Welcome to the Wiki page of the course '''Search Engines, WS 2009 / 2010'''. Lecturer: [[http://ad.informatik.uni-freiburg.de/staff/bast|Hannah Bast]]. Tutorials: [[http://ad.informatik.uni-freiburg.de/staff/celikik|Marjan Celikik]]. Course web page: [[http://ad.informatik.uni-freiburg.de/teaching/winter-term-2009-2010/suchmaschinen-vorlesung|click here]].

Here are PDFs of the slides of the lectures so far: [[attachment:SearchEnginesWS0910/lecture-1.pdf|Lecture 1]], [[attachment:SearchEnginesWS0910/lecture-2.pdf|Lecture 2]], [[attachment:SearchEnginesWS0910/lecture-3.pdf|Lecture 3]], [[attachment:SearchEnginesWS0910/lecture-4.pdf|Lecture 4]], [[attachment:SearchEnginesWS0910/lecture-5.pdf|Lecture 5]], [[attachment:SearchEnginesWS0910/lecture-6.pdf|Lecture 6]], [[attachment:SearchEnginesWS0910/lecture-7.pdf|Lecture 7]], [[attachment:SearchEnginesWS0910/lecture-8.pdf|Lecture 8]].

Here are .lpd files of the recordings of the lectures so far (except Lecture 2, where we had problems with the microphone): [[http://vulcano.informatik.uni-freiburg.de/lecturnity/lecture-1.lpd|Recording Lecture 1]], [[http://vulcano.informatik.uni-freiburg.de/lecturnity/lecture-3.lpd|Recording Lecture 3]], [[http://vulcano.informatik.uni-freiburg.de/lecturnity/lecture-4.lpd|Recording Lecture 4]], [[http://vulcano.informatik.uni-freiburg.de/lecturnity/lecture-5.lpd|Recording Lecture 5 (no audio)]], [[http://vulcano.informatik.uni-freiburg.de/lecturnity/lecture-6.lpd|Recording Lecture 6 (with audio for a change)]], [[http://vulcano.informatik.uni-freiburg.de/lecturnity/lecture-7.avi|Recording Lecture 7 (AVI)]], [[http://vulcano.informatik.uni-freiburg.de/lecturnity/lecture-8.avi|Recording Lecture 8 (AVI)]].

Here are PDFs of the exercise sheets so far: [[attachment:SearchEnginesWS0910/exercise-1.pdf|Exercise Sheet 1]], [[attachment:SearchEnginesWS0910/exercise-2.pdf|Exercise Sheet 2]], [[attachment:SearchEnginesWS0910/exercise-3.pdf|Exercise Sheet 3]], [[attachment:SearchEnginesWS0910/exercise-4.pdf|Exercise Sheet 4]], [[attachment:SearchEnginesWS0910/exercise-5.pdf|Exercise Sheet 5]], [[attachment:SearchEnginesWS0910/exercise-6.pdf|Exercise Sheet 6]], [[attachment:SearchEnginesWS0910/exercise-7.pdf|Exercise Sheet 7]], [[attachment:SearchEnginesWS0910/exercise-8.pdf|Exercise Sheet 8]].

Here are your solutions and comments on the previous exercise sheets: [[SearchEnginesWS0910/ExerciseSheet1|Solutions and Comments 1]], [[SearchEnginesWS0910/ExerciseSheet2|Solutions and Comments 2]], [[SearchEnginesWS0910/ExerciseSheet3|Solutions and Comments 3]], [[SearchEnginesWS0910/ExerciseSheet4|Solutions and Comments 4]], [[SearchEnginesWS0910/ExerciseSheet5|Solutions and Comments 5]], [[SearchEnginesWS0910/ExerciseSheet6|Solutions and Comments 6]], [[SearchEnginesWS0910/ExerciseSheet7|Solutions and Comments 7]], [[SearchEnginesWS0910/ExerciseSheet8|Solutions and Comments 8]].

