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American National Standards Institute (ANSI)
ANSI is a private, non-profit organization that administers and coordinates the U.S. voluntary standardization and conformity assessment system. ANSI provides consensus standards for products, processes and services that are at the foundation of the American economy and society.

Applet
A program designed to be executed from within another application. Unlike an application, an applet cannot be executed directly from the operating system. A well-designed applet can be invoked from many different operations.

Application Program Interface (API)
The interface (calling conventions) by which an application program accesses operating systems and other services. An API provides a means for developing custom user interfaces. The web API provides a programmable interface to the GeoConnections Discovery Portal.

Architecture
The organizational structure and operating environment of the CGDI, including the relationships between its parts, and the principles and guidelines governing their design and evolution.

Application
A program that performs a specific function directly for a user. Applications can make use of CGDI services.

Boolean
In programming, Boolean refers to a combinatorial system devised by George Boole that combines propositions with the logical operators AND and OR and IF THEN and EXCEPT and NOT.

Cadastre
A public record, survey, or map of the value, extent, and ownership of land as a basis of taxation.

Canadian Geospatial Data Infrastructure (CGDI)
An Internet/web infrastructure comprised of the developments of the federal, provincial, territorial and private sector partners who are creating the technology, standards, access systems and protocols necessary to harmonize all of Canada’s geospatial databases, and make them available on the Internet.

Catalogue
A complete list of things, usually arranged systematically. Most databases are comprised of catalogues and inventories.

Client
A software component or an application that accesses a service. The Guide to the CGDI distinguishes between a client (an inanimate part of the process) and a user (an individual who uses a computer, program, network or related service.)

Community of Practice
An organized group of users who share common interests about a topic or common sets of problems, or who have common needs that can be met by an infrastructure. In this case, a community of practice has common user requirements of the CGDI.

Component
Software that packages the client or server implementation of a service and can provide the realization of a set of interfaces. A component consists of software code (source, binary or executable) or other equivalents such as scripts or command files.

Content Standard for Digital Geospatial Metadata (CSDGM)
The objectives of the FGDC CSDGM are to provide a common set of terminology and definitions for the documentation of digital geospatial data. The standard establishes the names of data elements and compound elements (groups of data elements) to be used for these purposes, the definitions of these compound elements and data elements, and information about the values that are to be provided for the data elements.

Control Widget
A control widget provides the means to adjust the speed of a simulation, as well as to stop, restart and quit a simulation.

Coverage
A continuous representation of a portion of the earth’s surfaces. A coverage may be a collection of features (like a vector dataset) or it may be a raster or gridded surface representing one or more attributes.

Data
Distinct pieces of factual information, especially information organized for analysis or used to reason or make decisions. Data are usually formatted in a special way, and exists in a variety of forms: as numbers or text on paper, as bits and bytes stored in electronic memory, or as facts stored in a person’s mind. Data in the CGDI comprises maps, satellite images, publications and other geospatial data provided by Canadian and international organizations.

Data Collection/ Product Collection
Data which has one or several common elements, and which has been assembled by these common elements to form a grouping. For instance, the National Air Photo Collection is comprised of several thousand air photos of the Canadian landscape taken over different dates.

Data Product
Data product and data collection are used to describe data available on the GeoConnections Discovery Portal web site. However, a data product is distinct from a data collection because the data collection groups several data products; for example the following four data products could be grouped together as one data collection by removing reference to the resolution:
RADARSAT Orthorectified Mosaic of Canada, Lambert Conformal Conic, 250 Metres; RADARSAT Orthorectified Mosaic of Canada, Lambert Conformal Conic, 500 Metres; RADARSAT Orthorectified Mosaic of Canada, Lambert Conformal Conic, 750 Metres; RADARSAT Orthorectified Mosaic of Canada, Lambert Conformal Conic, 1000 Metres becomes RADARSAT Ortho-rectified Mosaic of Canada, Lambert Conformal Conic.

Dataset
A grouping of data by subject topic or type.

Data Warehouse
A repository for data designed to support management decision-making. Creation of a data warehouse includes development of systems to extract data from operating systems plus installation of a warehouse database system that provides managers flexible access to the data.

Directory
A type of catalogue in which data collections are described through metadata. In the GeoConnections Discovery Portal, the directory contains descriptions of geospatial data, services (including web services) and the organizations that provide them. Users can search for content using spatial, temporal, keyword and textual constraints or browse the directory contents.

Discovery Mechanism
An online service that allows users to find, evaluate and access resources (data, services and organizations). Discovery mechanisms bring together suppliers (those providing resources) and users (those using the resources).

