COMP9321 Notices

COMP9321 Exam Today

Posted by Morty Al-Banna 17 days ago.

Dear Students,

As scheduled, the exam will start today at 1:00PM (Sydney time). Please make sure that you have access to Inspera (https://unsw.inspera.com) and that you are using a computer for the exam ( Mobile Phones and Tablets will NOT work ). Ensure that you are in a comfortable place with a reliable internet connection. The exam will activate on the scheduled time.

If during the exam you faced any issue or have any question, please feel free to reach out to Me (Morty) via email or MS Teams, also our trusty course admin (Mehmet) and Tutor (Dylan) would be available online.

If you are not feeling well and unable to take the exam, please remember that the supplementary exam policy for UNSW applies here, and you need to initiate the special consideration request and provide the team with the required documentation.

Best of luck to all...

Final Exam reminder

Posted by Morty Al-Banna 18 days ago.

Dear All,

Just a reminder that the final exam for COMP9321 is Monday the 12th of May at 1:00PM Sydney time. Please check my previous announcement for details.

The Link to access the exam in Inspera is (https://unsw.inspera.com). You should be able to see it as scheduled (there is no need for exam code). if you are unable to see it then make sure that you are accessing from a Computer. The Exam can't be taken from a Mobile Device or a Tablet ( only Computers ).

The Support during the exam is through the course teaching staff (Myself, Mehmet and Dylan). The exam is school managed and not being supported by the exam unit.

Best of luck to all.

Morty

Final Exam Monday 12th of May

Posted by Morty Al-Banna 20 days ago, last modified 18 days ago.

Dear All,

Just some info for the final exam on Monday the 12th of May 2025:

- Exam time: 1:00PM

- Exam Duration: 2 hours + 15 mins for reading and submission

- Exam platform: Inspera and we will make an announcement providing the link on the day. Remember Inspera does NOT run on mobile or tablets " you need a Computer to take the exam ". Make sure you are in a suitable place with reliable internet connection.

- Exam questions; we have 20 MCQ and 6 written questions. You might need a calculator to do some simple calculations.

- Exam Material: this is a remote exam, you won't need material as the questions are mainly scenario based analytical. the most important thing is that all the answers should be in your own words according to your own effort.

- If you have any question or face any issue during the exam, you may contact the LiC (Morty Al-Banna) or the course admin (Mehmet Rad) via email or via MS Teams.

- In case of the need to make an announcement during the exam, we will be making this through WebCMS and in MS Teams the course General channel.

Best of luck to all...

COMP9321 Teaching Team

Assignment 3 Provisional Marks

Posted by Mehmet Rad 20 days ago.

Dear All,

Assignment 3 marks and feedback are available now, and you can check your mark using the following command on CSE lab machines:

9321
9321 classrun -sturec 

or

9321
9321 classrun -collect assign3feedback
9321 classrun -collect assign3
 

You should check "assign3" and "assign3feedback" fields; Please Contact " Mehmet Rad " if you have any enqueries.

"Please note that the marks for Assignment 3 are still provisional and may be subject to change."
You must use the new test dataset test_marking.csv to verify your models and your marks.

Deep Learning Lecture recording and Quiz5 release

Posted by Morty Al-Banna 26 days ago.

Dear All,

Apologies for the delay, but the change of weather has not been so kind to me and I was not feeling well for the past week.

I have made a short lecture about Deep Learning , please make sure to review before attempting the quiz and before the final exam as the material is included within the final exam. We do not dive deep into Deep Learning, so it is not a heavy weight material.

Quiz5 is released (make sure you take the quiz after viewing the Deep learning recording). I have given extra time for attempting the quiz, to be fair and compensate for the delay.

Best of luck to everyoone in the final exams...

Assignment 2 Marks

Posted by Mehmet Rad about a month ago.

Dear All,

Assignment 2 marks and feedback are available now, and you can check your mark using the following command on CSE lab machines:

9321
9321 classrun -sturec 

or

9321
9321 classrun -collect assign2feedback
9321 classrun -collect assign2
 

You should check "assign2" and "assign2feedback" fields; assign1feedback includes the name of the tutor who marked the assignment. Please contact the corresponding tutor in case of any enqueries.

Quiz 4 Due extended until 23:59

Posted by Mehmet Rad about a month ago.

Hi Everyone,
Due to multiple requests, we extended the quiz 4 deadline by the end of today 23:59;

Milestone achieved, 1 day late penalty waived

Posted by Morty Al-Banna about a month ago, last modified about a month ago.

