In the last decade we have experienced an explosive growth of information through the web. Locating information seems to be very easy, while determining the quality of information can be tricky. This course is for students who want to know why search engines can answer your queries fast and (most of time) accurately, why other times seem to be missing the point and provide untrustworthy information, and how one can design a web site that acquires high visibility on the web. We will cover traditional information retrieval methods and web search algorithms such as crawlers and spiders, with a focus on probabilistic and graph-theoretic methods that can detect web spam. We will also cover some basic understanding of text mining and data clustering. Time permiting, we will examine other relevant issues of the information explosion era, such as the shape and structure of the web, epistemology of information and properties of large random networks.

The class will be taught by Prof. P. Takis Metaxas with guest lectures by Prof. Eni Mustafaraj. Lectures on Mondays and Thursdays 1:30PM in SCI 104.

Office Hours: See Prof. Metaxas' web site

Course Requirements:
The course will require significant reading of (online) books and research papers. Your performance will be evaluated by your contrbutions to class discussions, weekly quizes (Mondays), a midterm (Thursday November 11), and a final research paper (Monday, December 13) that will be presented in class during the last week of the semester.

Grading: