Course Catalogue

Information Retrieval (H) COMPSCI4069

  • Academic Session: 2026-27
  • School: School of Computing Science
  • Credits: 10
  • Level: Level 4 (SCQF level 10)
  • Typically Offered: Semester 2
  • Available to Visiting Students: Yes
  • Collaborative Online International Learning: No
  • Curriculum For Life: No

Short Description

To present students with an in-depth examination of the theoretical and practical issues involved in providing tools to access large collections of documents, especially in the context of the World Wide Web.

To present students with the practical engineering issues raised by the design and implementation of an information retrieval system.

Timetable

3 hours per week.

Requirements of Entry

For Honours students - third year Computing Science.
For MSci students - fourth year Computing Science.
Mandatory courses: Two from Maths 1R, 1S, 1T, 1X, 1Y (or equivalent)

Excluded Courses

Information Retrieval (M)

Co-requisites

None

Assessment

Examination 70%, coursework 30%. (25% Assessment, 5% in class quizzes)

Main Assessment In: April/May

Are reassessment opportunities available for all summative assessments? No

It is the default expectation that all courses will offer opportunities for reassessment or deferred assessment. Where it is not possible to offer this in some assessment components, the grade achieved at the first attempt will be counted towards the final course grade, and any exceptions for this course are described below.

[No exceptions]

Course Aims

To present students with an in-depth examination of the theoretical and practical issues involved in providing tools to access large collections of documents, especially in the context of the World Wide Web.

To present students with the practical engineering issues raised by the design and implementation of an information retrieval system.

Intended Learning Outcomes of Course

By the end of the course students will be able to:

1. Implement a standard information retrieval (IR) system;

2. Discuss the theoretical basis behind the standard models of IR (e.g. Boolean, Vector-space, and Probabilistic models);

3. Discuss how an IR system should be evaluated in terms of the system's performance and the user's satisfaction with the system;

4. Describe the techniques in organising information;

5. Describe the techniques involved in retrieving information from the World Wide Web;

6. Describe the practical engineering issues raised by the implementation of a search engine for the Web.

Minimum Requirement for Award of Credits

No exceptions