The Interop Glossary
An evolving vocabulary for the law of interoperability governing electronic data format and communication protocol technical specifications, standards, and technical regulations.
- ICT
- Information and communications technology. The term encompasses both hardware and software.
- IEC
- International Electrotechnical Commission. An international standardization body with membership limited to national standards bodies, designated by the ATBT (along with ISO and the International Telecommunications Union body of the United Nations) as a body for preparation and adoption of technical international standards and conformity assessment procedures. See About IEC.
- INCITS
- InterNational Committee for Information Technology Standards, a standards development organization sponsored by the Information Technology Industry Council, which bills itself as "[o]ne of Washington's most effective lobbying groups." INCITS is an industry consortia that develops and maintains de jure standards and is accredited by ANSI as the U.S. government's representative at ISO/IEC/JTC 1. INCITS board of directors includes three federal entities, NIST, Dept. of Homeland Security, and Dept. of Defense; the remainder of the board members are private corporations. See generally, What is INCITS?
- inclusion
- Electronic document creation embedding content from other documents by creating a new complete and permanent document that must itself be edited to make changes. Inclusion is in contrast to transclusion, which allows a single editing point to be maintained for content that recurs in multiple documents. Inclusion is generally preferred to inclusion when a document must not be changed except by editing the same document. A familiar manual example of inclusion is copying a portion of one electronic document and pasting the content into a new document.
- incompatible
- To the extent that information received by one ICT system from another cannot be mapped and processed correctly without data loss or garbling, the systems are said to be incompatible.
- interoperability
- The ability of ICT systems to exchange information at one or more standardized interfaces and to make equal mutual use of the information that has been exchanged, without differences in use attributable to inadequacies in technical regulations, standards, or technical specifications. ICT systems that achieve interoperability are said to be interoperable. Interoperabiity is commonly referred to in abbreviated form as interop.
- interoperability framework
- In the context of electronic data formats and communications protocols, a standardized interface for information exchange that implementations must adhere to in order to achieve interoperability, normally specified as interoperability conformity requirements essential to achieve the interoperability. However, in minor applications, there may be no specification other than source code and comments in it. An example of an interoperability framework is the W3C's CDRF.
- ISO
- International Organization for Standardization. A non-governmental standardization body composed of a network of standardization bodies, both governmental and non-governmental, which works closely with IEC. Like IEC and the International Telecommunications Union body of the United Nations, ISO has a quasi-government ministerial role recognized under the ATBT in the creation and maintenance of international standards and conformity assessment procedures See About ISO.
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