CSIS 3400 – 070: Natural Language Processing

SEMESTER: Fall 2024 INSTRUCTOR: Ivan Wong

COURSE TIME: Saturday 09:00 – 11:50 ROOM: N5107

EMAIL: [email protected] TELEPHONE: -

OFFICE HOURS: Saturday 12:00 – 12:30 LOCATION: N4335B

*All times shown are in Pacific Standard Time (PST)

PREREQUISITES
• Min grade C in CSIS 1175
• Students are expected to have mastered the knowledge in the prerequisites courses.

COURSE MATERIALS REQUIRED

Required and Recommended list of textbooks/materials/resources:

Text: Sowmya Vajjala, Bodhisattwa Majumder, Anuj Gupta and Harshit Surana, Practical
Natural Language Processing: A Comprehensive Guide to Building Real-World NLP
Systems, 2020, ISBN 1492054054.

Steven Bird, Ewan Klein, and Edward Loper, Natural Language Processing with
Python – Analyzing Text with the Natural Language Toolkit, 2020,
https://www.nltk.org/book/

COURSE SPECIFIC TECHNICAL REQUIREMENTS

• Anaconda (with Jupyter and all needed libraries such as nltk)
• Python 3.X.X

CALENDAR COURSE DESCRIPTION

This course teaches the theories and hands-on skills for natural language processing (NLP).
Students will learn how to collect, process, and analyze natural language data or text data
using various algorithms and automatic approaches. Students will have hands-on practice
writing programs to build different NLP related applications.

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COURSE OBJECTIVES
At the end of this course, successful students will be able to:

1. Demonstrate different NLP concepts like corpora, tokens, N-grams, grammar, etc.
2. Model different forms of NLP data using appropriate representation methods.
3. Apply suitable methods to solve different NLP problems including Part-of-speech (POS)
tagging, chunking, Named-Entity recognition (NER), text categorization, etc.
4. Create a program for solving a particular NLP task.
5. Evaluate different NLP systems with appropriate metrics.
6. Apply deep learning methods to train NLP models.
7. Create NLP-related applications such as chatbot, sentiment analysis, recommender
systems, etc.

METHODS OF INSTRUCTION:
Lecture, Lab, Seminar

MEANS OF ASSESSMENT:

Lab 10%

Projects 15%

Quizzes 10%

Midterm 30%

Final 35%

TOTAL 100%

Notes:
• If you miss more than 30% of the scheduled classes, you will receive UN Grade for your course
grade.
• In order to pass the course, students must, in addition to receiving an overall course grade of
50%, also achieve a grade of at least 50% on the combined weighted examination components
(including quizzes, tests, exams).
• To receive a non-zero grade in the course, a student must attempt and hand in for marking at
least 70% of the assignments, examinations and quizzes. Work not handed in, or handed in too
late for marking, will automatically receive a zero.
• You must take the FINAL EXAM in order to get a grade; OTHERWISE you will receive an
automatic “UN” grade for the course. Please do not make any travel arrangement until you have
found out the exam dates and are sure that you do not have any time conflict with the exams.
• The student’s achievement will be converted to a letter grade, in accordance with department
policy.

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GRADING POLICY:
Numerical Numerical
Grade Achievement Level Grade Achievement Level
Value Value
A+ 4.33 90% to 100%
A 4.00 85% to 89% Students completed less
than 70% of the total
A- 3.67 80% to 84% evaluation of the course
B+ 3.33 77% to 79% or missed more than
UN 0.00` 30% of the class where
B 3.00 73% to 76% the instructor’s Course
B- 2.67 70% to 72% Outline specifies that
attendance is a course
C+ 2.33 65% to 69% requirement.
C 2.00 60% to 64%
C- 1.67 55% to 59%
D 1.00 50% to 54% Does not include GPA
W N/A
F 0.00 49% and below calculation

REGULATIONS FOR STUDENTS:

LATE ASSIGNMENTS: Late assignments/labs will not be graded and receive an automatic zero mark
except for extraordinary circumstances or prior arrangements with the instructor. Students are
encouraged to keep extra copies (i.e., photocopies or file backups) of their assignments in case of
data loss in the digital world.

