General Information

Introduction

Online social networks (OSNs) such as Facebook, LinkedIn, and MySpace make up the fastest growing population on the Internet today, totaling near half a billion users worldwide. More than just effective tools to foster communication and collaboration between friends, they provide a ready platform for the a new wave of Internet applications that blend traditional online communities with trusted social links.

Through reading of recent research, this class will closely examine technical issues surrounding online social networks, including but not limited to: measurement studies, social networking applications, cloud computing, security and privacy in OSNs, social graph anonymization. A critical component of the course will be a hands-on research project involving OSN measurements, applications, or infrastructure support.

There will be no homeworks or exams. The class grade will be based on discussion of each paper on the Facebook group, your presentation of a research paper, and a course research project. For the project, the class will form project groups of 3-4 members each. Each group will design, implement and present a networking project that innovates on the topics discussed in class. You will write a conference style paper describing the contributions of your work, and present your findings in a presentation at the end of the quarter.

Grading

Your quarter grade will be derived from paper discussions (20%), a class presentation (30%), and the class project, including paper and final presentation (50%).