Bayesian data mining on the Web with B-Course

Abstract

B-Course is a free Web based Bayesian data mining service. This service allows the users to analyze their own data for multivariate probabilistic dependencies represented as Bayesian network models. In addition to this, B-Course also offers facilities for inferring certain types of causal dependencies from the data. The software is especially suitable for educational purposes as the tutorial style user friendly interface intertwines steps in the data analysis with support material that gives an informal introduction to the Bayesian approach adopted. Nevertheless, although the analysis methods, modeling assumptions and restrictions are totally transparent to the user, this transparency is not achieved at the expense of analysis power: with the restrictions stated in the support material, B-Course is a powerful analysis tool exploiting several theoretically elaborate results developed recently in the fields of Bayesian and causal modeling.