CMPSCI 446 is an undergraduate-level course in search engines and in Information Retrieval, the the science and engineering of indexing, organizing, searching, and making sense of unstructured or mostly unstructured information, particularly text. The class provides an overview of the important issues in information retrieval, and how those issues affect the design and implementation of search engines. The course emphasizes the technology used in Web search engines, and the information retrieval theories and concepts that underlie all search applications. Mathematical experience (as provided by CMPSCI 240) is required. You should also be able to program in Java (or some other closely related language).
For Spring 2019, cs446 is using the University Moodle system. Most of the information on this page is repeated in the class' Moodle site (which will not be available until the start of the semester). Your UMass userid and password will be required for access.
If enrollment in the class reaches the capacity of the classroom but you are interested in taking the class, you may use the Spire waitlist to try to obtain a seat. If you are unable to register because you require an override, you may request an override using the on-line overrides form. You will receive an acknowledgement message that indicates when you will be notified of a decision. These decisions are incredibly complex and involve lots of moving targets, so it may take a while before one is made.
The course will meet for two lectures a week: Tuesday and Thursday mornings, 8:30-9:45am, HASA 134
The following text is required for this course.
Your grade in this class will be based upon homeworks, projects, a midterm exam, and a final.
You may discuss the ideas behind assignments with others. You may ask for help understanding class and search engine concepts. You may study with friends. However...
The work that you submit must be your own. It may not be copied from the web, from another student in the class, or from anyone else. If you stumble upon and use a solution from the textbook or from class, you are expected to acknowledge the source of the work (for example, "// The following way of solving this problem is on page 215 of the textbook").
Your effort on exams (midterms or final) must be your own.
Your homework submissions must be your own work and not in collaboration with anyone.
Your project work must be your own work and not a copy of someone else's work, nor done in collaboration with anyone.