MS&E 135: Networks (Winter 2017)

Lecture hours: Tu/Th, 10:30am-11:50pm
Lecture room: 200-203 (Building 200, Rm 203)

Instructor: Johan Ugander, Assistant Professor, MS&E
Email: jugander [at] stanford
Office location: Huang 357
Office hours: Tu 4-5pm

TAs: Stephen Ragain, Anilesh Krishnaswamy
Email: sragain, anilesh [at] stanford
Office hours location: Huang B008
Office hours: Tues 3-6pm and Weds 2-5pm

Course Description

This course provides an introduction to how networks underly our social, technological, and natural worlds, with an emphasis on developing intuitions for broadly applicable concepts in network analysis. The course will include: an introduction to graph theory and graph concepts; social networks; information networks; the aggregate behavior of markets and crowds; network dynamics; information diffusion; the implications of popular concepts such as "six degrees of separation", the "friendship paradox", and the "wisdom of crowds".

Most important links:

• MS&E 135 on Canvas
• MS&E 135 course blog and blog author login page

Lectures

• All reading is taken from Easley and Kleinberg, "Networks, Crowds, and Markets". The complete textbook is available online as a searchable PDF.

Problem Sets

Problem sets are posted on Canvas, solutions will be posted to Canvas soon after the submission deadline. See the syllabus details (below) for detailed information about grading, late, and collaboration policy.

Writing blog posts

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.

• Link to the course blog: https://msande135.stanford.edu/
• Author login page: http://web.stanford.edu/group/msande135/cgi-bin/wp/wp-login.php

Format:

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:

Please see Canvas for instructions on how to create a blog account pseudonym. No student will be required to make their true identity public as part of these assignments.

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 January 27th, your second blog post by February 17th, and your third by March 10th. You may of course submit your blog posts before the week they are due.

First letter of last name	Weeks	Deadlines
A-K	2, 5, 8	January 20, February 10, March 3
L-N	3, 6, 9	January 27, February 17, March 10
O-Z	4, 7, 10	February 3, February 24, March 17

Inspiration:

Feel free to browse the Spring 2016 course blog for inspiration, though the central stories for your commentaries should not come from this blog or any other similar course blog.

Syllabus Details

Learning goals

• Understand basic graph theory and network analysis
• Understand basic game theory and strategic behavior
• Develop a quantitative and qualitative intuition for the role of networks in social and technological systems.

Prerequisites

• Almost no mathematical knowledge is assumed other than some basic probability (random variables, expectation, independence), which we will briefly review when it first arises.

Material

• Easley and Kleinberg, Networks, Crowds, and Markets, Cambridge University Press, 2010
  The complete textbook is available online as a free PDF, but can also be ordered as a reasonably priced hardcover.

Problem Set Rules

• All problem sets are to be submitted during the corresponding lecture day. If you're not able to attend a class then the problem sets can be submitted before class (Thursdays 10:30am) in the homework slot in the basement of Huang.
• Collaboration policy: You may discuss the problem sets with other students in the class, but since the goal is to practice skills, the actual writing up of the solutions must be done separately. In particular, this means that your solution should not word-for-word resemble another student's. In short, students are expected to abide by Stanford’s honor code.
• Late Policy: No late assignments will be accepted.
• Grading: The lowest problem set grade will be dropped, and the remaining problem sets will recieve equal weight.
• Effectively the last two bullets mean that if you are unable to submit one problem set by the deadline, you will be "dropping" that problem set and graded on the remaining 4 problem sets. It's not advisable to miss more than one deadline.
• Extreme circumstances: email or come see me, I am a reasonable human being.

Final exam

• The exam will be Wednesday, Mar 22nd, 12:15-3:15, Bishop Aud in Lathrop Library.

Evaluation

• Problem sets (50%)
• Blog posts (15%)
• Collegiality (5%)
• Final (30%)

Students with Documented Disabilities
Students who may need an academic accommodation based on the impact of a disability must initiate the request with the Office of Accessible Education (OAE). Professional staff will evaluate the request with required documentation, recommend reasonable accommodations, and prepare an Accommodation Letter for faculty dated in the current quarter in which the request is made. Students should contact the OAE as soon as possible since timely notice is needed to coordinate accommodations. For more information: http://studentaffairs.stanford.edu/oae