MISSED TESTS OR FINAL EXAMINATION: Student will receive a zero mark for any missed test(s).
Exceptions may be considered in cases of extraordinary circumstances such as accidents, deaths in
the family, family emergencies’ including sick children. It is the responsibility of the student to inform
the College and/or the instructor at the earliest reasonable opportunity. Notification of the possibility of
missing the test or exam must be done prior to the test or exam date/time and based on the
instructor's preference might require supportive documentation where applicable.

CLASSROOM CIVILITY AND SHARED RESPONSIBILITY:

STUDENT CONDUCT: Any student who displays disruptive or dangerous behavior will be asked to
leave the classroom/lab by the instructor. Such behavior will be classified as misconduct. Reprimands
and appeals will be exercised according to the Douglas College Student Conduct policy.

TIMELINESS: Students are expected to be in class at the start of class. Any late student should enter
the session and try to not interrupt the flow of class activity as per Douglas College Student Conduct
policy.

CLASS CANCELLATION: If a class is cancelled due to unforeseen circumstances, a notification will

be made through Blackboard to every student enrolled in the course. It is the responsibility of
students to be proactive and to check their announcements and/or e-mail before coming to class.
Every effort will be made to ensure that the notification is made as soon as possible.

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ILLNESS AND OTHER UNAVOIDABLE CIRCUMSTANCES: Except in extraordinary circumstances,
quizzes, tests, exam and assignment deadlines must be adhered too. If unable to attend or submit,
advance notice must be provided via email at your earliest opportunity. On the email include
- Course and section number (e.g., CSIS1190-006)
- Your name and student number (e.g., Student Number 212121212)
- Late assignment or missed quiz (e.g., Missed Term Test #1)
- Brief comment (e.g., Explanation of reasoning)
Without documentation such as a doctor’s letter, the instructor will discuss the most appropriate
course of action that will lead to fair evaluation of your overall learning in the course. Students must
use their Douglas College email account to communicate with the instructor and communication must
be in English.

PREPARATION, ATTENDANCE AND PARTICIPATION: Attendance will be taken on a regular basis.

The method of delivery includes classroom discussion and lab exercises; and students need to be
present to participate and to learn.

STUDENT EFFORT: In addition to the scheduled times for classes and labs, students are expected
to spend at least six hours a week on this course. If you are consistently spending more time
than this, consider speaking with your instructor or reaching out to the Accessibility Centre for
assistance.

This following schedule is tentative and subject to change, as per the College policy.
Please do not make any travel arrangements during the final examination period – final exam
scheduling is beyond the instructor’s control. Please see the Registrar’s office immediately with any
conflict(s).

READINGS ＆
WEEK # DATES WEEKLY TOPICS ASSIGNMENT
DUE DATES
Course Introduction
Week 01 Sep 07 1
NLP Overview

Week 02 Sep 14 Python Basic

Week 03 Sep 21 NLP Pipeline 2

Week 04 Sep 28 Text Representation 3

4
Week 05 Oct 05 Text Classification 1
Quiz #1 (5%)

4
Week 06 Oct 12 Text Classification 2
Lab #1 (5%)

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 5
Week 07 Oct 19 Information Extraction
Project #1 (5%)

Week 08 Oct 26 Mid-term Examination (30%)

Week 09 Nov 02 Chatbots 6

7
Week 10 Nov 09 Other Typical NLP Applications
Project #2 (5%)

8
Week 11 Nov 16 NLP in Social Media
Quiz #2 (5%)

9
Week 12 Nov 23 NLP in E-commerce
Lab #2 (5%)

Week 13 Nov 30 Advanced topics / Review Project #3 (5%)

Dec 6-15 FINAL EXAMINATION PERIOD

LINKS TO IMPORTANT INFORMATION AVAILABLE ON COLLEGE WEBSITE:

1. Minimum technical requirements for taking courses online at Douglas College

2. Technical support information for students on the College website
3. Academic Integrity Policy (Douglas College Educational Policy)
Plagiarism and Cheating:
The use and/or reference of any/all websites (e.g. coursehero.com or similar) which host copies
of Douglas College course work assessments such as but not limited to Quizzes, assignments,
midterms, labs, exams, practical work, etc. constitutes plagiarism.
4. Course transferability
5. COVID-19 safety and guidance
6. Dates and Deadlines
7. Bookstore
8. Accessibility Services – Carrie Keen for CBA Students
9. Library

!!!*** WISH YOU ALL THE VERY BEST FOR THIS COURSE ***!!!

CSIS 3400 – 070 – Fall 2024 Ivan Wong – [email protected] Page 5