About this course: What makes WiFi faster at home than at a coffee shop? How does Google order its search results from the trillions of webpages on the Internet? Why does Verizon charge $15 for every GB of data we use? Is it really true that we are connected in six social steps or less? These are just a few of the many intriguing questions we can ask about the social and technical networks that form integral parts of our daily lives. This course is about exploring the answers, using a language that anyone can understand. We will focus on fundamental principles like “sharing is hard”, “crowds are wise”, and “network of networks” that have guided the design and sustainability of today’s networks, and summarize the theories behind everything from the social connections we make on platforms like Facebook to the technology upon which these websites run. Unlike other networking courses, the mathematics included here are no more complicated than adding and multiplying numbers. While mathematical details are necessary to fully specify the algorithms and systems we investigate, they are not required to understand the main ideas. We use illustrations, analogies, and anecdotes about networks as pedagogical tools in lieu of detailed equations. Please note that per Princeton University policy, no certificates, credentials or reports are awarded in connection with this course.
Created by: Princeton University
Taught by: Christopher Brinton, Visiting Researcher and Lecturer
Department of Electrical Engineering
Taught by: Mung Chiang, Professor
Electrical Engineering
| Level | Beginner |
| Language | English |
| How To Pass | Pass all graded assignments to complete the course. |
| User Ratings |
Syllabus
WEEK 1
Introduction
An introduction to what this course is about: the fundamentals behind social and technical networks.
5 videos, 3 readings
- Reading: About Us
- Reading: Suggested Readings and Links
- Reading: Keep in Touch
- Video: Sharing Is Hard & Ranking is Hard
- Video: Crowds Are Wise & Crowds Are Not So Wise
- Video: Network Is Expensive & Divide and Conquer
- Video: End to End & Bigger And Bigger
Power Control in Cellular Networks
How is it possible that we can all communicate effectively without disrupting each other's calls, messages, or Internet usage? In this lesson, we will take a look at some of the methods that have been developed for letting us "share" the air over which our phones communicate.
21 videos, 1 reading
- Reading: Power of Networks
- Video: Multiple Access
- Video: FDMA
- Video: 0G
- Video: Attenuation
- Video: Cells & 1G
- Video: 2G
- Video: TDMA
- Video: CDMA
- Video: Cocktail Party Analogy
- Video: Near-far Problem
- Video: SIR
- Video: DPC
- Video: DPC Computation: Part A
- Video: Negative Feedback
- Video: DPC Computation: Part B
- Video: Convergence
- Video: Distributed Computation
- Video: Handoffs
- Video: CDMA & 3G
- Video: Summary
Graded: Problem Set #1
WEEK 2
Random Access in Wifi Networks
In this lesson, we will investigate WiFi, another type of wireless network. Rather than having stringent power control algorithms as we saw for cellular, WiFi relies on "random access" methods to manage interference among users in the same location.
15 videos, 1 reading
- Reading: Power of Networks
- Video: Traffic Analogy
- Video: WiFi Standards
- Video: WiFi Deployment
- Video: Accessing WiFi
- Video: Interference
- Video: Controlled vs. Random Access
- Video: Random Access Protocols & ALOHA
- Video: ALOHA Successful Transmission
- Video: ALOHA Throughput
- Video: ALOHA Inscalability
- Video: CSMA Carrier Sensing
- Video: CSMA Backoff
- Video: CSMA vs. ALOHA
- Video: Summary
PageRank by Google
In this lesson, we will take a look at PageRank, Google's famous algorithm for ordering the results on its search page. PageRank is a prime example of how coming up with the right "ranking" of a set of items is a difficult yet important question in networking.
11 videos, 1 reading
- Reading: Power of Networks
- Video: Search Engines
- Video: Webgraphs
- Video: In-degree
- Video: The "Random Surfer"
- Video: Importance Equations
- Video: PageRank Example Calculation
- Video: PageRank Example Summary
- Video: Dangling Nodes & Disconnected Graph
- Video: Robust Ranking
- Video: Summary
Graded: Problem Set #2
WEEK 3
Product Rating on Amazon
The decision of whether or not to purchase something online is often driven by the ratings that previous customers have left for it. In this lesson, we will take a look at Amazon's review system, and the see how "crowds are wise" is another important networking principle.
