Note: You are required to submit all your coursework via this wiki. This will:

• enables me to give you almost instant feedback on your work
  
• make your work available to future cohorts as models of what is expected of them.
  

:: Assessment strategy ::

100% coursework. Students will submit individual projects for assessment characteristically based on preparatory small group work. The group work might, for example, be technology focused (same technology—different clients), client focused (same client—different component tasks), or problem focused (same problem—different technical solutions). Although system design is deemed important, the project should not be construed simply as a technical exercise; seminal importance will be attached to the student's ability to demonstrate an understanding of, and to discuss to some intellectual depth, the theoretical issues underpinning the problem and its solution.

If you have any questions about the assessment that are not answered in the notes below, you should in the first instance post your query as a new thread at the bottom of this page. Do not send me your query as a personal email: your fellow students may have the same questions and may therefore have the same interest in my answers, and the only sensible way to share questions and answers (and have them remain there as guidance to future cohorts of students) is via the public forum.

:: Projects and groups ::

"Am I obliged to work in a group?"

No, you're not. But, for the reasons given below, it's to your advantage to work in teams. At the very least you should locate your project within a specific thematic work group.

"Why do you sometimes refer to 'groups' and sometimes 'teams'?"

Often I'll use the terms interchangeably. In so far as I consider there to be a difference, it's this:

• a 'group' may simply be a loose affiliation of individuals who happen to be working in the same thematic or technical area (e.g. virtual communities, oral history, 3D museums, ...) and who may benefit from sharing resources (e.g. books, software, or URLs they may have discovered), technical know-how, etc. How closely (or loosely) the individuals work together will be a matter of choice.
• a 'team' will be made up of individuals who work more concertedly together. This may be because they are, for example, undertaking different projects for the same client, or because they are doing very similar kinds of projects (e.g. video interviews for their oral history projects, or social tagging of digitised memorabilia).
  

I would strongly encourage you to work in teams, helping and supporting each other, reading each other's work, testing each other's system prototypes, etc.

"So why work in groups if the group itself is not assessed?"

The group is your most immediate resource and your primary support network. Depending on your chosen project topic, you may affiliate with more than one group (e.g. virtual communities and social tagging), though only one of these is likely to become your primary group. How will it work? what is the rationale?

Answering technical questions. I always try to answer questions students send me by email; but, when the volume of email queries and the time taken to answer them in detail becomes too demanding on my own time, some students may miss out. Students working in the same group may find they have the same kinds of questions; some may already have answers; some brainstorming between group members may generate answers; those questions and answers when documented in this wiki, either (if topic-specific questions) on the individual Work Group pages or (if general questions) in the FAQs, will provide a valuable resource for future generations of students. The group is consequently the most immediate resource for dealing with technical questions.

Answering assessment-related question. I receive numerous emails from individuals asking questions specifically about components of the assessment. In general I'd encourage such questions to be posted to the forum on this page (and they'll eventually make their way, with answers, to the FAQ page) where I'll endeavour to answer them in a timely fashion. Some questions, however, will relate to quite specific types of project (e.g. describing and documenting the information architecture of a collaborative wiki for a particular kind of user group) and these are better discussed within the team before posting, if unresolved, as a query.

Getting feedback on drafts. Giving individual feedback to students on drafts of their reports is, with a sizeable cohort, a significant demand on my time. You should bear in mind that you are not in competition with each other--there is no "first past the post"--and that you are likely to learn from each other by sharing and discussing your respective drafts.

Creating a thematic knowledge base. My notes in the Syllabus section of this wiki provide introductions to each of the course topics, but are of necessity generic: given the breadth of the field of study and the effectively limitless range of feasible projects that might be undertaken by students, I can never comprehensively anticipate each and every specific project that will be chosen.

Contextualising your work. Working with and within a group will, through collaboration and sharing, help each group member to develop a clearer and stronger sense of the intellectual framework within which you are working.

Finally, your working as a group will help me to help you more. The sheer number of students makes it hard for me to get to know you all personally; but the better I know you--and can work alongside you--the more likely you are to deliver good assignments. Since my working with you as a group is less demanding on my time than working with you individually, I'm more likely to get to know you--and help you--in a group context.

