Customer Reviews

Data Mining: Concepts and Techniques (The Morgan Kaufmann Series in Data Management Systems)

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

There are a number of books on data mining. The vast majority of them are non-technical in the sense that they talk a great deal about how data mining is a glorious area, without ever getting into the nitty gritty of how data mining algorithms actually work. There are also a couple of technical textbooks on data mining that are nothing more than mistitled books on machine learning (yes, I know, the ML arena does contribute a lot towards data mining). This is the first true textbook on data mining algorithms and techniques. It covers a vast array of topics and does ample justice to the vast majority of them. In fact, it even covers semi-automated (OLAP) technologies for data mining. The book consistently uses data from a single (fictitious) organization to illustrate most concepts. This gives a strong sense of cohesion to can actually be very different techniques. One key aspect of the book is its question-and-answer format. The main arguments in favor of such a format are (1) it is a clean way introduce a new topic or concept (2) students love it when things are laid out for them. On the other hand, such an approach seems inappropriate for a graduate level text. This book is certain to become "the standard" data mining textbook.

Update (Dec 25, 2004): My opinion about this book has changed over time. I've left the 5-start rating in place, although my current rating for the book is 4 (or even 3.5) stars. The main reason is that I had to supplement most of the chapters in the book with the original research papers to give my students a more complete picture of data mining (in other words, the material can be a bit shallow).

It is very easy to collect huge volumes of data - social statistics, bank records, biological data, and more - but very hard to pull useful facts out of the heap. This book is about processing large volumes of data in ways that let simple descriptions emerge.

This is an introductory level book, aimed at someone with reasonably good programming skills. A little facility with statistics might help, but certainly isn't necessary. The book starts gently, with some very basic questions: what is data mining exactly, when there seem to be so many definitions for the term? What is a data warehouse, and how does it differ from a database? Next, the authors address the data itself in terms of quality, usability, and organization for efficient access. The central chapters, 4 thhrough 8, address various kinds of query specification, kinds of relationships to extract, correlations, clustering, and classification. None of the discussions is especially deep. All, however, are presented in pseudocode or simple math that can easily be translated into working code. The careful reader learns a few basic principles that work well in many contexts: entropy maximization, Bayesian analysis, and simple stats. It may be surprising to see how little of normal statistical analysis is used. I suspect the authors assume that stats-savvy readers will already know how to apply significance testing, and that stats-naive readers don't need the distraction. The last chapters discuss complex data, where the best structure for the data and the questions to be asked of it are not at all obvious, and tools and applications used in data mining.

The book is nicely laid out as a textbook, with an orderly summary, problem set, and bibliography at the end of each chapter. The bibliography is more than just a list of names and authors - it actually helps the reader decide which references will give the best description of each of the chapter's topics.

This is a clear, usable introduction to data mining: the data it uses, the questions it answers, and the techniques for connecting them. It gives codable detail for lots of techniques, and prepares the reader for more advanced discussions. I recommend it very highly.

//wiredweird

I've been working with Data Warehousing for a few years, and stumbled upon this book here on Amazon a few weeks ago. I was leery at first because of it's obvious textbook price/look, but purchased it anyway, much to my delight.

The book provides a very vendor neutral view of Data Warehousing and Data Mining, many data mining ideas and examples are presented throughout the book without any specific programming language used. I feel it allows you to implement the idea in your preferred method.

I found the book more than worth the price, in fact I was asked to give a guest lecture/presentation at a University Data Mining class in the Spring and will definitely pull from this book for my presentation.

Enjoy!

Dismal notation coupled with incomplete or incoherent explanations make this book frustrating to read.
The author needlessly inserts layers of abstraction, making otherwise simple concepts and formulas unnecessarily time-consuming to understand.
The provided examples do make up for some of the deficiencies of the author's notation and poor wording, but not enough to make this book worth buying.

