CS
395/495: Measurement and Analysis of Online Social Networks: Syllabus
Instructor
Aleksandar
Kuzmanovic, Assistant Professor
Room Tech L457, 847-467-5519. akuzma@northwestern.edu
Office Hours: By appointment
Lectures: MW
4:00-5:20pm, Room Tech LR5.
Online
social networking sites are among the most popular sites on the Internet. Users
of these sites form a social network, which provides a powerful means of
sharing, organizing, and finding content and contacts. An in-depth
understanding of the graph structure of online social networks is necessary to
evaluate current systems, to design future online social network based systems,
and to understand the impact of online social networks on the Internet.
The
key goals of this course are the following: (1) to let you understand the main
properties of the social network graphs and their dynamic behavior, (2) to
learn how these properties could be used to design Internet protocols and
architectures, (3) to learn about the cutting-edge research results in this
area, and finally (4) to get you actively involved in the process of measuring
and exploring these networks. You will achieve the above by reviewing,
presenting, and discussing a number of research papers and by doing a research
project.
Students
will form teams of three; each team will tackle a well-defined research project
during the quarter. A list of suggested project topics will be provided. All
projects are subjected to approval by the instructor. The project component
will include a short written project proposal, a short mid-term project report,
a final project presentation, and a final project report. Each component adds
some significant element to the paper, and the overall project grade will be
based on the quality of each component of your work. The above project
components are due by email to the instructor by the end of the given day of
the respective week.
1.
Week 1 (Monday 3/30) Project presentations by group leaders
2.
Week 2 (Monday 4/6) Form groups of 2, choose a topic for your
project, and meet with the project leader.
3.
Week 3 (Monday 4/13) Write an introduction describing the problem
and how you plan to approach it (what will you actually do?). Include
motivation (why does the problem matter?) and related work (what have others
already done about it?). 2 pages total.
4.
Week 6 (Monday 5/4) Midterm presentation. Update your paper to
include your preliminary results. 5 pages total.
5.
Week 10 (Monday 6/1 and Wednesday 6/3): Presentations by all
groups.
6.
Week 11 (Friday 6/12) Turn in your completed paper. 10 pages
total. You should incorporate the comments received during the presentation.
Each
team will have a weekly meeting with project leaders.
1.
Paper
reviews (7%), presentations (10%) and debating in the class(8%): 25%
2.
Projects
55% (Project proposal: 5%; Midterm report: 5%; project presentation: 15%;final project report: 30%)
3.
Research
idea report (required, 3 pages): 20%
There will be no textbook for this class. A key part of the class will be to review and discuss networking research papers. Students must read the assigned papers and submit paper reviews before each lecture. Two teams of students will be chosen to debate and lead the discussion. One team will be designated the offense and the other the defense. In class, the defense team will present first. For 30 minutes the team will discuss the work as if it were their own.
1.
The
team should present the work and make a compelling case why the contribution is
significant. This will include the context of the contribution, prior work, and
in cases where papers are previously published, how the work has influenced the
research community or industry's directions (impact). If the paper is very
recent, the defense should present arguments for the potential impact. Coming
up with potential future work can show how the paper opens doors to new
research.
2.
The
presentation should go well beyond a paper "summary". The defense
should not critique the work other than to try to pre-empt attacks from the
offense (e.g., by explicitly limiting the scope of the contribution).
3. The defense should also try to look up related work to support their case (CiteSeer
is a good place to start looking).After
the defense presentation, the offense team will state their case for 20
minutes.
2.
The
more insightful and less obvious the criticisms the better.
1.
What
is the main result of the paper? (one or two sentence summary)
3.
What
are some key limitations, unproven assumptions, or methodological problems with
the work?
4.
How
could the work be improved?
5.
What
is its relevance today, or what future work does it suggest?