Choosing your project

You have a free choice of project. To ensure that you will have chosen an appropriate project for this course, please consider the following:

Choose an appropriate topic. Choose a project topic that you are certain falls within the broad area of culture and heritage informatics. Ask yourself, and try to answer for yourself, the following question: "In what way does my idea properly fall within the areas of culture, heritage, museums, the arts, or galleries?" If in any doubt, or if you feel you'd like to discuss your ideas at an early stage of conceptualisation, please ask me for advice or feedback (see last paragraph of this subsection).

Choose a topic that interests you personally. You are most likely to do well in the assessment for this module--and far more likely to enjoy the course!--if you choose a topic that interests you personally, one that you can get passionate about, one that you can feel a personal commitment to.

Consider who will use your application. Who would ever want such an application (system, web presence, etc)? who might commission it? for what purpose? who would, as client/sponsor or as end-user, use it? in what way? Unless (or until) you can answer these questions, you probably do not have a project.

Is your idea for a project really 'do-able'? Consider whether the project you've conceptualised is one that you really are capable of completing (to at least a good prototype / proof of concept) in the time available to you. The next two points ('Consider content' and 'Consider whether your project is technically feasible') address specific aspects; but, in very general terms, you will need to assure yourself that what you are proposing to do is--under constraints of time, technical skills, and access to content--really do-able as a project. The first thing you should do is create a rough project plan that, starting from what you hope to accomplish, backtracks through all the steps and resources you would need to accomplish it.

Consider content. Consider whether you will have access to all the 'soft' resources you will need in order to make a success of your project. Remember that you personally are unlikely to be an expert in the subject area, so you'll undoubtedly need to rely on user-generated content. Are you able to find your users? who are they? what content will you expect from them? are there likely to be copyright / IPR issues with regard to content?

Consider whether your project is technically feasible. Your choice of software is likely to be determined by a requirements analysis based on your conceptualisation. Are you able to find the software you need? do you have the technical skills to implement your project?

Consult me on your choice. Before committing yourself to a specific project in your initial project proposal (to be submitted mid-semester), talk to me in class about your ideas (the mid-course "Ideas Factory" is the obvious context for doing so) or send me a short description. I'll tell you whether your proposed project is appropriate for this course; and, if I confirm that it is appropriate, I'll ask you some questions about it and give you the advice you'll need in order to steer your project in the right direction.

To help you understand what makes a good project, here are a few indicative suggestions:

1. Propose, design, and prototype a web-based asset management system, with publicly accessible browse and search facilities, for Twickenham Museum (or any other museum of your choice). [... longer descriptions to follow ...]
   
2. Propose, design, and prototype a popular history of Kingston Market (or any other street market of your choice) based on the oral histories of past and present market traders. [... longer descriptions to follow ...]
3. Propose, design, and prototype a web presence for a small (commercial) art gallery. [... longer descriptions to follow ...]
4. Propose, design, and prototype a searchable and browsable document archive of old personal, work, or family photographs, with annotations (e.g. personal reminiscences), for a specific community (for example, the Royal Star and Garter Home in Richmond, the Kingston branch of the British Legion). [... longer descriptions to follow ...]
5. Propose, design, and prototype an online audio archive of out-of-copyright 78 r.p.m. records. Discovering, preserving and archiving in digital form, and re-issuing vintage recorded music from 78 r.p.m. records and wax cylinders is not only big business, it's also an important part of preserving the cultural and musical heritage of the early 20th century. Old records--and sheet music--are often discarded and lost; musicologists, private collectors, museums, universities, and record dealers are therefore anxious to find and rescue such recordings. In this project you will design and create a browsable audio archive for a real or imaginary client. For inspirational examples, take a look at archives such as the Smithsonian Folkways Recordings of American and world music, the Open Music Archive, at specialist collections such as Taisce Cheol Dúchais Éireann (Irish Traditional Music Archive) and the Music of James Scott Skinner (http://www.abdn.ac.uk/scottskinner/index.shtml), and at specialist record dealers such as Old Hat Records.
   

