*FAZLI CAN, Professor
*
Computer
Engineering Department, Bilkent
University, Ankara, Turkey. You may also visit my Miami University home page.
Ph.D.: Computer
Engineering, METU (thesis abstract, thesis)
Office Information
Engineering A Building, Room No. EA511.
Office Hours (Spring 2025): Tuesday 12:30 - 13:20
Looking for Graduate/Undergraduate Students for the Bilkent Information Retrieval Group
If you are good at four core practices of computer science (programming, systems thinking, modeling, and innovation**) you may be the right person for our research group (learn more and even more). In other words: If you "can dream," "can do," and "can write" then you are the right person for our group. If you are interested in, please send me an email. For undergraduate students a disciplined way of doing this is taking CS490 under my supervision, if you think that you can do research without enrolling to this course you may also see me.
For CS490 I am looking for a self motivated student with imagination who needs practically no supervision and is an excellent programmer. Topic will be on data stream clustering/classification. Our research group has a number of recent papers on this topic, look at them to get an idea about the problem domain.
Information for CS491 Students Looking for a Project Supervisor
If you want to work with me, you have to send short CVs (with CGPA) of your group members, a brief description of your project and its importance (with title, abstract, and keywords), and a brief explanation of why you want to work under my supervision.
Bilkent University, Ankara, Turkey, Spring '25
CS224 Computer Organization
CS491/492 Senior Projects
Bilkent University, Ankara, Turkey, Fall '24
CS224 Computer Organization
CS433/CS533 Information Retrieval Systems (by Moodle)
CS491/492 Senior Projects
Bilkent University, Ankara, Turkey, Spring '24
CS224 Computer Organization
CS491/492 Senior Projects
Bilkent University, Ankara, Turkey, Fall '23
CS224 Computer Organization
CS433/CS533 Information Retrieval Systems (by Moodle)
CS491/492 Senior Projects
Bilkent University, Ankara, Turkey, Spring '23
CS224 Computer Organization
CS433/CS533 Information Retrieval Systems (by Moodle)
CS491/492 Senior Projects
Bilkent University, Ankara, Turkey, Fall '22
CS224 Computer Organization
CS491/492, Senior Projects
Bilkent University, Ankara, Turkey, Spring '22
CS224 Computer Organization
CS491/492, Senior Projects
Bilkent University, Ankara, Turkey, Fall '21
CS224 Computer Organization
CS491/492, Senior Projects
Bilkent University, Ankara, Turkey, Spring '21
CS533, Information Retrieval Systems (by Moodle)
CS224 Computer Organization
CS491/492, Senior Projects
Bilkent University, Ankara, Turkey, Spring '20
CS224 Computer Organization
CS491/492, Senior Projects
Bilkent University, Ankara, Turkey, Fall '19
CS224 Computer Organization
CS533, Information Retrieval Systems
CS491/492, Senior Projects
Bilkent University, Ankara, Turkey, Spring '19
CS224 Computer Organization
CS491/492, Senior Projects: Dear Deary, Locum
Bilkent University, Ankara, Turkey, Fall '18
CS224 Computer Organization
CS533, Information Retrieval Systems
CS491/492, Senior Projects: Dear Deary, Locum
Bilkent University, Ankara, Turkey, Spring '18
CS224 Computer Organization
Bilkent University, Ankara, Turkey, Fall '17
CS281 Computers and Data Organization
CS533 Information Retrieval Systems
Bilkent University, Ankara, Turkey, Spring '17
CS224 Computer Organization
CS281 Computers and Data Organization
CS491/492 Senior Projects
Bilkent University, Ankara, Turkey, Fall '16
CS224 Computer Organization
CS533 Information Retrieval Systems
CS491/492 Senior Projects
TourRoute
Bilkent University, Ankara, Turkey, Spring '16
CS281, Computers and Data Organization (Section 1): Tuesday 15:40, 16:40-Spare Hour; Friday 13:40, 14:40; Place: EB-201.
CS533, Information Retrieval Systems: Tuesday 10:40, 11:40; Friday 8:40-Spare Hour, 9:40; Place: EA-502.
