A. The Course
Title
: Artificial Intelligence
Course no : CSC-3309/5309
Class hours :
Room : 5/105
Term : Spring 2008
B. The Professor
Name
: Dr. Driss Kettani
E-mail
: D.Kettani@aui.ma
Office Hours : TBA
Room : no. 102, Bldg. 9
Phone : 2178
C. Description
This course aims at introducing Artificial Intelligence (AI) theory, practices and tools to grad and
undergraduate students. It comprises two parts. The first focuses on the basics of AI such as AI
theory and definitions, AI programming, applications and tools, Problem solving, etc. The second
introduces advanced topics such as Natural language processing, Knowledge base systems, Learning,
etc. This last part heavily relies on students participation.
D. ILOs
Students successfully completing the course will:
1. master and know how to apply logics for logical reasoning;
2. be initiated to problem reduction, problem solving and knowledge representation;
3. be able to develop a medium difficulty AI application using Prolog as a programming
language;
4. master and know how to apply search techniques;
5. understand the inference principles and techniques;
6. be initiated to natural language processing;
7. know the context, application and architectural issues of expert/knowledge-based systems.
E. Program
Topic(s)
Relative importance for
Undergrad. students
Relative importance
for Graduate students
Introduction to AI
Normal
Normal
Problem reduction and
problem solving
Normal
Normal
Expert systems and
Knowledge
based
systems
Normal
Normal
Knowledge
Normal
Normal
representation
Logics
for
reasoning
logical
Important
Normal
AI programming using
Prolog
Important
Low
Search techniques
Normal
Important
Inference principles and
techniques
Normal
Important
Natural
processing
Normal
Important
Normal
Important
NA
Important
language
Project
Demo
Presentation
and
AI topics presentation
projects presentations
F. Pedagogic Methodology
1- Achieving the course's aim
The professor will present the course material in a variety of ways such as lectures, concrete
examples, assignments, papers from the literature and finally, reviews of projects. It is the student’s
responsibility to keep up with the course material and to ask questions when concepts are unclear.
Students are strongly encouraged to look for assistance whenever it is needed. They can ask
their questions during the course, during the office hours or on appointment in my office.
2- Project
Students will have to build a medium to high complexity AI system. Typical projects would be a
natural language processing system, a classification system, a planning system, Applied software
agents, etc. Ideally, these systems must be built in a close cooperation with a real customer. The
project must be approved by the professor not later than the 4th class week.
3- Exams
For each exam, you will have the right to have one personal help sheet of paper under the following
rules:
 The size of the help paper MUST BE A4;
 The help paper must be typed (no hand written paper);
 You must use the Times 12 font;
 You may print on both sides of the paper or use two separate pages.
No academic material is allowed during exams and nothing could be shared.
2
4- Quizzes and participation (only for undergraduate students)
These quizzes will test the theoretical understanding of chapters covered so far. We will have two
forms of quizzes:
Participation: will usually take place at the beginning of the lectures in the form of oral
questions and will concern only a small group of students (3 maximum). These students will
be asked, individually, questions related to mandatory readings or about the content of the
last lecture.
Quizzes of 15 to 30min for the whole class.
The quizzes are not announced.
5- Summaries/Presentations (only for Grad. students)
Each graduate student is required to select 2 topics among those mentioned in the tentative schedule
section. For each topic, the student must identify at least 3 other papers related to the same subject
chosen from the open literature and then submit (by email) the topic and the related bibliography to
the instructor for approval and advising.
In case of approval, the student must:
1. summarize, criticize and give his own opinion with regard to these papers (at least 6
pages, single line spacing);
2. present it in 20min, and
3. answer to the audience questions during the 10min that follow the presentation.
Generally, it takes at least 2 weeks to go thru this process. Students are required to remit their
summary to the instructor three days before the presentation. It is the student’s responsibility to
choose summary/presentation topics and to make sure that he will have performed at least one
summary/presentation before the midterm exam.
G. Assessment
For Undergraduate students
- Project:
- Exams
- Midterm
- Final
- Quizzes
- Participation
For Graduate students
20%
30%
35%
10%
5%
- Project:
- Exams
- Midterm
- Final
30%
- Presentations
15%
25%
30%
H. Reference
Artificial Intelligence: a Modern Approach, by Stuart Russel, Peter Norvig, Prentice-Hall.
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