:: Major components of assessment ::

Assessment is by coursework only, of which there are four major components: the initial project proposal ([1] below, to be resubmitted after feedback as the Executive summary of the final report), the project report ([2-6] below), the prototype ([7] below), and the 'exhibition' ([7] below). See the module guide and cover sheet (attachments at the bottom of this page) for further details and submission dates for the current year.

You will submit your initial project proposal for feedback only at the end of the Spring Term. This initial submission is to ensure that you have a reasonably clear idea at an early stage of the project you will undertake and that you are starting it in good time to be able to produce a substantial prototype and report by the end of the semester. It also enables me to critically review your proposal and thus to offer you valuable feedback that will give you the guidance and confidence you will need to complete the project. A revised version of the proposal will form the 'executive summary' of your final report. Although for feedback only when initially submitted, submission of the initial project proposal is not optional, has a strict deadline, and must be submitted as paper copy through the student office and as digital copy in the student assessment area on this website. Please note: feedback will be given uniquely as a 'thread' appended to the digital copy.

1. Executive summary: [1] description of the client organisation and its activity (≤300 words), [2] brief synopsis (≤300 words) of the project undertaken, and [3] identification of, and brief statement on, the theoretical or intellectual issues addressed in the project (≤300 words) (20%)
2. Detailed description and analysis of the problem, challenge, or opportunity addressed in the project (≤500 words) (10%)
3. Detailed account of the system or service designed (and, ideally, prototyped) for the client organisation (≤1000 words) (15%)
4. Detailed exposition and discussion of the theoretical or intellectual issues addressed in the project (≤1000 words) (15%)
5. Project review, with recommendations for the further development and long term sustainability of the project (≤500 words) (10%)
6. Detailed annotated listing of resources used in the project: bibliography, software, web sites, etc. (10%)
7. Exhibition. A poster presentation and live demonstration of your project work. (20%)

The percentages expressed above include a maximum of 10% of the total mark to be accorded to the presentation of the written report (spelling, grammar, punctuation, coherence, formatting of bibliography, layout). Minor errors will result in small deductions; more than 10 avoidable errors (e.g. those that would have been identified by a spell-checker or grammar-checker) will entail a loss of the full 10% allocation.

:: Explanatory & supplementary notes on assessment requirements ::

More detailed notes on 1-7 above

For each of the components of assessment I have set an upper word-limit. This does not mean that you have to aim towards exactly that number of words! What it does mean is that you will probably be penalised for exceeding that word-limit. In general, I would expect most submissions to be in the region of 2,000 to 2,500 words (i.e. around 10 sides of A4) in their entirety. Please feel free to illustrate your paper reports with screenshots, photographs, or diagrams as appropriate and relevant; small images may be embedded in the main text, while large images or diagrams should be attached as an appendix.

Your report must have a cover sheet bearing your name and 'K' number, the title of your project, and the course code and title (i.e. CI3130 Culture & Heritage Informatics) just in case it gets mislaid. If you have an accompanying project web site (e.g. your prototype), please also display the URL. The page beneath your cover sheet should be a page-numbered table of contents with headers corresponding to the components of assessment required.

Below are specific notes on the individual components of the report you will be submitting:

1. When complete, this will be a succinct snapshot of your entire project, its purpose not unlike that of an abstract at the head of a conference or journal paper. This is useful to me, as a marker, in so far as (i) it will be the statement that assures me you project iswell conceived and relevant to the course content; and (ii) it provides me with a sort of 'map' to guide my reading and expectations throughout the remainder of the report. Although, in note form, it may serve to maintain your focus throughout the project, your executive summary is likely to be the last thing you write. Only on completing your project will you have a clear idea of what you have achieved. In this section you will
   
• identify your client or client organisation (and, although a real client is preferred, this may be yourself or an imaginary client). Clients, effectively by definition, have a clear notion of what they want to achieve; having a real or imaginary client will therefore help you focus on well-defined outcomes as well as help you to conceptualise your work, in terms of both target goals and quality, as a professional project rather than simply an academic exercise. You might begin, for example, in something like the following manner: "The project described in this document has been undertaken on behalf of the Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames (Markets and Street Activities Officers) who, as a component of their local history documentation project, have commissioned me to produce a multimedia 'living history' of the Ancient Market ..."
  
