Classification

Classification is a data mining function that assigns items in a collection to target categories or classes, that is, items are classified according to target categories. The goal of classification is to accurately predict the target class for each case in the data. For example, a classification model could be used to identify loan applicants as low, medium, or high credit risks.

The target categories for a classification are discrete and not ordered. The simplest type of classification problem is binary classification. In binary classification, the target attribute has only two possible values: for example, high credit rating or low credit rating. Multiclass targets have more than two values: for example, low, medium, high, or unknown credit rating.

The following topics describe classification: