COMPUTER SCIENCE FOR CULTURAL HERITAGE

The goal of the course is to introduce the basic notions of computer science, with particular focus on its applications to cultural heritage. There will be theoretical and practical (laboratory) lectures. The theoretical lectures will cover basic notions of computer science, as well as computational instruments for the digitalization, storage, organization, analysis, and fruition of cultural heritage resources. The laboratory lectures will cover the analysis and visualization of data with the Pandas and Seaborn libraries of the Python language, as well as the creation and interrogation of a simple SQL database for a museum.

At the end of the course the student will be able to:
- Understand the basic notions proper of computer science,
- Understand the role that computer science plays in the preservation of cultural heritage,
- Analyze big data and generate professional plots using the Pandas and Seaborn libraries of the Pyhton language,
- Design and interrogate a simple SQL database.

No particular prerequisite is required.

Theoretical lectures:

- history of computer science,
- Data representation,
- Algorithms, hardware, software,
- Networks and World Wide Web,
- Relational databases,
- Online museums,
- Images, audio, and video,
- 3D reconstruction.

Practical lectures:

Python - Pandas and Seaborn:
- Introduction to the Python language,
- Load, visualize and filter tables with Seaborn,
- Lineplots, barplots, histograms.

Database:
- Introduction to SQL,
- Defining the schema of a database,
- Inserting data,
- Simple queries: select, order by, pattern matching, aggregation,
- Creation of a simple database for a museum.

- Marco Lazzari, “Informatica umanistica - seconda edizione”, Mc Graw Hill
- Alfredo M. Ronchi, "ECulture: Cultural Content in the Digital Age", Dordrecht : Springer, 2009
- Z. Li, M. Drew and J. Liu. "Fundamentals of Multimedia", Pearson Educational, 2014

Open and multiple-choice questions. For the laboratory part, the student will be asked to write very simple Pyhton and SQL scripts as seen during the laboratory lectures.

Frontal lessons and laboratory sessions.

Italian

written