The coursework for CS224W will consist of:
The idea for the homework is to practice some skills that will be required for the project, and help you understand the concepts introduced in the lectures. The homework will contain mostly written questions. Specifically, we will be working both on mathematical models of networks and analyzing real network data, for example, find out the differences between node embedding approaches from a theoretical view. Second, we will also work with network datasets to get a flavor of types of questions one asks in network analysis. For example, using citation data, create a small citation network, compute degree distributions, clustering coefficients, node centralities, etc.
Questions: We try very hard to make questions unambiguous, but some ambiguities may remain. Ask (i.e., post a question on Piazza) if confused, or state your assumptions explicitly. Reasonable assumptions will be accepted in case of ambiguous questions.
Assignment submission: All students (SCPD and non-SCPD) submit their assignments via GradeScope by 11:59PM PT on the due date. (We will allow a short 15 minute grace period, but beyond that and late periods, all deadlines are final.) See FAQ and each homework handout for submission instructions.
Please make sure to tag each part correctly on GradeScope so it is easier for us to grade. There will be a 1 point deduction for each mistagged page.
Students also need to upload their code if needed on Gradescope. Put all the code for a single question into a single compressed file and upload it.
Regrade policy: We take great care to ensure that grading is fair and consistent. Since we will always use the same grading procedure, any grades you receive are unlikely to change significantly. However, if you feel that your work deserves a regrade, please submit a request on GradeScope within one week of receiving your grade.
Before requesting a regrade, please prepare a clear and concise argument for your stance by doing the following:
We reserve the right to regrade the entirety of any homework for which any regrade is requested.
For grading questions, please talk to us during office hours.
There are a total of 4 Colabs during the quarter (plus Colab 0 to get you familiar with the setup, but no handin required). Contrary to homework, the Colabs typically require you to write some code on the tasks relevant to course materials. They are intended to get your hands dirty, and understand better the power of graphs (especially GNN) through practice, also to prepare you ready for the final project.
One of CS224W main goals is to prepare you to apply state-of-the-art network analysis tools and algorithms to an application. If you are interested in research, CS224W will also leave you well-qualified to do network science research. The class final project will offer you an opportunity to do exactly this.
Students can (and are strongly encouraged) to work in teams of up to 3 people. If you have a project of such large scope and ambition that it cannot be done by a team of only three persons, you can propose doing a project in a team of 4.
This year, we will be working on predictions on datasets from Open Graph Benchmark (OGB). All relevant information can be found on this page.
Note that very few exceptions will be made if you want to work on your own project ideas (which is risky and makes grading fairly difficult). In order to be approved for your project idea, you must find one TA as your project mentor. If you are super confident about your own proposal, come to office hours talking to TAs to get approved.
A very good CS224W project will comprise a publishable or nearly-publishable piece of work. Each year, some number of students continue working on their projects after completing CS224W, and submit their work to a conference or journal.
The following paragraphs apply both to any material submitted for this course (homework, project proposal, project milestone, and so on).
Honor code: We strongly encourage students to form study groups. Students may discuss and work on homework problems in groups. However, each student must write down the solutions independently, and without referring to written notes from the joint session. In other words, each student must understand the solution well enough in order to reconstruct it by him/herself. In addition, each student should write on the problem set the group of people with whom she/he collaborated.
Further, since we occasionally reuse problem set questions from previous years, we expect students not to copy, refer to, or look at the solutions in preparing their answers. It is an honor code violation to intentionally refer to a previous year's solutions or code. This applies both to the official solutions and to solutions that you or someone else may have written up in a previous year.
Finally, we consider it an Honor Code Violation to post your homework solutions to a place where it is easy for other students to access it. This includes uploading your solutions to publicly-viewable repositories like on GitHub.
The standard penalty for a first offense includes a one-quarter suspension from the University and 40 hours of community service. And the standard penalty for multiple violations (e.g., cheating more than once in the same course) is a three-quarter suspension and 40 or more hours of community service. Stanford Office of Community Standards contains more information.
Late submissions: Each student will have a total of two late periods to use for homework/colabs and project proposal (NOT the final project report, for which the deadline is strict.) One late period expires midnight on the day before the next class: this means that if the assignment is due on Thursday then the first late period expires at 11:59pm on the next Monday. Once late periods are exhausted, any write-up turned in late will be penalized 50% per late period. However, no write-up (homework and project related documents) will be accepted more than one late period after its due date.
Please start submitting to Gradescope 30 minutes before the deadline. In previous quarters, Gradescope has been very unresponsive at midnight. In case you cannot successfully submit before 11:59pm, we will offer a 15 minute grace period to submit your assignment. This is a hard deadline and we will accept no assignments after this time.
The grading will be based on the following weighting scheme: