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Glossaries

Glossaries for structured documentation and AI regulation.

Clear, sourced definitions of the terms behind information architecture, ontologies and intelligent information, DITA 1.3, and AI regulation in the EU, the USA, Canada and China — with examples, markup snippets and notes on how each term applies in technical documentation, safety, MedTech and AI.

What’s new: Glossary Updates No. 5 · October 2, 2026 Take the guided tour

AI glossary and learning path: from beginner to expert
72 terms
The core terms of generative AI, arranged as six stations of a learning path instead of A to Z — foundations, the AI landscape with all major brands and model families, prompts and context, grounding with retrieval and knowledge graphs, building with APIs, tools and agents, and quality, risk and governance. Every term is tagged with its level (beginner, intermediate, expert) and the roles it matters most to — technical writers, technical marketers, technical project managers and developers — and explains what it means for each of them.
BeginnerTechnical writersTechnical marketersTechnical project managersIntermediateDevelopersExpertAI brand
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Information architecture and ontology glossary
37 terms
Definitions of the terms behind structured, machine-readable documentation — the iiRDS core classes (information units, versions, renditions and selectors), information types and subjects, product, functional and administrative metadata, extensions, package variants, the semantic web foundations RDF, IRI and JSON-LD, and information modeling (information and data models, schemas, semantic drift and semantic control) — with examples, RDF snippets and notes on how each term applies in technical documentation, safety, MedTech and AI.
iiRDS termOntologyInformation architectureSemantic webGerman source term
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DITA 1.3 glossary
25 terms
Definitions of the core concepts of the Darwin Information Typing Architecture (DITA) 1.3, the OASIS standard for topic-based authoring — topics and information types, maps and relationship tables, keys and key scopes, content reuse with conref, specialization and constraints, conditional processing and branch filtering — with markup examples and notes on how each concept applies in technical documentation and AI.
DITAStandardInformation typingNew in DITA 1.3Maps and linkingConditional processingReuseArchitectureSafety
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AI regulation glossary: EU AI Act vs. USA, Canada and China
38 terms
Definitions of the key terms of the EU AI Act — AI system, risk categories, providers and deployers, high-risk obligations, technical documentation, general-purpose AI models and transparency — set against the AI rules of the United States, Canada and China, from the NIST AI Risk Management Framework and US state laws to Canada’s Directive on Automated Decision-Making and China’s generative AI, deep synthesis and labeling rules. Each entry explains how the approaches differ and what they mean for technical documentation.
AI regulationEUUSACanadaChinaOmnibusMachineryTechnical documentation
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Machine safety and safeguarding glossary
163 terms
Definitions of the terms of machinery risk assessment and risk reduction according to ISO 12100 — hazards, hazardous situations, risk estimation methods, the three-step method and the hierarchy of controls — and of safeguarding in practice: guards and machine motion, protective devices and interlocks, emergency stop, stop categories and drive safety functions, lockout/tagout, maintenance and competence. Each entry explains what the term means for engineers and for the safety information in technical documentation.
Machine safetyRisk assessmentHuman factorsUSATechnical documentationEUMaintenance
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Functional safety and systems engineering glossary
218 terms
Definitions of the terms of functional safety — safety functions, SIL, Performance Level, categories, diagnostics and redundancy — of verification, validation and assurance cases with their evidence and traceability, of change and version control, and of systems engineering for integrated systems: MBSE, requirements, interfaces, operating modes, fault behavior, timing and data quality. Several terms come from German systems engineering sources; their German originals are shown with each entry.
Functional safetySystems engineeringVerificationIntegrated systemsData and interfacesTechnical documentationAIGerman source term
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Safety documentation, compliance and security glossary
97 terms
Definitions of the terms that connect machine safety with technical documentation and law: the EU Machinery Regulation and Machinery Directive, CE marking, harmonized standards and OSHA duties, the key safety standards from ISO 12100 to IEC 62443, instructions for use, warning messages and safety signs, document and evidence control, and the industrial cybersecurity terms of IEC 62443 and the Cyber Resilience Act where security affects safety.
ComplianceEUGerman source termStandardsUSAAITechnical documentationCybersecurity
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Digital product passport and EU omnibus glossary: EU vs. USA, Canada and China
25 terms
Definitions of the terms of the EU Digital Product Passport — the Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation, unique identifiers, data carriers, the DPP registry and the harmonized DPP standards — and of what a trustworthy passport needs inside a company: distributed ownership, access rights and business confidentiality, a source of truth, authentication, reliability and integrity, change control and reviewed AI support. The EU omnibus packages that simplify and amend EU rules are placed alongside, and each entry compares the EU approach with product traceability and transparency rules in the United States, Canada and China.
EUUSACanadaChinaDPPOmnibusData governanceTechnical documentation
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MedTech and pharma regulation glossary: MDR, IVDR, ISO standards, GxP and ICH
83 terms