Dear All,

Thanks for all the students that have participated in the myexperience survey. it is my pleasure to announce that we have achieved the first milestone and now you have a guaranteed waiver for 1-day late penalty. Effectively this mean that if you submit by the 21/04/2025 18:00, there will be no penalty.

We will make another announcement if another milestone is achieved and more late penalties are waived. Next target is 60% :)

Best of luck to all...

COMP9321 Teaching Team

Quiz4 is released

Posted by Morty Al-Banna about a month ago.

Dear All,

Quiz4 is now released.

Best of luck,

COMP9321 Teaching Team

Waiving the late penalty for Assignment3 based on the MyExperience Survey participation

Posted by Morty Al-Banna about a month ago, last modified about a month ago.

Dear All,

First, I would like to thank all the students who have participated in the MyExperience survey. In order to motivate the remaining students to participate we decided to tie the level of participation to waiving the late penalty for assignment3.

Based on the level of participation in the MyExperience survey, we will waive the late penalty as below:

• If we reach 40% participation, we will waive the late penalty for all the students being 1 day late.
• If we reach 60% participation, we will waive the late penalty for all the students being 2 days late.
• If we reach 80% participation, we will waive the late penalty for all the students being 3 days late.
• If we reach 95% participation, we will waive the late penalty for all the students being 5 days late.

Pay attention that we are NOT extending the deadline . No Matter which condition is met, if you submit your answers after 5 days of the original deadline (without approved extension) your submission will NOT be marked.

We will make an announcement to share the participation level whenever a milestone is met. This is an interesting case of how the community can come together to support each other. So even if you do not need the additional time, you might think of participating to help your fellow classmates. (Yes, we are being cheeky here 😊). Remember to share with us what you liked, and what you want us to improve. We really appreciate all feedback.

If you have any question or if anything is not clear, please feel free to contact us.

Best of Luck,

COMP9321 Teaching Team

P.S. current participation rate is 21.28%

Welcome to Week9 of COMP9321

Posted by Morty Al-Banna about a month ago.

Dear All,

Welcome to Week9 of COMP9321. You are so close to the finish line.

For this Week, we are going to continue with Data Analytics. We are going to continue with Clustering and look at other Machine Learning Models.

The Lab activities for Weeks 9 and 10 are now available. We encourage you to do them at your own convenience. As always, we have consultation labs for everyday of the week. Check the timetable section for the times.

In regard to the quizzes, just a heads-up, Quiz4 is going to be released this Thursday. Quiz5 will be released in Week10. Remember to submit before the deadline.

If you are debating the marks awarded for assignments, please remember to reach out to the tutor who marked your submission (it is mentioned in the feedback). If after the discussion, you are still unsatisfied and you want to escalate, please copy the Course email in the email thread you have discussed the submission with the tutor.

Regarding Assignment3, we Hope that you have made good progress. As mentioned in the lecture, as a general rule, for the ML problems an iterative approach is better be considered. Question everything, your selection of features, your selection of ML Model, and your initialization of any parameters. The Assignment is on the scale of a small individual project, so remember to treat it as such.

The Official due date is the 20 ^th of April. Additionally, we are going to add some flexibility by waiving the late penalty depending on the MyExprience participation (you should be receiving the invite to participate soon). We are going to discuss this scheme during the lecture today and follow-up with an announcement to keep everything crystal clear.

For Bonus marks if you have shared some community engagement during the course and tagged your post in the form with #Bonus Marks, then the post will reviewed, and you will get an email after we calculate the (assignments overall mark) of what is the bonus awarded. For DataCamp, since I couldn't find a suitable project to add as a bonus challenge, so a bonus will be awarded to top 3 in the leaderboard. First place will get 3 marks, second will get 2 and third will get 1. You will be notified as well, once the assignment overall is calculated. We will review the snapshot of leaderboard during the Thursday lecture week9. Achieving Bonus marks through Datacamp experience or the community engagement will be recorded till the end of week9.

The COMP9321 teaching team is always rooting for you and here to help. Do not hesitate to use the forum to ask as many questions or contact us via the course email.

As always, remember to have fun and enjoy the learning experience. :)

Cheers,

Final Exam method of Delivery

Posted by Morty Al-Banna 2 months ago.

Dear All,

After discussing with the school and considering all the factors, it has been agreed that the final exam for COMP9321 this term will be an online remote exam (leveraging Inspera as a platform). Students do not need to be on the UNSW campus to take COMP9321 final exam.

Best of luck in all assessments....

