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CMSC 771 Spring 2000
Theory and Practice of Knowledge Representation

Section 0101 schedule # 7592

This course will cover some basic techniques and algorithms for representing and reasoning about information and knowledge. It is designed to be useful and relevant for students interested in artificial intelligence, databases, and web-based information systems. Topics will include: rule-based systems, frame-based representation languages, description logics, constraints, truth maintenance systems, representing and reasoning about time, processes, uncertainty, etc, using and marinating ontologies, knowledge sharing, etc. We'll also look at how some of these techniques are being used in in support of intelligent agents, advanced databases, ecommerce applications, advanced web systems, and software engineering tools. Students will learn to use one of more advanced software tools for building and maintaining large ontologies and we'll examine several large general purpose ontologies. Finally, students will learn to impress their friends, potential employers and (most importantly) venture capitalists by being able to throw around large, fancy sounding words like ontology, epistemology, axiomatization, and circumscription while still knowing which end of a web server is up.

Prerequisites: Students should have taken a graduate level AI course (e.g., CMSC 671) or a graduate level database class (e.g., CMSC 661).

When and Where: Tuesday from 7:00pm to 9:45pm in ECS 210I

Instructor: Tim Finin, finin@umbc.edu

Text books and papers: We will use John F. Sowa's new book, Knowledge Representation: Logical, Philosophical, and Computational Foundations, which can be purchased at the UMBC bookstore or online. We will also read a number of papers available online or handed out in class.

Structure: Class time will be spent with about 40% lecture and 60% student-led presentation and discussion of readings. Since we will only meet once a week, we will use the class mailing list to carry out additional discussion, comment and interactions. This will be a required part of the course and the quality and level of your participation in online discussions will play a part in determining your grade. So, please read, think about and respond to messages sent to the 771 mailing list.

Assignments: Students will be required to prepare and present material to the class, complete several short assignments and engage in a longer project, either individually or as part of a group. Presentations should be done in Powerpoint and will be added to a collection for the course and posted to the web.

Software: We will use one or more of the following software systems: Loom, Ontolingua, Classic, OKBC, XSB, Prolog, Rational Rose, and Visio.

Syllabus: The syllabus is ambitious and we won't be able to cover it all, but we will try.

Mailing list: There is a class mailing list with a hypermail archive which you can subscribe to. Send a message to majordomo@cs.umbc.edu with the text "subscribe 771" in the body of the message to subscribe.

Resources: There is a page of links to useful web resources.

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