CS491/492 Senior Projects
KickCareer Received Bilkent University Computer Engineering Department Senior Design Project Performance Award in 2016
GrouPup Received Bilkent University Computer Engineering Department Senior Design Project Mobile Award in 2016
CS490 Project
Deduplication of Tweets
Bilkent University, Ankara, Turkey, Fall '15
CS101, Algorithms and Programming I - Section 4: Monday 15:40; Thursday 13:40, 14:40. Section 5: Tuesday 13:40, 14:40; Thursday 15:40. Place: EA-Z03. Class Notes Web resources: mitOpenCourseware, Online Compiler: jdoodle
CS202, Fundamental Structures of Computer Science II - Section 1: Tuesday 10:40, 11:40; Friday 9:40. Place: BZ-08.
CS491/492 Senior Projects
KickCareer
GrouPup
Bilkent University, Ankara, Turkey, Spring '15
CS202, Fundamental Structures of Computer Science II (Section 3): Wednesday 13:40, 14:40; Friday 15:40, 16:40-Spare Hour; Place: EB-201. visualAlgo1 - visualAlgo2
CS281, Computers and Data Organization (Section 1): Tuesday 15:40, 16:40-Spare Hour; Friday 13:40, 14:40; Place: EB-201.
CS533, Information Retrieval Systems: Wednesday 8:40-Spare Hour, 9:40; Friday 10:40, 11:40; Place: EA-502.
CS491/492 Senior Projects
CriticsLand
GeoTune
Bilkent University, Ankara, Turkey, Fall '14
CS224, (under construction) Computer Organization (Section 1) (Section 2) unilica
Section 1: Monday 15:40, Thursday 13:40-14:40; Section 2: Tuesday 13:40, 14:40, Thursday 15:40
CS491/492 Senior Projects
CriticsLand
GeoTune
Bilkent University, Ankara, Turkey, Spring '14
CS533, (under construction) Information Retrieval Systems
CS491/492 Senior Projects
Clothy: what s hould I wear (omubumu). Received Bilkent University Computer Engineering Department Senior Project Marketability Award in 2014
Says: society at your service (akıl ver-akıl al). Received Bilkent University Computer Engineering Department Senior Project Bilvea Startup Award in 2014
On Fire: party finder (arkadaşlarım nerde)
Bilkent University, Ankara, Turkey, Fall '13
CS224, Computer Organization (Section 1) unilica
CS281, Computers and Data Organization (Section 2 & Section 3)
CS491/492 Senior Projects
Clothy: what should I wear (omubumu)
Consensus: society at your service (akıl ver-akıl al)
On Fire: party finder (arkadaşlarım nerde) pic
GE100, Orientation / Üniversite Hayatına Giriş (just wo presentations on September 9 & 10): Google and Connecting the Dots in Life
Bilkent University, Ankara, Turkey, Spring '13
CS533, (under construction) Information Retrieval Systems
CS491/492 Senior Projects
Social RSS: follow the flow
vieboo: find best moovies, books, songs, places. Received Bilkent University Computer Engineering Department Most Innovative Senior Project Award in 2013
Bilkent University, Ankara, Turkey, Fall '12
CS224, Computer Organization (Section 1) unilica
CS281, Computers and Data Organization (Section 2 & Section 3)
CS491/492 Senior Projects
Social RSS: follow the flow
vieboo: find best moovies, books, songs, places
Bilkent University, Ankara, Turkey, Spring '12
CS533, Information Retrieval Systems
CS491/492 Senior Projects
BILTRACKER: News Tracking
bunchit: Clustered Search Engine (http://www.bunch-it.com/)
ollaa:Verb-based Social Network (for smartphones) - One of 2012 Ethohum 40 Girişimi. Received Bilkent University Computer Engineering Department Best Senior Project Award in 2012
Bilkent University, Ankara, Turkey, Fall '11
CS351, Data Organization and Management, old class notes
Bilkent University, Ankara, Turkey, Spring '11
CS533, Information Retrieval Systems
CS492, Senior Design Project I, Vak'a Nüvîs: New Event Detection and Topic Tracking Based on Suffix Tree Concept by Kerim Karaca, Mustafa Battal, Mustafa Zengin, and Salim Sarımurat.
