Advanced Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning: Reinforcement Learning summer course in Oxford, by LMH Summer Programmes.
Getting things wrong is part of what makes us human, and our natural intelligence helps us learn from our mistakes. Reinforcement learning is an area of machine learning which enables artificial intelligence to learn from its mistakes as well, for example allowing a robot to use trial-and-error to interact with a new environment and achieve an objective. This advanced course examines the fundamentals of reinforcement learning and explores the varied applications of dynamic programming methods.
The course will begin with a thorough grounding in the key theoretical concepts of reinforcement learning, familiarising you with agents, environments, and rewards, before introducing Markov decision processes, dynamic programming, and Monte Carlo methods. As the course progresses you will explore a wide range of reinforcement learning methods and techniques, including policy gradient methods and how they optimise policies, policy search methods such as evolutionary strategies and hill-climbing, and the cross-entropy method for policy optimisation. The final part of the course will introduce even more advanced topics, including multi-agent reinforcement learning.
This intensive course offers students theoretical understanding and practical experience in a range of reinforcement learning concepts and techniques, offering career skills as well as excellent foundations for future research.
You will stay in College accommodation onsite at Lady Margaret Hall, in en suite bedrooms normally occupied by our undergraduate students during term time.
You will eat breakfast each day in the Dining Hall, and lunch and dinner will also be provided in College on each of your teaching days. On the final evening of the course there is a Graduation Formal Hall, when students dress up in their finest outfits for a special banquet served in the Dining Hall.
LMH Summer Programmes are designed and delivered by experienced academics from Lady Margaret Hall and across the University of Oxford, and are taught using the Oxford teaching model, which emphasises personalised small-group learning.
In a series of thought-provoking lectures and lively seminar discussions you will learn about cutting-edge research, expand your core knowledge, and explore new ideas and concepts among peers with diverse international perspectives and academic backgrounds.
Tutorials, the conclusion of each week’s study, are an intellectual thrill. They are a unique opportunity for focused and personalised attention from an expert academic and a space for enthusiastic debate of important ideas. Alongside no more than two to three other students, you will present and discuss your work, accept constructive criticism, and engage with the ideas of your fellow students. These rigorous academic discussions help develop and facilitate learning in a way that cannot be done with lectures alone.
On a three-week LMH Summer Programme students produce one piece of assessed work every week, which is submitted to the tutor and then discussed in a tutorial. At the end of each week you will receive a percentage grade for your submitted work. Each week’s work counts for a third of your final percentage grade, so your final grade is an average of the mark received for each piece of work. Students who stay for six or nine weeks will receive a separate grade for each 3-week course.
Lady Margaret Hall will provide a transcript of your assessed work, and can send this directly to your home institution if required. LMH Summer Programmes are designed to be eligible for academic credit, and we will communicate with your home institution to facilitate this as needed. As a guide, we recommend the award of 15 CATS / 7.5 ECTS / 4 US Credits for each 3-week course.
Would you like to join a pub quiz, visit a medieval castle, or go punting on the river? Our team of Residential Advisors are here to help you get to know other students, explore the city, and have an authentic experience of life as a student at an Oxford college.
A pioneering and historic college of the University of Oxford with its own intellectually challenging summer school.