Natural Language Processing
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Introduction to Natural Language Processing

CMPSCI 585 — Fall 2007

Instructor: Andrew McCallum <mccallum@cs.umass.edu> CS Rm 244, Office hours: Tue 4pm.
TAs: David Mimno <mimno@cs.umass.edu> CS Rm 264, Office hours: Tue 4-5pm, Wed 9:30-10:30am,
and Karl Schultz <kschultz@cs.umass.edu> CS Rm 264, Office hours: Wed 5-6pm, Thu 4:30-5:30pm.
Assistant: Khasha Rohanemanesh <khash@cs.umass.edu> CS Rm 264, Office hours, TBD.

Welcome! This course is designed to introduce both computer science students and linguistics students to the exciting and intertwined topics of (1) using computational and statistical methods to give insight into observed human language phenomena, and (2) making computers perform various useful tasks with human languages. See the full course description and syllabus.

This elective is aimed at CS undergraduates, and Linguistics graduate and undergraduate students. Programming will be involved, but it is possible for linguistics students to begin this course with little programming experience, since there will be extensive TA and collaborative support for those new to programming, so that you can focus on the course content.

The first half of the course will teach the basic concepts of Natural Language Processing, with hands-on exercises to reinforce the lessons (short homework assignments). Students will also be able to use these exercise to explore their own interests on different data. The second half of the course will be structured more like a "topics seminar," including some high-level views of advanced methods. Meanwhile, the hands-on homework assignments will cease in the last third of the course, and be replaced by work on a project, performed in small teams, on a topic selected by the team members.

Prerequisites: CMPSCI 287, or LINGUIST 401, or graduate student standing in Linguistics, or permission of the instructor.
Credits: 3 units.

News

The first class will be Tuesday, September 4, 2:30pm - 3:45pm in CS Rm 140. All interested students are welcome to attend! (How to get to CS Rm 140.)