CS246: Web Information Systems

1. CS246: Web Information Systems Junghoo “John” Cho Spring 2014 CS246 by John Cho

2. Course Information • Web page: http://oak.cs.ucla.edu/cs246/ • Topic: Web information management • Time: MW 2:00 -- 3:50 pm • Place: Boelter Hall 5422 • Instructor: Junghoo “John” Cho • office: 3531H Boelter Hall • email: cho@cs.ucla.edu • please use subject “CS246: …” • office hours: Mon 1-2 pm. CS246 by John Cho

3. Who is this class for? Strong interest in research Interest in Web information systems Time commitment: Around 2-3 papers every week Typically one full day of paper reading One indepedent project Similar to paper writing In fact we read papers from past student projects! Or interesting application implementation CS246 by John Cho 3

4. Today’s Topics • Overview of the course topics • Course logistics • Paper reading assignments • Class project CS246 by John Cho

5. Prerequisite • Introductory database, e.g., CS143 • e.g.: query? SQL? • Basic algorithms and data structures • Basic probability and statistics • P(A|C), Bayes rule, … • Design and implementation experience • Basic C++ • Quick test: Grab a sample paper • See if you can read, understand and build it CS246 by John Cho

6. Tell Us About You • Name • Department & Program • Before coming to UCLA • Brief history at UCLA • Technical/research interests • Expectation from the class CS246 by John Cho

7. Information Galore Biblio sever Legacy database Plain text files CS246 by John Cho

8. Central Problem • How to manage/access information on the Web? • Three major approaches • Central indexing • E.g., Web search engine • Dynamic integration • E.g., comparison shopping services • Data extraction • E.g., spamming companies CS246 by John Cho

9. Topic: Web Search (Central Indexing) Central Index CS246 by John Cho

10. Topic: Web Search (Central Indexing) • Web: collection of passive HTML pages • Find Web pages relevant to a query • Traditional Information Retrieval: • Web = collection of HTML pages • HTML page = a bag of words • More than that? • Links, structure of the Web • User access patterns • HTML tags (markups) CS246 by John Cho

11. Topic: Dynamic Integration Amazon.com Cars.com 401carfinder.com Apartments.com CS246 by John Cho

12. Topic: Dynamic Integration Mediator Wrapper Wrapper Wrapper Source 1 Source 2 Source n CS246 by John Cho

13. Topic: Data Extraction Structured data WWW Beatles $10 Madonna $20 NSync $20 • How can we extract “structured data” from free text automatically? CS246 by John Cho

14. Main Course Workload • Paper reading • Paper reading assignments • Class discussion • We mainly focus on “central indexing” • Independent projects CS246 by John Cho

15. High-Level Goal • Learn core ideas and techniques • Some of the techniques can be useful for other fields • Learn how to read papers • Hopefully learn what it is like to do research • Sometimes very frustrating but often very rewarding CS246 by John Cho

16. Paper Reading • Why: • Something that you will do all the time as a researcher • Learn to be critical and communicate well • Acquire knowledge to conduct research/project • About 20 papers from • Conferences: SIGMOD, VLDB, WWW, and … • Before the class: • Everyone: read and review the paper • During the class: • Instructor: present his own understanding and lead class discussion • Everyone: participate!!! CS246 by John Cho

17. How to Get Papers • From the class homepage • http://oak.cs.ucla.edu/cs246/ • Some of the materials password protected • User name: cs246 • Password: papers • Let me know if any problem CS246 by John Cho

18. How to Read Papers • 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? CS246 by John Cho

19. Paper Reviews (1) • Due by the preceding Sunday • Submit through our Web submission interface on the class Web page • Required components: at most 3 paragraph • Summary (1 paragraph): your own words This paper discusses how to optimize queries with... • 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... • Optional: questions, as many as you want Why the authors assume that queries are independent? CS246 by John Cho

20. Paper Reviews (2) • May skip 3 paper summaries without penalty • Most reviews will get full score unless they are written extremely poorly CS246 by John Cho

21. Class Project • Why: • 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 • Rigorous study of a research problem or • Any interesting system implementation CS246 by John Cho

22. Class Project Schedule • Important Milestones • Group formation: 4/09 (2nd week Wed) • Project proposal: 4/20 (3rd week Sun) • Project progress: 5/07 (6th week Wed) • Final report: 5/21 (8th week Sun) • Project presentation: 9th and 10th weeks • You are responsible to stay on track • Make appointments with instructor as needed CS246 by John Cho

23. Project: Please Remember • Put your aims high and be realistic • Expect to read at least 4-5 papers along the way • Start early • 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 CS246 by John Cho

24. Grading • Midterm: 40% • Paper reviews: 20% • Project: 40% CS246 by John Cho

25. Announcements • First review due Sunday 4/06 • Three papers for class 3 and 4 • Graph structure in the Web • The Anatomy of a Large-Scale Hypertextual … • Authoritative sources in a hyperlinked environment CS246 by John Cho