CMP9321 Teaching Team

Assignment 1 Marks

Posted by Mehmet Rad 2 months ago, last modified 2 months ago.

Dear All,

Assignment 1 marks and feedback are available now, and you can check your mark using the following command on CSE lab machines:

9321
9321 classrun -sturec

or

9321
9321 classrun -collect assign1feedback
9321 classrun -collect assign1

You should check "assign1" and "assign1feedback" fields; assign1feedback includes the name of the tutor who marked the assignment. Please contact the corresponding tutor in case of any enqueries.

Week7 Thursday replacement lecture recording

Posted by Morty Al-Banna 2 months ago.

Dear All,

I have created the recording for the replacment lecture of Thursday week7. you mind find it here ( replacement lecture-20250406_175334-Meeting Recording.mp4 ) it is in the same lecture recoridng folder for the course.

cheer,

Morty

Assignment 3 Released

Posted by Mehmet Rad 2 months ago.

Dear Students,
Assignment 3 is now released.
Link to the specification : https://webcms3.cse.unsw.edu.au/COMP9321/25T1/resources/109398

Quiz3 is Released

Posted by Morty Al-Banna 2 months ago.

Dear All,

Quiz3 is released.

Best of luck to all

COMP93221 Teaching Team

COMP9321 Lecture today

Posted by Morty Al-Banna 2 months ago.

Dear All,

My apologies, but I am not feeling well today and won't be able to deliver the lecture as scheduled. I have asked Dylan to do a walkthrough of assignment3 specification, so what will happen today is at 6:00PM Dylan will be doing the assignment3 specification walkthrough and then end the session.

Once I muster a little bit of strength, I will do a recording for the material and make an announcement about it, and sharing the link to the recording.

Best regards,

Morty

Welcome to Week7 of COMP9321

Posted by Morty Al-Banna 2 months ago.

Dear All,

Welcome to Week7 of COMP9321. Hopefully, you enjoyed an activity free flexibility week and looked after your wellbeing.

For this Week, we are going to finalize the topic of Web Services and start with the third phase of the course, which is Data Analytics using Machine Learning. In the third phase, we focus on how you can apply some basic machine learning algorithms to generate useful insights from the data. As I mentioned in the beginning of the term, we are not building algorithms from scratch in this course, but rather leverage libraries like Scikit-learn to apply Machine learning.

The Lab activities for Week7 are now available. We encourage you to do them at your own convenience. As always, we have consultation labs for everyday of the week. Check the timetable section for the times.

In regard to the quizzes, Quiz3 will be released this Thursday. We will make an announcement once it is released.

Regarding Assignment2, remember that it is due this week on Thursday. I hope that you all have made good progress by now and you are putting the final touches. Again, I want you to remember that the assignment is on the scale of a small individual project. You have the say of how you may do some things, as long as you are fulfilling the requirements. I can see some great discussions in Ed, please continue to utilize the Forum in Ed or attend the consultation labs for any question. For Assignment3, we are wrapping up the reviews for the specification and we are targeting to release by the end of this week.

The COMP9321 teaching team is always rooting for you and here to help. Do not hesitate to use the forum to ask as many questions or contact us via the course email.

As always, remember to have fun and enjoy the learning experience. :)

Cheers,

COMP9321 Teaching Team

Welcome to Week5 of COMP9321

Posted by Morty Al-Banna 2 months ago.

Dear All,

Welcome to Week5 of COMP9321. Congrats, we are halfway through.

For this Week, we are going to continue with the topic of Web Services and focusing on REST API. This is the second phase of the course, where we focus on how you can allow your data to be consumed as a web service. We are going to consider how you can consider your Web API RESTful, some best practices and how you can leverage the existing Python libraries to help you build your REST Web API.

The Lab activities for Week5 are now available. We encourage you to do them at your own convenience. As always, we have consultation labs for everyday of the week. Check the timetable section for the times. It worth to remember that in each Lab session, the Tutor will be available to answer question and provide support as needed. Feel free to reach out to the tutor and you can initiate a call and share your screen as needed.

In regard to what’s due this week, Assignment1, is Due today in few hours and Quiz2 is Due Tuesday before Noon. I hope that you have submitted your assignment1 by now or finalizing and polishing your submission. Again, I want you to remember that the assignment is on the scale of a small individual project. The assignments are there to help you practice what you have learned, and the marks are there to give you feedback to improve. Use the forum in ED discussions and the consultation labs if you require support.

The COMP9321 teaching team is always rooting for you and here to help. Do not hesitate to use the forum to ask as many questions or contact us via the course email.

