Dictionary · v2026.1 · CC-BY 4.0
The CASRAI Dictionary
The CASRAI Dictionary is a citable, machine-readable controlled vocabulary for research administration, containing 714 definitions across 20 thematic domains in release v2026.1. Stewarded by 20 community working groups; federated with NISO, euroCRIS, CODATA, and RDA; published under CC-BY 4.0 for unrestricted reuse.
What's in v2026.1
- Entries
- 714
- Domains
- 20
- Tracks
- 5
- Open formats
- 6
- · Stable URIs per entry
- · Schema.org
DefinedTermmarkup - · JATS · JSON-LD · OWL · RDF · CSV · BibTeX
- · Versioned with semver-style release tags
Start here
Browse the dictionary
Five ways into the full corpus, plus the 20 thematic domains below. Every entry is a stable, citable URI under CC-BY 4.0.
/dictionary/browse
Browse by domain
Entries grouped by their thematic domain, with status and CRIS-readiness filters.
/dictionary/a-z
A–Z index of all 714 terms
Every entry, alphabetised under A–Z headings — the complete map of the dictionary.
/rdm-glossary
Research data management glossary
A curated RDM glossary: data infrastructure, DMPs, persistent identifiers, and reproducibility.
/dictionary/objects
Object templates
123 structured business objects — Award, Book, Conference Paper — for CRIS and RIM integration.
/dictionary/picklists
Controlled picklists
Enumerated value-lists — output types, contributor roles, licence types, access types.
/dictionary/search
Full-text search
Search definitions, picklists, sample values, and crosswalks with type-ahead suggestions.
Jump to a domain
20 domains across 5 tracks
The full domain map
Each domain is stewarded by a working group. Click any tile to read its entries.
Domain breakdown
Entries by domain · 714 total
The full distribution of dictionary entries across the 20 stewardship domains, ordered by size. Track colour indicates stewardship cluster.
Research outputs (expanded)
Funding lifecycle and financial vocabulary
Research lifecycle stages and project metadata
Mentorship, training, and career stages
The persistent identifier ecosystem
Reproducibility and computational research
Compliance and regulatory
AI and ML research outputs
Research data infrastructure
Research-information systems and integration
Knowledge equity, diversity, global-south inclusion
Engagement, impact, and SDG alignment
CRediT extensions and adjacent contribution vocabularies
Generative AI use and disclosure
Responsible research assessment
Machine-actionable data management plans (maDMP)
Sustainable research and laboratory operations
Research integrity and misconduct
Research security
Indigenous data governance — CARE principles
Highlighted terms by domain
One representative entry per domain
A curated tour of high-value definitions — one entry per stewardship domain, chosen to illustrate the breadth of the dictionary in practice.
AI-assisted writing
Text produced with substantive help from a generative AI system, requiring disclosure under most publisher policies.
Lead / equal / supporting qualifier
Modifier appended to a CRediT role to declare relative degree of contribution within that role on a paper.
Narrative CV
Structured-prose researcher biography (Royal Society, UKRI, NIH) replacing publication-list-driven assessment.
Registered report
Two-stage publication where methodology is peer-reviewed and accepted before data collection begins.
ORCID iD
Sixteen-digit researcher identifier resolvable at orcid.org, used to disambiguate authorship across systems.
CERIF
euroCRIS data-model standard for Current Research Information Systems, defining entities for persons, projects, outputs.
Trusted Research Environment
Secure analysis platform where sensitive data is held centrally and researchers bring their code, not the other way around.
Data management plan (DMP)
Living document declaring how research data will be collected, stored, shared, and preserved across the project lifecycle.
Reproducibility
Capacity of an independent party to obtain the same result using the original code, data, and computational environment.
Model card
Structured documentation of an ML model: training data, intended use, performance, limitations, and ethical considerations.
Paper mill
Commercial operation that fabricates manuscripts and authorship slots for sale, a growing integrity threat to journals.
GDPR
EU regulation governing personal-data processing, with extraterritorial reach and direct implications for research data.
NSPM-33
US National Security Presidential Memorandum 33 mandating disclosure of foreign affiliations on federally funded research.
CARE principles
Collective benefit, Authority to control, Responsibility, Ethics — Indigenous Peoples’ data governance principles, complementing FAIR.
DORA
San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment, calling for an end to journal-impact-factor-based evaluation of researchers.
Plan S
cOAlition S mandate requiring immediate open access for publications arising from publicly funded research.
PPI (patient and public involvement)
Research carried out with or by patients and members of the public, not merely about or for them.
LEAF framework
Laboratory Efficiency Assessment Framework — bronze/silver/gold certification for sustainable laboratory operations.
MTDC
Modified Total Direct Cost — the cost base on which US federal indirect-cost rates are calculated, excluding equipment and subawards above $25k.
Project ID (RAiD-anchored)
Research Activity Identifier (RAiD) handle anchoring a project across funders, institutions, outputs, and contributors.
Featured entries
Selected from v2026.1
A taste of what's inside — definitions, picklists, related terms, structured data, all under CC-BY 4.0.
Lab equipment lifecycle assessment
A structured environmental impact assessment of a laboratory instrument or equipment item across all life-cycle stages, from raw-material extraction and manufacture through use, maintenance, and end-of-life.
Carbon accounting (research)
The systematic measurement, calculation, and reporting of greenhouse gas emissions across research activities, applying standard methodologies and emission factors to produce auditable CO2-equivalent totals.
Scope 1 / 2 / 3 emissions (research org)
The categorisation of a research organisation's greenhouse-gas emissions following the GHG Protocol: scope 1 (direct on-site combustion), scope 2 (purchased electricity, heat, steam, cooling), and scope 3 (indirect emissions across the value chain, including procurement, commuting, travel, and waste).