Definitions of the rules that govern medical devices and medicines in the EU and beyond — the Medical Device Regulation (MDR) and the In Vitro Diagnostic Medical Devices Regulation (IVDR) with classification, technical documentation, notified bodies, UDI, EUDAMED, clinical and performance evaluation, post-market surveillance and vigilance; the ISO and IEC standards applied in MedTech and pharma, from ISO 13485 and ISO 14971 to IEC 62304; the GxP good practices (GMP, GDP, GLP, GCP, GVP, GEP and good documentation practice) with the EU GMP annexes, GAMP 5 and validation; data integrity and ALCOA+; the ICH quality and clinical guidelines; and the FDA counterparts. Each entry explains what the term means for technical and regulatory documentation.
EUMDRIVDRTechnical documentationUSAPharmaAIStandardsGxPData integrityICH
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PLC programming, control engineering and SCADA glossary
263 terms
Definitions of the terms of PLC programming according to IEC 61131-3 — languages, data types, program organization units and task handling — of distributed automation with IEC 61499, of control theory and process control from PID loops to model predictive control, of HMI and SCADA operation with alarms, trends and archives, and of electrical engineering and control panels. Every entry shows the German term and explains what the concept means for engineering, commissioning and technical documentation.
PLC programmingStandardsProcess industryTechnical documentationVendor productFunctional safetyAIIEC 61499Control theoryHMI and SCADAOT securityControl panels
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Automation components, sensors and drives glossary
404 terms
Definitions of the building blocks of industrial automation — controllers, I/O, platforms and components — and of sensors and measurement, process instrumentation and analytical measurement, pneumatics and hydraulics, and motion control and drives from servo axes to frequency converters. Every entry shows the German term and explains how the component is selected, integrated and documented.
Automation componentsStandardsProcess industryVendor productFunctional safetyOT securityAITechnical documentationSensorsProcess instrumentationFluid powerMotion control
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Robotics, machine vision and manufacturing operations glossary
277 terms
Definitions of the terms of industrial robotics and human–robot collaboration, machine vision, CNC and machine tools, packaging and intralogistics, manufacturing systems, batch and process operations according to ISA-88, manufacturing execution with MES and ISA-95, energy and utilities automation, and maintenance and diagnostics. Every entry shows the German term and explains what the concept means on the shop floor and in the documentation.
RoboticsStandardsFunctional safetyVendor productAIMachine visionCNCIntralogisticsManufacturing systemsProcess industryTechnical documentationBatch controlMESEnergyMaintenanceOT security
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Industrial communication, IIoT, industrial AI and OT security glossary
262 terms
Definitions of the terms of industrial communication — fieldbuses, industrial Ethernet, time-sensitive networking and industrial wireless — of semantic interoperability with OPC UA information models and the Asset Administration Shell, of IIoT, industrial data and AI engineering and governance, and of OT cybersecurity and security engineering according to IEC 62443. Every entry shows the German term and explains what the concept means for integration, security and technical documentation.
Industrial communicationStandardsVendor productTechnical documentationProcess industryOT securityFunctional safetyIndustrial wirelessInformation modelsIIoTAIIndustrial AIOrdinance on Industrial Safety and Health (BetrSichV)Presumption effect (technical rules)Security engineering
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Automation software engineering and system integration glossary
461 terms
Definitions of the terms of software engineering and architecture for automation systems — patterns, interfaces, testing, versioning and deployment — of system coordination, integration and orchestration across controllers, services and data, and of engineering, integration and validation from specification to factory and site acceptance tests. Every entry shows the German term and explains what the concept means for engineering teams and technical documentation.
Software engineeringOT securityStandardsFunctional safetyTechnical documentationValidationSystem integrationProcess industryVendor product
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Technical documentation and information design glossary
8 terms
Definitions of the terms behind the models of technical documentation described in the encyclopedia — topic-based and task-based documentation, Every Page is Page One, semantic documentation, minimalism and structured authoring — and of the concepts they rest on: topics and information types, task analysis, semantic markup, content models, controlled language and the structured formats used to implement them — and the cognitive and analysis tools documentation shares with other professions, such as the mental model of a user and the five whys. Philosophy, reasoning methods and mental models as thinking tools have a glossary pool of their own, The art of thinking.
Information foragingInformation scentFindabilityEvery Page is Page OneReading behaviorstructured writinginformation typeschunkingmodular contenttechnical communicationCognitive scienceTechnical documentationtopictopic-based authoringstructured authoringinformation designcontent reusedocumentation modelsinformation architecturefindabilityThinking modelsProblem solvingEngineeringcontent modelXMLsingle-sourcingtechnical documentationtopic-based
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Definitions follow the cited standards and specifications. Where a source is a copyrighted publication, such as an ISO, IEC or EN standard, the definition is a close paraphrase, not a verbatim quotation, so as not to infringe copyright. We recommend reading the original publication. The sections “How it applies” are editorial commentary by AI TechDoc Knowledge and are not part of any standard.