The book covers many topics but does not go into sufficient depth. It's too technical for managers and not rigorous enough for technical professionals wishing to use data mining to solve real problems. If you are new to data mining, you may learn some useful overall concepts, but won't learn enough to apply them effectively. Experts should definitely look somewhere else.

I learned about Data Mining - Concepts and Techniques from a friend who is a CS professor. He is using this book to teach his graduate and undergraduate classes and he said that the same book is also used by many leading universities such as Cornell, UC Berkeley, Georgia Tech.

First I thought this book would be hard for me to follow because I do not have a degree in CS, and I just wanted to have a good comprehensive understanding of most technical data mining methods so I can advise my IT clients (I have read several other general data mining books, and they are not technical enough for me). I was pleasantly surprised by both the depth & scope of this book and its readability. Granted it requires more brain power than some other general books covering data mining and CRMs, but after reading this book, I feel I can talk and act like an expert.

The book also has a forward written by Jim Gray. Jim Gray received the A.M. Turing award, widely regarded in industry circles as the Nobel Prize of computer science. In his early career Jim Gray worked with Ted Codd, the father of "relational databases," the modern database model in use today for more
Jim Gray said he learned a lot from this data mining book...

There is also a companion software called DBMiner for this book, and one can get hand-on experience for data mining techniques such as association, classification, OLAP visualizer and clustering. I downloaded the software from the web site...

In a nutshell, this book is an ambitious attempt to introduce the reader to the key "concepts and techniques" of Data Mining from the viewpoint of a computer science professional. While perhaps not quite the "master reference that practitioners and researchers have long been seeking", this book clearly has the potential to become the "obvious choice for academic and professional classrooms".
In my opinion, the greatest strength of this book is the coverage of data management topics including OLAP/OLTP, data warehousing, data preprocessing, and data conceptualization.
That said, this book also includes some room for improvement. Specifically, the inconsistent level of clarity and less than perfect structure of the book can make it a somewhat challenging read, even for seasoned "practitioners and researchers" alike. Nevertheless, with some careful editing with respect to accuracy and clarity, further editions of this book would likely be appreciated by those who are interested in the fascinating world of data mining.

In a nutshell, this book is an ambitious attempt to introduce the reader to the key "concepts and techniques" of Data Mining from the viewpoint of a computer science professional. While perhaps not quite yet the "master reference that practitioners and researchers have long been seeking", this book clearly has the potential to become the "obvious choice for academic and professional classrooms". From a data mining practitioner's point of view, the greatest strength of this book may be the coverage of data management topics such as OLTP/OLAP, data warehousing, data preprocessing, and data conceptualization. That said, this book also includes some room for improvement. Specifically, the inconsistent level of clarity and sometimes not-so-logical structure of the book can make it a challenging read, even for seasoned data mining practitioners. Nevertheless, with some careful editing with respect to accuracy and clarity, further editions of this book would likely be appreciated by those who are interested in the fascinating world of data mining.

I am a Data Mining analyst and this Book is the best i have ever read. It should not be considered as an Introductory book to the subject, but for readers on an intermediate level. It has a concise and well written Intro in OLAP and then it elaborates on the different DM techniques. In my opinion this book along with the "Data Preparation for Data Mining" by Dorian Pyle are the 'must have' books for Data Mining Analysts.

Data Mining conjures up many myths - if you are interested in digging deeper and evaluate if data mining can server your business needs, start with this book.

This book does not go into the depth that could assist readers in performing data mining. This is a starter book that prod in the right direction without any unnecessary fluff.

Data mining is about observing and understanding the data - it is not a straight mathematical or scientific skill set. Specific algorithms can assist in data mining - a significant challenge, very often, is getting and preparing the data to get it to a state where data mining can be performed. This book focuses on the algorithmic side of the equation.

Did we really need yet another book on data mining? This book lacks rigor; is full of errors and typos; appears to be written for the managers who want to impress other managers by throwing around buzzwords without really understanding what data mining is really about. I would not recommend this book. I returned my copy to the bookstore.