11 videos, 1 reading
- Reading: Power of Networks
- Video: Average Ratings
- Video: The Wisdom of Crowds
- Video: Rating Aggregation Challenges
- Video: Naive Averaging
- Video: Bayesian Ranking: Part I
- Video: Bayesian Ranking: Part II
- Video: Bayesian Ranking in Practice
- Video: What does Amazon do? Part I
- Video: What does Amazon do? Part II
- Video: Summary
Movie Recommendation on Netflix
One of the perks of having a Netflix subscription is getting recommendations of movies to watch. Behind the scenes, Netflix uses powerful algorithms to determine which will be suggested to each person specifically. In this lesson, we will take a look at the main ideas behind these algorithms.
17 videos, 1 reading
- Reading: Power of Networks
- Video: Video Streaming
- Video: Recommendation is Everywhere
- Video: Netflix Recommendation System
- Video: Netflix Prize: Logistics
- Video: Netflix Prize: The Competition
- Video: Our Example
- Video: Raw Average
- Video: User-movie Interactions
- Video: Baseline Predictor
- Video: Similarity
- Video: Cosine Similarity
- Video: Similarity Values
- Video: Leveraging Similarity
- Video: Neighborhood Predictor
- Video: Performance of Different Methods
- Video: Summary
Graded: Problem Set #3
WEEK 4
Midterm
Graded: Midterm
WEEK 5
Viral Videos on YouTube
What does it take for a video to become "viral" on YouTube? In this lesson, we will take a look at some of the key factors and models that have been used to explain this phenomenon. At the core is the notion of information cascade in a network, which is the counterpart to the wisdom of crowds.
12 videos, 1 reading
- Reading: Power of Networks
- Video: Viral style and video recommendation
- Video: Defining "viral"
- Video: Popularity
- Video: Information cascade & sequential decision making
- Video: Number-Guessing Thought-Experiment
- Video: First, second, and third "guessers"
- Video: Analyzing cascades: Part I
- Video: Analyzing Cascades: Part II
- Video: Emperor's New Clothes
- Video: Considerations
- Video: Summary
Influencing People in Social Networks
In this lesson, we will continue with our theme of influence, now paying more attention to people's social networks. We will discuss different ways of measuring importance and a popular model for influence spread in social networks like Facebook and Twitter.
13 videos, 1 reading
- Reading: Power of Networks
- Video: Who is "important?"
- Video: Social graph
- Video: Degree centrality
- Video: Closeness centrality: Part I
- Video: Closeness centrality: Part II
- Video: Betweenness centrality: Part I
- Video: Betweenness centrality: Part II
- Video: Contagion: Part I
- Video: Contagion: Part II
- Video: Cluster density
- Video: Marketing strategies
- Video: Summary
Graded: Problem Set #4
WEEK 6
Pricing Data
Data makes up a significant part of our cell phone bills. How do cellular providers set these price points? In this lesson, we will see how so-called usage-based pricing schemes can send better signals than flat- rate, “buffet” schemes, leading to better sharing of the network.
11 videos, 1 reading
- Reading: Power of Networks
- Video: Demand for data
- Video: Jobs' Inequality of Capacity
- Video: Usage-based plans
- Video: Comparing pricing schemes
- Video: Utility
- Video: Demand
- Video: Demand curve & net utility
- Video: The Tragedy of the Commons
- Video: Flat rate creates waste & favors heavy users
- Video: Summary
Routing Traffic through the Internet
It is hard to overstate the impact that the Internet has had on society. In this lesson, we will overview the fundamental concepts behind the way the Internet is designed. We will also take a look at routing, which is the process of determining how packets of information are transported.
22 videos, 1 reading
- Reading: Power of Networks
- Video: ARPANET
- Video: NSFNET
- Video: The "Internet"
- Video: Circuit Switching vs. Packet Switching
- Video: Statistical Multiplexing & Resource Pooling
- Video: Packet vs. Circuit Switching Summary
- Video: Distributed Hierarchy
- Video: Routing Traffic
- Video: IP Address
- Video: Prefix & Host Identifier
- Video: DHCP & NAT
- Video: Routing Protocols
- Video: Forwarding
- Video: Shortest Path Problem
- Video: Bellman-Ford Example
- Video: Cost Updates
- Video: Example: Two Hops
- Video: Example: Three Hops
- Video: Example: Summary
- Video: RIP and Message Passing
- Video: Summary
Graded: Problem Set #5
WEEK 7
Controlling Congestion in the Internet
The Internet has many important tasks to manage, like routing packets (discussed in the last module) and controlling congestion. This workload is modularized into different functional layers, each responsible for performing a different set of functions, as we will see in this lesson. We will also look at the principles of congestion control, managed at the transport layer.
