COMPSCI 485 Applications of Natural Language Processing

Natural Language Processing (NLP) is the engineering art and science of how to teach computers to understand human language and perform tasks using data in natural language. NLP is a type of artificial intelligence technology, and it's now ubiquitous NLP lets us talk to our phones, use the web to answer questions, map out discussions in books and social media, generate chatbot responses, and translate between human languages. Since language is rich, ambiguous, and very difficult for computers to understand, these systems can sometimes seem like magic but these are science and engineering problems we can tackle with data, math, and insights from linguistics. This course introduces NLP methods and applications including probabilistic models, text classification, linguistic representations, and contextual neural language models to process, understand, and generate text.

This course introduces NLP methods and applications including probabilistic models, text classification, linguistic representations, and contextual neural language models to process, understand, and generate text. During the course, students will:

  • learn the core methods of NLP;
  • become familiar with key facts about human language that motivate them, and help practitioners know what problems are possible to solve;
  • become equipped to engage critically with arguments about NLP’s ethical and social implications; and
  • complete a series of hands-on projects to implement, experiment with, and improve NLP models, gaining practical skills for natural language systems engineering.

Organization

  • Prerequisites: This course requires some familiarity with computer programming and probability theory at an intermediate undergraduate level. Formally, the course prerequisite is to fulfill either of:
    • Both COMPSCI 220 and COMPSCI 240, with grade “C” or higher; OR
    • LINGUIST 492B, with grade “C” or higher
  • Meeting Days/Times: MW 14:30-15:45
  • Office Hours: TBD
  • Syllabus: Here you can find the tentative syllabus and the schedule. Kindly note the schedule is tentative and subject to change.

Accommodation Statement

The University of Massachusetts Amherst is committed to providing an equal educational opportunity for all students. If you have a documented physical, psychological, or learning disability on file with Disability Services (DS), you may be eligible for reasonable academic accommodations to help you succeed in this course. If you have a documented disability that requires an accommodation, please notify me within the first two weeks of the semester so that we may make appropriate arrangements.

Academic Honesty Statement

Since the integrity of the academic enterprise of any institution of higher education requires honesty in scholarship and research, academic honesty is required of all students at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Academic dishonesty is prohibited in all programs of the University. Academic dishonesty includes but is not limited to: cheating, fabrication, plagiarism, and facilitating dishonesty. Appropriate sanctions may be imposed on any student who has committed an act of academic dishonesty. Instructors should take reasonable steps to address academic misconduct. Any person who has reason to believe that a student has committed academic dishonesty should bring such information to the attention of the appropriate course instructor as soon as possible. Instances of academic dishonesty not related to a specific course should be brought to the attention of the appropriate department Head or Chair. Since students are expected to be familiar with this policy and the commonly accepted standards of academic integrity, ignorance of such standards is not normally sufficient evidence of lack of intent (http://www.umass.edu/dean_students/codeofconduct/acadhonesty/ ).