Network Construction Project

Networks: Quantitative and Qualitative Analyis

Notes

You can and should do this project with a partner.
Adapted from Michael Kearns' Networked Life course.

Due Friday, April 23 by the end of the day. Submit your report online via Blackboard.

Report

The culmination of your network contruction project will be a written report analyzing your network from the perspective of the themes of the entire class. I anticipate that the typical length of these reports, including all figures, diagrams, references, etc. will be under 10 pages. The overarching goal of your report is to demonstrate:

mastery of the technical and conceptual themes of the class
ability to apply these themes to a specific real-world network.

You should view the inputs to your report as including at least the following items:

The original data used to form your network.
Visualizations of your network or fragments of it. If you would like help in GUESS creating different visualizations, please let Prof. Forbes or Dave Stecher know.
Quantitative and numerical analyses performed on your network.
Your knowledge of the domain from which the network comes.
Any articles or other materials you feel are relevant.

While I am flexible about the specific format of the reports, there will be some required elements, and a number of themes and topics that you should be sure to touch on.

Your report should begin with a precise recounting of the exact definition of your network (edges and vertices), as well as of your methodology in constructing the network, including all data sources. Again, the goal here is to be precise enough that a third party could replicate your efforts.
Your report should analyze various structural properites of your network, including (but not restricted to) things like its diameter, clustering coefficient(s), degree distribution, and so on. You should consider doing computations (either by hand or computer) of these quantities, or at least make an effort to estimate or bound them. You are free to approach Prof. Forbes or Dave for help here as well, but please be give advanced notice so they can schedule a meeting.
You should further discuss these structural properties in light of what you know about what actually happens on your network, or what aspect of the real world it represents. For instance, if there are vertices with extraordinarily high degree, you should discuss why it makes sense that they have high degree (if in fact it does make sense), how they might have come to have this property, and so on. Ditto for the other structural properties you discuss.
You should discuss plausible models for how your network was generated, and contrast them with those in Chapter 20 of the textbook. You should discuss which of the generative models seem like better or worse explanations for how your network formed.
You should discuss how structural properties of your network either do or do not influence what actually happens on your network.
You should discuss how individual agents in the network interact. Are there games that occur?
You should make liberal use of network visualizations, graphs, plots, charts, tables, etc. Anything that helps make your points more precise and understandable is encouraged.