This page provides an overview of the number of hours of lecture content that typically devoted to different topics, based on a survey of wide range of courses related to various aspects of machine learning, taken from a broad spectrum of universities around the world. The table below allows the distribution of course hours to be viewed for both high-level topics and their specific subtopics. In each case, a pie chart illustrating the proportion of courses covering a given topic can be viewed, together with a histogram showing the range of hours spent on that topic, which is followed by a list of links to specific courses covering the topic.
Topics Covered (Click on the book icon to view subtopics) | Hours Covered on Average (Click on the + symbol for detailed breakdown) |
---|---|
General concepts | 4.0 Hours. |
6.15 hours | |
5.06 hours | |
5.05 hours | |
4.93 hours | |
4.11 hours | |
3.74 hours | |
2.59 hours | |
2.25 hours | |
1.95 hours | |
Intro/Overview/Applications | 1.3 Hours. |
2.12 hours | |
2.0 hours | |
1.5 hours | |
1.38 hours | |
1.33 hours | |
1.29 hours | |
1.0 hours | |
0.86 hours | |
0.47 hours | |
Classifier Performance Estimation | 0.8 Hours. |
1.55 hours | |
1.5 hours | |
0.57 hours | |
0.16 hours | |
0.03 hours | |
Statistical Tests for Classifier Comparison | 0.7 Hours. |
1.24 hours | |
0.08 hours | |
ROC Curves | 0.5 Hours. |
1.5 hours | |
0.57 hours | |
0.31 hours | |
0.08 hours | |
0.03 hours | |
Bootstrap | 0.9 Hours. |
0.86 hours | |
Sufficient statistics | 0.0 Hours. |
Distance metrics | 0.1 Hours. |
0.09 hours | |
Important Distributions | 0.9 Hours. |
1.96 hours | |
1.62 hours | |
1.3 hours | |
1.0 hours | |
0.52 hours | |
0.39 hours | |
0.34 hours | |
0.15 hours | |
Gaussian | 0.5 Hours. |
1.0 hours | |
0.88 hours | |
0.55 hours | |
0.52 hours | |
0.36 hours | |
0.25 hours | |
0.22 hours | |
0.09 hours | |
Discrete | 0.6 Hours. |
1.08 hours | |
0.75 hours | |
0.62 hours | |
0.06 hours | |
Continuous (non Gaussian) | 0.6 Hours. |
0.75 hours | |
0.74 hours | |
0.18 hours | |
Curse of dimensionality | 0.1 Hours. |
0.13 hours | |
0.08 hours | |
0.06 hours | |
Bayesian Decision theory | 0.6 Hours. |
1.0 hours | |
0.24 hours | |
Error Estimation | 0.3 Hours. |
0.52 hours | |
0.38 hours | |
0.02 hours | |
Chernoff's Bound/hoeffding inequality | 0.1 Hours. |
0.3 hours | |
0.1 hours | |
0.02 hours | |
Bhattacharyya Coefficient | 0.0 Hours. |
Linear Algebra Review | 0.6 Hours. |
1.0 hours | |
0.24 hours | |
Information Theory | 1.9 Hours. |
6.0 hours | |
0.64 hours | |
0.54 hours | |
0.22 hours | |
KL Divergence | 0.1 Hours. |
0.05 hours | |
Essential Probability theory/Statistics | 0.6 Hours. |
1.38 hours | |
0.94 hours | |
0.58 hours | |
0.32 hours | |
0.16 hours | |
0.07 hours | |
Feature separability | 0.1 Hours. |
0.09 hours | |
0.07 hours | |
Feature Selection/Extraction | 1.7 Hours. |