Bilkent University, Ankara, Turkey, Fall '10
CS351, Data Organization and Management
Bilkent University, Ankara, Turkey, Spring '10
CS533, Information Retrieval Systems
CS492, Senior Design Project II, HavadiSec: by Turgut Isik, Oguz Kaya, Harun Ozden, Abdullah H. Sahin. Received Bilkent University Computer Engineering Department Best Senior Project Award in 2010.
Bilkent University, Ankara, Turkey, Fall '09
CS351, Data Organization and Management
Bilkent University, Ankara, Turkey, Spring '09
CS533, Information Retrieval Systems
Bilkent University, Ankara, Turkey, Fall '08
CS351, Data Organization and Management
Bilkent University, Ankara, Turkey, Spring '08
CS112, Introduction to Object-Oriented Programming (Class Pictures, to be published)
CS533, Information Retrieval Systems (Class Pictures, to be published)
CS492, Senior Design Project II, Topic: Automatic Summarization of Multi-document Texts by Ahmet Bugdayci, Cem Aksoy, Ibrahim Uysal, Tunay Gur. Received Bilkent University Computer Engineering Department Best Senior Project Award in 2008.
Bilkent University, Ankara, Turkey, Fall '07
CS351, Data Organization and Management Class Pictures
Bilkent University, Ankara, Turkey, Spring '07
CS101, Algorithms
and Programming I (Quizzes, Lecture Notes, Class Pictures)
CS533, Information Retrieval Systems Class Pictures
CS590-C690, Research Topics (graduate student seminars), coordinated with Dr. Tolga Capin & Dr. Markus Schaal.
Bilkent University, Ankara, Turkey, Fall '06
CS351, Data Organization and Management Class Pictures
Bilkent University, Ankara, Turkey, Spring '06
CS533, Information Retrieval Systems
CS492, Senior Design Project II, Topic: Information Retrieval on Turkish Texts by Erman Balcik, Cihan Kaynak, H. Cagdas Ocalan, Onur M. Vursavas, co-supervised with Dr. Seyit Kocberber. Received Bilkent University Computer Engineering Department Best Senior Project Award in 2006.
CS590-C690, Research Topics (graduate student seminars), coordinated with Dr. Selim Aksoy & Dr. Ugur Gudukbay
Bilkent University, Ankara, Turkey, Fall '05
CS351, Data Organization and Management
CS491, Senior Design Project Project I, one group on Turkish IR, co-supervised with Dr. Seyit Kocberber
Bilkent University, Ankara, Turkey, Spring '02
CS101, Algorithms
and Programming I
Recent Presentations:
"The Art of Doing Computer Science and Engineering: The Hamming Way" Abstract. CS491 Presentation. October 22, 2018 pdf
"Bilgi Akışlı Ortamlarda Çoklu Sınıflandırıcılar" ("Ensemble Classifiers in Data Stream Environments"). ITURo 2016, İstanbul Technical University, April 8-20, 2016. Invited presentation (ITURo is a student-organized conference).
"İnce Memedlerin Sayılarında Gizlenenler" ("Things Hidden in the Numbers of İnce Memeds"). Yaşar Kemal Symposium, Bilgi University, November 12, 2014. (Bilgi University Turkish version available at youtube.) Bilkent Library Lunchtime Lecture, March 5, 2015. (Bilkent University extended English version available at youtube.) Talk poster by Sami Arpa.
"Diversity and novelty in data streams" University of Lugano, Faculty of Informatics, January 29, 2014. (Invited presentation, Host: Prof. Fabio Crestani.)
Tutorial: Diversity and novelty in web search, recommender systems and data streams; pdf, presenters: Rodrygo L.T. Santos, Pablo Castells, Ismail Sengor Altingovde, and Fazli Can, WSDM 2014, February 24-28, 2014; New York, NY.
Tutorial: Diversity and Novelty in Information Retrieval; presenters: Rodrygo L.T. Santos, Pablo Castells, Ismail Sengor Altingovde, and Fazli Can, SIGIR 2013, July 28-August 1, 2013; Dublin, Ireland.