As always, remember to have fun and enjoy the learning experience. :)

Cheers,

COMP9321 Teaching Team<

Quiz2 Released

Posted by Morty Al-Banna 3 months ago.

Dear All,

Quiz2 is released. As I missed posting it yesterday, so I gave an extra day for the completion. (Due Tuesday Before Noon).

Best of luck to all...

Welcome to Week4 of COMP9321

Posted by Morty Al-Banna 3 months ago.

Dear All,

Welcome to Week4 of COMP9321. Things are getting more interesting…

For this Week, we are going to cover the topic of Data visualization. Visualization is a very important topic. We are going to learn what makes a good visualization, and how we can apply our knowledge in Python and Pandas to generate some useful visualisations. We are also going to start with the second phase of the course which is Web Services.

The Lab activities for Week4 are now available. We encourage you to do them at your own convenience. As always, we have consultation labs for everyday of the week. Check the timetable section for the times.

Quiz2 will be released after Thursday lecture. Make sure to participate before the deadline and remember for Quiz2 and all the coming quizzes you only have one attempt on each. We are going to keep quizzes release to be after the Thursday lectures and due Monday, so it is easier to track.

Assignment1 specification was released last week. I can already see many interesting conversations in the forum. Remember that the assignment is on the scale of a small individual project and the dataset we are using is a real-world dataset coming from external source (i.e., we have not synthesized the data). Utilize your analytical skills and what you have learned in the course. Start early and ask as many questions as possible in the Forum and/or the consultation labs. If you have not noticed the post made by Dylan in ED about the Q1 clarification, please have a look at the specification to see the update. The assignments are there to help you practice what you have learned, and the marks are there to give you feedback to improve.

The COMP9321 teaching team is always rooting for you and here to help. Do not hesitate to use the forum to ask as many questions or contact us via the course email.

As always, remember to have fun and enjoy the learning experience. :)

Cheers,

Welcome to Week3 of COMP9321

Posted by Morty Al-Banna 3 months ago.

Dear All,

Welcome to Week3 of COMP9321.

For this Week, we are going to continue with Data pre-processing/wrangling and how you can work with the data to improve its quality and relevancy. Expect more in-lecture exercises. We will also start with Data visualization as well.

The Lab activities for Week3 are now available. If you have not checked them out, we encourage you to do them at your own convenience. Another reminder, that we have consultation labs for everyday of the week. Lab activities are not marked, but they are super important to help you get the required knowledge and skills to solve the assignments.

Assignment1 specification is now released . Please read the specifications very carefully and let us know if there is anything needs clarification. We are going to walkthrough the specification today during the lecture. We encourage everyone to start working on the assignment the sooner the better.

A reminder for students who have not joined the course in MS Teams, <u>please join ASAP</u> . All the live lectures and Consultation Labs are on MS Teams. As I mentioned in the previous announcement, we are not in the habit of approving individual permission requests. As long as you have joined the course in MS Teams, you will be automatically in the Group provided the permission to access the recordings.

The COMP9321 teaching team is always rooting for you and here to help. Do not hesitate to use the forum to ask as many questions or contact us via the course email.

As always, remember to have fun and enjoy the learning experience. :)

Cheers,

Quiz1 is released

Posted by Morty Al-Banna 3 months ago.

Dear All,

Quiz1 is released. You can attempt the quiz only one time. Please make sure that once you start the attempt, you answer all the questions and avoid having the session idle for long. Pay attention that some questions may have multiple answers. You need to select all the correct answers (if applicable) to get the mark.

Best of luck to all...

COMP9321 Teaching Team

Welcome to Week2 of COMP9321

Posted by Morty Al-Banna 3 months ago, last modified 3 months ago.

Dear All,

Welcome to Week2 of COMP9321. I hope you will enjoy the ride.

For this Week, we are going to continue with Data Access and how to store the Data Accessed, learn about NoSQL Databases, then we dive deeper into how you can perform some basic data cleansing (cleaning) and explore your dataset to grasp some understanding.

The Lab activities for Week2 are now available. We encourage you to do them at your own convenience and check the sample solutions if needed. Please be noted that there might be more than one correct solution for an activity. Remember that we have consultation labs for everyday of the week (starting today). Check the timetable section in WebCMS or the post in ED for the times. Lab activities are not marked and attending the labs is not mandatory, but the lab activities are super important to help you get the required knowledge and skills to solve the assignments. For Attending the consultation labs, head to the Course MS Teams Lab channel on the designated time.

