

Coursera / Stanford PGM Class is Open - cbcase
https://www.coursera.org/pgm/auth/welcome

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dhawalhs
Game Theory class too: <http://www.game-theory-class.org/>

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worldimperator
Wow, i watched the first video batch and think it's the best online course so
far. Very in-depth, but at the same time incredibly well chosen examples.
Initially I was sceptical because the videos seem to be taped lectures rather
than the type of screencast I know from mlclass and aiclass, but it's really
well done.

There is a notable difference of course between courses like PGM and ML, which
go pretty much into details of actual things, while others like AI or crypto
will probably naturally stay a bit at the surface, as they are more intended
to give an overview. I think they shouldn't be compared therefore. I think the
robotics class is a bit behind of it's possibilities compared to PGM or ML,
considering that this is definitely not an overview anymore.

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aseembehl
PGM-class looks pretty hardcore. Well done Prof. Koller & Coursera team. Glad
that Coursera and MITx are not watering down the material for any of their
online courses.

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lightcatcher
This has been my main complaint with the Autonomous Vehicles class ran by
Udacity I've done thus far. I don't think 30 minutes of video lecture per week
can cover close to what an actual college class can. I ended up having to read
~2 hours on Kalman filters after completing the homework to get to a point
where I actually felt like I understood the topic as well as I would in an
actual class.

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aseembehl
Exactly, Udacity courses have around 50 minutes of lectures per week and 6
weeks of lectures. In total just 5 hours of lectures for the whole duration of
the course. I don't believe anything substantial can be taught in such a short
duration. On the other hand, most of MITx, and Coursera courses run for 10-14
weeks with 2-3hrs of lectures per week with additional assigned readings for
some courses.

I personally had pretty bad experience with Udacity's AI-class last year, IMHO
their teaching material is mediocre at best. I don't plan to waste any of my
time on their classes specially when there are so many other better options
available.

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dagw
While I agree with everything you said, I kind of liked the AI-class because
it was so short and superficial. I felt it gave me a very high level overview
of field without taking up too much of my time.

So while the Coursera courses are better in the sense that they cover the
material in much more detail and require that you understand the material much
better to do the assignments, they end up being much harder for me to squeeze
into my already hectic schedule. So in the end I think there is space for both
approaches.

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aseembehl
That is precisely why udacity courses are gaining popularity. They give you a
false sense of accomplishment when actually the learning is very superficial.

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dagw
Indeed, but there is nothing inherently wrong with superficial knowledge (as
long you realize it is superficial). Before the AI-course I knew absolutely
nothing about the field, now I know enough to start matching problem domains
to techniques. Obviously I learnt nothing useful about how to actually
implement those techniques, but at least I know what words to start googling
for.

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therobot24
The CMU PGM course has slides and 'scribe notes' of each lecture if you find
something from the Coursera modules confusing:

<http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~epxing/Class/10708/lecture.html>

(note the navigation bar doesn't load properly in chrome)

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mark_l_watson
The last few weeks I have been reading the first few chapters of the optional
text book to get ready for the class - it all looks good, except that the
programming assignments are done in Matlab or Octave. I read over the first
assignment, and it will be a stretch to "love" Octave.

The course material looks awesome.

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forkandwait
Re Matlab/ Octave:

I am an R to Octave convert. R has some great stuff, especially multi-type
tables and a decent OO system for packaging complex analyses, but .... Octave
rocks R when you have to come up with complex matrix oriented algorithms --
much, much more straightforward.

Also -- cell arrays are funky and necessary for string manipulation. I suggest
not dwelling on their weirdness -- you may grow to like them.

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mark_l_watson
Thanks for the encouragement. I have spent a few hours learning Octave this
afternoon, and indeed the matrix operation support is nice.