3.07 hours | |
3.03 hours | |
2.0 hours | |
1.75 hours | |
1.75 hours | |
1.47 hours | |
1.0 hours | |
0.88 hours | |
0.06 hours | |
Data Preprocessing/normalisation | 0.6 Hours. |
0.75 hours | |
0.47 hours | |
Independent Components Analysis | 0.6 Hours. |
1.33 hours | |
0.5 hours | |
0.43 hours | |
0.26 hours | |
Dimensionality Reduction | 1.1 Hours. |
1.61 hours | |
1.57 hours | |
1.5 hours | |
1.49 hours | |
1.28 hours | |
0.88 hours | |
0.54 hours | |
0.53 hours | |
0.06 hours | |
Intro/overview | 0.2 Hours. |
0.39 hours | |
0.06 hours | |
Principal Components Analysis | 0.7 Hours. |
1.42 hours | |
1.16 hours | |
0.82 hours | |
0.75 hours | |
0.72 hours | |
0.53 hours | |
0.45 hours | |
0.41 hours | |
0.06 hours | |
Probabilistic PCA | 0.4 Hours. |
0.75 hours | |
0.09 hours | |
Linear Discriminant Analysis | 0.3 Hours. |
0.41 hours | |
0.28 hours | |
0.19 hours | |
Canonical correlation analysis | 0.3 Hours. |
0.28 hours | |
Non-negative Matrix Factorization | 0.1 Hours. |
0.13 hours | |
Kernel PCA | 0.8 Hours. |
1.42 hours | |
0.17 hours | |
Factor Analysis | 0.5 Hours. |
0.5 hours | |
Feature Selection | 0.5 Hours. |
0.86 hours | |
0.08 hours | |
Clustering | 0.8 Hours. |
2.25 hours | |
1.45 hours | |
0.72 hours | |
0.62 hours | |
0.13 hours | |
0.06 hours | |
0.04 hours | |
Intro/overview | 0.2 Hours. |
0.2 hours | |
Similarity Measures/Clustering Criteria | 0.3 Hours. |
0.26 hours | |
K-Means | 0.6 Hours. |
2.25 hours | |
0.72 hours | |
0.62 hours | |
0.59 hours | |
0.13 hours | |
0.04 hours | |
0.03 hours | |
Hierarchical | 0.1 Hours. |
0.2 hours | |
0.03 hours | |
Spectral/Graph-Based | 0.2 Hours. |
0.2 hours | |
Cluster validity | 0.0 Hours. |
Competitive Learning/SOMs | 0.0 Hours. |
Fuzzy clustering | 0.0 Hours. |
Vector Quantization | 0.1 Hours. |
0.1 hours | |
Decision Boundaries | 5.9 Hours. |
12.52 hours | |
8.07 hours | |
6.15 hours | |
6.06 hours | |
5.25 hours | |
4.12 hours | |
3.88 hours | |
1.54 hours | |
Overview | 0.4 Hours. |
0.78 hours | |
0.37 hours | |
0.28 hours | |
0.25 hours | |
Linear Discriminants | 1.5 Hours. |
3.0 hours | |
1.95 hours | |
1.6 hours | |
1.13 hours | |
1.07 hours | |
0.37 hours | |
Perceptron Learning | 0.2 Hours. |
0.47 hours | |
0.22 hours | |
0.2 hours | |
0.09 hours | |
0.06 hours | |
Minimum Squared Error | 0.1 Hours. |
0.16 hours | |
0.13 hours | |
Logistic regression | 1.2 Hours. |
3.0 hours | |
1.48 hours | |
1.07 hours | |
0.72 hours | |
0.44 hours | |
0.28 hours | |
Bayesian Logistic Regression | 0.6 Hours. |
0.57 hours | |
Quadratic Discriminant Functions | 0.0 Hours. |
Bayes Classifier/Class-conditional densities | 0.4 Hours. |
0.78 hours | |
0.67 hours | |
0.44 hours | |
0.37 hours | |
0.31 hours | |
0.09 hours | |
Support Vector Machine | 1.3 Hours. |
2.76 hours | |
1.84 hours | |
1.33 hours | |
0.57 hours | |
0.23 hours | |
Relevance Vector Machine | 0.1 Hours. |
