This unit has three take-home assessments. You will submit the solutions to the assessments via iLearn by the due dates. There is no final examination.

Late Submission Policy

• 5% penalty per day: If you submit your assessment late, 5% of the total possible marks will be deducted for each day (including weekends), up to 7 days.

  • Example 1 (out of 100): If you score 85/100 but submit 20 hours late, you will lose 5 marks and receive 80/100.

  • Example 2 (out of 30): If you score 27/30 but submit 1 day late, you will lose 1.5 marks and receive 25.5/30.

• After 7 days: Submissions more than 7 days late will receive a mark of 0.

• Extensions:

  • Automatic short extension: Some assessments are eligible for automatic short extension. If so, you can only apply for an automatic short extension before the due date.

  • Special Consideration: If you need more time due to serious issues and for any assessments that are not eligible for Short Extension, you must apply for Special Consideration.

Special Consideration Policy

The Special Consideration Policy aims to support students who have been impacted by short-term circumstances or events that are serious, unavoidable and significantly disruptive, and which may affect their performance in assessment. If you experience circumstances or events that affect your ability to complete the assessments in this unit on time, please inform the convenor and submit a Special Consideration request through ask.mq.edu.au.

Need help? Review the Special Consideration page HERE.

Assignments Release Dates

The assignments will be released no later than the dates listed below.

• Assignment 1: Natural Language Processing - 27/02/2026

• Assignment 2: Large Language Modeling - 06/03/2026

• Assignment 3: Practice-based Group Project - 01/05/2026

Requirements to Pass this Unit

To pass this unit, you must achieve a total mark equal or greater than 50%. This unit does not have hurdle assessments.

Delivery Schedule and Modes

• Lectures: One 2-hour lecture per week for 13 weeks.

• Workshops: One 2-hour workshop per week for 13 weeks.

Lectures and practicals start on Week 1.

All lectures and workshops are delivered on campus. The lectures will also be recorded and recordings of the lectures will be available via iLearn. There will not be recordings of the workshop sessions.

Assessment Components

There are three assignments for this unit.

• Assignments 1 and 2: Students must complete two assignments using NLP and large lanaguage models for NLP applications.

• Assignment 3 - Main Project: Students will develop problem-based applications in a group, culminating in a presentation and a technical report.

Methods of Communication

We will communicate with you via your university email and through announcements in iLearn. Queries to convenors can be made via the Contact tool in iLearn or sent to longbing.cao@mq.edu.au from your university email address.

Textbooks

• Natural Language Processing with Transformers, Revised Edition by Lewis Tunstall, Leandro von Werra, Thomas Wolf. Publisher: O'Reilly Media, Inc. ISBN: 9781098136796 https://www.oreilly.com/library/view/natural-language-processing/9781098136789/

• Hands-On Large Language Models, by Jay Alammar, Maarten Grootendorst, O'Reilly Media, Inc. ISBN 9781098150969 https://learning.oreilly.com/library/view/hands-on-large-language/9781098150952/

This unit has incorporated some lessons, and observations from previous offerings for continuous adjustment and optimization.

• Improved lecture organization and structure following a more connected and structured knowedge map of advanced NLP/LLMs.
• Highlighting LLMs in the lectures and assignments, and practice-based problem-solving.
• Improved statement in Assignments, including more specific description, added use cases, and specific rubric etc. to enhance practice and experience.