CPTR 441 Introduction to Artificial Intelligence - Syllabus

January 9, 2006

 

Instructor:  Dr. Eileen M. Peluso, D307 Academic Center, Extension 4135

 

Email:  pelusoem@lycoming.edu

 

Office hours:  See www.lycoming.edu/~pelusoem

 

Objective:  Students will be introduced to key concepts and techniques of Artificial Intelligence (AI).  The core of the course provides students with a fundamental understanding of AI that will enable them to understand more advanced concepts they encounter in later courses and AI literature.  Topics include logic, inference, heuristic search, knowledge representation, natural language processing, planning, and genetic algorithms.

 

Text:  Russel and Norvig, Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach, 2/e, Pearson Education, 2003.

 

Grading: 

·         Programming Assignments (3 or 4): 40%

·         Exams (6 short exams, including the non-comprehensive final): 60%  (Tentative dates:  1/27, 2/10, 2/24, 3/17, 3/31, and final exam week)

 

Grade scale: If you earn the following average, you will receive at least the grade indicated.

·         90 or above           A-

·         80 – 89                    B-

·         70 – 79                    C-

·         60 – 69                    D-

·         59 or below            F

 

Attendance Policy:

Students are expected to attend class and to be on time.  Students are allowed 5 absences for the semester, for whatever reason.  After the 5th absence, points will be deducted from your semester average as follows:  For n total absences, you will lose 2(n-5).  Note that more than 10 absences will make it mathematically impossible to pass the course.

 

Attendance signature sheets will be circulated at the beginning of each class period.  It is the student's responsibility to make sure that they have signed the day's attendance sheet.  It is also the student's responsibility to obtain details about any missed work, announcements, and any information disseminated during the missed classes.

 

Remarks:

 

1.        Students will not be excused from exams unless

·         they are ill and have been to the infirmary or have seen a doctor, or

·         they have an emergency situation and have received exemption from the dean. 

It is wise to contact me before missing an exam. Any tests missed will result in a grade of zero unless arrangements for a make-up are made within 48 hours.

 

2.        Students are encouraged to work collaboratively on course work, including programming assignments. In fact, students taking computer science courses will be given priority access to lab A3 from the hours of 7-10 PM on Sunday through Thursday evenings. 

 

Discussions with other students about programming assignments are encouraged, however academic dishonesty is not allowed.  There is a fine line between the two.  Check if you are not sure that what you are doing is acceptable. However, as a general rule of thumb: The difference between sharing ideas and plagiarism will be determined by the instructor as follows: if you cannot discuss, expound upon, justify, and modify what you have written, then you have plagiarized.

 

NOTE: You should never have in your possession or have access to (in paper or electronic form) a copy of someone else's solution to a programming assignment.

 

3.        Programming assignments in this course are of significant size and may take a lot of time.  Don’t plan on finishing a programming assignment in a few sittings.  Instead, spread it out over a few weeks.  In fact, projects for this course will be structured so that credit will be given for proper program planning and development.  Programs that are developed and refined over a few iterations end up with much cleaner structures and are easier to understand.  

 

As with other writing assignments, a certain amount of the grading of programming assignments will be subjective.  The difference between a B and an A for a working program comes down to documentation (comments), code structure, and following an appropriate style of programming.