CMPT 355

Assignment # 0

Assignment # 0 should be completed AS SOON AS POSSIBLE and must be completed before Sept. 19, 2016.

• Part A should be done as soon as possible.
  
• Part B must be completed before Sept 19.

Part A Claiming a museum

• any museum already claimed in the Approved claims table, which are listed below.
• any museum in the Excluded museums table, which is below the Approved claims table.
  

Methodology: Identify a museum on the internet, that includes works within a mandate of interest to you and that has information on at least 125 works within this mandate available on-line.

NOTE: The museum must contain real physical works (artifacts/ items/pictures/ etc.) that are physically exhibited in an actual physical location in the real world. Virtual museum (that only exists on the Internet) are not acceptable.

The Assignments and Projects page provides some useful links that may help you get started. Alternatively you may wish to search the Web for a museum dedicated to a particular interest of your own. Remember that museums can be claimed on a first come first served basis. You cannot proceed to use a museum until your claim request has been approved. The instructor reserves the right to refuse to approve any mandates that contain inappropriate items.

NOTE: Because of the enormous size of the collections of the museums within the Smithsonian Institution, it is possible for different students to claim items within a different mandate from the same museum, as long as there is online information on sufficient items within this mandate.

Hand In: You are to e-mail the instructor  with your request to claim a particular museum for your assignment. The subject line of the e-mail should be "CMPT 355 A#0 Part A - Claim". Your e-mail should include:

• your name
• the name of the museum
• the mandate (overall scope/focus/topic/type of the the works in the collection) you are interested in with regards to the works that you will consider from the museum (you can choose to consider some or all types of works - however please provide a brief word or phrase that describes the types of works (e.g. paintings, oil paintings, renaissance art, etc.)
• a link to the main page of of the museum site that deals with this mandate
• your estimate (an exact count is not expected - however you had better be sure that this amount is greater than 100) of the number of items within this mandate that the museum site provides on-line information about

Part B Collecting data

Works

• There is a wide variety of information that may be used in cataloging the works in your museum. For Assignment 1, your database needs to at least meet the following requirements:
  
• Each work needs a primary key.
  
• Names of works are seldom unique so this primary key is often some form of identification code devised by the museum.
  
• Your primary key should be composed of two parts (stored in separate attributes): a group of letters and a group of numbers.
  
• If your approved museum provides some type of identifiers then try and fit their identifiers into this two part format in some manner.
  
• Otherwise you will have to devise your own identifiers for all the works in your database.
  
• Each work will have a name that must come from your approved museum's Web site.
• Each work will need to have an attribute that provides a suitable description of the work. 
• Descriptions should come from the approved museum wherever possible. It would take a lot of unnecessary work for you to create suitable descriptions for each of your items.
  
• NOTE: This description is likely to be in the form of a sentence or two rather than only a word or two.
• NOTE: Descriptions must have a minimum of 12 words and are better if they have 20 - 30 words.
• Each work needs to be classified as to the type and sub type of work that it is.
  
• You must have at least 5 major different types of Works and at least 10 different subtypes of works. 
• (Be sure to get this clarified in class if you do not fully understand what this is looking for)
• Subtypes may apply to one or more types depending on how you classify them.
• NOTE: Different museums may have their own classification systems. If your museum does not provide data that can be used for classification you will have to develop a reasonable method of classifying the works in your collection.
  
• Each work needs to be attributed to some author, artist, crafts person, manufacturer, or other source. Wherever possible try and get this information from your museum's Web site.
• Each work needs to have a media or medium that describes the materials that were used in its creation.
• e.g. a sculpture may be made of: wood, marble, stone (other types of stone other than marble), bronze, etc.
• e.g. a painting may be made with: oil on canvas, tempera on board
  
• Each work should have a date of its completion. Wherever possible try and get this information from your museum's Web site or make a reasonable estimate.
• Each work should have a date of acquisition by your museum. You should make this date up, staggering acquisitions from July 1, 1990 to the present.
• Each work should have an insurance value (this should be available only to museum staff, all queries for the public should make use of a view without this attribute). You will have to make this up, as no museum would be foolish to advertize the values of their works to tell possible thieves which work is most valuable.
• NOTE: Be sure to document the decisions you have made and the reasons that you used in making these decisions in your report for Assignment 1.
  

Hand In: You are to e-mail the marker  CMPT 355 Marker <cmpt355m@cs.usask.ca> a copy of your request to claim a particular museum for your assignment with the text file containing the data you have collected on at least 65 works as an attachment (You will need at least 115 works in total this year from this museum). The subject line of the e-mail should be "CMPT 355 A#0 Part B - Data".

NOTE: museum claims and data must be approved before a student can use the museum's data for assignment # 1.

Approved Claims Table

NOTE:  many museums do not have suitable descriptions of the works

Excluded Museums (NOT AVAILABLE for Assignment # 0)