The v2026.3 release of the CASRAI Dictionary is targeted for late 2026. This post is a preview of what’s in scope, what’s being added, what’s being deprecated, and the schema-evolution work threading through the release. The full proposed changes are open for community comment via the Dictionary governance process; this post is intended to surface them to the broader community.
Release scope and timing
v2026.3 will be a point release on the v2026 line, following v2026.1 (March 2026) and v2026.2 (the news-batch-aligned release earlier in 2026). The release is scheduled for the end of October 2026, with the public-comment window running through August and September.
The release continues the v2026 line’s emphasis on consolidation: aligning terminology with operational practice, cleaning up legacy redirects, and tightening the schema. v2027 is expected to be a more substantial revision aligned with the next ORCID schema update and the EOSC Federation v2 stabilisation; v2026.3 is a step in that direction.
New terms in scope
Approximately 40 new terms are in scope for v2026.3. The high-priority additions:
AI and disclosure terms: AI assistance declaration, AI output verification, C2PA content provenance, AI transparency marker, prompt-and-output retention. These reflect the operational disclosure practices that publishers have converged on through 2024-2026.
EU AI Act terms: EU AI Act, high-risk AI system, fundamental rights impact assessment, AI literacy, general-purpose AI model, European AI Office. These align CASRAI vocabulary with the binding EU regulatory framework.
PID infrastructure terms: ORCID contribution resource (the 4.0 entity), grant-DOI relationships, RAiD-to-GLS crosswalks, Software Heritage Identifier (SWHID). These align with the 2025-2026 PID-infrastructure evolution.
Reproducibility terms: PRISMA 2026 items, living-systematic-review terminology, AI-assisted screening, structured flow diagram, capacity-forecasting metrics. These reflect the PRISMA 2026 release and the broader reproducibility-tooling maturation.
Indigenous data terms: GIDA Manifesto, CARE-FAIR sequencing, traditional knowledge labels (refined), Te Mana Raraunga (entity entry), Maiam nayri Wingara (entity entry), FNIGC OCAP (refined). These align with the 2024 GIDA Manifesto and the broader Indigenous-data-sovereignty terminology.
Carbon-and-sustainability terms: carbon-aware computing, computational carbon footprint, embodied carbon of hardware, scope 3 emissions in research. These reflect the operational sustainability-in-research practice.
Deprecations
Approximately 15 terms are flagged for deprecation in v2026.3. Most are redirects to consolidated entries; a few are removals of terms that have not gained operational traction or have been superseded by more precise alternatives.
The deprecation process honours the existing redirects: every deprecated term retains a redirect to the preferred replacement, with the deprecation reason documented in the term metadata. Integrators consuming the Dictionary via the API will see deprecation flags on the affected terms; the API contract remains stable.
Refinements
Several existing terms will receive refinement in v2026.3. Notable refinements:
CRediT: the entry will be updated to reflect the v2026.3 stewardship-group discussion on the AI-assistance question and the mentorship-role question, with the consensus position recorded.
RAiD: the entry will reflect the operational service expansion to the UK, the EU member-state implementations, and the ISO 23527 conformance details.
maDMP: the entry will be refined to reflect the RDA DMP Common Standard v2 schema and the v1-to-v2 migration patterns.
EOSC: the entry will reflect the EOSC Federation v2 governance and the operational implementation status.
Schema-evolution work
Threading through the release is schema-evolution work in three areas.
First, relation typing. The Dictionary models relations between terms (broader, narrower, related, see-also). v2026.3 introduces more specific relation types: implemented-by, governed-by, deprecated-by, succeeded-by. The richer typing supports more precise navigation and crosswalk construction.
Second, provenance metadata. Each term gains structured provenance metadata: source of the definition, the standards body that maintains the upstream concept, the date of the most recent CASRAI review. This supports both citation and quality assurance.
Third, multi-language scaffolding. v2026.3 lays the schema scaffolding for multi-language entries (the entries themselves remain English-only in v2026.3, but the schema supports translations from v2027). This is a contribution to the bibliodiversity direction the broader open-science community is moving.
How to contribute to the consultation
The public-comment window runs August-September 2026. Comments can be submitted via the Dictionary governance page. The CASRAI editorial board reviews comments weekly; substantive feedback gets a written response; the resolution of each comment is documented in the release-notes appendix.
The terms most actively under discussion (and therefore most welcoming of community input): the AI-assistance terminology, the mentorship-in-CRediT question, the Indigenous-data terminology refinements, the carbon-and-sustainability terms. If you have operational experience with any of these and a view on the right terminology, your input is welcome.
Looking past v2026.3
The v2027 release planning is in progress in parallel with v2026.3. v2027 is expected to be a more substantial revision aligned with the next ORCID schema update, the EOSC Federation v2 stabilisation, the PRISMA 2026 ecosystem maturation, and the CRediT v3 discussion (if the stewardship group converges on a v3 scope). The v2026.3 release is part of the runway to v2027; the schema-evolution work and the new-terms work both feed into the larger revision.
For integrators, the practical posture is to test against v2026.3 during the public-comment window if possible. Issues surfaced during testing are addressed before release; issues surfaced after release are addressed in the next point release. The CASRAI Dictionary API provides the integration interface.
