Data mining education
What’s cookin’ ?
Maja Skrjanc
Introduction
Sol-Eu-Net
WP 4 – Dissemination/Education
Analysis of machine learning and decision support
courses
Overview about machine learning, data
mining and decision support courses
available on the web.
Resources
Solomon European Network - Data Mining and Decision
Support Courses (http://www.cs.bris.ac.uk/~ross/MLearnCourses.html)
MLnet (http://www.mlnet.org/cgibin/mlnetois.pl/?File=courses.html)
KDnuggets (http://www.kdnuggets.com/courses/index.html)
David W. Aha home page
(http://www.aic.nrl.navy.mil/~aha/research/ml/courses.html)
Decision support system resources
(http://dssresources.com/)
Classification
Intended audience:
computer science students,
 students from other areas
 managers (CEOs) and IT professionals
(data analysts)

CS courses characteristics
A review of data mining techniques, including decision trees,
rule based learning, neural networks, inductive logic
programming.
Most web sites contain links to assigned reading materials,
some of them available online as textbooks. Various courses
have also links to required readings, usually very recent papers,
which cover primarily newer topics like text and web mining.
United States vs. Europe:
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novel, popular topics
Interdisciplinary area: statistics, data warehousing, complexity
analysis, data visualization, privacy and security issues
Orientation towards real world problems
CS courses - examples
Masters program in knowledge discovery and data mining in CALD
Center (Center for Automated Learning and Discovery) at Carnegie
Mellon University (http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~cald/about.html)
MSc in machine learning at University of Bristol
(http://www.cs.bris.ac.uk/Teaching/MachineLearning/ )
Principles of Knowledge Discovery in Databases, Department of
Computing Science, University of Alberta,
(http://www.cs.ualberta.ca/~zaiane/courses/cmput690/index.html)
Web data mining; Computer Science, Telecommunications, and
Information Technology, DePaul University
(http://maya.cs.depaul.edu/~mobasher/classes/cs589/syllabus.html)
Ullman’s course on Data mining at Stanford University:
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Exam (http://www-db.stanford.edu/~ullman/mining/final.html)
Lecture notes (http://hake.stanford.edu/~ullman/mining/mining.html)
Non-CS courses characteristics
Hard to get materials, different keywords
(DSS, DM, DA)
Some courses are the same as CS students
courses
More domain driven
Non-CS courses
examples
Graduate Certificate Program in Data Warehousing and Business
Intelligence at the Center for Information Management &
Technology at Loyola University
(http://gsb.luc.edu/centers/cimt/certificate/dwcert1.html)
Department of Medical Informatics ,Health Sciences campus of
Columbia University
(http://www.cpmc.columbia.edu/edu/degree/curriculum.html)
The graduate school in computational Biology, Bioinformatics,
and Biometry (ComBi)
(http://www.cs.helsinki.fi/research/hallinto/TOIMINTARAPORTIT/1
999/report99/node4.html#SECTION00041200000000000000)
On-line tutorials
Data Mining: Theory and Practice, Yike Guo, Department of
Computing, Imperial College, UK
(http://ruby.doc.ic.ac.uk/teaching/km99/)
Basic concepts of data mining, basic data mining techniques, data
mining procedure in real world applications, future research
trends, data warehouse and decision support.
Kurt Thearling, Development Wheelhouse Corporation Burlington,
MA (http://www3.shore.net/~kht/text/dmwhite/dmwhite.shtml )
Introduction to data mining, presentation of data mining
techniques, real world examples.
IT professionals and
executives courses characteristics
Customized for target audience, case studies
Different approaches
Mostly held in the USA
Some of them are vendor independant
Usual duration 1-3 days
Themes: introductory DM seminars, tools,
cross-selling, CRM, e-commerce, DSS: DW,
basic statistics, Excel pivot tables,..
IT professionals courses
- examples
SAS seminars (http://www.sas.com/service/edu/bks/index.html)
SPSS Integral Solutions Limited,
(http://www.spss.com/training/descriptions.cfm)
Vendor independant
DCI (http://www.dci.com/events/datamin1/)
The Modeling Agency, The Woodlands, Texas (http://www.themodeling-agency.com/training/index.html)
General review of the
current situation
On-line materials, recent papers
Exercises, projects not only theoretical, but also
practical
Including DW, statistics
Combine DA techn. with special areas of application,
like marketing (web-marketing, e-marketing),
business intelligence, public policy, security issues..
Raise awareness in business world at different levels
(managers, data analysists, IT professionals,..)
USA vs. Europe
WP4: Development and
organization of seminars, training
and distance learning I
Participants: IJS, GMD, BRI
WP4 coordinator: Tanja Urbančič
Objectives:

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Increase awareness of DM and DS (potential clients)
Provide seminars and workshops (internal, for open market,
customized for clients)
Provide a tool for supporting distance learning activities
WP4: Development and
organization of seminars, training
and distance learning II
Repository of Educational Modules (prepared
by IJS)
 questionnaire for project partners (20 questions, el. form)
 12 proposals from 5 institutions (88 hours of program)
 6 can be costumized, 7 have web material
 method-centred and application-centred, basic and
advanced
Info about available related courses
by BRI)
 67 courses, academic and commercial
 20 European, 37 US, 10 other
(collected
DALS and AED
DALS seminar (international)
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Data analysis in life sciences, May 2000, organized by IJS
2 days (1day methods, 1 day cases) 2 days (1day methods,
1 day cases)
5 lecturers from Slovenia and UK
18 attendees from Slovenia and Germany
AED seminar (international)
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Analysis of ecological data, December 2000, organized by
IJS
4 days (5 for graduate students of PNG)
4 lecturers from Slovenia
27 participants from 9 countries (Slovenia, Belgium, Bosnia
and Herzegovina, Croatia, France, Italy, The Netherlands,
Poland, Slovak Republic)