Glossary

Meta data that is used to structure and describe information or source code. In the semantic Web, machines, such as computers, use meta data to access the meaning of information and interpret it.

Application programming interface. Set of routings, protocols, and tools that gives programmers access to the features of an operating system or application and defines how software components interact. An API can also assist distinct applications in sharing data and thus enhance their functionalities.

An approach to education that combines online educational materials and opportunities for interaction online with traditional place-based classroom methods (Wikipedia).

Component content management system. Manages content at a component level rather than the document level. Each component represents a single topic, concept, or an asset. This can be an image, a table, a product description, or a procedure.

Content delivery portals offer a web-based interface for presenting comprehensive information and documents and making them accessible to users. The contents of the portal are enriched with metadata, enabling the different target groups to use context-specific filters and to perform semantic searches. The content is not created in the portal, but rather comes from another or multiple authoring systems.

The digital model for all information on the components, functions, processes, and documentation for a technical product or system over its entire life cycle. It represents a network of linked information that can describe product features, product variants, document types, information topics, topic types, target groups and their interrelationships, etc. The digital information twin can be used to compile the appropriate technical documentation for a product configuration.

The digital image of a tangible or intangible object from the real world, e.g. machine or technical system. The digital twin contains models of the mapped object and connected processes. It can also contain simulations, algorithms, and services that describe the properties and behavior of objects and processes. It allows the represented object and its behavior to be simulated, managed and improved.

XML -based information architecture for authoring, producing, and delivering technical information. DITA content is created in modules, so-called topics. Each topic covers a specific subject.

DITA Open Toolkit. Open-source publishing tool for DITA that converts DITA content into various output formats, such as PDF, XHTML, or ODT.

Basic DITA element that is used to structure content. Each topic answers one question about a particular subject and makes sense on its own. There are three major topic types: concept, reference, and task.

Freely available information model that is defined in an XML and SGML document type definition (DTD). The DocBook structures are mainly sequential and book-like, but can be used for a broad variety of documentation content. DocBook is an open standard, which is used by many open-source projects for their documentation. It also provides semantic elements for specific purposes, such as software and hardware documentation.

Document type definition. Defines the valid elements and attributes in an XML document and determines how they can be used and which subelements they may include.

Form of blended learning in which students learn content outside the classroom, e.g., by watching video lectures or tutorials. Instructional content is often delivered online. Afterwards, students and teacher meet in the classroom to discuss the instructions, apply the knowledge, and do excercises.

Folksonomy (folk+taxonomy), also known as social tagging, is a user-defined metadata collection. A folksonomy evolves when many users create or store text at particular sites, such as wikis, and identify via tags what they think the text is about. Folksonomies differ from taxonomies: Folksonomies structure content via user tags; taxonomies are classifications defined by more formal methods that do not necessarily include user-generated tags.

Special method to evaluate the usability of a product, for example, a website, a software, or documentation. To identify potential problems, usability experts compare the product step by step to a checklist. This checklist includes a collection of generally accepted design principles (heuristics).

Integrated development environment. An all-in-one application for software engineering that combines a source code editor, a compiler, a debugger, and other tools in a graphical interface.

iiRDS (intelligent information Request and Delivery Standard) is a standard for the delivery and exchange of intelligent information, across company boundaries. iiRDS defines a uniform vocubulary and a package format for delivering digital user information.

In Scrum projects, great tasks are broken into small and self-contained increments. Each of the increments can be released in one sprint. An increment is the sum of all product backlog entries that have been completed during the current sprint and the previous sprints.

An e-learning concept that combines traditional classroom courses and modern types of e-learning. The concept combines the effectiveness and flexibility of e-learning with the social aspects of personal communication and, where appropriate, hands-on, practical training.

The acronym stands for a checklist of criteria that help evaluate and improve requirements that are written as user stories. I(ndependent). N(egotiable). V(aluable). E(stimatable). S(small). T(estable).

The Internationalized Resource Identifier (IRI) is an internet protocol standard which builds on the Uniform Resource Identifier (URI) protocol by greatly expanding the set of permitted characters. IRI was defined by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) in 2005 in RFC 3987. While URIs are limited to a subset of the US-ASCII character set (characters outside that set must be mapped to octets according to some unspecified character encoding, then percent-encoded), IRIs may additionally contain most characters from the Universal Character Set (Unicode/ISO 10646),[4][5] including Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and Cyrillic characters. Source: Wikipedia

Method or scheduling system for managing processes. Originally developed at Toyota Motor Corporation as a flexible production system. Kanban reduces the number of parallel activities, shortens processing time, and quickly points out problems and shortages.

