Social and Information Networks, Spring 2021
Hello everyone!
I just wanted to let you all know that we’ve finished grading the final, I submitted the marks for approval, and they have been approved. Barring unforeseen circumstances (which admittedly are all the more the likely in a pandemic), then you can expect the university to release your CSC303 mark on ACORN within 2 business days.
It’s been a pleasure teaching you all, and I hope you have a wonderful summer!
The final assessment is now over. Good work everyone! I hope you all enjoyed the course as much as I enjoyed teaching it, and have an excellent summer!
The time is now approximately 8:30AM, and you have around half an hour remaining. If you haven't already done so, then I strongly recommend uploading at least a work-in-progress of the final to MarkUs.
The time is now approximately 7:15AM, and you have just over one hour and a half remaining.
A2 marks are out on MarkUs. We took up the A2 solution in tutorial on week 11, and you have until April 29th to request a remark request. Thanks for being patient!
The final assessment has now been released on Quercus - see Files, then "Final (now released)". You have until Friday April 16th at 9AM in the morning Toronto time (i.e. two days). Please read the front sheet carefully.
Best of luck!
Hello everyone!
A friendly reminder that course evaluations close tomorrow. The results are anonymous and not yet visible to me but I can see the response rate, so a big thank you to the ~25% of the class who've already filled it out. If you haven't already done so, then it would be of great value to myself, the department, and future students if you could take 5 minutes to fill it out - having said that, no worries if you can't. This is a busy time of the year for all of us :)
A friendly reminder to everyone that the final is one week. It will be released on Wed. April 14th at 9AM (Toronto time) on Quercus under Files, Final. There will be a PDF, as well as a .zip file with .tex and images. Your solutions PDF will be due on Friday April 16th at 9AM (Toronto time -- note it's AM not PM!) via MarkUs. Remember, you CANNOT use grace tokens to extend the final's deadline.
There are some practice questions on the course website under the "Term Test, Final Exam" tab (we're going over the solutions today in tutorial, but you are free to continue asking questions on the course discussion board), the practice quizzes have been re-released for review-purposes, and Friday we'll be having a fun review exercise in class. I have office hours this Friday after class. If you can't make that time, then I'm happy to have an office hour by appointment.
Good luck!
The grades for the critical reviews have been released. Due to time constraints I was unable to grade them personally as I had originally planned, but I was able to review some of them in detail.
The TAs have done great work getting the reviews marked so quickly; if you have any concern about the grading then you have until April 20th to submit a remark request.
As explained in lecture, I have re-released the participation quizzes so that you can consult them while studying. Note that the participation quizzes are available solely for the purpose of studying; the deadlines have already passed for getting the participation marks. Happy studying!
Hello everyone! Course evaluations have started, and I believe they close on April 12th. I would very much appreciate it if you could take the time to fill the CSC303 evaluation out; in addition to being valuable anonymous feedback for myself, the department uses the results in hiring and awards decisions, and future students will consult the results during course selection.
You should have received an email with a link to the course evaluations, and they should also be accessible via the "Course Evals" tab on Quercus (the button that looks like two people in a speech bubble).
Thank you all for your time!
First, congratulations! You've finished the last of the coursework, and all that's left is the final assessment. I know you're certainly busy with other courses but, at the very least, take a short break and give yourself a pat on the back - you deserve it!
To help you study for the exam, I've created some practice questions. Note that these questions are not exhaustive, there are many topics that they do not cover and which can be on the final. Nevertheless, I believe that these questions can be of value to your studying. The questions can be found under the Term Test, Final Exam tab of the website, or directly at this link. Best of luck!
The midterm marks have now been released; you should be able to see them on MarkUs. I will briefly cover the solutions to the questions that people had the most trouble with (Q3a, Q4c, and Q4d) at the beginning of today's lecture. I'm happy to discuss further in office hours, and you have 2 weeks for remark requests.
The midterm is now over; get a good night's rest and take a break if you can - you deserve it!
A2 and the critical review are both due in just under 2 weeks (Mar 26), and the final exam will be in about 1 month (April 14-16)
The midterm has been released. Go to Quercus, the Files tab, and check under the folder "Midterm (now released)".
You've all got an extra 30 minutes (I decided to release a bit early to give myself time in case of any technical problems).
Make sure to read all instructions carefully, and to contact me with questions or problems as soon as possible.
Good luck! :)
The exam has been scheduled by the department.
The exam completion window will be from 2021-04-14 at 9:00AM (Toronto time) until 2021-04-16 at 9:00AM (48 hours after the start time). The exam is intended to take you 3-5 hours so you should have plenty of time.
Further details TBA.
Lecture recordings, and Tutorial Section #3 recordings are now available for download. From the mid-course survey, I was told that a download option would be helpful. Unfortunately MSStream doesn't support downloading at this time, but I was able to upload all of the recordings to the University's MyMedia system. The videos are protected behind UTORID, and the links are on Quercus, under Files/VideoDownloadLinks. Please do let me know if there are any problems.
