Digital Communities (WT 2018/2019)

Welcome to the course Digital Communities (winter term 2018/2019)

• First lecture: Wednesday, October 17th, 2018, 14:15 o'clock in room BH-N 334.
• The course syllabus and accompanying material such as research papers, homework, links and lecture slides are available via the following ISIS forum:
  • https://isis.tu-berlin.de/course/view.php?id=14093 [1]

• Important:
  • This course is limited to 50 participants.
  • If you want to enroll for this course (and for the exam at the end of the semester), you need to submit your registration via the link that is shown on page 7 in the course syllabus [2] by Monday, October 22nd, 2018, 23:59 o'clock at the latest.

The module starts with an introduction to the fundamentals of digital communities and an overview of related concepts. The first part of the lecture is dedicated to the topic of networks and graph theory, followed by social networks and social network analysis and related applications. After that, additional concepts that are relevant to digital communities are presented, specifically recommender systems, which are discussed both at the mathematical and application-oriented level. The module concludes with an overview and discussion of the latest trends and developments in digital communities.

The topics of this module are taught in a classical lecture, which also envisages a related discussion between students and lecturer. Selected topics are further covered in an exercise course with frequent assignments. Each assignment contains several problems, which are to be solved by the students. During practical lessons, the solutions are then presented and discussed.

Students who have successfully finished this module have an overview of current and future concepts for digital communities. They have developed an understanding of the principles of graph theory and social network analysis, and have learned about the concepts of recommender systems, including content-based and collaborative filtering methods.

Master students of

• Computer Science (Informatik) / Kommunikationsbasierte Systeme
• Computer Engineering (Technische Informatik) / Informationssysteme
• Innovation in Information and Communication Technology

• An oral exam will be offered during the week of February 18th - 22nd, 2019. The exam will take place at Ernst - Reuter - Platz 7, 10587 Berlin, TEL Building, 16th floor.
• This module is limited to 50 participants.
• The enrollment for this course is explained in the course syllabus [4]. In order to enroll, you need to register via the link shown on page 7 in the course syllabus [5] by October 22nd, 2018, 23:59 o'clock at the latest.

• Dr. Peter Ruppel

Accompanying material such as research papers, homework, links and presentation slides are available via the following ISIS forum:

• https://isis.tu-berlin.de/course/view.php?id=14093 [6]

• Mark Newman: Networks - An Introduction, Oxford University Press, 2010
• Maarten van Steen: Graph Theory and Complex Networks, 2010
• Charu C. Aggarwal: Recommender Systems, The Textbook, Springer, 2016
• Dietmar Jannach et al.: Recommender Systems - An Introduction, Cambridge University Press, 2011

Further material such as articles and papers will be made available during the semester.

Besides the teaching books mentioned above, the interested reader might also be interested in the following books, which introduce social networks in a very vivid and engaging manner:

• Duncan J. Watts: Six Degrees, W. W. Norton, 2003
• Nicholas Christakis and James Fowler: Connected, Harper Press, 2011
• Paul Adams: Grouped, New Riders, 2012