Update on the MOOC “Machine Learning for Trading”

Posted on August 11, 2015 by

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The “old” course

We’ve had four very successful sessions of my MOOC “Computational Investing, Part I” at Coursera.  The Coursera run included over 170,000 students with a 5% completion rate.  The Coursera course focused on about the first 1/2 of my on campus course, which includes also Machine Learning (that would be Part II).

The Coursera experience was really exhilarating.  We were on the front of the wave of this new idea, thanks in part to Georgia Tech’s administration being willing to take risks.

Many of the Coursera students have asked me to put the Machine Learning component online too.  And I have promised that I would.  At about the same time, our dean, Zvi Galil initiated the creation of an online master’s program called OMSCS — a fully accredited Georgia Tech degree for about $7,000.  Zvi invited me to add my course to OMSCS and I felt this was a great way to move forward.

I expect for this course to eventually return to Coursera as well, it is a great platform and company, but I can’t do too many things all at once.

The “new” course: Three parts

There was a lot to be done to move the course from a non-credit introduction to the field sort of course to a really serious course for graduate credit.  In addition to those concerns it was also time to rethink the course structure.  We settled on a course composed of three mini-courses:

The full course is described here.  The course also now includes a number of assessments that the Coursera version did not: Things like graded exams and projects.  It is only possible to accomplish this with an army of TAs (at least for now).

One reason for separating the course into these three mini-courses is that I hope to offer them later in other venues.  As an example, we might create a professional certificate program around these mini-courses.

Rollout schedule: OMSCS

This version is a true graduate level course for university credit.  It is available only to students enrolled Georgia Tech’s OMSCS program.

It will run 17 weeks from August 17, 2015 to early December.  The on campus and online courses will run in parallel with the same schedule. It will be offered again in Spring 2016, Fall 2016, and so on.

Rollout schedule: Other versions

I would like to also offer one or two additional variations on the course, but this will depend on discussions within Georgia Tech and Udacity.

Free version, no credit: This version will probably be available in late Fall 2015, but no later than January 2016.  Students will be able to submit projects that will be auto graded.  It would not include any review by a professor or TA or any credential.

Fee-based version with certificate: This version may start as early as January 2016. Students would submit coding projects, reports and so on that would be graded by TAs.  Students would take the course in parallel with OMSCS students.  Upon successful completion students will receive a certificate from Georgia Tech.  This version of the course will not count as college credit however.

Keep yourself updated

If you want to be sure to be notified about enrollment opportunities, please sign up to “follow” my blog.  I will post that information on this blog.

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Posted in: academic research, MOOCs