Syllabus

Course Meeting Times

Lectures: 2 sessions / week, 1.5 hours / session

Course Outline

What Students Will Do In This Course

• Read the academic literature, including faculty notes and papers
• Learn and practice some existing analytical methods, mainly network methods
• Appreciate the wide range of domains where theory and methods have been applied
• Critique existing theory and methods
• Share knowledge and experience
• Analyze some real systems in detail
• Distill common concepts that emerge from theory and that apply to many kinds of systems

Learning Objectives

• Gain a research-level understanding of system architecture
• Learn existing theoretical and analytical methods with particular emphasis on network analysis
• Begin to develop some modeling skills of possible benefit in complex engineering systems
• Compare systems in different domains (communication, engineering, organizations, infrastructures, and biology) and understand what influences their architectures
• Apply/extend existing theory and modeling in case studies

Textbook and Readings

Readings are an important part of the course, as they fuel discussions. The required text for this course is:

Watts, Duncan. Six Degrees: The Science of a Connected Age. New York, NY: W. W. Norton & Co., 2004. ISBN: 9780393325423.

In addition, we will assign additional research literature to read before class. Occasionally we will recommend optional background literature as well.

Grading