Bryn Mawr College
CS 380: Network Analysis
Spring 2013 - Section 02

Syllabus and Schedule

General Information

Course Description: Networks underpin a variety of artificial and natural phenomena, from the Internet, Facebook and Twitter to gene regulation, protein interactions and food webs. This course will introduce network theory and discuss its application to a wide variety of domains. Topic will include: random network models, small world networks, graph theory, information flow, network centrality, community structure, contagion, and learning and reasoning over networks. Each of these topics will be illustrated through its application to information networks (the Internet, blog networks), social networks (Facebook, Twitter), biological networks (gene regulatory nets, protein interaction nets), and environmental sustainability (food webs, species interaction models).

Prerequisites: CS206 and CS231.

Text & Software

Course Policies

Communication

Attendance and active participation are expected in every class. Participation includes asking questions, contributing answers, proposing ideas, and providing constructive comments.

As you will discover, I am a proponent of two-way communication and I welcome feedback during the semester about the course. I am available to answer student questions, listen to concerns, and talk about any course-related topic (or otherwise!). Come to office hours! This helps me get to know you. You are welcome to stop by and chat. There are many more exciting topics to talk about that we won't have time to cover in-class.

Whenever you e-mail me, be sure to use a meaningful subject line and include the phrase "CS380" at the beginning of that line. Your e-mail will catch my attention and I will respond quicker if you do this. I make an effort to respond to e-mails within 24 hours on weekdays and 48 hours on weekends.

Although computer science work can be intense and solitary, please stay in touch with me, particularly if you feel stuck on a topic or project and can't figure out how to proceed. Often a quick e-mail, phone call or face-to-face conference can reveal solutions to problems and generate renewed creative and scholarly energy. It is essential that you begin assignments and projects early, since we will be covering a variety of challenging topics in this course.

Grading

Your grade will be based upon four homework assignments, one exam, a term project, and class participation (which includes reading summaries, mini-presentations, teamwork, peer reviews, etc.).  Assignments must be submitted according to the assignment submission instructions.

At the end of the semester, final grades will be calculated as a weighted average of all grades according to the following weights:

The project grade will be broken down further in the Project Description.

Incomplete grades will be given only for verifiable medical illness or other such dire circumstances.

All graded work will receive a percentage grade between 0% and 100%.  Here is how the percentage grades will map to final letter grades:

Submission and Late Policy

Exams

There will be one exam in this course.  The exam will be closed-book and closed-notes.  It will cover material from lectures, homeworks, and assigned readings (including topics not discussed in class).  So, keep up with those readings!

Study Groups

I want to encourage you to discuss the material and work together to understand it. Here are my thoughts on collaborating with other students:

• The readings and lecture topics are group work. Please discuss the readings and associated topics with each other. Work together to understand the material. I highly recommend forming a reading group to discuss the material -- we will explore many challenging ideas and it helps to have multiple people working together to understand them.

• It is fine to discuss the topics covered in the homeworks, to discuss approaches to problems, and to sketch out general solutions. However, you MUST write up the homework answers, solutions, and programs individually. You are not permitted to share specific solutions, mathematical results, program code, knowledge representations, experimental results, etc. If you made any notes or worked out something on a white board with another person while you were discussing the homework, you shouldn't use those notes while writing up your answer, however tempted you may be to do so.

• You are fully permitted to (and should!) discuss projects with members of your team. I also encourage you to work outside of your team to understand the other topics in the course.
  

• Under ABSOLUTELY NO circumstances should you share computer code with another student outside of your project team.  Similarly, you are not permitted to use or consult code found on the internet for any of your assignments.

• Exams and papers, of course, must be your own individual work.

If you have any questions as to what types of collaborations are allowed and which are dishonest, please ask me before you make a mistake.

Electronic Devices

I have no problem with you using computers or tablets to take notes or consult reference materials during class.  Tempting though it may be, please do not check e-mail or visit websites that are not relevant to the course during class.  It is a distraction, both for you and (more importantly) for your fellow classmates.  Please silence your phones and computers when you enter class.

Reference Links