• succinctly (i.e. in no more than a few sentences) describe the project you have undertaken. For example: "The Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames is the oldest of only four Royal Boroughs in England and Wales. The Market House (1840) stands in Market Place, hub of a market that has continued uninterruptedly on these grounds for nearly 800 years. This project will, through an online exhibition comprising video interviews with stall holders, photographs, maps, etc, celebrate this long history ..."
  
• and highlight the theoretical or intellectual issues addressed in the project that make it interesting
• if your project includes the development of a web presence, you should cite the URL in your report
• and please note: in this section, as in every other, do not write "I will / intend to design/build/whatever ..." unless you really mean that you haven't done it yet! rather have the good sense to write "I have designed/built/ ..."
  
2. You will write a detailed description and analysis of the problem, challenge, or opportunity addressed in your project. What kind of project is it (and why are you doing it)? digital asset management? historical reconstruction in a virtual (3D) environment? an exercise in social tagging? a participatory community memory web site? ... Your choice of project should be dictating that, first and foremost, you should be considering how you are--indeed, ought to be--engaging the end-user in your production (or system or service). This, in turn, should be suggesting to you what might be the appropriate functionality and hence the appropriate platform. You should be posing, and answering, questions such as: what is the purpose of the system I am producing? who are my users? how do I expect my users to interact with my system? where will my content come from? what are users going to do with that content? and why? etc.
3. Note that parts 3 and 4 of your report carry the bulk of the marks; and there will necessarily be some cross-referencing between the two. Regard part 3 as your technical documentation, and part 4 as the documentation of the conceptual and theoretical considerations that determined your design decisions and technical decisions. For some projects it might be more appropriate to discuss the theoretical issues first (part 4) and then subsequently (part 3) show how your technical achievement has addressed those issues; for other projects--for example, where your implementation is incomplete or does not offer the full range of functionality your project rquires--it might be more appropriate to first describe the system or service you have designed (part 3) and to subsequently explore in greater depth the theoretical issues that your technical work has sought to address. I therefore leave up to you the decision as to how parts 3 and 4 are ordered in your report; but please do ensure that, whatever the ordering, your section headings clearly flag which is which. In part 3 (this part) you will write a detailed account of the system or service you have designed (and, ideally, prototyped) for the client organisation. This might take the form either of a 'technical narrative' or project log chronicling in detail the evolution of the project or of a detailed technical description / walkthrough of the system or service in itself; which of these methods you use in documenting your project may be determined by the nature of the project itself, though the choice of reporting method is up to you.
4. You will write a detailed exposition and discussion of the theoretical or intellectual issues addressed in the project. Regard this as the heart and soul of your report: you will contextualise your project within a specific theoretical framework (and here you will find the Digicult publications undoubtedly useful) where you will make reference to (and review as appropriate) other such systems or services and to, in general, the relevant literature. What section 4 is really all about is bridging between the "why" of the project and the "what"/"how": it's your space for arguing that your technical choices (the "what" and the "how") have been thoughtfully determined by your conceptualisation of an opportunity / of what you want your project to achieve (the "why?" / "What am I endeavouring to achieve?")
   
5. In your project review you will briefly summarise (no more than 2 to 3 sentences) what you have achieved i.e. as far as you've got but no further. Note any problems or difficulties you encountered (if you have documented them in part 3 above you should simply refer back to the relevant section or page); and state whether or not you were able to overcome them (and, if so, how). Conclude with succinct recommendations (e.g. in the form of bullet points) for the further development and long term sustainability of the project.
6. List all the resources you have used. Whenever appropriate (e.g. books, journal articles, conference papers, newspaper stories, web sites) give full and correct bibliographic entries that conform to the Harvard style of referencing. If in doubt, or if you feel you need help, use the Harvard Reference Generator at: http://www.neilstoolbox.com/bibliography-creator/index.htm or use the Firefox Zotero plug-in to format the reference for you (see screenshot). See also: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harvard_referencing, http://essential.tbs.bcu.ac.uk/harvard.html, and (for Mac users) the Harvard Referencing widget or (for Windows users) the Document it MS Word plug-in.
   