Also, a friendly reminder that should you chose to download the recordings, the policy is in the course info sheet (in short, please don't share the recording with others, or use it for purposes other than personal study).
A1 marks are out on MarkUs, if you can't see it then please do let me know. I'm happy to answer questions in office hours, and you have 2 weeks as of today to request a remark.
Because of low attendance in tutorials, going forwards we'll only have 1 section: Tutorial Section #3. Quercus & the course website have been updated accordingly. If you were in Section #1, then be sure to use the new Zoom link moving forwards.
The Mid-Course Survey is now available on Quercus, it is completely anonymous. It is in the Quizzes tab, under the Surveys subsection. Please fill it in before the 10th (it is replacing the usual participation quiz this week).
In case it has an impact on your evaluation, A1 marks should be released tomorrow.
PS: Unrelated, but don't forget that you can also leave anonymous feedback at any time using the Google form link on the Quercus 303 homepage
Based on discussions in office hours I've made some minor changes to Q3 for clarity:
The exponent of the power law is 1, not -1, and Q3c was reworded from "this power law" to "a power law" for clarity. Note that since we're dealing with frequencies (book sales), in this case we are using the term "power law" interchangeably with Zipf's Law.
The PDF on the course website and the .tex on Quercus have both been updated.
Assignment 2 was released on Thur Feb 25, and is due Mar 26 (see Assignments tab on course website).
We will cover the material needed for Q4 and Q5 during Week 6 of class (Feb 22-26), the material for Q6 in Week 7, and the material for Q7 in Week 8.
A minor correction to Q6 of A1: The experiments to be run are those outlined in the table, and experiments need only be averaged over three trials.
There was an error in the Rozenstein psudeocode, it has now been corrected. The condition under which an edge is deleted was incomplete; an edge is only deleted if it is part of at least one open triangle that's violating STC. The Week 3 slides have been updated, you can find the corrected psuedocode there.
Since attendance in tutorial has been low, I am reducing the number of sections. The new split is as follows:
A-K: Section #1
L-Z: Section #3
Zoom links are on Quercus
The rubric for the critical review has been released; it can be found under the Assignments tab of the course website.
A1 Updated: Minor typo corrected in Q4: the new edge formed by the closure is e_{(b,c)} not the already existing e_{(a,c)}.
A reminder that you have the opportunity to be a volunteer note-taker this term! If you're interested, the instructions can be found in the Quercus announcement.
Assignment 1 was released on Sat Jan 23, and is due Feb 12 (see Assignments tab on course website). We will cover the material needed for Q3d, Q4, Q5, and Q6 during Week 3 of class (Jan 25-29).
We will have three tutorial sections (later in the year it may be reduced to two depending on course enrollment). The section split is below (links on Quercus home page). Note that for Jan 20th only there is no section 1, correspondingly A-C please attend Section #2, and D-G please attend Section #3
A-G: Section #1
H-Q: Section #2
R-Z: Section #3
Based on the survey, the delivery method will continue unchanged from week 1 (i.e. synchronous lectures with recordings + anonymized Zoom chat log posted afterwards). Office hours will be 4-5PM Friday, after lecture. I will make sure to keep Fri 10AM, and Wed 10PM free on my schedule, and am happy to hold office hours during this time if you email me at least a day ahead of time .
During lecture I try to read out any questions or suggestions that arise in the chat, but I don't always remember to do so. To try and improve the experience for those who can't make lecture, I've uploaded the Zoom chat logs (with names stripped out) to Quercus. I will not be putting them on the public internet. They are available under the Files tab. I don't think there should be any privacy concerns or the like, but if I'm mistaken then please do reach out to me.
Lecture recordings can be found in the table on the Course Contents page. I plan on releasing lecture recordings within 3 hours of lecture (hopefully sooner). If you can't see it, you may need to reload the page/clear the browser cache. Tutorials will be recorded and released in the same table, but it may take longer to release the recordings
Yesterday during lecture Lucas was kind enough to make an unofficial Discord for the class. If that's something that interests you, the invite link can be found in a Quercus announcement.
If you are interested in giving back to the University of Toronto community, then please consider becoming a volounteer notetaker. Details are in the Quercus announcement.
Hello, and welcome to CSC303! Our first lecture will be on Monday Jan 11th at 3:00PM (Toronto time). Lectures will be delivered via Zoom (link on Quercus). The link above (along with links to the main course website and other valuable resources) are available on the Quercus homepage. We will only be using Quercus for announcements, publishing private resources (e.g. the zoom link), and for quizzes. Both lectures and tutorials will be recorded, so please contact me ASAP if you have any concerns. I look forwards to meeting all of you on Monday, and to having a productive term.
When class starts, you might be interested in starting a recognized study group.
Some slides for the weekly lectures will usually be posted at the end of each week to Course Contents. I will also provide links to some additional relevant materials and will indicate the appropriate chapters of Easley and Kleinberg (EK). However, the Course Content page and links therein do not replace attending lectures and tutorials. In particular, the lecture slides will not include everything discussed in the lectures.