Syllabus: Colorado CSCI 7000 - Topics in AGT, Spring 2020

Instructor: Bo Waggoner
Course webpage: https://www.bowaggoner.com/courses/2020/csci7000/

Course Information

Goals and topics

This advanced graduate-level course will cover a number of topics at the interface of computer science and microeconomics, from a theoretical perspective. Examples of likely topics include online learning, mechanism design for approximate welfare and revenue maximization, information elicitation and aggregation, and/or computational social choice. The course will focus on reading papers and a final project.

Prerequisites

The course will have flexibility in allowing students to keep up at their own pace. Preprequisites encouraged, but not required, include multivariable calculus, linear algebra, probability, and analysis; and undergraduate algorithms and complexity theory. No economic prerequisites are assumed.

Structure

Typically, Mondays and Fridays will be discussions of assigned readings, led by a group of one or two students starting with a brief presentation of the key concepts. A typical Wednesday meeting will consist of instructor-led discussion or informal lecture on key background knowledge to reinforce the readings.

Assignments and Evaluation

• Readings and participation (35%): Students will submit comments on the assigned readings and participate in class discussions.
• Presentation(s) (15%): In groups of one or two, students will present a summary and help guide discussion on at least one reading during the semester. Students will meet with the instructor one week prior to the presentation to discuss their approach and list of three guiding questions.
• Final project (50%): In groups of one or two, students will investigate a topic related to AGT. They will turn in a project proposal of about two pages, biweekly progress reports of a couple paragraphs, and a final writeup of 8-15 pages; and give a 10-30min in-class presentation on the project.

The final score will be calculated by a weighted average of the grades in each component. Course letter grades will be assigned based on the final score.

Standard Course Policies

The university has informed me that students can find standard required course policies here: http://click.communications.cu.edu/?qs=1a1ce61623aeaf8807a3a94e9d8e80b015a6601e2ebf143c9b236220116f613fe9d3d68dbaa6c937777a114240dc2deff20bf88acfc1f783