Glossary
Short definitions of the terms used across OpenRiC - RiC, RiC-CM, RiC-O, the entities, profiles, levels, instantiation, conformance, SHACL and more.
RiC - Records in Contexts; the ICA’s model replacing ISAD(G), ISAAR(CPF), ISDF, ISDIAH.
RiC-CM - the RiC Conceptual Model (entities + relations). OpenRiC targets 1.0.
RiC-O - the RiC Ontology; RiC-CM in OWL/RDF. OpenRiC is RiC-O 1.1-conformant.
OpenRiC - the open HTTP contract for publishing/exchanging RiC data; spec + reference API + clients.
Record (RiC-E04) - one unit of recorded content.
Record Set (RiC-E03) - an aggregation of records (fonds, series, collection).
Record Part (RiC-E05) - a component of a record, with its own content and provenance (a track, an entry, an attachment).
Agent (RiC-E07) - a Person (E08), Family (E10) or Corporate Body (E11) that creates or acts on records.
Activity (RiC-E15) - something done; a business process or event that produces records.
Place (RiC-E22) - a bounded, named location.
Instantiation (RiC-E06) - a physical or digital carrier of a record (the paper, the file, the print, a scan). One record can have many.
Rule (RiC-E16) - a mandate, law or retention policy governing records.
Relation - a typed link between entities (has_creator, has_or_had_location, …); how RiC becomes a graph.
Profile - a named, bounded conformance target a server can claim (Core Discovery, Export-Only, …). See the profiles tree.
Level (L1-L4) - how rigorously a profile’s endpoints conform: L1 mapping, L2 API, L3 graph, L4 full.
Conformance probe - the bash + jq tool that tests a server against the spec.
SHACL - the shape language used to validate published RiC graphs; in the Governance profile it’s a merge gate.
Instantiation vs Record - the content is the Record; each carrier is an Instantiation. A scan is not a new record - it’s another Instantiation.
JSON-LD / Turtle / RDF-XML - the interchangeable serialisations RiC data is exported in; they round-trip.
OAI-PMH - the standard harvest protocol aggregators use; the Export-Only profile exposes it.
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