7. The 'exhibition' will be first and foremost an informal face-to-face presentation of your work (ideally to include, as appropriate, a 'live' demonstration of your technical achievement), accompanied by a 'poster' summarising the project and highlighting what you believe you have achieved. Since I am assessing intellectual content rather than appearance, your 'poster' may simply be in the form of a single-sided A4 sheet of paper (JPEG, PNG, or PDF). It is likely, however, to be much more than a conventional 'presentation': you may choose, for example, to additionally exhibit your work, where appropriate, in The Knowledge Zone (the university's island in Second Life) as a semi-permanent exhibition; or you may choose to profile your work, as individual or as group, in the form of a YouTube video or as a SlideShare presentation. Although none of these extensions to the core exhibition are required, you may expect to be given extra credit for innovations in the presentation and display of your work. Please again note that, if your project includes the development of a web presence, you should cite the URL in your report. The core 'exhibition' has several purposes:

• it gives me the opportunity to view, discuss, and assess your technical work
• as a group presentation, it gives you the collective opportunity to discuss general (technical, conceptual, design, access) issues with respect to your common topic (e.g. virtual communities, collecting oral histories, digital asset management)
  
• it provides an opportunity for you to showcase your work to others
  

General points

• Do not leave it to the last few weeks of the module to conceptualise, and begin work on, your project. You should be thinking about candidate projects from early in the module; and have selected your definitive choice of project by the end of the Easter break. You will thus have given yourself the time to plan, manage, and complete a project of the right scope and complexity. And please note: it is the university's and faculty's assessment regulations that determine that there will never, under any circumstances be extensions to hand-in deadlines, so do not even ask!
  
• Do not think of your project simply as an academic exercise: your work should, when complete, have the potential to 'go live' as a real initiative. Only if you embark on your project with that attitude of professionalism in your approach are you likely to deliver quality work.
  
• Do not be lazy! do not think that you can do the very minimum of work and expect to get a good grade. For example, do not opt for easy options like Wetpaint or Ning unless [1] you can cogently argue that this is an appropriate choice of platform (at least for prototyping your 'proof-of-concept'), and [b] you are prepared to invest time and energy--and obvious personal commitment--in customising, rigorously structuring, and 'branding' your installation. An uncustomised shell with just a couple of pages of text, and no evidence of user-generated content from your intended community, will probably result in a fail!
  
• You are not writing histories! You have neither the subject expertise nor the time to do so; nor is it what the module is about. Rather, you are conceptualising, designing, and prototyping a platform / model / framework for the delivery of content, where that content in all likelihood will either come from a (real or putative) client such as a museum or will be user-generated. In other words, your focus must be as much (or more) on the technology as on the specific heritage content.
• You can not use copyrighted content (text, images, etc) if you do not have explicit written permission to do so from the copyright holder.
• I have repeatedly been asked by students what they have to do to get a "First" or "Upper Second". The answer is simple: deliver quality work, guidance for which I give above. There is no other answer, so don't ask me.
  
• Finally, if you have questions about the assessment that are not answered on this page, please do not contact me personally without having, in the first instance, posted your question as a new thread on this page (see link at bottom of this page). It may be that others will have had the same questions; it may be that others in your class will have the answers; it makes a great deal more sense that you should therefore post your question publicly (to which I shall respond publicly via the discussion board) rather than me having to respond to the same question many times over in private emails.

Before you submit ... a checklist ...

[t.b.c.]

I hope these remarks will provide useful guidance.

:: Achieving a Pass ::

It IS NOT a requirement that any major assessment category must be passed separately in order to achieve an overall pass for the module. Note, however, that some components are weighted more heavily than others; it is therefore unlikely that you will pass the module overall if you fail to achieve pass marks in specifically these components.