0.07 hours | |
Kernel Methods/Kernel Trick | 1.0 Hours. |
1.5 hours | |
1.33 hours | |
1.01 hours | |
0.77 hours | |
0.21 hours | |
k-Nearest Neighbour Rule | 0.6 Hours. |
1.0 hours | |
0.6 hours | |
0.43 hours | |
0.28 hours | |
Decision Trees | 1.2 Hours. |
2.83 hours | |
1.62 hours | |
1.37 hours | |
1.33 hours | |
0.75 hours | |
0.33 hours | |
0.09 hours | |
Multi-class Classification | 2.0 Hours. |
2.0 hours | |
Neural Networks | 1.9 Hours. |
3.31 hours | |
3.21 hours | |
1.24 hours | |
1.23 hours | |
0.72 hours | |
Multilayer Perceptron | 0.6 Hours. |
1.0 hours | |
0.75 hours | |
0.41 hours | |
0.41 hours | |
0.29 hours | |
Radial Basis Networks | 0.6 Hours. |
0.79 hours | |
0.38 hours | |
Backpropagation algorithm/Learning rules | 0.9 Hours. |
1.52 hours | |
1.18 hours | |
0.83 hours | |
0.48 hours | |
0.43 hours | |
Regularization | 0.5 Hours. |
0.52 hours | |
Bayesian learning | 0.3 Hours. |
0.27 hours | |
Mixture Density Networks | 0.5 Hours. |
0.45 hours | |
Recurrent Neural Networks | 0.1 Hours. |
0.09 hours | |
Regression | 1.1 Hours. |
1.91 hours | |
1.68 hours | |
1.59 hours | |
1.08 hours | |
0.89 hours | |
0.71 hours | |
0.64 hours | |
0.12 hours | |
General intro | 0.2 Hours. |
0.45 hours | |
0.3 hours | |
0.25 hours | |
0.18 hours | |
0.17 hours | |
0.13 hours | |
0.06 hours | |
Least-squares estimation | 0.4 Hours. |
0.84 hours | |
0.47 hours | |
0.41 hours | |
0.39 hours | |
0.38 hours | |
0.2 hours | |
0.2 hours | |
Linear Parameters/Non-linear Basis Functions | 0.2 Hours. |
0.64 hours | |
0.25 hours | |
0.24 hours | |
0.15 hours | |
0.13 hours | |
0.13 hours | |
0.03 hours | |
Splines | 0.3 Hours. |
0.26 hours | |
Kernel Regression | 0.1 Hours. |
0.25 hours | |
0.06 hours | |
0.03 hours | |
Locally weighted regression | 0.4 Hours. |
0.38 hours | |
Lasso Regression | 0.2 Hours. |
0.17 hours | |
Bayesian estimation | 0.7 Hours. |
0.75 hours | |
0.72 hours | |
Gaussian Processes | 1.4 Hours. |
1.5 hours | |
1.43 hours | |
1.33 hours | |
Parameter Estimation | 4.5 Hours. |
9.57 hours | |
8.74 hours | |
5.36 hours | |
4.93 hours | |
3.68 hours | |
3.2 hours | |
2.62 hours | |
2.21 hours | |
0.13 hours | |
Maximum Likelihood | 0.5 Hours. |
1.5 hours | |
1.07 hours | |
0.55 hours | |
0.46 hours | |
0.36 hours | |
0.16 hours | |
0.15 hours | |
0.11 hours | |
Maximum a Posteriori / Bayesian | 0.6 Hours. |
2.25 hours | |
0.92 hours | |
0.69 hours | |
0.22 hours | |
0.18 hours | |
0.14 hours | |
0.1 hours | |
0.09 hours | |
Expectation Maximisation | 0.7 Hours. |
1.62 hours | |
1.4 hours | |
1.21 hours | |
0.5 hours | |
0.48 hours | |
0.42 hours | |
0.16 hours | |
0.13 hours | |
Sampling Methods | 1.9 Hours. |
3.0 hours | |
2.83 hours | |
2.0 hours | |
1.5 hours | |
0.12 hours | |
Variational Methods | 1.9 Hours. |
2.83 hours | |
1.0 hours | |
Evolutionary Methods | 0.0 Hours. |
Model Selection | 1.0 Hours. |
1.96 hours | |
1.77 hours | |
1.61 hours | |
0.95 hours | |
0.82 hours | |
0.79 hours | |
0.48 hours | |
0.13 hours | |
0.11 hours | |
Cross-validation/Model Search | 0.4 Hours. |
0.96 hours | |
0.81 hours | |
0.36 hours | |
0.1 hours | |
0.09 hours | |
0.07 hours | |
Overfitting, Train-vs-test error | 0.3 Hours. |
0.47 hours | |
0.38 hours | |
0.3 hours | |
0.29 hours | |
0.27 hours | |
0.21 hours | |
0.11 hours | |
0.03 hours | |
Bias-vs-variance Tradeoff | 0.4 Hours. |
1.02 hours | |
0.35 hours | |
0.34 hours | |
0.21 hours | |
0.09 hours | |
Regularization | 0.3 Hours. |
0.47 hours | |
0.36 hours | |
0.31 hours | |
0.3 hours | |
0.29 hours | |
Model Complexity Criteria (eg. BIC) | 0.1 Hours. |
0.13 hours | |
0.02 hours | |
Bayesian Model Comparison | 0.8 Hours. |
0.89 hours | |
0.68 hours | |
Optimization (general) | 0.5 Hours. |
0.75 hours | |
0.62 hours | |
0.12 hours | |
Maximum Entropy Estimation | 0.8 Hours. |
0.75 hours | |
Maximum Mutual Information | 0.0 Hours. |
Density Estimation | 0.9 Hours. |
0.87 hours | |
k-Nearest Neighbours | 0.0 Hours. |
Vector Quantization-based density est | 0.0 Hours. |
Parzen windows/kernel density estimation | 0.0 Hours. |
Histogram-based density estimation | 0.3 Hours. |
0.25 hours | |
Gaussian Mixture Models | 0.4 Hours. |
0.89 hours | |
0.75 hours | |
0.5 hours | |
0.38 hours | |
0.3 hours | |
0.22 hours | |
0.02 hours | |
Bayesian Networks/Graphical Models | 2.8 Hours. |
8.36 hours | |
4.06 hours | |
2.98 hours | |
2.5 hours | |
2.22 hours | |
2.01 hours | |
1.7 hours | |
1.0 hours | |
0.1 hours | |
Belief Networks | 0.8 Hours. |
1.26 hours | |
1.0 hours | |
1.0 hours | |
0.83 hours | |
0.73 hours | |
0.57 hours | |
0.15 hours | |
Conditional Independence | 0.3 Hours. |
0.59 hours | |
0.48 hours | |
0.2 hours | |
0.15 hours | |
0.07 hours | |
0.05 hours | |
Naïve Bayes | 0.7 Hours. |
1.5 hours | |
1.22 hours | |
1.04 hours | |
1.0 hours | |
0.15 hours | |
0.05 hours | |
0.02 hours | |
Markov Random Fields | 1.4 Hours. |
3.36 hours | |
0.41 hours | |
0.38 hours | |
Inference | 0.7 Hours. |
1.2 hours | |
1.0 hours | |
1.0 hours | |
0.48 hours | |
0.22 hours | |
0.13 hours | |
Applications | 0.4 Hours. |
1.0 hours | |
0.21 hours | |
0.11 hours | |
Parameter Estimation | 0.5 Hours. |
1.05 hours | |
1.0 hours | |
0.15 hours | |
0.1 hours | |
0.07 hours | |
Causality | 1.0 Hours. |
1.0 hours | |
Structure Learning | 1.5 Hours. |
1.6 hours | |
1.33 hours | |
Classifier Combination | 0.9 Hours. |
2.83 hours | |
1.0 hours | |
0.76 hours | |
0.42 hours | |
0.28 hours | |
0.05 hours | |
Bagging | 0.1 Hours. |
0.23 hours | |
0.14 hours | |
0.05 hours | |
Boosting/Adaboost | 1.1 Hours. |
2.83 hours | |
0.77 hours | |
0.76 hours | |
0.14 hours | |
Other Ensemble Methods | 0.2 Hours. |
0.32 hours | |
0.05 hours | |
Sequence Models | 1.8 Hours. |
2.54 hours | |
2.0 hours | |
2.0 hours | |
