Postgraduate taught 

Data Science MSc

Information Retrieval (M) COMPSCI5011

  • Academic Session: 2024-25
  • School: School of Computing Science
  • Credits: 10
  • Level: Level 5 (SCQF level 11)
  • Typically Offered: Semester 2
  • Available to Visiting Students: No
  • Collaborative Online International Learning: No

Short Description

To present students with an in-depth examination of the theoretical and practical issues involved in providing tools to access large collections of documents, especially in the context of the World Wide Web.

To present students with the practical engineering issues raised by the design and implementation of an information retrieval system.

Timetable

TBC

Excluded Courses

None

Co-requisites

None

Assessment

Exam 80%, coursework 20%.

Main Assessment In: April/May

Course Aims

To present students with an in-depth examination of the theoretical and practical issues involved in providing tools to access large collections of documents, especially in the context of the World Wide Web.

To present students with the practical engineering issues raised by the design and implementation of an information retrieval system.

Intended Learning Outcomes of Course

By the end of the course students will be able to:

1. Implement a standard information retrieval (IR) system;

2. Discuss the theoretical basis behind the standard models of IR (e.g. Boolean, Vector-space, and Probabilistic models);

3. Discuss how an IR system should be evaluated in terms of the system's performance and the user's satisfaction with the system;

4. Understand the concepts behind the different retrieval models including advanced machine learning models such as learning to rank;

5. Understand the techniques involved in retrieving information from the World Wide Web;

6. Describe the practical engineering issues raised by the implementation of a search engine for the Web;

7. Understand techniques and architectures necessary to speed up the retrieval process for large-scale IR systems.

Minimum Requirement for Award of Credits

Students must submit at least 75% by weight of the components (including class tests) of the course's summative assessment.