Andreas Weigend
Stanford University
Stat 252 and MS&E 238
Class time Spring 2007: Monday 3-6 pm
Class location Spring 2007: Gates B3

 

 

Data Mining and Electronic Business


This course is about People and Data: Measuring behavior on the web, in communication patterns, in social networks, on dating sites. Mining the data, building predictive models, creating (and discarding) hypotheses, designing cool experiments, and learning from them quickly. And figuring out what is similar and what is very different from before, and why.

We will discuss the impact this communication and data revolution is having on individuals, business, and society, essentially to most aspects of the world we live in. Applications range from online marketing (behavioral targeting and situational targeting) to architectures leveraging collective intelligence. We are also fortunate to have some great guest speakers come to class. Previous years are on the web (2005, 2004), and this year's is current on the course wiki.

Students are expected to actively engage in class and discuss, to have their assumptions challenged, and to bring their various backgrounds to class to make it a great experience for themselves and everybody else in class.

Schedule : We meet once a week, on Monday afternoons for 3 hours each (Apr 9, 16, 23, 30, May 7, 14, 21, June 4, and once during exam week). The purpose is to make it really easy for everybody to physically come to class and participate. This is a lot more fun than just watching it on the internet, and you learn a lot more. Note that this explicitly includes SCPD students who only signed up for remote access, just don't tell anyone :)

Course wiki : All registered students have full read/write access to aweigend.wiskispaces.com. I encourage you to really actively contribute -- the class and you will benefit.

Grading : The main goal is that you to get insights and ideas in the area of People and Data, and to transfer the knowledge and come of with applications in your area of interest. To support this objective, the following elements enter your final grade:

  • Wiki: We will form 8 groups, each with around 5 students. Each group is responsible to create the initial wikipage for one of the classes by Friday 6pm (i.e., 4 days after class). [30%]

  • Homeworks: There will be weekly assignments. The first 3 focus on hands-on experience with data (looking at web logs, using APIs, running an online advertising campaign), the remaining ones focus on the readings and coencepts. Homeworks are due Sunday at 5pm, i.e.,the day before the subsequent class, such that we can briefly discuss it during class. [50%]

  • Class participation [20%]

  • Project: If you have a good and solid idea for an interesting project, I am happy to give feedback and jointly decide on whether it makes sense to do the project. I encourage projects in small groups. [optional]

I am also able to create interships at some of the companies I advise, including summer abroad in Bangkok (Agoda, online travel), Cologne (Imageloop, onlide slideshows), as well as possibly China and Singapore.

Readings:

Teaching Assistants:

  • Rudy Angeles
    Room 237 Sequoia Hall
    rangeles@stanford.edu
    (650) 725-5953

  • Zehao Chen
    Room 204 Sequoia Hall
    zhchen@stanford.edu
    (650) 725-5976

Note: The previous version of this page (addressing students considering taking the course) is here.

http://www.weigend.com/Teaching/Stanford/index.html
by | +1 (917) 697-3800 | www.weigend.com