CSCC46: Social and Information Networks
Fall 2022
Lecture 1 hours: Wednesday 11:00-1:00pm ET in MW 170
Lecture 2 hours: Wednesday 2:00-4:00pm ET in BV 260
Tutorial 1 hours: Tuesday 1:00-2:00pm ET in IC 120
Tutorial 2 hours: Thursday 5:00-6:00pm ET in SW 311
Tutorial 3 hours: Thursday 3:00-4:00pm ET in SW 309
Instructor: Ashton Anderson, Assistant Professor
Email: ashton [at] cs [dot] toronto [dot] edu
Office hours: Wednesday 4:30pm-5:30pm ET
TAs: Linda Lo, linda [dot] lo [at] mail [dot] utoronto [dot] ca
Conroy Trinh, conroy [dot] trinh [at] mail [dot] utoronto [dot] ca
Richard Ye, richard [dot] ye [at] mail [dot] utoronto [dot] ca
Course News
- The final exam will take place on Tuesday, December 13 from 7-10PM in IC130.
- Thursday, September 22: Assignment 1 has been released and is available on Quercus.
- Tuesday, September 20: First tutorials.
- Wednesday, September 7: First day of class. See you there!
Course Description
A course on how networks underlie the social, technological, and natural worlds, with an emphasis on developing intuitions for broadly applicable concepts in network analysis. Topics include: introductions to graph theory, network concepts, and game theory; social networks; information networks; the aggregate behaviour of markets and crowds; network dynamics; information diffusion; popular concepts such as "six degrees of separation", the "friendship paradox", and the "wisdom of crowds". Important links:- CSCC46 Quercus page (assignment download)
- CSCC46 MarkUs page (assignment submission, grades)
- CSCC46 Discord server (chat)
- CSCC46 Blog (blog posts)
- CSCC46 Piazza (Q&A)
- Connect with your librarian (resource help)
Lectures
- All readings are taken from Easley and Kleinberg, "Networks, Crowds, and Markets". The complete textbook is available online as a PDF.
| Week | Date | Topic | Reading | Assignments | Materials |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 9/7 | Course overview; Introduction to graph theory | Ch. 1, 2.1-2.4 | Sign up for MarkUs, Quercus, Discord | [Slides] |
| 2 | 9/14 | The Web as a Network; Network Representations | Ch. 4.1-4.3, 13.1-13.4 | [Slides][Video] | |
| 3 | 9/21 | Gnp; Strong and Weak Ties; Community Detection | Ch. 3.1-3.4, 3.6 | A1 out | [Slides][Video] |
| 4 | 9/28 | Signed Networks; Structural Balance | Ch. 5.1-5.5 | [Slides][Video] | |
| 5 | 10/5 | Six Degrees; Decentralized Search | Ch. 20.1-20.7 | A1 due | [Slides][Video] |
| 6 | 10/19 | Power Laws and Rich-Get-Richer Processes | Ch. 18.1-18.8 | A2 out | [Slides][Video] |
| 7 | 10/26 | Link Analysis; PageRank | Ch. 14.1-14.6 | [Slides][Video] | |
| 8 | 11/2 | Game Theory | Ch. 6.1-6.8 | A2 due; A3 out | [Slides][Video] |
| 9 | 11/9 | Congestion; Decision Cascades | Ch. 8.1-8.3, 19.1-19.7 | [Slides][Video] | |
| 10 | 11/16 | Information Cascades | Ch. 16.1-16.7 | A3 due; A4 out | [Slides][Video] |
| 11 | 11/23 | Contagion; Epidemics | Ch. 21.1-8 | [Slides][Video] | |
| 12 | 11/30 | Voting; Review | Ch. 23.1-9 | A4 due | [Slides][Video] |
Assignments
Assignments are posted on Quercus. Assignment submissions are through MarkUs. See the syllabus details (below) for detailed information about grading, late assignments, and the collaboration policy.Writing blog posts
All students will be required to write two short blog posts during the quarter, posted
to a course blog and taking the form of a miniature reaction paper.
Each post should be centered around an recent news article, academic paper, online essay, new company or organization that is related to the class material. Your goal is to provide commentary that engages with the subject, and your audience is your peers in the course, as well as interested outside observers. What is interesting or novel about your subject? Why did you choose to write about it? Explicitly make the connection between your subject matter and the class material. Posts should be at least two paragraphs long, and make sure to include at least one relevant web link in your post. Describe the problem that is being solved, the motivation for why we are interested in it, make concrete references to the network scienceconcepts that are being used, and comment on what we learn from adopting a network science approach to the problem.
One of the purposes of these writing assignments is to practice communicating your thoughts in a public forum (albeit anonymously, see the privacy discussion below). Your audience is each other, not just the course staff. Posts that dialogue with earlier posts from the course are encouraged, but they should add significantly to the previous points made (in part by referencing a new paper/article/essay). Blog posts are to be written individually.
Keep in mind that the blog is a public forum, and that companies, organizations, people, or research projects in the outside world that you refer to may well end up reading what you write. Please be respectful; posting inappropriate, rude, or disruptive content to the blog will result in a 0 on the assignment, and possibly stronger actions. Plagiarism, as always, is not acceptable.
Grading:
Blog posts will be graded on their relevance to the class material, the quality of their commentary on the topic, and
the use of plots/graphics/tables/links to communicate the main ideas to the reader. Outstanding posts will be mentioned and discussed in lectures. You are highly encouraged to read the posts by your classmates!
Scheduling:
To space out the post traffic, students are assigned "deadline weeks" based on the first letter of their last name. You are responsible for submitting a blog post before Friday 5pm of the weeks you are assigned, although of course you may submit your blog posts before the week they are due.
| First letter of last name | Weeks | Deadlines |
|---|---|---|
| A-J | 5, 9 | Oct 7, Nov 11 |
| K-R | 6, 10 | Oct 21, Nov 18 |
| S-Z | 7, 11 | Oct 28, Nov 25 |
Here are the previous editions of the course blog. Use these as inspiration for the kinds of topics you can discuss in your own posts, but of course don't plagiarize from these posts. Inspiration:
Similar classes offered at other universities have comparable course blogs, you may also look to them for inspiration. However, the main ideas in your posts should not be copied from these blogs.
Syllabus Details
Prerequisites
- CSCB63H3
- STAB52H3
- MATA22H3 or MATA23H3
- a CGPA of 3.0 or enrolment in a CSC Subject POSt
Material
- Easley and Kleinberg, Networks, Crowds, and Markets, Cambridge University Press, 2010
The complete textbook is available online as a free PDF, and as a hardcover book.
Assignment Rules
- All assignments are to be submitted electronically by 10am on Wednesdays.
- Collaboration policy: The assignments must be done individually.
- Late Policy: You are allowed 4 flex days for the entire semester to use as late days however you see fit. After you have used 4 late days, no late assignments will be accepted. A late day is 24-hour period after the submission date, so if you hand in your assignment at 7pm on Wednesday or 11am on Thursday after a deadline, this is one late day, but if you hand it in at 4pm on Thursday, that counts as two late days. No more than two late days per assignment, so every assignment submitted after 10am on Fridays will be marked a zero.
- Grading: Assignments will receive equal weight.
The final exam will take place on Tuesday, December 13 from 7-10PM in IC130.
Evaluation
- Assignments (35%)
- Blog posts (10%)
- Class citizenship (5%)
- Final (50%)
Acknowledgments
This course is based on similar offerings by Jure Leskovec, Jon Kleinberg, and Johan Ugander. Many thanks to them for their help.