Open source software for building and publishing wikis, for example Wikipedia. Other components like semantic wikis can be added.

Data about data. Meta data contain information about data characteristics, but not the data itself; for example, information about the author in a Word file. Meta data can be visible or invisible for the reader.

Describes, based on standardized terminology, an area of knowledge and the relationships and derivation rules between the defined concepts.

XML editor created by Syncro Soft. oXygen is often used in technical writing as it supports, for example, DITA , DocBook and other types of publishing.

Hypothetical users with different characteristics and behavior who represent a certain user group. Personas are applied in user-centered design and often used in product and software development and strongly support the user's point of view.

Freely available information model that provides XML structures for modular user and service documentation and supports flexible assembly of documents. Mainly used in the mechanical engineering and plant construction industry and sectors linked with it. Can be easily integrated into content management systems.

Documentation type in software engineering with conceptual information about the product and the architecture of an API or framework, descriptions of programming tasks (recipes), and programming examples.

Resource Description Framework. Standardized description language to express logical statements about arbitrary things (resources). These statements are defined as so-called triples, i.e., a subject and an object are related to each other. Expample: John [subject] is the father [relation] of Mike [object].

Alternative markup language for defining the valid structure and content of XML documents and their elements. Contrary to DTDs, Schema uses the XML syntax and is more flexible. Required content of tags and attributes can be specified more precisely compared to DTD.

Agile process in software engineering where a complex project is developed in increments. Scrum teams can release products in shorter cycles, which leads to faster feedback, continual improvement, and rapid adaptation to change.

Simple Protocol and RDF Query Language. Query language for the semantic Web. SPARQL can query, retrieve, or even manipulate data stored in RDF format.

Development cycle in a Scrum project. A sprint begins with a planning meeting, in which the goals are defined, and ends with a retrospective meeting. Sprints are restricted to a specific duration, normally between one to four weeks

A person or a group that has in interest in an organization's business activities and can affect these activities or be affected by them.

Method to classify and categorize objects based on their characteristics.

Unified Modeling Language. Standardized modeling language, which is used, for example, in software engineering to visualize structures, architectures, behavior, and processes. UML defines identifier for important terms and the possible relations between these terms.

A Uniform Resource Identifier (URI) is a unique sequence of characters that identifies a logical or physical resource used by web technologies. URIs may be used to identify anything, including real-world objects, such as people and places, concepts, or information resources such as web pages and books.

Describes how a user (actor) uses a system to accomplish a task. In software engineering, a use case is a list of steps, which define the interactions between the actor and the system and lead to the goal.

User stories are often used in agile software development to define specifications from the users' point of view. In one or two sentences, written in everyday language, user stories capture what users need to do their jobs or what they require from a product. User stories are listed in a so-called product backlog and evaluated with the INVEST criteria.

In technical documentation, variant management helps to better manage the documentation modules for the different editions and purposes of a product. Documentation can be created more cheaply and target-group oriented and easier maintained.

World Wide Web Consortium. International community that defines open web standards, such as protocols and guide lines.

Linear process model in project management. The development tasks are divided into consecutive project phases. In contrast to iterative models, each phase is only passed through once. The results of the previous phase form the basis for the tasks in the subsequent phase.

Web-based tool for collecting and displaying knowledge. Every wiki user can contribute, share, or edit.

Extensible Markup Language that presents data structure in a format that is readable by humans and machines. With XML, data can be exchanged between different platforms and systems.

Query language that addresses parts of an XML document. Xpath is designed to be used by XSLT , for example.

Extensible Stylesheet Language. Umbrella term for a language family consisting of XSL-FO, XSLT, and XPath. XSL defines the transformation and output of XML documents.

Extensible Stylesheet Language Formatting Objects. Markup language and part of the XSL language family, which is used to describe how to arrange text and elements on a page. XSL-FO is mainly used to create PDF documents from XML sources.

Extensible Stylesheet Language Transformations. Component of XSL and used to transform XML documents into formats like HTML or other XML definitions.

Open-source and extensible semantic wiki .