Prospectus

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AI for Business (minor Science, Business, and Innovation)

Course
2023-2024

Admission requirements

Third-year Bachelor students
A working understading of coding

Description

Artificial intelligence (AI) is changing the ways organizations are performing and making decisions. This course analyzes relevant aspects of AI and how AI influences firms decisions and stakeholders. This course introduces some of the most popular AI tools, focusing on these methods' intuitions and exploring their business applications to real-life business cases. This course adopts a hands-on approach in implementing these AI tools using Python, a powerful programming language used widely to tackle and solve machine learning problems. To sum, the course helps students to understand, analyze, and tackle business problems using AI tools.

Note: This course uses Python as the coding language for all the class assignments, the group project, and the individual assignment. Therefore, completing the course requires a knowledge of Python. The course does not explicitly teach how to code in Python; rather, it focuses on applying AI techniques to business problems using Python. The course does not require students to know Python ahead of time, but the students need to learn this language during the class — there will be ample learning resources. This might be an immense effort for people who don't have any coding experience.

Course objectives

Upon successful completion, students will be able to:

  • define and explain key concepts of AI and describe how AI is changing the business landscape in various domains;

  • select and implement appropriate machine learning techniques to solve business problems in a given context;

  • compare and contrast different business models and explain how AI impacts their value proposition, revenue streams and cost structure;

  • assess the ethical and social implications of applying AI to business decisions and justify their position with evidence and arguments;

  • design and prototype innovative solutions to business problems using AI tools and technique.

Timetable

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

The course emphasizes interactive teaching. Classes start with a brief reflection on the past sessions. Then, it reviews the session’s reading(s) and discusses relevant AI methods. In the second half, the lecture focuses on a real-life case and uses Python to explore the session’s topic in practice. The session ends with a summary.

Assessment method

The course assessment details are as follows:

  • In-class activities and quizzes: 40%

  • Group Project: 30%

  • Individual assignement: 30%

Please note that the course has no resit option for any of the grade components.
Please note that the grade for a non-completed assignment is 0.

Reading list

The reading list will be announced on Brightspace.

Registration

Every student has to register for courses with the 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. Exemptions are minor students and fall semester for 1st year bachelor students: the student administration will enroll these groups for courses.

Please note that it is compulsory to register 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.

Extensive FAQ on MyStudymap can be found here.

This course can only be followed as part of the SBI minor (15 or 30 ECTS).

Contact

info@sbb.leidenuniv.nl

Remarks

  • Students are responsible for enrolling/unenrolling themselves for (partial) exams/retakes.

  • Students who do not enroll themselves for an exam/retake by the deadline are not allowed to take the exam/retake.

  • Students fail the course if any of the partial components (except the exam) that make up the final mark of the course is assessed below 4.0.

  • Students fail the course if the grade for the (final) exam is assessed below 5.0.

  • The final grade is expressed as a whole or half number between 1.0 and 10.0, including both limits. The result is not to be expressed as a number between 5.0 and 6.0.

  • If one of the components of the final mark constitutes a component that assesses attendance or class participation, students cannot take a retake for this component. Therefore, students fail the course if their mark for this component is less than 4.0.

  • Partial grades, inclusive the exam grade will not be rounded. If partial grades will be communicated, it is possible partial grades are rounded, but unrounded partial grades will be used in the calculation of the final grade. The final grade will be rounded at 0.5 (5.49 will rounded down to a 5 and a 5.5 will be rounded up to a 6.0).

  • It is not possible to do retakes for group assignments. Therefore, if students fail the group assignment component, they fail the course.

  • Students pass the course if the final mark is 6.0 or higher (5.49 will rounded down to a 5 and a 5.5 will be rounded up to a 6.0).

  • For courses, for which class participation is an assessment component, students may not be penalised for an absence if the student has a legitimate justification for this absence. The student must notify the program coordinator via email (info@sbb.leidenuniv.nl) of such an absence BEFORE the lecture, describing the reason for missing the lecture. If the student does not notify the program coordinator before the lecture, the student will be penalised. Students may be required to provide further documentation to substantiate their case, and class attendance requirements are only waived under exceptional circumstances such as illness.

  • Students who are entitled to more exam/retake time must report to info@sbb.leidenuniv.nl 10 days before the exam/retake takes place.