FAQ

What are the differences between ci6124 vs h6677 vs k6125?

I really don't know. Why are there 3 very similar graduate courses? In this case, it all boils down to the preferences/styles of individual instructors.

You should sit in both courses to get a feel of which style is more suitable to you.

For instance, the combined course of h6677/k6125 is taught by professor Christopher Khoo, a well known data mining expert.

Professor Khoo's course includes regular lab sessions, which means you get a chance to play with some data-mining software. My course has 3 planned lab sessions in lieu of lectures. You will be using SAS Enterprise Miner in the CAIS (N4-b3c-14) lab.

All 3 courses use the same textbook (tan/steinbach/kumar), coincidentally. My slides are largely based on the textbook material.

My personal preference is to stress more on the theoretical foundations and mathematics whenever it makes sense to show the equations.

By the way, I will be giving out 10 quizzes at the end of the lectures to test you on the simpler concepts taught on the same day. Which means the quiz has to be really easy and straight forward since you are not given time to prepare.

Prerequisites: College Calculus, College Probability

What if I miss a quiz?

There will be about 10 quizzes altogether. If you miss a quiz, no need to email me, since I will take your top 8 quiz scores. That is, you can skip 2 quizzes without any penalty.

What if you miss 3 quizzes? Well, if you are mature enough to skip 3 quizzes, I believe you should be mature enough to take the hit in terms of reducing your average quiz scores.

Can you test on the previous week's content instead?

As it stands currently, each quiz will be relatively straightforward and towards the simpler side. The idea of the quiz is actually to test your basic understanding of the simpler concepts covered on that day.

In other words, I have to make sure that I can do it myself if I had attended the lecture on the spot, which means it has to be pretty simple, as I am one of the most intellectually challenged persons in Singapore.

Immediately after the quiz, I will review it with the class, that way, you will not have any baggage to study for it at home. Although, you will have

• some pressure to stay attentive during lecture, and
• for the kiasu/paranoid ones, to go over the lecture material before class.

Both of which are actually beneficial to you.

Also, make sure you understand every topic covered, and ask questions on the spot. That is also one of the chief motivation for having a quiz.

There will be 10 quizzes altogether. If I set the quiz to be one week later, than it will have to be significantly harder, and you would have to spend significant amount of time to prepare and practice each week . Would you rather prefer that? Some students may have more time to prepare, while some students have less time due to family commitments. So it appears that the current practice is the least taxing on the students.

Can you make lecture slides available before class?

I will try to make that happen. Current record is 40 hours before lecture. I will improve on that.

Being a brand new course (for me), I have to make adjustments along the way. So unfortunately, you cannot buy a nicely binded version of the lecture notes. You could, on the other hand, download the lecture slides for the textbook.

Will there be quizzes for the 3 Labs?

Probably for Lab 2, there will be a quiz, whereby you will be asked to complete a problem using SAS, and email your solution to me.

I have some questions, how can I meet you?

You can just give me a call 6790-4293 and ask me over the phone, or initiate a web video conference chat

• zhangguiyu at hotmail.com
• zhangguiyu at skype
• zhangguiyu at yahoo.com

and we can use a whiteboard type of tool and see face-to-face.

You can also call me up to arrange a physical meeting. I am normally available from 10 - 5 pm. Check my timetable before you come by, please also see faq on meeting me.

What are the subtopics covered in the notes but not in the exams?

This is clearly a trick question rephrasing "What will not be covered in the exam". Thus I am unable to answer it.

Everything I covered in the lecture in details is fair game. Things that I did not cover too much in details are latter parts of the final lecture. If you attended the lecture you would know, please do not ask me what/which. Topics covered in the quizzes naturally have a higher probability of re-appearing in some form in the exam, as I have alluded to many times.