MKSE 150: Market & Social Systems on the Internet (Spring 2012)
Location Towne 313, Tuesday/Thursday 12:00-1:30pm


Instructor

Zachary Ives
Location: 576 Levine Hall North
Office hours: Tues 1:30-2:30


Nan Zheng
Location: 571 Levine Hall North
Office hours: Th 9:00-10:00

Amalia Hawkins
Location: Moore 100
Office hours: Mondays, 2:00-3:00



Teaching Assistants
Course description

How do networks affect our ability to communicate with or influence one another, access or disseminate information, provide services, and conduct transactions? How do we use network structure to identify importance? How do the Internet and the systems on the Internet (Facebook, Google, etc.) actually work? This course will study these and other key issues about networks and networked behavior.
Topics covered Graphs, basics of game theory and mechanism design, information networks and search, social networks, ad auctions, Internet architectures and the cloud, ...
Format The format is two 1.5-hour lectures per week, plus assigned readings. There will be regular homework assignments, plus a midterm and a final exam.
Prerequisites CIS 110, Introduction to Programming I
Co-requisite: CIS 120, Introduction to Programming II
Suggested: CIS 160, Discrete Mathematics
Texts and readings
  • David Easley and Jon Kleinberg, Networks, Crowds, and Markets: Reasoning about a Highly Connected World, Cambridge University Press
  • MKSE 150 Reader -- Excerpts from James Kurose and Keith Ross, Computer Networking: A Top-Down Approach, 5th ed..
Additional materials will be provided as handouts or in the form of light technical papers.
Grading

Homework 35%, Midterm 30%, Participation 5%, Final 30%

All homework assignments should be done individually unless expressly allowed.
Other resources
Schedule is available in (frequently updated) electronic form here
Assigments are available in (frequently updated) electronic form here

Image by Noah Sussman, Creative Commons license