Federal Geographic Data Committee (FGDC)
An American government department that coordinates the development of its national spatial data infrastructure. The FGDC was developed by the Content Standard for Digital Geospatial Metadata.

Framework Data
The set of geospatial data that provides the reference framework for all other CGDI-compliant geodata.

GeoConnections
GeoConnections is a national partnership initiative among federal, provincial and territorial governments, the private and academic sectors that is developing the CGDI, to make Canada’s geographic data, tools and services readily accessible on the Internet.

GeoConnections Discovery Portal
A free online service that allows individuals and organizations to find geospatial data products and services from around the world. The GeoConnections Discovery Portal enables organizations to register and promote their data, services, resources and organization. The GeoConnections Discovery Portal is part of the CGDI and links to other parts of both the CGDI and other spatial data infrastructures.

Geographic Information System (GIS)
A computer system for capturing, storing, checking, integrating, manipulating, analyzing and displaying data related to positions on the earth’s surface. A GIS can be used for handling various types of maps. These might be represented as several different layers where each layer holds data about a particular kind of feature. Each feature is linked to a position on the graphical image of a map, and layers of data are organized to be studied and to perform statistical analysis.

Geographic Mark-up Language (GML)
A vendor-neutral, XML grammar that transfers geographic features through the Internet.

Geospatial Information (Geo-info)
Includes legal surveys, property cadastre, aerial photography, satellite imagery, aeronautical and nautical charts as well as various types of maps such as topographic maps, , and geological, agriculture and forestry maps.

Geospatial Data
Geo-info or geodata with explicit geographic positioning information included, such as a road network from a GIS, or a geo-referenced satellite image. Geospatial data may include attribute data that describes the features found in the dataset.

Geomatics
The science and technology of gathering, analyzing, interpreting, distributing and using geospatial data. Geomatics encompasses a broad range of disciplines including surveying, global positioning systems, mapping, remote sensing and cartography.

Global Change Master Directory (GCMD)
NASA’s GCMD is a comprehensive directory of descriptions of datasets of relevance to global change research. The GCMD database includes a description of datasets covering climate change, agriculture, the atmosphere, biosphere, hydrosphere and oceans, geology, geography and human dimensions of global change.

Global Spatial Data Infrastructure (GSDI)
A global and open organization coordinating the organization, management and use of geospatial data and related activities. GSDI is being advanced through the leadership of many nations and organizations represented by a GSDI Steering Committee. This multinational Steering Committee includes representatives from all continents, and all sectors - government, academia, and the private sector. The "GSDI encompasses the policies, organizational remits, data, technologies, standards, delivery mechanisms, and financial and human resources necessary to ensure that those working at the global and regional scale are not impeded in meeting their objectives". (http://www.gsdi.org/)

Infrastructure
A reliable, supporting environment, analogous to a road or telecommunications network, that facilitates the access to geographically-related information using a minimum set of standard practices, protocols and specifications.

International Organization for Standardization (ISO)
A worldwide federation of national standards bodies from 130 countries. The ISO’s mission is to promote the development of standardization and related activities in the world with a view to facilitating the international exchange of goods and services, and to developing cooperation in the spheres of intellectual, scientific, technological and economic activity. The ISO’s work results in international agreements that are published as international standards.

Inventory
A catalogue that lists individual data products. Most databases are comprised of inventories and catalogues.

Location Commerce (l-commerce)
A new and growing economic sector that exploits the commercial uses of geospatial data and services.

Metadata
Information about data. Metadata describes how and when and by whom a particular set of data was collected, and how the data are formatted. Metadata is essential for understanding information stored in data warehouses.

National Information Standards Organization (NISO)
NISO (U.S.) is a non-profit association that develops and promotes technical standards used in a wide variety of information services. NISO has developed standards for information retrieval such as the Z39.50 search protocol.

Open Geospatial Consortium, Inc. (OGC)
OGC is a non-profit organization founded to address the lack of interoperability among systems that process geospatial data. The Open Geospatial Consortium, Inc (OGC) is an international industry consortium of 253 companies, government agencies and universities participating in a consensus process to develop publicly available interface specifications. OpenGIS® Specifications support interoperable solutions that "geo-enable" the Web, wireless and location-based services, and mainstream IT.

Operation
An interaction between a client and a server, resulting in a transfer of information or an action. An operation can be either an interrogation (e.g. request-response) or an announcement (e.g. notification).

Organization
In the GeoConnections Discovery Portal, an organization includes federal, provincial and municipal departments, non-profit organizations, academic organizations (universities, colleges) as well as commercial organizations that offer data, services and resources of a geospatial nature.

