OpenGSL: A Comprehensive Benchmark for Graph Structure Learning

Zhiyao Zhou, Sheng Zhou, Bochao Mao, Xuanyi Zhou, Jiawei Chen, Qiaoyu Tan, Daochen Zha, Yan Feng, Chun Chen, Can Wang

Keywords: Graph Representation Learning, Graph Structure Learning, Benchmark

TL;DR: The progress in GSL field remains unclear due to inconsistent experimental protocols. We introduce OpenGSL, the first comprehensive benchmark for GSL to enable a fair comparison and provide helpful insights.

Abstract: Graph Neural Networks (GNNs) have emerged as the *de facto* standard for representation learning on graphs, owing to their ability to effectively integrate graph topology and node attributes. However, the inherent suboptimal nature of node connections, resulting from the complex and contingent formation process of graphs, presents significant challenges in modeling them effectively. To tackle this issue, Graph Structure Learning (GSL), a family of data-centric learning approaches, has garnered substantial attention in recent years. The core concept behind GSL is to jointly optimize the graph structure and the corresponding GNN models. Despite the proposal of numerous GSL methods, the progress in this field remains unclear due to inconsistent experimental protocols, including variations in datasets, data processing techniques, and splitting strategies. In this paper, we introduce OpenGSL, the first comprehensive benchmark for GSL, aimed at addressing this gap. OpenGSL enables a fair comparison among state-of-the-art GSL methods by evaluating them across various popular datasets using uniform data processing and splitting strategies. Through extensive experiments, we observe that existing GSL methods do not consistently outperform vanilla GNN counterparts. We also find that there is no significant correlation between the homophily of the learned structure and task performance, challenging the common belief. Moreover, we observe that the learned graph structure demonstrates a strong generalization ability across different GNN models, despite the high computational and space consumption. We hope that our open-sourced library will facilitate rapid and equitable evaluation and inspire further innovative research in this field. The code of the benchmark can be found in https://github.com/OpenGSL/OpenGSL.

Submission Number: 842