offerings, it is not possible to specify precise breakdowns of the value of each type for all sections. The grades are posted on Blackboard: http://blackboard.stonybrook.edu.

COURSE REQUIREMENTS:

1.  Class Participation (20% of the final grade): Students are expected to contribute their own ideas and to ask questions during class.

2.  Class Attendance (20% of the final grade):  Students are expected to attend all of the class sessions for the First-Year Seminar. More than 2 absences will result in an unsatisfactory grade.

3. Assignments (60% of the final grade): there will be short homework survey and presentation, and class assignments.

4. Required Reading: before each class there will be required reading relevant to that class.

Americans with Disabilities Act

Academic Integrity

Critical Incident Management