18 videos, 1 reading
- Reading: Power of Networks
- Video: Layered Protocol Stack
- Video: Transport & Network Layers
- Video: Headers
- Video: Processing Layers
- Video: Controlling Congestion
- Video: Traffic Jam & Bucket Analogy
- Video: End Hosts
- Video: Sliding Window
- Video: Cautious Growth of Window Size
- Video: Inferring Congestion
- Video: Congestion Control Versions
- Video: Loss-Based Congestion Inference
- Video: Delay-Based Congestion Inference: Part I
- Video: Delay-Based Congestion Inference: Part II
- Video: Delay-Based Congestion Inference: Part III
- Video: Distributed Congestion Control
- Video: Summary
It's a Small World
Six degrees of separation is a widely told story in popular science. How can it still be a "small world" with the enormity of the Internet today? It depends on how the social networks are structured, and on how we search for short paths, as we will see in this lesson.
17 videos, 1 reading
- Reading: Power of Networks
- Video: Milgram's Experiment
- Video: "Small world" in Culture
- Video: Structural vs. Algorithmic Small Worlds
- Video: Triad Closures and Homophily
- Video: Average Shortest Path
- Video: Random Graphs
- Video: Clustering Coefficient: Part A
- Video: Clustering Coefficient: Part B
- Video: Regular Graph: Part A
- Video: Regular Graph: Part B
- Video: Watts-Strogatz Model: Part A
- Video: Watts-Strogatz Model: Part B
- Video: Discovering Short Paths
- Video: Watts-Dodds-Newman Model: Part A
- Video: Watts-Dodds-Newman Model: Part B
- Video: Summary
Graded: Problem Set #6
WEEK 8
Final Exam
The final covers the last six lessons in the course (those after the midterm). Like the midterm, the questions are all multiple choice, and tend to be easier than the homework questions but harder than the in-video quizzes.
Graded: Final
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Ratings and Reviews
Very clear explanation.
A simple approach that helps to understand most of the concepts reviewed.
Thanks.
Great course in general!
Unfortunately some lectures are missing and on Quiz's some questions missing description and some pictures missing too and authors don't reply on remarks yet.
Will be glad to rate "5 stars" when remarks are fixed.
very great course!
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JM
WARNING: NO CERTIFICATES GRANTED IN THIS COURSE DESPITE WHATEVER COURSERA, SEARCH RESULTS OR COURSE INFO TELLS YOU. IT IS PRINCETON POLICY, AND PRINCETON WILL NOT CHANGE FOR YOU. WHEN YOU SIGN UP THERE WILL NEVER BE ANY CHANCE TO PAY, AND IT WILL NOT APPEAR LATER.
Taking the above into consideration, this is still a very good all around review of networking principles. Nothing terribly deep, but it can't be broad and deep while being doable in this timeframe. The math is easy, so long as you can keep track of iterations and the value changes from one to the next, the actual math is super easy (and there's never more than a handful of iterations). Jumps around a bit wildly from topic to topic, but they are all interesting and necessary to know about. Very little extraneous material, though some of the parts are dated (principles are still useful though). Wifi still uses wait and listen, just a lot differently. The class also argues heavily that pay per use plans are better than flat fee, and the math supported it, but the business model has swung away from that and back to flat. None of this matters though, it's the ideas and principles behind everything that are critical to understand in today's world. None of those are changing in any significant way until my quantum computer hits the market.
One problem is that the teachers of the class are LONG gone, if you are looking for answers to questions and things of that nature forget it. There are also a couple of broken lecture links and messed up exam questions. These have been pointed out for several years, would be ridiculously easy to fix, and nothing has ever been done, so no instructor is listening to any of us, ever.
5/5 stars given it is free, and so long as you go in knowing you can't get any certificate.