A short non-quantitative presentation in the remembrance meeting of Ali Teoman "Yazmadıklarını Yazan Yazar" ("The Writer who Writes his Unwritten Writings"): "Özenle Oynanmış Bir Yaşam": Ali Teoman BİLGİ'de anılıyor ("A Meticulously Played Life": Remembering Ali Teoman at Bilgi University) March 24, 2012, Istanbul Turkey, organized by Dr. Süha Oğuzertem et al. My invited presentation is somewhat related to my research due to my interest in quantitative analysis of literature (for example, see a graduate student group project on Gizli Kalmış Bir İstanbul Masalı by Metin Koç, Metin Tekkalmaz, and Yiğithan Dedeoğlu in my CS533 class, or see my joint paper with Jon M. Patton on 20th century Turkish literature). (Available at youtube.)
Bilkent Library Lunchtime Talk (also available at youtube) December 14, 2012, Ankara Turkey. The title of my presentation: Nothing can be more surprising than life: Mobile information retrieval, or Memex on the move. A slightly different version is presented at ELPUB 2011.
I was a keynote speaker of 15th International Conference on Electronic Publishing, ELPUB 2011, June 22-24, Istanbul Turkey. The title of my presentation: Mobile information retrieval: Memex on the move - Nothing can be more surprising than life.
"New event detection and tracking in a multi-resource web environment." Michigan State University, Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Fall 2008 CSE Colloquium Series, August, 29, 2008. (Invited presentation, Host: Dr. Joyce Chai.)
I was an invited speaker and on the program committee of ISCIS 2007, Twenty-second International Symposium on Computer and Information Sciences , 7-9 November, 2007, Ankara, Turkey. The title of my presentation: New event detection and tracking: Test collection construction, algorithms, and evaluation.
Conference/Committee Work:
I am in the scientific committee of the 9th International Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation LREC 2014, 26 -31 May 2014, Reykjavik, Iceland.
I am on the program committee of 36th European Conference on Information Retrieval, ECIR 2014, 13-16 April 2014, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
I am in the Information Retrieval Track chair of 10th International Conference on Electronics, Computer and Computation, ICECCO 2013, 7-9 November 2013, Ankara, Turkey.
I am in the program committee of IMCW2013 , 4 -6 September 2013, Limerick, Ireland.
I am on the posters program committee of ACM SIGIR 2013 Conference, 28 July -1 August 2013, Dublin, Ireland.
I am one of the reviewers of 35th European Conference on Information Retrieval, ECIR 2013, 24-27 March 2013, Moscow, Russia.
I was on the program committee of 3rd International Symposium on Information Management in a Changing World 2012 (Değişen Dünyada Bilgi Yönetimi Sempozyumu 2012), BY2012, Hacettepe University, 19-21 September 2012, Ankara, Turkey.
I was on the program committee of PAN 2012 LAB, Uncovering Plagiarism, Authorship, and Social Software Misuse, 17-20 September 2012, Rome, Italy.
I was one of the co-chairs of 2012 International Conference on Advances in Social Networks Analysis and Mining, ASONAM 2012, 26-29 August 2012, Istanbul, Turkey.
I was on the posters program committee of ACM SIGIR 2012 Conference, 12-16 August 2012, Portland, Oregon, USA.
I was on the program committee of 16th International Conference on Electronic Publishing , ELPUB 2012, 14-15 June 2012, Guimarães, Portugal.
I was on the program committee of 34th European Conference on Information Retrieval, ECIR 2012, 2-4 April 2012, Barcelona, Spain.
I was on the program committee of 7th Asian Information Retrieval Societies, AIRS 2011, 18-20 December 2011, Dubai UAI.
I was on the program committee of ACM CIKM 2011, Nineteenth ACM Conference on Information and Knowledge Management, 24-28 October 2011, Glasgow, UK.
I was on the program committee of PAN 2011 LAB, Uncovering Plagiarism, Authorship, and Social Software Misuse, 19-22 September 2011, Amsterdam.
I was on the program committee of 3rd International Conference on the Theory of Information Retrieval ICTIR 2011, 12-14 September 2011, Italy.
I was on the program committee of ACM SIGIR 2011 Conference, 24-28 July 2011, Beijing, China.
I was on the program committee of 15th International Conference on Electronic Publishing, ELPUB 2011, 22-24 June 2011, Istanbul Turkey.
I was on the program committee of IEA/AIE 2011 Special Session, Incremental clustering and novelty detection techniques and their application to intelligent analysis of time varying information, 28 June - 1 July 2011, Syracuse University, NY, USA.
