Syllabus
Objectives |
Grading |
Policies |
Academic integrity |
Remarks
Main class objectives
This course will introduce the main technical aspects
of search engines, as well as some social and business
implications of their widespread use. Topics to be
covered will include:
- History of the Web and search engines
- Web crawling
- Indexing
- Vector Space Model
- Similarity measures
- Link analysis and PageRank
- Retrieval and ranking
- Performance analysis
- Search and query interfaces
- The Google and Yahoo APIs
- Breaking news about search engines
Additional topics may be covered based on student needs and
interests.
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Tentative grading
| Assignments |
40% |
| Project |
30% |
| Final Exam |
30% |
| Extra credit for outstanding participation
in class and online discussions |
0-5% |
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Class policy
- The main communication medium outside of class is the Oncourse discussion
board. Students are expected to post their questions on the board,
answer other students' questions, post pointers to relevant technology
news (do NOT copy and paste news articles!), and check the board daily
for announcements. Postings must be signed in order to get
participation credit. Email is to be used only for confidential matters.
- Students are responsible for making backups of all of their work! This
includes any assignment and other materials you produce.
- Students are responsible for the safe and ethical use of class
accounts on shared servers, according to university policy and
copyright law, and for the sole purpose of carrying out class assignments.
Accounts will be monitored and any abuse will be reflected in the grades.
- Students are responsible for assigned readings PRIOR to class
discussions.
- Students are expected to attend class in order to do well in the course.
- If you miss class, it is your responsibility to find out about any
announcements or assignments you may have missed.
- Late assignments will incur a penalty of 20%
within 24 hours of the deadline, 50% within 48 hours of the deadline, and no
partial or make-up credit will be available after that.
- Extenuating circumstances will normally include only serious
emergencies or illnesses documented with a doctor's note.
- Grades will be given out via Oncourse only.
- The instructor may take into account class trends
in the assignment of final grades, but only to increase grades.
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Academic integrity
The principles of academic honesty and professional ethics will be
vigorously enforced in this course, following the IU Code of Student
Rights, Responsibilities, and Conduct, the School
of Informatics Academic Regulations, and the CS Department
Statement on Academic Integrity.
This includes the usual standards on acknowledgment of help, contributions
and joint work, even when you are encouraged to build on libraries and
other software written by other people. Cases of academic misconduct
(including cheating, fabrication, plagiarism,
interference, or facilitating academic dishonesty) will be reported to the
Office of Student Ethics, a branch of the Office of the Dean of Students.
Your submission of work to be graded in this class implies acknowledgement
of this policy. If you need clarification or have any questions, please see
the instructor during office hours.
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Final remarks
We would like to hear from anyone who has a disability
that may require some modifications of seating, or other class requirements
so that appropriate arrangements can be made. Please see the instructor after
class or during office hours.
We would like to know early in the semester of any possible
conflicts between course requirements/deadlines and
religious holy days or holydays,
so that accommodations can be made. Please see the instructor after
class or during office hours.
We welcome feedback on the class organization, material,
lectures, assignments and exams. You can provide us with constructive
criticism via the discussion forum. Please share your comments and
suggestions so that we can improve the class.
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