Portal
A web site considered as an entry point to other web sites, often by being or providing access to a search engine. The scope of a portal may be unlimited (such as Yahoo), or limited to a specific subject (such as geospatial information on the GeoConnections Discovery Portal).

Profile
For a search protocol, a profile identifies a set of base standards, together with appropriate options and parameters necessary for purposes including interoperability and methodology for referencing the various uses of the base standards, so as to be meaningful for both users and suppliers.
For a data standard: a profile specifies elements to be used by a particular group e.g. North American profile of ISO 19115 is the International standard adapted to address North American’s needs (attributes are added).

Relational Database Management Software
A system for database management of a relational database, i.e. a database in the form of tables which have rows and columns to show the relationships between items, and in which information can be cross-referenced between two or more items to generate a third table.

Registry
A listing of the individual datasets, services or other things made available by an organization to CGDI users. There are two kinds of registries: a type registry (a listing of the different types or classes of things, such as services, components or events, which are recognized by CGDI services or applications), and an instance registry (a listing of the individual services, components, datasets or other things that comprise the CGDI or are relevant to its users. Instance registries are used to identify, locate and describe individual instances.)

Reusable Component (RUC)
A free online mapping tool that can be embedded into an organization’s web pages from the GeoConnections Discovery Portal. RUCs allow users to quickly add interactive maps and locators to their web site, and to coordinate entry tools to the site. Standardized interfaces (wizards) are provided so that developers can embed the tools into their own applications. Each of the mapping tools automatically interacts with each other when embedded into the same page.

Resource
Within the CGDI, a resource refers to services, including web services and tools, data products and organizations.

Scale
To change the size of an object while maintaining its shape. Most graphics software, particularly vector-based packages, allow you to scale objects freely.

Schema
XML and GML schemas express shared vocabularies and allow machines to carry out rules made by people. They provide a means for defining the structure, content and semantics of XML and GML documents.

Server
A computer on a network that is dedicated to a particular purpose and which stores all information and performs the critical functions for that purpose (http://www.congressonlineproject.org/glossary.html#S).

A search server is a program on a computer that is connected to the Internet. It accepts search queries through the Internet, then queries a database connected to the same local area network as its host computer. The database returns the result to the search server, and the search server returns the result to the Internet client that originated the request.

Service
A collection of operations, accessible through one or more interfaces, that allows a user to evoke a behaviour of value to that user. A service is delivered by a server. A “service instance” is another name for a server.

In the GeoConnections Discovery Portal, a service is a description of professional services, online services and software provided by registered organizations or individuals. See 8.2, What Can You Register and Promote With The Discovery Portal?, for a listing of Discovery Portal services.

Site
A location (e.g. URL) at which a system is accessed.

Spatial (Geospatial) Data Infrastructure (SDI)
The relevant base collection of technologies, policies and institutional arrangements that facilitate the availability of and access to spatial data. A spatial data infrastructure provides a basis for spatial data discovery, evaluation and application for users and suppliers within all levels of government, the commercial sector, the non-profit sector, academia and citizens in general.

Stateful Search Protocol
With a stateful search protocol, a discovery mechanism opens a connection with a search server and keeps it open for the entire duration of the search session.

Stateless Search Protocol
With a stateless search protocol, a discovery mechanism opens a connection with a search server, sends a bit of information, receives a bit of information, and then closes the connection. The search session consists of a series of such open-send-receive-close interactions between it and the search server, where each open-send-receive-close interaction is independent of the others.

Styled Layer Descriptor (SLD)
A companion specification to the Web Map Server Interface (WMS) specification, the SLD is a means for controlling the portrayal of data rendered from a WMS server.

User
In the Guide to the CGDI, “user” refers to an individual who uses a computer, program, network or related service. The Guide to the CGDI distinguishes between a user (person) and a client (a software component or application that access a service.)

Web Coverage Service (WCS)
An emerging specification for a coverage, i.e. an irregular multi-dimensional grid that describes many types of Earth phenomena at every point in the grid.

Web Feature Service (WFS)
A specification that defines data manipulation operations on geographic features, allowing for querying, retrieval and transactional (i.e. add, update or delete) operations.

Web Map Service (WMS)
An Internet-based service that allows clients to display maps and/or images with a geographic component and whose raw spatial data files reside on one or more remote WMS servers. The WMS conforms to the OpenGIS Web Map Server Interface specification.

Z39.50 Search Protocol
The ANSI/NISO Z39.50 search protocol is a computer-to-computer communications protocol designed to support searching and retrieving of information, full-text documents, bibliographic data, images and multimedia in a distributed network environment. The Z39.50 is currently supported by the GeoConnections Discovery Portal.