| Week | Date | Topic | Reading | Assignments |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 3/29 | Course overview; Introduction to graph theory | Ch. 1, 2.1-2.3 | Visit Canvas |
| 3/31 | Strong and weak ties | Ch. 3.1-3.3 | PS1 Out | |
| 2 | 4/5 | Homophily, Affiliation; Friendship paradox | Ch. 4.1-4.3, Friendship paradox | |
| 4/7 | Structural Balance | Ch. 5.1-5.4 | PS1 Due, PS2 Out | |
| 3 | 4/12 | Game Theory | Ch. 6.1-6.9 | |
| 4/14 | Congestion, Auctions | Ch. 8.1-8.2, 9.1-9.2 | ||
| 4 | 4/19 | Matching Markets | Ch 9.3-9.6, 10.1-10.4 | |
| 4/21 | Bargaining & Power | Ch. 12.1-12.3, 12.5-12.8 | PS2 Due, PS3 Out | |
| 5 | 4/26 | The Web as a Network | Ch 13.1-13.5 | |
| 4/28 | Link Analysis | Ch. 14.1-14.3 | ||
| 6 | 5/3 | Web Search | Ch. 14.4-14.5 | |
| 5/5 | Sponsored Search as a Market | Ch 15.1-15.5 | PS3 Due, PS4 Out | |
| 7 | 5/10 | Guest Lecture: Sean Taylor, Facebook Data Science | ||
| 5/12 | Information Cascades | Ch. 16.1-16.7 | ||
| 8 | 5/17 | Network Effects, Cascading Behavior | Ch. 17.1-17.3, 19.1-19.4 | |
| 5/19 | Rich-get-richer | Ch 18.1-18.6 | PS4 Due, PS5 Out | |
| 9 | 5/24 | Small Worlds | Ch. 20.1-20.6, FB calculator | |
| 5/26 | Epidemics | Ch 21.1-21.4, 21.6 | ||
| 10 | 5/31 | Review (Last Lecture) | ||
| 6/2 | (No Lecture) | PS5 Due, 10:30am (Note: TA OH on Monday 6/1, 2-5pm) |
All students will be required to write three 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, and contain at least one web link on that subject. The goal is to provide commentary that gives context around the subject, targeted at your peers in the course (or similarly informed outsiders). Why do you think it interesting or relevant? The post should be at least two paragraphs.
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. Engage each other! Posts that dialogue with earlier posts from the course are encouraged, though should add significantly to the previous points made (in part by referencing a new news article/paper/essay).
You should keep in mind, as you write your posts, that if you refer to a company, organization,
or research project in the outside world, the people you’re talking about may well end up reading what you write. Finally, adding inappropriate, rude, or disruptive content to the blog will result in a 0 for this part of the course grade, and (depending on the nature of the content) potentially stronger
actions. Plagiarism is also not acceptable; the Honor Code applies.
Grading:
Posts will be graded based on their relevance to the class, novelty, and quality of the insights and writing. Outstanding posts will be mentioned and discussed in lectures. You are encouraged but not required to read the posts by your classmates.
Account creation and privacy:
During Week 1, your Stanford email address will be invited to be an "author" on the course blog. When you accept this invitation you will be asked to create a Wordpress account. The blog is configured in such a way that each student can choose an arbitrary "Public Display Name" that can be unrelated to their real name or Stanford ID; this display name will be the only public identifier that will appear associated with a given post (but the TA and instructor will know your identity, being blog administrators). No student will be required to make their true identity public as part of this assignment.
The course staff will keep a private record of the user names and the corresponding real names for purposes of grading. Nothing prevents you from including your real names in the text of a post, if you choose to do so, but please do not mention other students by name as a blanket policy. You are free to mention the instructor or TAs (e.g.: "Professor Ugander mentioned on Thursday that...").
If you join the class late, please email the TA to obtain an account.
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. If your name is Ada Lovelace, you would be required to submit your first blog post by April 15th, your second blog post by May 6th, and your third by May 27th. You may submit your blog posts before the week they are due if you so desire.
| First letter of last name | Weeks | Deadlines |
|---|---|---|
| A-J | 2, 5, 8 | April 8, April 29, May 20 |
| K-R | 3, 6, 9 | April 15, May 6, May 27 |
| S-Z | 4, 7, 10 | April 21, May 12, June 3 |
This course blog (and the course as a whole) is inspired by similar courses run at Cornell and elsewhere. Feel free to browse the
Fall 2015 Cornell course blog
for inspiration, though the central stories for your commentaries should not come from this blog or any other similar course blog.
Learning goals
Prerequisites
Material