CS246:
Web Information Systems
Junghoo “John” Cho
Spring 2015
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Course Information
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Web page: http://oak.cs.ucla.edu/cs246/
Topic: Web information management
Time: MW 10:00 --11:50 am
Instructor: Junghoo “John” Cho
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office: 3531H Boelter Hall
email: cho@cs.ucla.edu
 please use subject “CS246: …”
office hours: Mon 1-2 pm.
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Who is this class for?
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Strong interest in research
Interest in Web information systems
Time commitment:
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Around 2-3 papers every week
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Typically one full day of paper reading
One indepedent project
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Similar to paper writing
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In fact we read papers from past student projects!
Or interesting application implementation
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Today’s Topics
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Overview of the course topics
Course logistics
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Paper reading assignments
Class project
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Prerequisite
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Introductory database, e.g., CS143
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Basic algorithms and data structures
Basic probability and statistics
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P(A|C), Bayes rule, …
Design and implementation experience
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e.g.: query? SQL?
Basic C++
Quick test: Grab a sample paper
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See if you can read, understand and build it
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Tell Us About You
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Name
Department & Program
Before coming to UCLA
Brief history at UCLA
Technical/research interests
Expectation from the class
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Information Galore
Biblio sever
Legacy database
Plain text files
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Central Problem
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How to manage/access information on the
Web?
Three major approaches
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Central indexing
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Dynamic integration
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E.g., Web search engine
E.g., comparison shopping services
Data extraction
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E.g., spamming companies
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Topic: Web Search
(Central Indexing)
Central Index
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Topic: Web Search (Central
Indexing)
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Web: collection of passive HTML pages
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Traditional Information Retrieval:
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Find Web pages relevant to a query
Web = collection of HTML pages
HTML page = a bag of words
More than that?
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Links, structure of the Web
User access patterns
HTML tags (markups)
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Topic: Dynamic Integration
Amazon.com
Cars.com
Apartments.com
401carfinder.com
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Topic: Dynamic Integration
Mediator
Wrapper
Source 1
Wrapper
Source 2
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Wrapper
Source n
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Topic: Data Extraction
Structured data
Beatles $10
Madonna $20
NSync $20
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WWW
How can we extract “structured data” from
free text automatically?
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Main Course Workload
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Paper reading
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Paper reading assignments
Class discussion
We mainly focus on “central indexing”
Independent projects
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High-Level Goal
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Learn core ideas and techniques
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Some of the techniques can be useful for other
fields
Learn how to read papers
Hopefully learn what it is like to do research
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Sometimes very frustrating but often very
rewarding
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Paper Reading
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Why:
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About 20 papers from
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Conferences: SIGMOD, VLDB, WWW, and …
Before the class:
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Something that you will do all the time as a researcher
Learn to be critical and communicate well
Acquire knowledge to conduct research/project
Everyone: read and review the paper
During the class:
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Instructor: present his own understanding and lead class
discussion
Everyone: participate!!!
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How to Get Papers
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From the class homepage
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Some of the materials password protected
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http://oak.cs.ucla.edu/cs246/
User name: cs246
Password: papers
Let me know if any problem
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How to Read Papers
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Understand the “Big Picture”
What is the problem?
Why is it important?
Why is it difficult?
What has this paper done?
What others have done?
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Paper Reviews (1)
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Due by the preceding Sunday
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Submit through our Web submission interface on the class Web
page
Required components: at most 3 paragraph
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Summary (1 paragraph): your own words
This paper discusses how to optimize queries with...
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Comments/criticisms (1-2 paragraphs): the good & the bad
It addresses a real problem and the solution is interesting …
But I feel the experiments are not realistic because...
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Optional: questions, as many as you want
Why the authors assume that queries are independent?
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Paper Reviews (2)
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May skip 3 paper summaries without penalty
Most reviews will get full score unless they are
written extremely poorly
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Class Project
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Why:
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Work on a specific problem and learn to find a solution
40% of the class
Team of up to 3
Topic: any problem related to the general problem
Open style
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Rigorous study of a research problem or
Any interesting system implementation
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Class Project Schedule
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Important Milestones
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Group formation: 4/08 (2nd week Wed)
Project proposal: 4/10 (3rd week Sun)
Project progress: 5/06 (6th week Wed)
Final report: 5/20 (8th week Sun)
Project presentation: 9th and 10th weeks
You are responsible to stay on track
Make appointments with instructor as needed
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Project: Please Remember
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Put your aims high and be realistic
Expect to read at least 4-5 papers along the way
Start early
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Don’t do it right before the deadline
Always unexpected obstacles
Some students could not finish in previous quarters
 Please, please start early
You are responsible to be on track
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Grading
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Midterm: 40%
Paper reviews: 20%
Project: 40%
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Announcements
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First review due Sunday 4/05
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Three papers for class 3 and 4
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Graph structure in the Web
The Anatomy of a Large-Scale Hypertextual …
Authoritative sources in a hyperlinked environment
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