Schedule
Note
This site is a work-in-progress and is actively being developed. Please check back frequently for updates.
- Term: Fall 2025
- Meeting Format: Synchronous 1-hour online weekly meetings
Course Description
This interest group is designed to prepare Georgia Tech students for making original research contributions at competitive, evaluation-focused academic venues such as CLEF.
The interest group follows a dual-module format over the semester:
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Module 1 (weeks 1–8) focuses on critically analyzing the applied research landscape of AI, Machine Learning, and Information Retrieval, exploring platforms like Kaggle, KDD, NeurIPS, TREC, and CLEF. The goal is to identify viable shared tasks and begin developing research proposals for a CLEF 2026 shared task.
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Module 2 (weeks 9–13) concentrates on developing the essential skills required to use Georgia Tech's PACE supercomputing cluster , providing hands-on experience with tools like SLURM, Apptainer, PyTorch, and Hugging Face. The interest group culminates in students being fully equipped to propose and execute original research.
Calendar and Weekly Schedule
This schedule provides a week-by-week breakdown of topics, hands-on work, and key deliverables.
| Date | Week # | Module # | Notes | Meeting Focus & Core Topics | Hands-On / Asynchronous Work | Relevant Readings | Key Deliverables |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 8/25/2025 | 1 | 1 | Orientation: The "Why" of Applied Research & Competitions | Browse Kaggle and CLEF overview pages; note 1-2 interesting tasks. | - | ||
| 9/1/2025 | 2 | 1 | Labor Day | Introductions + Choosing a Venue | Venues Overview | - | |
| 9/8/2025 | 3 | 1 | CLEF Madrid | Choosing a Venue + Kaggle | Venues Kaggle Venues |
- | |
| 9/15/2025 | 4 | 1 | Kaggle | EDA | Exploratory Data Analysis | Kaggle: Competition Notebook Solution | |
| 9/22/2025 | 5 | 1 | CLEF + Literature Review | Select two papers/notes (e.g., one from CLEF 2025, one from KDD/NeurIPS/TREC) and compare their methodologies. | CLEF Literature Review |
- | |
| 9/29/2025 | 6 | 1 | Other Venues + Literature Review | Brainstorm 1-2 potential research questions or alternative approaches. | Other Venues Literature Review |
- | |
| 10/6/2025 | 7 | 1 | Fall Break | ||||
| 10/13/2025 | 8 | 1 | Research Proposal | Research Proposal | Initial Research Proposal Draft (CS 8901/8903) | ||
| 10/20/2025 | 9 | 2 | CLEF 2025 Madrid experience report | - | |||
| 10/27/2025 | 10 | 2 | Git/GitHub & Initial PACE Onboarding | PACE onboarding | Applied Methods | - | |
| 11/3/2025 | 11 | 2 | LLMs | Large Language Models | LLMs Concepts | PACE Exercise 1: TBD | |
| 11/10/2025 | 12 | 2 | Embeddings | Introduction to Embeddings | Embeddings | PACE Exercise 2: TBD | |
| 11/17/2025 | 13 | 2 | Information Retrieval | Information Retrieval Basics | Information Retrieval | PACE Exercise 3: TBD | |
| 11/24/2025 | 14 | Thanksgiving | - | ||||
| 12/1/2025 | 15 | CLEF 2026 Research Proposal Presentations | Deliver final research proposal presentations. | Final Research Proposal Draft (CS 8901/8903) | |||
| 12/8/2025 | 16 | DS@GT ARC Team formation | Form teams for the Spring research cycle. | ARC spring team formation |