DATA 505: Applied Machine Learning

Spring 2025, Willamette University

MW 6:00 - 10:00 PM Salem, Ford 102

Syllabus

Instructor

Calvin Deutschbein

ckdeutschbein@willamette.edu

Ford 3rd Floor

Letter to Students

Students,

All lectures and supplementary talks will be recorded and broadcast via YouTube Live through user @cd-public, for which there is a course specific playlist.

• General: https://www.youtube.com/@cd-public/streams
• Course: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLu3KAnn4RkARHQyLa60d5jmsyooZF3bT0

All course material will be hosted via GitHub pages at the following url, for which this is a course specific page.

• General: https://cd-public.github.io/courses/
• Course: https://cd-public.github.io/courses/rmls25/index.html

In addition to office hours by appointment, as a collaboration and student support tool I will host a course Discord. Discord is not required, but I will use it a lot.

• Link not public.

All technologies used in the course are available free and open source. There is no textbook, but supplemental options for texts will be provided.

• Optional Text: https://www.statlearning.com/

There is a strong trend in academia toward learning management systems like Canvas and toward maintaining student visible gradebooks, which have strong benefits for other courses but not, I think, for mine. I note that:

1. I do not use LMS systems, which I find difficult to integrate with the technology stacks used within courses in the computational sciences.
2. I do not use a student visible gradebook because I use ungrading, wherein students have a good grade unless informed privately.

Reach out via email or Discord if you want a grade check or cannot find some course materials.

Best,

-c