Project EMD-MLR: Educational Material Development and Research in Machine Learning for Undergraduate Students

This paper presents implementation and organizational details, as well as accomplished outcomes on a National Science Foundation funded project under the auspices of the Educational Materials Development track of the program entitled Course, Curriculum and Laboratories Improvement (CCLI-EMD). The title of the grant is “PROJECT EMD-MLR: Educational Materials Development through the Integration of Machine Learning Research into Senior Design Projects”. The project partners are two major universities in Central Florida, Florida Institute of Technology (FIT) in Melbourne and the University of Central Florida (UCF) in Orlando. In addition to the two universities, there are two 2-year Central Florida colleges, Seminole Community College (SCC) in Oviedo and Brevard Community College (BCC) in Palm Bay. Project EMD-MLR is a “proof-of-concept” project focused on Machine Learning (ML), whose immediate objectives are i) the development of educational material in the form of software implementations of ML algorithms and the compilation of accompanying documentation; the creation of an on-line ML Repository via the archiving of the developed products; the authoring of 3-4 chapters of an undergraduate ML textbook, ii) the introduction of ML research in the participating institutions’ curricula and iii) the dissemination of the developed material through the on-line outlet, affiliated academic institutions and industries. The project’s objectives are achieved by a team of faculty with strong teaching and research experience in ML, as well as extensive experience on supervising senior design teams. EMD-MLR’s objectives will impact 80 students in a span of 2 years, some of which are members of underrepresented groups (in particular UCF and SCC students). Furthermore, the project’s focus enhances partnerships amongst 4 neighboring institutions, and many more affiliate Universities dispersed within the US and abroad. The University partnerships constitute the anchor of an elaborate dissemination plan that is multi-faceted and self-sustained.