CS 224C: NLP for Computational Social Science

Welcome!

We live in an era where many aspects of our social interactions are recorded as textual data, from social media posts to medical and financial records. This course is about using a variety of techniques from machine learning and theories from social science to study human behaviors and important societal questions at scale. Topics will include methods for natural language processing and causal inference, and their applications to important societal questions around hate speech, misinformation, and social movements.

💥 CS224C class will be a mix of pre-recorded video lectures (for viewing by class participants) and discussion sessions during our class meetings.

📺 These pre-recorded videos will cover introductory NLP/ML methods and statistics that are widely used by the computational social science field, together with potential techniques involved in these readings. We will release one video lecture per week, starting from the second week. Check them out!

Overview

Course Info

• Class time: Building 260-113, Tuesday/Thursday 5:30-6:20pm Pacific Time.
• Contact: Students should ask all course-related questions in the Ed Discussion Forum, where you will also find announcements. For personal matters that you don't wish to put in a private post, you can email us at cs224c-staff@lists.stanford.edu.

Office Hours

• Wenna Qin: Mondays 11am-12pm Pacific Time, Gates 287.
• Kaitlyn Zhou: Tuesdays 4:30-5:30pm Pacific Time, Gates 323 from Jan 17th-Mar 28th and Gates 315 for Feb 14th.
• Diyi Yang: Thursdays 4:30-5:30pm Pacific Time, Gates 342 or Zoom if needed.

Prerequisites

• Completion of CS106B is strictly required. PhD students from other departments are welcome.

Academic Accommodations

• From Stanford's Office of Accessible Education:Students who may need an academic accommodation based on the impact of a disability must initiate the request with the Office of Accessible Education (OAE). Professional staff will evaluate the request with required documentation, recommend reasonable accommodations, and prepare an Accommodation Letter for faculty dated in the current quarter in which the request is being made. Students should contact the OAE as soon as possible since timely notice is needed to coordinate accommodations. The OAE is located at 563 Salvatierra Walk (phone: 723-1066, URL: http://oae.stanford.edu).

• If you need an academic accommodation based on a disability, you should initiate the request with the OAE before the end of the second week of classes.

Well-Being, Stress Management, & Mental Health

• If you are experiencing personal, academic, or relationship problems and would like someone to talk to, reach out to the Counseling and Psychological Services (CAPS) on campus. CAPS is the university’s counseling center dedicated to student mental health and wellbeing. Phone assessment appointments can be made at CAPS by calling 650-723- 3785, or by accessing the VadenPatient portal through the Vaden website. For more information, visit: https://vaden.stanford.edu/caps-and-wellness.