The First Quiz will be released after the Thursday Lecture. Once the quiz is available, we will make an announcement in WebCMS. You can access the quiz through the activity section of WebCMS. Quizzes will remain open till Mondays Noon, and you can attempt the quiz only once.

I can see some excellent conversations in ED Stream’s forum. Please keep the questions coming and when you see a classmate asking a question that you know the answer for, don’t be shy, and contribute to the community.

As a side note, if you are still not in MS teams, please join ASAP. We do not encourage the habit of approving individual requests to access the recordings. You can access them directly as long as you are part of the MS Teams Group.

The COMP9321 teaching team is always rooting for you and here to help. Do not hesitate to use the forum to ask as many questions you like or contact us via the course email.

Finally, remember to have fun and enjoy the learning experience. :)

Cheers,

Welcome for Week1 of COMP9321

Posted by Morty Al-Banna 3 months ago.

Dear All,

Welcome to Week1 of COMP9321 Data Services Engineering. I hope that you are excited as we are for the first lecture today at 6:00PM (Sydney time). Today’s lecture will be for an overview of the course and introduction to the subject of Data Services Engineering.

As I mentioned in the welcome notice, we are using MS Teams to deliver the lecture live. If you have not joined, please join ASAP (https://webcms3.cse.unsw.edu.au/COMP9321/25T1/activities/polls/1705). You can either access the meeting invite posted in the General Channel of the COMP9321 MS Teams Space or click the link and follow through (https://teams.microsoft.com/l/meetup-join/19%3aJmNsQnKwmfSFigCMZs_yBpL1L-fGPUmVjTO53OnRIsE1%40thread.tacv2/1739587909951?context=%7b%22Tid%22%3a%223ff6cfa4-e715-48db-b8e1-0867b9f9fba3%22%2c%22Oid%22%3a%228c74f8ba-b0bc-4a99-8f26-f6a506c727df%22%7d).

Some general notes:

Please Mute your Mic when you join. If you need to ask a question using voice, please feel free to raise your hand, so we can take a pause for you to ask the question. Feel free to ask question anytime during the lecture. We will also have one of our brilliant tutors (Dylan) observing the chat space during the Lecture and answer questions on the spot if needed. Please use the chat responsibly.

The lecture will be recorded. The recording can be found in the general channel, and we will add the link in WebCMS after the lecture.

Make Sure to be on the discussion Forum on Ed Stream, as this is our Q&A platform for this term. The Lecture Material will reside in Both WebCMS and Ed Stream (Lessons section). Please strictly use Ed Stream for posting questions or initiating discussions as WebCMS Forum will not be monitored. We have added all students who were already in the system to Ed, but if you have joined late, then please join the course in Ed via the link in the Poll (https://webcms3.cse.unsw.edu.au/COMP9321/25T1/activities/polls/1707)

Looking forward to seeing you all...

Cheers,

Morty and COMP9321 Teaching Team

Welcome to COMP9321 2025T1

Posted by Morty Al-Banna 3 months ago.

Dear All,

Welcome to COMP9321 (Data Services Engineering). Please feel free to check the course provisional outline here (https://webcms3.cse.unsw.edu.au/COMP9321/25T1/outline ).

For the offering of 2025T1 please be advised of the following:

• The course will run completely online (lectures, consultation labs, exam...etc.).
• We are going to use MS Teams for the live lectures, and the lecture will be recorded and made available after the lecture.
• We have self-guided lab activities and walkthroughs that we will share the details in Ed Stream and during the lecture.
• We will also have consultation labs, that we will run every day of the week starting week2. The intention is to provide additional support for the lab activates and the assignments. The schedule of the consultation labs will be made available in WebCMS. We are also using MS Teams for the consultation labs. There is no booking needed for consultation sessions.
• Join the course in MS Teams by accessing the link in the poll activity ( Join the Course in MS Teams | COMP9321 25T1 | WebCMS3 ) THIS IS A MUST
• We will be using Ed Stream as our Q&A Forum. All students have been adding in Ed, but in case you are not yet there please join via the link in this Poll (https://webcms3.cse.unsw.edu.au/COMP9321/25T1/activities/polls/1707) THIS IS A MUST
• We have got a 6-month subscription to DataCamp for free to students in COMP9321. Using DataCamp is purely optional as an external resource (there might be some Bonus related activities). To join the course in DataCamp please use the link in the poll ( https://webcms3.cse.unsw.edu.au/COMP9321/25T1/activities/polls/1706 ). This is Optional

I hope that you will find COMP9321 Educational and Fun...

Stay tuned for further updates...

Best regards,

COMP9321 Teaching team