Target audience
The seminar targets master students in their third study semester. Ideally, you have completed our MSc. modules Business Analytics & Data Science (BADS) and Advanced Data Analytics for Management Support
(ADAMS) prior to taking the seminar. Specifically, we expect a solid
understanding of (deep) machine learning and data science as well as
proficiency in Python and/or R programming from every participant. These
competencies can be acquired in the above modules but also elsewhere.
Therefore, completion of BADS and ADAMS is recommended but not a mandatory requirement to participate in the seminar.
Registration
The seminar has capacity for at most 24 participants. You have to sign up for the seminar via Agnes during the registration period.
Normally, the registration period begins several weeks before the start
of the winter semester and ends in the week just before the semester
starts. Agnes provides detailed dates for every semester. Should more
than 24 students sign up for the module, seminar places will be
allocated by draw. Shortly before the first seminar session, we will
notify you by email whether you got a seminar place. The welcome email will also provide the Moodle key to access our Moodle page.
We will automatically put students who did unfortunately not receive a place on a waiting list.
Should a participant decide to drop out and a free place becomes
available, we will automatically contact the first student on the
waiting list and offer her/him that free place; then the second one on
the waiting list, third one, etc. if needed. In previous years, the
number of registrations was between 25 and 30 so that most students
could get a place. Obviously, this is not a guarantee and the situation
in the next semester might be totally different from what it used to be.
Organization and topics
Seminar topics change from year to year. Given that the Chair of Information System focuses on
applied machine learning and AI,
you can expect that seminar topics relate to these areas in one way or
the other. Likewise, your topic will almost certainly involve some
empirical work.
This is why we require participants to have ample experience in
R/Python. You will have to crunch data and you must know how to code.
Another characteristic of seminar topics is that they related to recent
developments in research. The concrete list of topics will be shared
shortly before the start of the seminar in the welcome email (see above)
and be available on the Moodle page. To get an idea of the format and
scope of seminar topics, you
can browse our blog, which provides student submissions from previous seminar sessions.
Concerning seminar organization,
we will start with an introductory session to further elaborate on the
teaching format, allocate topics, and form groups. Typically, you will
work in a group of two or three students on one topic. Afterward, there
will be a period of a few weeks in which you work on your topic and have
regular consultations with the supervisor of your topic. Roughly five
weeks after the start of the semester, we will enter the presentation
stage of the seminar. Every week, two teams of students will present
their work. So two seminar topics will be presented in one session,
implying that a team has 45 min to present and discuss their work. The
presentation stage continues until the end of the semester. The last
seminar session is typically reserved for a summary and Q&A.
Normally, the submission of your seminar paper (group work) is due shortly before/after the last seminar session (i.e.,
before the exam period). Typically, your semission will be in the form
of a Jupyter notebook or research paper + notebook.
Digital Seminar in WiSe 20/21
The
seminar will be offered in a digital format in WiSe 20/21 due to the
coronavirus. We will follow the usual format (see above) as closely as
possible. We will use Zoom for the introductory session and consultation
sessions. Participants will also present their work/topic using Zoom.
Experience suggests that video conferences are not as lively and
interactive as ordinary onsite meetings. Therefore, we will make some
changes to our standard format (see above), which aim at ensuring - to
not say enforcing - active participation and interaction in seminar
sessions. Details will be announced in the introductory session.