Getting Started with Retrieve-Augmented Generation (RAG)
Chapter 1: Introduction to Retrieve-Augmented Generation
Limitations of Standard Large Language Models
What is Retrieve-Augmented Generation (RAG)?
The Core Architecture of a RAG System
RAG vs. Fine-tuning: Understanding the Differences
Benefits of Using RAG
Quiz for Chapter 1
Chapter 2: The Retrieval Component
Role of the Retriever in RAG
Introduction to Vector Embeddings
Common Embedding Models
Similarity Search: Finding Relevant Vectors
Introduction to Vector Databases
Choosing a Vector Database: Considerations
Practice: Generating Text Embeddings
Quiz for Chapter 2
Chapter 3: Preparing Data for Retrieval
Loading Documents from Various Sources
The Need for Document Chunking
Fixed-Size Chunking Strategies
Content-Aware Chunking Approaches
Metadata Association with Chunks
Storing Processed Data in a Vector Database
Hands-on Practical: Chunking Documents
Quiz for Chapter 3
Chapter 4: The Generation Component and Augmentation
Role of the Generator (LLM) in RAG
Structuring Prompts for RAG
Context Injection Methods
Managing Context Length Limitations
Generating the Final Response
Attributing Sources in Generated Output
Quiz for Chapter 4
Chapter 5: Building a Basic RAG Pipeline
Overview of RAG Frameworks (e.g., LangChain, LlamaIndex)
Setting up the Environment
Implementing the Retriever
Implementing the Generator Integration
Combining Retrieval and Generation
Running Queries Through the Pipeline
Hands-on Practical: End-to-End RAG System
Quiz for Chapter 5
Chapter 6: Evaluating and Improving RAG Systems
Challenges in Evaluating RAG
Component-Level Evaluation: Retrieval
Component-Level Evaluation: Generation
End-to-End RAG Evaluation Frameworks
Common Failure Modes
Basic Strategies for Improvement
Practice: Analyzing RAG Output Quality
Quiz for Chapter 6
Component-Level Evaluation: Retrieval
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- Introduction to Information Retrieval, Christopher D. Manning, Prabhakar Raghavan, and Hinrich Schütze, 2008 (Cambridge University Press) - A comprehensive textbook covering fundamental concepts and metrics in information retrieval, including precision, recall, and Mean Reciprocal Rank (MRR), which are essential for retriever evaluation.
- A Survey of Retrieval-Augmented Generation for Large Language Models, Yunfan Gao, Yun Xiong, Xinyu Gao, Kangxiang Jia, Jinliu Pan, Yuxi Bi, Yi Dai, Jiawei Sun, Meng Wang, Haofen Wang, 2024 arXiv preprint arXiv:2312.10997 DOI: 10.48550/arXiv.2312.10997 - Provides a broad overview of Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) systems, including sections that discuss evaluation methodologies and challenges for different RAG components, such as the retriever.
- BEIR: A Heterogeneous Benchmark for Zero-shot Evaluation of Information Retrieval Models, Nandan Thakur, Nils Reimers, Andreas Rücklé, Abhishek Srivastava, Iryna Gurevych, 2021 NeurIPS 2021 Dataset and Benchmark Track DOI: 10.48550/arXiv.2104.08663 - Introduces a widely recognized benchmark dataset and framework for evaluating information retrieval models, offering practical guidance for creating ground truth and assessing retriever performance.