1.84 hours | |
1.33 hours | |
1.22 hours | |
Markov Models | 0.4 Hours. |
1.0 hours | |
0.36 hours | |
0.26 hours | |
0.23 hours | |
0.23 hours | |
Hidden Markov Models | 1.3 Hours. |
2.31 hours | |
1.22 hours | |
1.15 hours | |
1.13 hours | |
1.0 hours | |
1.0 hours | |
Linear Dynamical Systems | 0.4 Hours. |
0.7 hours | |
0.33 hours | |
0.05 hours | |
Kalman Filters | 0.2 Hours. |
0.33 hours | |
0.05 hours | |
Particle filters | 0.2 Hours. |
0.26 hours | |
0.05 hours | |
Conditional Random Fields | 1.0 Hours. |
0.99 hours | |
Applications | 1.2 Hours. |
2.15 hours | |
2.0 hours | |
0.25 hours | |
0.23 hours | |
Spam Email Filtering | 1.0 Hours. |
1.0 hours | |
Collaborative filtering | 1.5 Hours. |
2.0 hours | |
1.0 hours | |
Face recognition | 0.0 Hours. |
Hand-writing recognition | 0.0 Hours. |
Color-Based Skin Detection in Images | 0.0 Hours. |
Face detection | 0.0 Hours. |
Robot Juggling | 0.0 Hours. |
Document image analysis | 0.0 Hours. |
Fingerprint identification | 0.0 Hours. |
Object Tracking | 0.0 Hours. |
Brain MR Image Segmentation | 0.0 Hours. |
Human Pose Estimation | 0.0 Hours. |
Speech recognition | 0.0 Hours. |
Visual analysis of art | 0.0 Hours. |
Music information retrieval | 0.0 Hours. |
Text classification | 0.2 Hours. |
0.25 hours | |
0.23 hours | |
0.09 hours | |
Network anomaly detection | 0.1 Hours. |
0.06 hours | |
Brain Imaging fmri/eeg interpretation | 0.5 Hours. |
1.0 hours | |
0.27 hours | |
0.09 hours | |
Theoretical concepts | 2.3 Hours. |
3.55 hours | |
2.84 hours | |
2.44 hours | |
1.79 hours | |
0.69 hours | |
No free lunch theorem | 0.0 Hours. |
0.03 hours | |
VC Dimension/inequality | 0.7 Hours. |
1.4 hours | |
0.83 hours | |
0.65 hours | |
0.27 hours | |
0.22 hours | |
PAC Learning | 0.9 Hours. |
1.39 hours | |
0.97 hours | |
0.63 hours | |
0.42 hours | |
Mistake Bound | 0.5 Hours. |
0.47 hours | |
Computational Learning Theory | 1.3 Hours. |
2.22 hours | |
1.33 hours | |
0.48 hours | |
Bayesian Concept Learning | 3.0 Hours. |
3.0 hours | |
Miscellaneous other areas | 2.0 Hours. |
8.0 hours | |
3.0 hours | |
2.21 hours | |
1.33 hours | |
1.0 hours | |
0.49 hours | |
0.13 hours | |
0.06 hours | |
Data Visualisation | 1.8 Hours. |
2.0 hours | |
1.68 hours | |
Multidimensional scaling | 0.2 Hours. |
0.23 hours | |
Isomap | 0.4 Hours. |
0.39 hours | |
Local Linear Embedding | 0.4 Hours. |
0.42 hours | |
Laplacian Eigenmaps | 0.3 Hours. |
0.29 hours | |
Maximum variance Unfolding | 0.4 Hours. |
0.35 hours | |
Conformal Components Analysis | 0.3 Hours. |
0.32 hours | |
Novelty/outlier detection | 1.0 Hours. |
2.0 hours | |
0.03 hours | |
Reinforcement Learning | 1.5 Hours. |
3.0 hours | |
2.21 hours | |
2.0 hours | |
1.33 hours | |
0.13 hours | |
0.03 hours | |
Active Learning | 2.0 Hours. |
2.0 hours | |
Semi-supervised Learning | 0.0 Hours. |
MATLAB Programming | 0.5 Hours. |
0.49 hours |