The recordings of all lectures are now available, see above. Lecture 2 is missing because we had technical problems there. To play the Lecturnity recordings (.lpd files) you need the [[http://www.lecturnity.de/de/download/lecturnity-player|Lecturnity Player, which you can download here]]. I put the Camtasia recordings as .avi files, which you can play with any ordinary video player; I would recommend [[http://www.videolan.org/vlc|VLC]].

[[SearchEnginesWS0910/Rules|Here are the rules for the exercises as explained in Lecture 2]].

== ABOUT THE MID-TERM (TRIAL) EXAM ==

Ok, guys, thanks for your votes. '''The winner is Friday, December 18, 16 - 18 h.''' The exam will start at 4.00 pm, so please be there in time. I yet have to find a room, but that shouldn't be a problem at that time of the day and week and year. I will inform you once I know which room it is.

Here are the rules of the exam:

1. It's an open book exam, that is, you can bring and use any amount of books, papers, etc. In particular, printout of the lecture slides, exercise sheets, your solutions, etc. Also any amount of private annotations and the whole CS library if you want. You won't need much for the exam though. I think what will be most useful are the slides, so that you can look up the basic definitions of stuff, in case you forgot them, and your solutions of the exercise sheets.

2. You are not allowed to use any computing devices, mobile phones, etc. In particular, you are not allowed to communicate with others or in any way connect to the Internet or something like that. You won't need a pocket calculator. In case you need to compute log_2(10/7), we will tell you what it is. Things like 2 * 0.5 or log_2(10/5) you should be able to compute by yourself.

3. Expect one or two tasks where you have to write code for some small functions. For example, a binary search in a list of strings. (No, that will not be a task of this exam.) You can use any of the standard languages: Java, C++, C#. Python and PHP are also ok if you absolutely must. Or you can also use pseudo-code. Anyway, you will be asked to write only relatively simple functions, which do not require any involved language-specific things. You should know basic data structures like arrays, lists, and hash tables though.

4. The material covered is simply everything that we did in the lectures and in the exercises, and nothing beyond that. Note that if you haven't really understood a topic, and then comes a task about that topic, you won't have enough time to go to the slides, understand it, and then solve the task. That is, you should have a basic understanding of everything we did, before the exam. If you did all the exercises, and did them well, chances are high that you have that understanding.

5. In the trial exam there will be 5 tasks of which you have to solve 4. Given that the total time for the exam is 2 hours, this means that you will have 30 minutes for each task on average. We will not be super-strict with the time, that is, if it's 6 pm and you need a little longer that is fine.

6.  The exam questions will certainly be significantly easier than most of the questions in the exercises. And this is how it should be if you ask me. For the exercise you have time to think deep about certain problems, deal with the gory details of things, etc. and this is how one learns / understands stuff. In the exam, you should prove that you have understood all the stuff we did, no more and no less. There will, of course, be tasks that require some thinking, but no deep thinking. In particular, you won't have to prove that P != NP, or that Primes is in P.

7. This is a pure trial exam, which will not influence your final mark in any way. We will correct the exam like the real thing though and give you real marks, so that you get an impression of where you stand.

1. - 6. will also hold true for the final exam in this or very similar form. 7. obviously not.



== Questions or comments below this line, most recent on top please ==

It seems that I'm not there on friday. Can I find the exam on the wiki that I can do it at home? '''Alex'''

Thanks for changing the date of the trial exam. I'd like to know if we are allowed to solve the tasks in German especially in the final exam. When will we get the date of the final exam? '''Manuela 17Dec09 7:56am'''

To Eric + all: I asked people in the last lecture, and the majority didn't want that the trial exam counted at all for anything. So that's how it is, it doesn't count for anything. Concerning your second question: yes, the final exam will also be open book. Indeed, as I wrote above, the final exam will be very similar to the trial exam, except that, guess what, there will be different tasks in the final exam, and the final exam will probably be a bit longer (three hours instead of two). That is exactly one purpose of this trial exam, that you know what to expect in the final exam. '''Hannah 17Dec09 1:54am'''

Two Questions: 1) Does this mean the mark won't count as an exercise sheet? And though won't count for anything. It is just to get an impression where we stand and how the final exam will be? 2) Will the final exam also be "open book"? '''Eric'''