CMSC828O Projects

Throughout the semester, you will be working as a group analyzing a network dataset of your choice. The goal is to apply appropriate methodology as we cover it during the semester.

Group membership is listed on piazza: https://piazza.com/class/jzrnbyj8siq5z3?cid=13

Data Project Lightning Talks:

Prepare 5-6 minutes to introduce your group project. Please include

  1. Who is in the group (including your background)

  2. What data you plan to work with (as well as you have defined this by Tuesday). This includes:

    • What entities are being studied (e.g., neurons, genes, bacterial species) etc. and their interactions

    • The source of your data (if you already have a dataset on hand, explain the experiment used to get it, if you do not have a dataset on hand, a plan to get a dataset (e.g., will look at data repository X).

  3. Why are you looking at this? What are significant questions you can address with this data?

  4. Which methods do you foresee being most applicable (e.g., random network models, network dynamical models, learning over models, inference over networks, visualization), and why?)

Project Update Presentations:

Prepare 10 minutes to update the class on your work. The focus of this presentation is the application of the analysis methods we saw in the first module: network structure, models of network evolution, robustness, dynamics of processes over networks.

Choose a research question appropriate for your application/dataset that can be addressed by one or more of these methods. The use appropriate methods to carry analyze your dataset to address your research question.

In the presentation, report 1) a short overview/reminder of your dataset and project, 2) the research question you are addressing (background and significance), the methodology you chose to apply (reasoning behind your methodological choices), results (including a discussion of the implications of your result).

Mind you, the presentations are short (10 minutes + questions), so it is best to concentrate on as succinct a research question as possible.

Final Project Presentations:

For the final presentation prepare 20 minutes presenting a completed analysis of your dataset addressing your research question(s) of choice. You should aim for a target audience consisting of peer researchers, but are not intimately familiar with network data analysis methods. I.e., you and your classmates before this class. You will need to repeat some things from previous presentations:

I. Introduction.

A. What data you worked with. This includes:

  • What entities are being studied (e.g., neurons, genes, bacterial species) etc. and their interactions

  • The source of your data

B. Report the research question(s) you are addressing (background and significance including assumptions and hypotheses as appropriate)

II. Methods:

A. Describe the methodological approach you chose to apply

  • Make sure you discuss reasoning and justification for your methodological choices

B. Evaluation framework. Before presenting results introduce how you will evaluate and or validate your applied methods.

III. Results.

IV. Discussion and conclusion: What are the implications of the results you obtained and open questions not addressed in your analysis

Final Submission

Prepare a writeup following the same structure as above and submit as pdf. Further information on guidelines here