I was on the program committee of PAN 2010 LAB, Uncovering Plagiarism, Authorship, and Social Software Misuse, 20-23 September 2010, Padua, Italy.
I was on the program committee of ACM CIKM 2010, Nineteenth ACM Conference on Information and Knowledge Management, 26-30 October 2010, Toronto, Canada.
I was the Publicity Chair (team member: Dr. Sengor Altingovde) and on the program committee of ACM SIGIR 2010 Conference, 18-23 July 2010, Geneva, Switzerland.
I was on the program committee of ISCIS 2010, Twentyfifth International Symposium on Computer and Information Sciences, 22-24 September 2010, The Royal Society, London.
I was on the program committee of ACM CIKM 2009, Eighteenth ACM Conference on Information and Knowledge Management, 2-6 November 2009, Hong Kong, China.
I was on the program committee of SEPLN'09 Workshop PAN, Uncovering Plagiarism, Authorship, and Social Software Misuse, 8-10 September 2009, San Sebastian, Spain.
I was on the program committee of ISCIS 2009, Twentyfourth International Symposium on Computer and Information Sciences, 14-16 September 2009, METU Northern Cyprus Campus.
I was on the program committee of MCIS 2009, 4th Mediterranean Conference on Conference on Information Systems, 25-27 September 2009, Athens, Greece.
I was on the program committee of ACM CIKM 2008, Seventeenth ACM Conference on Information and Knowledge Management, 26-30 October, 2008, Napa Valley, California.
I was on the program committee of INFOSCALE 2008, Third International ICST Confernce on Scalable Information Systems, 4-6 June 2008, Vico Equense, Italy.
I was on the program committee of ECAI '08 Workshop PAN, Uncovering Plagiarism, Authorship, and Social Software Misuse, 21-22 July 2008, Patras, Greece.
I was on the program committee of ISCIS 2008, Twentythird International Symposium on Computer and Information Sciences, 27-29 October 2008, Istanbul, Turkey.
I was on the program committee of ACM CIKM 2007, Sixteenth ACM Conference on Information and Knowledge Management, 6-10 November 2007, Lisboa, Portugal.
I was on the program committee of Değişen Dünyada Bilgi Yönetimi Sempozyumu 2007 , Hacettepe University, 24-26 October 2007, Ankara, Turkey.
I was an invited speaker and on the program committee of ADVIS 2006, Fourth Biennial International Conference on Advances in Information Systems, 18-20 October 2006, Izmir, Turkey.
I was on the program committee of ACM CIKM 2006, Fifteenth ACM Conference on Information and Knowledge Management, 6-11 November 2006, Arlington, VA, USA.
Recent Research Agenda & Award
Projects funded by Scientific and Technical Research Council of Turkey (TÜBİTAK):
Principal investigator, "Supervised and semi-supervised classification of concept drifting multi-label data data streams using novel neural network approaches." (Çok etiketli verilerin kavram kayması içeren dinamik veri-akışı ortamlarında yeni sinir ağı yaklaşımlarıyla denetimli ve yarı denetimli olarak sınıflandırılması) Project No. 122E271, (Investigator Dr. Seyit Kocberber), December 15, 2022 - December 15, 2024. info.
Principal investigator, "On-the-fly dynamic classification of evolving text data-streams in a neural network-based optimum ensemble framework." (Evrilen metin veri-akışlarının dinamik olarak sinir ağı tabanlı optimum heyet yapısıyla anında sınıflandırılması) Project No. 120E103, (Investigator Dr. Seyit Kocberber), July 15, 2020 - July 15, 2022. info.
Principal investigator, "Online classification of multi-source parallel data streams in big data environments." (Büyük veri ortamlarında çok-kaynaklı veri-akışlarının çevrimiçi sınıflandırılması) Project No. 117E870, (Investigator Dr. Seyit Kocberber), June 1, 2018 - June 1, 2020. info.
Principal investigator, "Predicting social reaction and its labels for a given news article by using microblogs." (Mikroblogları kullanarak verilen bir haber için toplumsal tepki ve tepki etiketlerinin tahmini) Project No. 215E169, (Investigator Dr. Seyit Kocberber), April 1, 2016 - October 1, 2017. info.
