Topic outline

  • General

    Welcome to the wonderful world of networks!

    Visualization of a social network

    Nature is full of networks, from the intracellular machinery inside us to the complex networks of neurons that form our brains, and to the vast number of networks formed by humans, from physical and online social networks to technological systems such as the Internet. 

    These networks are important from many points of view—understanding how they work is essential for understanding many natural and social phenomena, from the spreading of diseases to information flows in social networks, and from cascading power grid failures to financial crises. 

    The Complex Networks course provides you with an introduction to the modern theory of networks, together with skills for applying this knowledge to real-world networks and empirical data. 

    About the course

    The course consists of lectures and course assignments (= eight weekly exercises and one project work). More details on grading etc to appear later.

    Assignments include computer exercises with Python, accompanied by some pen-and-paper maths. Therefore elementary programming skills are required. We'll provide a short Python tutorial and introduce the NetworkX package used in this course. Solving the exercises requires some time each week, so please plan your studies accordingly.

    Lectures and exercise sessions will be held in person on campus. Video recordings of the lectures will be made available too. Most course material will be published in MyCourses before the first lecture (6 September).

    The course will be lectured by Jari Saramäki (jari.saramaki@aalto.fi). Course assistants are to be announced later. The preferred email address for contacting the course staff is cs-e5740@aalto.fi. 

    Welcome to the course, and please do not forget to register via Sisu! For students coming from other universities than Aalto, please obtain an Aalto user account before attending the course.