The following schedule is tentative and subject to change.

Date Topic Readings Assignments & Project
Aug 23 Introduction & Course Overview

Aug 25 Background & Basics (Probability) PDM Chapter 4.1-4.3, Appendix Assignment 1 out
Aug 30 Background & Basics (Linear algebra, sampling) PDM Chapter 4.7
Sep 1 Background & Basics (Statistical inference, hypothesis testing) PDM Chapter 4.4-4.6 Assignment 1 due (Sunday Sep 5, 11:59pm)
Sep 6 No class (Labor Day)
Sep 8 Elements of Data Mining Algorithm Project guideline out
Sep 13 Data Exploration and Visualization PDM Chapter 3
Sep 15 Predictive Modeling Overview PDM Chapter 6.1-6.3, 10.1-10.2
Sep 20 Predictive Modeling: Naive Bayes PDM Chapter 10.8
Sep 22 Predictive Modeling: Decision trees PDM Chapter 5.2, 10.5 Project proposal due (Sunday Sep 26 11:59pm)
Sep 27 Predictive Modeling: Nearest neighbor PDM Chapter 10.3, 10.6 Assignment 2 out
Sep 29 Predictive Modeling: Logistic regression PDM Chapter 10.7, 11.3
Oct 4 Predictive Modeling: SVM Assignment 2 due (Tuesday Oct 5, 11:59pm)
Oct 6 Predictive Modeling: Search & Optimization 1 PDM Chapter 8.1-8.3 Assignment 3 out
Oct 11 No class (October break)
Oct 13 Predictive Modeling: Search & Optimization 2
Oct 18 Predictive Modeling: Neural network PDM Chapter 11.4
Oct 20 Predictive Modeling: Evaluation PDM Chapter 10.10 Assignment 3 due (Sunday Oct 24 11:59pm)
Oct 25 No class (Online midterm exam)
Oct 27 Predictive Modeling: Wrap-up Project midterm report due (Sunday Oct 31 11:59pm)
Nov 1 Predictive Modeling: Ensembles (Bagging & Boosting) Assignment 4 out
Nov 3 Predictive Modeling: Ensembles (Boosting & Random forest)
Nov 8 Descriptive Modeling Overview
Nov 10 Descriptive Modeling: K-means & Hierarchical clustering PDM Chapter 9.3-9.5 Assignment 4 due (Sunday Nov 14 11:59pm)
Nov 15 Descriptive Modeling: GMM & Expectation maximization PDM Chapter 9.2, 9.6 Assignment 5 out
Nov 17 Descriptive Modeling: Evaluation
Nov 22 Pattern Mining PDM Chapter 13
Nov 24 No class (Thanksgiving break) Assignment 5 due (Sunday Nov 28 11:59pm)
Nov 29 No class (Project day)
Dec 1 Final project presentation (Session 1)
Dec 6 Final project presentation (Session 2)
Dec 8 Final project presentation (Session 3) Project final report due (Sunday Dec 12 11:59pm)