Principal investigator, "News chain discovery in news articles." (Haber yazılarında haber zincirlerinin keşfi) Project No. 113E249, (Investigator Dr. Seyit Kocberber), October 1, 2013 - October 1, 2015. info.
Principal investigator, "Front-page news selection in news portals and chronologic news summarization" (Haber portallarında ön sayfa için haber seçimi ve kronolojik haber özetleme) Project No. 111E030, (Investigator Dr. Seyit Kocberber), October 1, 2011 - September 30, 2013. info.
Investigator "Visual and textual analysis and retrieval of Ottoman texts ." (Osmanlı metinlerinin görsel ve yazısal analizi ve erişimi) Project No. 109E006, (Principal investigator Dr. Pinar Duygulu Sahin, Investigator: Dr. Mehmet Kalpakli), September 1, 2009 - August 31, 2012. (blog, project web site, annotations)
Principal investigator, "Novelty detection in topic tracking for Turkish and its application to a large-scale news portal." (Türkçe konu izlemede yenilik bulma ve büyük-ölçekli bir haber portalına uygulanması) Project No. 108E074, (Investigator Dr. Seyit Kocberber), October 1, 2008 - September 30, 2010. abstract. blog/readings .
Principal investigator, "Instant new event detection and tracking and retrospective event clustering in Turkish news using Web resources." Project No. 106E014, (Investigator Dr. Seyit Kocberber), July 1, 2006 - June 30, 2008, ($77,442; June 19, 2006). abstract.
Co-founder of the Bilkent Information Retrieval Group.
The recipient of Miami University Researcher of the Year Award, 1998, by Sigma Xi. (lecture)
New Edited Book
F. Can, T. Özyer, F. Polat (Eds.) State of the Art Applications of Social Network Analysis, Lecture Notes in Social Networks, 2014.
For an incomplete list of publications see
Bibliography Server on Database Systems & Logic Programming
"The most important thing we ever learn at school is the fact that the most important things can't be learned at school." Haruki Murakami
Remembering my Friend David Davenport
Oğuz Atay: Bir Bilim Adamının Romanı Mustafa İnan Mustafa İnan'ı Anma Toplantısından
TÜBİTAK Gençlik Söyleşi with Mehmet Koçak Jan. 18, 2016
"Do only what only you can do." Edsger W. Dijkstra
"You can become a Pasteur: Innovation is Our Work" or CACM IT Profession Columns by Peter J. Denning.
"An idea that changes no one's behavior is only an invention, not an innovation." "Many ideas are [...] afterthoughts to explain innovations that have already happened." Peter J. Denning & also see: The Innovator's Way by Peter J. Denning and Robert P. Dunham.
Great Principles of Computing by Peter J. Denning & Craig Martell
Advice for Researchers and Students by Michael Ernst
Recycling of Computer Concepts by Andrew S. Tanenbaum***
COBOL programming for IBM 360 during my sophmore year in my PhD Advisor Prof. Esen Ozkarahan's class.
"For things to remain the same, everything must change." Tancredi
On movie making "I do it because I like it and it's a wonderful way to spend your life." by Sidney Lumet
Time management by Randy Pausch
The Art of Doing SCIENCE and Engineering: You and Your Research, Richard W. Hamming
From a friend to a friend: a historic eulogy
Computer programming as an art by Donald E. Knuth (Copyright 1974, ACM)
Address for Correspondence
Computer Engineering Department, Bilkent University, Bilkent, Ankara, 06800, Turkey.
Office Telephone: +90 (312) 290-2613
Fax:: +90 (312) 266-4047
Dept. Secretary: +90 (312) 290-1218
Send comments to the author: 
Date of last update: January 30, 2025; 4:27 pm
* Photograph is by Hasan Koksal: Foto Akay, July 6, 2006.
** Denning, P. J, McGettrick, A. "Recentering computer science." Comm. of the ACM. Vol. 48, No. 11, 2005, pp. 15-19.
*** Tanenbaum, A. S., Modern Operating Systems, 2nd ed., Prentice Hall, NJ, 2001.
Useful links: acmDL, Bilkent STAR AIRS , Google, IEEE Xplore, IR Facility , ISI
Additional links: UN HD Reports, World Population Meter
