ISO/IEC JTC 1/WG 15 JTC 1 Vocabulary

June 2025

Overview

ISO/IEC JTC 1 WG 15 is part of a joint technical committee (JTC 1) between two international standardisation organisations:

ISO/IEC JTC 1/WG 15 was established by Resolution 15 of the November 2022 JTC 1 plenary based on work done by JTC 1 AG 18.

Terms of Reference

The Terms of Reference of the Working Group are as follows:

1. Establish objectives, goals, and a project timeline for the revision of ISO/IEC 2382 (2015 edition);

2. Establish techniques, process, and procedure for the WG activity, such as reusing existing practice, where practicable, for vocabulary maintenance, technical review, and production;

3. Inform itself of and coordinate with the existing and substantial JTC 1 SCs’/WGs’ vocabulary efforts;

4. Establish individual term quality, life-cycle, etc. categories such that (1) new terms can be developed; (2) existing terms can be maintained; (3) stabilized terms require no maintenance; (4) deprecated terms are discouraged for future use; and (5) historical terms (in context) provide appropriate framing and definition yet are discouraged for current use;

5. Develop a marketing and packaging plan for the JTC 1 terminology that includes ISO/IEC 2382 standard and, possibly other SC/WG-related terminology standards work and work product;

6. Revise JTC 1 SD 20, Best Practices Guide for IT Vocabulary, as appropriate.

Since it’s formation, WG 15 has also been tasked with defining the term “information technology”.

Officers

Role	Officer	Country
Convenor	Frank FARANCE	US
Secretary	Ray GATES	CA
JTC 1 Secretary support	Sally SEITZ	US

Members

WG 15 has 32 registered members (not counting the officers) from 9 national bodies, 8 liaison representatives and 5 document monitors.

National bodies

The following national bodies are represented:

France (AFNOR), United States (ANSI), Germany (DIN), Luxembourg (ILNAS), Japan (JICS), Republic of Korea (KATS), Australia (SA), China (SAC) and Canada (SCC).

Liaisons

The following JTC 1 subcommittees are represented:

ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 24 and ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 42.

The following ISO technical committees are represented:

ISO/TC 211.

Collective experience

Between them, the members have experience in the following committees and working groups:

JTC 1: SC 7, SC 23, SC 24, SC 27, SC 29, SC 32, SC 36, SC 38, SC 41, SC 42, SC 43, WG 11, WG 13, AG 19, CG 1
ISO: TC 37, TC 46, TC 46/SC 11, TC 211, TC 309
IEC: TC 1/JPT 3, TC 3, SyC Smart Cities, JSEG Metaverse
ITU-T: FG-MV, FG-DPM, FG-AINN, SG 17

Background to ISO/IEC 2382

ISO/IEC 2382 is a multi-part standard whose development started circa 1972 in TC 97, which pre-dates the merger and formation of JTC 1. ISO/IEC 2382 is a terminology standard (per ISO/IEC Guide 2), which is called a “Vocabulary”, and it includes terms and definitions relating to the fields of, initially data processing, then information processing, and subsequently information technology. The first edition was developed in the 1970s, initially with 12 parts. Some parts were revised and others were added in the 1980s and 1990s resulting in 32 parts by 1999. Each part focused on a particular sub-category of information technology. Two other parts were added in 2008 and 2012. The 2015 edition is based upon the work of the JTC 1 Vocabulary Maintenance Team, circa 2007-2013, that included merging first 32 parts into a single consolidated part, and the definitions aligned with the updated ISO 10241-1 guidance on presentations of term entries in standards, and the ISO House Style of the time. In 2024, ISO and IEC have issued guidance on Inclusive Terminology, which will be applied.

Since 2015, information technology has continued to evolve, and new terminology has been developed in new and existing subject areas, so WG 15 has been established to determine a process to update the vocabulary and to make recommendations on packaging and maintenance. At present, ISO/IEC 2382 Information Technology – Vocabulary (ITV) has approximately 5000 entries.

Meeting schedule

The working group has held semi-annual meetings spread over three days, three hours per day. All meetings to date have been virtual.

2023-04-03 to 2023-04-05
2023-10-10 to 2023-10-12
2024-04-02 to 2024-04-04
2024-10-01 to 2024-10-03
2025-03-04 to 2025-03-06
The next semi-annual meeting is scheduled for:
- 2025-09-02 to 2025-09-04.
In between these semi-annual meetings, task group meetings are held to progress the work. These were initially monthly, but since January 2025 they have been bi-weekly.

Progress to date

The WG has:

been reviewing and using existing TC 37 methodology, e.g., ISO 704 principles and term formation process, ISO 1087 terminology terms, ISO 10241-1 term entries; and TC 46 methodology ISO 25964-* multilingual techniques;
developed a data model documenting requirements for terminology management;
investigated possible tools for use in terminology management;
developed a high-level work plan;
drafted a definition of “information technology”, as requested by JTC 1;
drafted revisions to the definitions of “data”, “metadata” and “information”;
initiated work on taxonomies and concept systems to be used to organize the revision to ISO/IEC 2382;
developed guidance on splinter definitions and homograph control
started to review the existing ISO/IEC 2382 terms and definitions for the following subject fields:

- Fundamental terms (formerly part 1);
- Digital circuit design (formerly part 3);
- Data management (formerly parts 4, 5, 6 and 17);
- Data communication (formerly part 9);
- Data media and storage devices (formerly part of part 12);
- Peripheral equipment (formerly part of part 12);
- Computer graphics (formerly part 13);
- Information theory (formerly part 16);
- Analog computing (formerly part 19);
- Process interfaces (formerly part 21);
- Calculators (formerly part 22);
- Local area networks (formerly part 25);
- Artificial intelligence (formerly parts 28, 29, 31 and 34).

We anticipate having most parts ready as WDs for review by JTC 1 and its SCs by the end of 2025.