Admission requirements
It is recommended to have experience with programming in Python.
Description
AI-driven recommender systems have become integral to everyday decision-making, assisting users with choices from product purchases to movie selections and dining experiences. Powered by advanced AI algorithms and big data machine learning (ML), these systems analyze user behaviors, preferences, and product ratings to suggest personalized items or options.
This course provides an in-depth introduction to recommender systems, a key component in various online services such as e-commerce, social media, and content streaming platforms. Students will explore the theoretical foundations and practical applications of recommender systems, learning about various algorithms, evaluation metrics, and current trends in the field. The course will combine theoretical lectures with hands-on assignments to develop practical skills in designing and implementing recommender systems.
Course objectives
At the end of the course, students are able to:
explain basic concepts of recommender systems.
describe technical details of recommendation algorithms, including collaborative filtering, content-based filtering, sequential recommendation, session-based recommendation, and deep learning-based recommendation algorithms.
implement models for a recommendation task using machine learning algorithms and text data
evaluate and report on given data, the developed models and methods
investigate and discuss recent trends and challenges about advanced topics in recommender systems, such as large language models for recommendations and trustworthiness in recommender systems.
explain and apply different evaluation metrics and benchmarks of recommender systems.
Timetable
The most recent timetable can be found at the Computer Science (MSc) student website.
You will find the timetables for all courses and degree programmes of Leiden University in the tool MyTimetable (login). Any teaching activities that you have sucessfully registered for in MyStudyMap will automatically be displayed in MyTimeTable. Any timetables that you add manually, will be saved and automatically displayed the next time you sign in.
MyTimetable allows you to integrate your timetable with your calendar apps such as Outlook, Google Calendar, Apple Calendar and other calendar apps on your smartphone. Any timetable changes will be automatically synced with your calendar. If you wish, you can also receive an email notification of the change. You can turn notifications on in ‘Settings’ (after login).
For more information, watch the video or go the the 'help-page' in MyTimetable. Please note: Joint Degree students Leiden/Delft have to merge their two different timetables into one. This video explains how to do this.
Mode of instruction
Lectures, practical assignments, self-study
Assessment method
a written individual exam, closed book – 60%
practical assignments (in groups) – 40%
- two assignments during the course – 10% each
- one more substantial assignment at the end of the course – 20%
The grade for the written exam should be 5.5 or higher in order to complete the course. The exam has a regular written re-sit opportunity. The weighted average grade for the practical assignments should be 5.5 or higher in order to complete the course. If one of the assignments is not submitted the grade for that assignment is 0. Each assignment has a re-sit opportunity (a later submission); the maximum grade for a re-sit assignment is 6.
Group work is an integral part of the course. You will be expected to complete the assignments together with a team mate.
The lecturer will inform the students how the inspection of and follow-up discussion of the exams will take place.
Reading list
The literature will be distributed on Brightspace.
Registration
From the academic year 2024-2025 on every student has to register for courses with the new enrollment tool MyStudyMap. There are two registration periods per year: registration for the fall semester opens in July and registration for the spring semester opens in December. Please see this page for more information.
Please note that it is compulsory to both preregister and confirm your participation for every exam and retake. Not being registered for a course means that you are not allowed to participate in the final exam of the course. Confirming your exam participation is possible until ten days before the exam.
Extensive FAQ's on MyStudymap can be found here.
Contact
Lecturer: Dr. Z. Ren
Remarks
Due to limited capacity, external students can only register after consultation with the programme coordinator/study adviser mastercs@liacs.leideuniv.nl.