Kaggle competition


Our Kaggle competition will be a contest in two parts:

  • In Part I, you will predict the target variables for a public leaderboard dataset and receive feedback on your leaderboard set error.
  • In Part II, you will predict the target variables for a second, private test dataset, and you will not receive feedback on the quality of your predictions until the contest is over. Your final rankings for the Kaggle competition will be determined by Part II only (that is, we will not take your Part I rankings into account when awarding extra points on the final).

Part I

Part I of the Kaggle competition has begun! You can view the Part I Kaggle competition details here: https://inclass.kaggle.com/c/als-progression.

To participate, you must receive an invitation from the course staff. Invitations have been sent to all enrolled Stats 202 students who have agreed to the data use terms and conditions. If you have not received an invitation and are an enrolled Stats 202 student, make sure that you have reviewed the data use terms and conditions and then send an email to our staff list to ask for an invitation.


Part II

Part II of the Kaggle competition has begun! You can view the Part II Kaggle competition details here: https://inclass.kaggle.com/c/als-progression-part-ii.

Participation in Part II is optional and not necessary to earn full credit for satisfactory participation in the Kaggle competition (see the Evaluation section below). Participation in Part II is necessary if you want to compete for extra credit on the final (see the Evaluation section below).

To participate, you must receive an invitation from the course staff. Invitations have been sent to all enrolled Stats 202 students who have agreed to the data use terms and conditions. If you have not received an invitation and are an enrolled Stats 202 student, make sure that you have reviewed the data use terms and conditions and then send an email to our staff list to ask for an invitation.


A few ground rules

  • You must form your Kaggle teams prior to making any submissions.
  • In Part I, you can only make 2 submissions per day (measured in Universal Time).
  • You must make all submissions (for either part of the competition) prior to 1pm PT on Dec 2, 2015.
  • Each Stats 202 student can participate in only one submitting team.
  • If you participate in Part II, you must form the same teams as in Part I.
  • No more than three students can be part of a team.
  • Every team member must be a currently enrolled Stats 202 student.
  • You may not supplement the challenge data with outside data.


Evaluation

  • To obtain full credit for satisfactory participation, make a submission to Part I of the competition that outperforms (i.e., achieves a smaller RMSE than) the "Predict validation target mean" baseline benchmark on the public leaderboard.
  • The final rankings of teams will be determined by the private test in Part II of the competition.
  • The ten teams with the highest ranking on the private leaderboard in Part II will be awarded extra points on the final exam. The #1 team will be awarded 10 percentage points (1 percentage point corresponds to 1% of the maximum final grade before bonus points are awarded), the #2 team will be awarded 9 percentage points, the #3 team 8 percentage points, and so on, down the the #10 team, which will be awarded 1 percentage point.