Support for Data Transformation in Machine Learning Applications

This paper describes research that is performed in the course of a project where a methodology for providing user support plays a central role. Although methodologically we aim at supporting the whole process of applying induc-tive learning techniques, the current paper focussus on support of the data preprocessing phase and getting insight in the data. One of our experiences is that preprocessing of data possibly is the most time consuming part of machine learning applications. We will rudimentary describe the metadata we calculate from a dataset as part of the method for user support and focus on how metadata can be used to guide preprocessing in combination with a top down approach. Some examples are given that resulted from running the UGM/DCT (User Guidance Module/ Data Characterisation Tool) on example data. Finally we consider the improvements we made w.r.t. other approaches as well as what we gained using this extension to our User Guidance Module (UGM) for user support.