Terminology Overview

Terms included in this release have emerged from the other working groups of the OSA, have been included as a seeding exercise for this first release, or are included for the sake of completeness of a particular conceptual group. The glossary was created using SKOS (the W3C-created Simple Knowledge Organization System), which provides an inherent structure that includes broader, narrower, and related concepts, alternative labels, and scope notes, as well as allowing for definitions. It has been produced here in flat alphabetical form. (See figure below for an illustration of the organization of concepts in their original broader/narrower terms hierarchy.)  Not all acronyms included in the glossary will have a definition: those without a definition are included because they feature in OSA specifications or other definitions and it is generally good practice to provide the long form of acronyms and abbreviations, but no further description was deemed necessary.  (Acronyms are noted within Scope Notes.)

Some concepts will have no OSA definition: where there was an existing definition produced by another standards body that served OSA’s needs, only that is included. On the other hand, some concepts have multiple definitions, e.g., from OSA, NIST, and ISO.  This is because the differing emphasis or nuance was seen as helpful in supporting understanding.  Only definitions that are broadly in-line with the OSA understanding of a term are included.  Generally, the OSA has aimed to make its definitions very concise and other definitions may provide more detail. Some concepts have an OSA vocabulary group definition only.  For these terms we could not find an appropriate existing definition generated by a standards body. Some concepts have two OSA definitions.  This happens where one definition is quoted from an OSA-produced specification (now or soon to be submitted to SMPTE), and another – usually a more general one – has emerged from the work of the Vocabulary Group.  There will be a process to examine both definitions and determine whether they should be reconciled into one, or if there is a good case for them both to persist.