Course Information

  • Location: Orenstein 103
  • Time: Sundays, 17:00 - 20:00

Course Instructor:

Course Goals and Short Syllabus:

Today we cannot imagine our life without social networks. The interest in analyzing social networks, their structure, predicting expected behavior of the users in social networks increased in the past years. This course will focus on social networks and especially online social networks, bringing together both algorithms (from "classic" to recent state-of-the-art) and applications for these networks. The course will involve both theoretical parts (such as formal definition of social network, measurements in social networks, network formation, community detection algorithms and more) and practical parts (including hands-on programming using Python and libraries such as NetworkX). In addition to covering fundamental issues in social networks, we will focus on practical real world tasks, including the trends from the last years. For practice, we will use publicly available datasets of social networks and demonstrate solution of real life challenges.

Course Format:

Each class will be a 3 hours lecture which will include both theoretical and practical parts.
Homework - 3 HW assignments during the semester (submission in pairs) - 15% of the final grade
Final exam - 85% of the final grade
Exam - Moed A: 21.01.2027
Exam - Moed B: 17.02.2027

Requirements:

  • Algorithms

Homework

# File Deadline
1 HW #1 [pdf] 08.11.2026
2 HW #2 [pdf] 06.12.2026
3 HW #3 [pdf] 28.12.2026

Course Schedule

# Date Title Material Note
1 18.10.2026 Introduction to Social Networks Lecture [pdf], Recitation [ipynb]
2 25.10.2026 Random Graphs, Centrality Lecture [pdf], Recitation [ipynb]
3 01.11.2026 Signed Networks, Structural Balance Lecture [pdf], Recitation [ipynb]
4 15.11.2026 Communities Lecture [pdf]
5 22.11.2026 Detection of communities Lecture [pdf], Recitation [ipynb]
6 29.11.2026 Influence Maximization Lecture [pdf]
7 13.12.2026 Social Learning Lecture [pdf], Recitation [ipynb]
8 20.12.2026 Link Prediction Lecture [pdf], Recitation [ipynb]
9 27.12.2026 Working with Large Scale Networks Lecture [pdf]
10 03.01.2027 Social Networks Applications Lecture [pdf]
11 10.01.2027 Course Summary & Lecture [pdf]
12 17.01.2027 Exam Preparation Lecture [pdf]

Previous exams

Year Exams
2024/25, Semester A Moed A, Moed B
2023/24, Semester A Moed A, Moed B
2022/23, Semester A Moed A, Moed B
2021/22, Semester A Moed A, Moed B
2020/21, Semester A Moed A, Moed B
2019/20, Semester B Moed A, Moed B
2018/19, Semester B Moed A, Moed B, Moed C
2017/18, Semester B Sample, Moed A, Moed B