Climate impact statement (in DMP)
A structured section in a data management plan or research proposal that estimates and discusses the environmental impact of planned research activities, including travel, computing, equipment, consumables, and data storage.
Climate-aware funding
Research funding policies and award practices that explicitly incorporate climate and environmental sustainability considerations into eligibility, proposal review, and reporting.
Open infrastructure energy efficiency
The energy and carbon performance of shared, community-governed scholarly infrastructure (open repositories, identifier services, preservation systems), considered as part of the sustainability profile of the open scholarship ecosystem.
What you can do here
Browse · search · download · cite · contribute
Browse
By domain or letter
All 714 entries, grouped by their thematic domain or alphabetically. Filter by status and CRIS-readiness.
Learn moreSearch
Full-text + facets
Search definitions, picklists, sample values, and crosswalks. Type-ahead suggestions across all entries.
Learn moreDownload
Six open formats
JSON-LD · CSV · OWL · RDF Turtle · BibTeX · XLSX. Suitable for CRIS ingestion or local vocabulary servers.
Learn moreCite
Citable URIs + DOIs
Every entry has a stable URI. The dictionary itself has a Dataset DOI (assigned per release).
Learn moreRelated areas of CASRAI
Where to go next
The dictionary sits inside a broader stewardship programme. These adjacent surfaces extend the same vocabulary into roles, adoption tracking, crosswalks, governance, and source bibliography.
/credit
CRediT taxonomy
The 14 contributor roles (conceptualization, methodology, software, writing — original draft, etc.) and the canonical role definitions.
/credit/adoption
Publisher CRediT adoption tracker
Which journals and publishers ingest CRediT taxonomy contributor roles, with adoption status and submission-system support.
/federation/cross-walks
Crosswalks
Field-level mappings from CASRAI entries to DataCite, MARC, ORCID, Schema.org, and other vocabularies.
/about/working-groups
Working groups
The 20 stewardship working groups that draft, review, and ratify dictionary entries on a rolling release cadence.
/standards/releases
Release history
Per-release changelog of added, modified, and deprecated entries since the 2026 revival of CASRAI stewardship.
/resources/bibliography
Foundational bibliography
Peer-reviewed and grey-literature sources underpinning the dictionary entries, organised by domain and theme.
About
What the dictionary is
Provenance, governance, scope, and how the dictionary relates to NISO / euroCRIS / CODATA standards.
Contribute
Propose a term
Working groups review proposals during each release cycle. Community contributions get CRediT attribution.
Releases
v2026.1 release notes
Added, modified, and deprecated entries since the previous release. Versioned and citable.
For implementers and citers
Open, machine-readable, freely reusable
CASRAI Dictionary content is published under CC-BY 4.0. Use it in your CRIS, repository, publisher submission system, CRediT-aware editorial workflow, or in your own controlled-vocabulary infrastructure.
Frequently asked
Dictionary FAQ
- What is the CASRAI Dictionary?
The CASRAI Dictionary is a curated, citable, machine-readable controlled vocabulary for research-administration information. v2026.1 contains 714 entries spread across 20 thematic domains, each entry with a stable URI, structured picklists, and Schema.org
DefinedTermmarkup. See about the dictionary for scope and provenance.- How is the Dictionary structured?
The Dictionary is partitioned into 20 thematic domains grouped under 5 stewardship tracks: contributorship, identifiers and systems, computational, governance and integrity, and lifecycle and equity. Each domain is stewarded by a community working group that drafts, reviews, and ratifies its entries. Browse the domain map at /dictionary, or jump to /dictionary/browse for the A-Z view.
- Can I propose a new term?
Yes. Working groups review proposals during each release cycle, and community contributions are credited via CRediT-style attribution in the changelog. Open a proposal at /dictionary/contribute; the relevant working group will route it through the review process for the next versioned release.
- Under what licence are the definitions released?
The CASRAI Dictionary is published under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International licence (CC-BY 4.0). You may reuse, redistribute, and adapt the content commercially or non-commercially, provided you give appropriate credit. Implementation patterns are documented under /implement.
- How do I cite the Dictionary?
Each Dictionary release is citable as a Dataset with a versioned URI (e.g.
https://casrai.org/dictionary/for v2026.1) and per-entry stable URIs athttps://casrai.org/dictionary/term/<slug>. The cite page provides citation strings in APA, BibTeX, and RIS formats.- Where do the legacy CASRAI terms come from?
CASRAI was founded in 2006 and built an extensive legacy dictionary before the 2020 stewardship handover. The 2026 revival re-imported and re-published the legacy entries under their original domains, retaining provenance metadata. The current 714-entry corpus combines legacy holdings with newly drafted entries. See /about/history for the timeline and /dictionary/changelog for per-release migration notes.
- How many terms are in the CASRAI Dictionary?
The CASRAI Dictionary contains 714 terms in release v2026.1 (May 2026), distributed across 20 thematic domains grouped under 5 stewardship tracks. Each term has a stable URI, structured definition, optional picklists, and Schema.org
DefinedTermmarkup. The next release, v2026.2 in November 2026, expands the corpus with additional sustainability and AI-disclosure entries. See /dictionary/changelog.- Is the CASRAI Dictionary free?
Yes, the CASRAI Dictionary is free to use. It is published under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International licence (CC-BY 4.0), with no paywall, no registration, and no API spend for read access. You may reuse, redistribute, translate, and bundle it commercially or non-commercially, provided you give appropriate credit to CASRAI.
- How do I cite a dictionary term?
To cite a dictionary term, use its stable URI at
https://casrai.org/dictionary/term/<slug>together with the dictionary release version. Each term page emits a citation widget producing APA, BibTeX, RIS, and Chicago forms on the fly. To cite the release as a whole, use the Zenodo DOI listed on /dictionary/cite.
