Hong Kong Principles for Assessing Researchers - CASRAI (2026)
A set of five principles published in 2020 to guide the assessment of researchers in ways that reward research integrity and trustworthy practice rather than productivity alone.
dictionary_term; CASRAI Dictionary v2026.1; CC-BY 4.0

CoARA Agreement - CASRAI (2026)
The 2022 Agreement on Reforming Research Assessment that sets out ten commitments members of CoARA undertake to implement in their evaluation policies and practices, plus four enabling commitments on the coalition's own operation.
dictionary_term; CASRAI Dictionary v2026.1; CC-BY 4.0

CoARA (Coalition for Advancing Research Assessment) - CASRAI (2026)
A multi-stakeholder coalition launched in 2022 to coordinate the reform of research assessment across institutions, funders and learned societies, primarily in Europe but with global membership.
dictionary_term; CASRAI Dictionary v2026.1; CC-BY 4.0

DORA signatory - CASRAI (2026)
An individual or organisation that has formally endorsed the San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment by registering its commitment on the DORA website.
dictionary_term; CASRAI Dictionary v2026.1; CC-BY 4.0

DORA (San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment) - CASRAI (2026)
A 2012 declaration urging that research assessment stop relying on journal-based metrics, particularly the Journal Impact Factor, as proxies for the quality of individual research outputs or researchers.
dictionary_term; CASRAI Dictionary v2026.1; CC-BY 4.0

Benefit-sharing agreement - CASRAI (2026)
A formal arrangement specifying how the benefits arising from research, use of Traditional Knowledge, or use of biocultural resources are shared with the communities from which the knowledge or resources originate.
dictionary_term; CASRAI Dictionary v2026.1; CC-BY 4.0

Community-controlled research - CASRAI (2026)
Community-controlled research is a research model in which authority over a project — priorities, data rights, and use of findings — sits with the community being researched, rather than with the external research team.
dictionary_term; CASRAI Dictionary v2026.1; CC-BY 4.0

Indigenous community review - CASRAI (2026)
Indigenous community review is a review of proposed or completed research by a body the community itself designates — such as an elders' council, community research ethics committee, or governance body — assessing alignment with community priorities and cultural protocols, separate from or alongside institutional ethics review.
dictionary_term; CASRAI Dictionary v2026.1; CC-BY 4.0

Cultural protocol - CASRAI (2026)
The established practices, norms, and expectations of an Indigenous community governing engagement with the community, its members, its knowledge, and its territories.
dictionary_term; CASRAI Dictionary v2026.1; CC-BY 4.0

Free Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC) - CASRAI (2026)
The right of Indigenous Peoples to give or withhold consent to actions affecting them, their territories, or their resources, where consent is freely given, sought sufficiently in advance, and based on full and accessible information about the proposed activity.
dictionary_term; CASRAI Dictionary v2026.1; CC-BY 4.0

Biocultural labels - CASRAI (2026)
Community-controlled metadata labels developed within the Local Contexts framework to communicate Indigenous Peoples' interests, provenance, and protocols associated with biocultural and genetic data and specimens.
dictionary_term; CASRAI Dictionary v2026.1; CC-BY 4.0

Local Contexts (concept) - CASRAI (2026)
A framework and supporting infrastructure that enables Indigenous communities to manage and communicate their cultural and intellectual property and provenance through Traditional Knowledge Labels, Biocultural Labels, and institutional Notices.
dictionary_term; CASRAI Dictionary v2026.1; CC-BY 4.0

Traditional Knowledge Labels - CASRAI (2026)
Community-controlled metadata labels that communicate Indigenous community protocols, permissions, and expectations attached to Traditional Knowledge and associated data, developed through the Local Contexts initiative.
dictionary_term; CASRAI Dictionary v2026.1; CC-BY 4.0

Traditional Knowledge (TK) - CASRAI (2026)
Knowledge, know-how, skills, innovations, and practices developed, sustained, and passed on within Indigenous and local communities, often forming part of their cultural and spiritual identity.
dictionary_term; CASRAI Dictionary v2026.1; CC-BY 4.0

Matauranga Maori - CASRAI (2026)
Maori knowledge: the body of knowledge, ways of knowing, and practices held by Maori communities, encompassing language, customs, environmental knowledge, history, and worldview.
dictionary_term; CASRAI Dictionary v2026.1; CC-BY 4.0

Maiam nayri Wingara - CASRAI (2026)
An Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander data sovereignty collective in Australia, advocating for Indigenous Data Sovereignty principles in Australian data systems, research, and government.
dictionary_term; CASRAI Dictionary v2026.1; CC-BY 4.0

Te Mana Raraunga - CASRAI (2026)
The Maori Data Sovereignty Network in Aotearoa New Zealand, advocating for Maori rights and interests in data and articulating principles of Maori Data Sovereignty grounded in Te Tiriti o Waitangi and tikanga.
dictionary_term; CASRAI Dictionary v2026.1; CC-BY 4.0

OCAP Principles - CASRAI (2026)
The First Nations principles of Ownership, Control, Access, and Possession, asserting that First Nations have control over data collection processes and that they own and control how this information can be used, stewarded by FNIGC.
dictionary_term; CASRAI Dictionary v2026.1; CC-BY 4.0

FNIGC (First Nations Information Governance Centre) - CASRAI (2026)
A First Nations-led non-profit organisation in Canada that asserts data sovereignty by promoting and supporting First Nations communities in stewarding information, and is the custodian and disseminator of the OCAP Principles.
dictionary_term; CASRAI Dictionary v2026.1; CC-BY 4.0

Indigenous Data Governance - CASRAI (2026)
The principles, structures, mechanisms, and processes through which Indigenous Peoples exercise authority over the collection, access, use, and stewardship of data about themselves, their territories, resources, and ways of life.
dictionary_term; CASRAI Dictionary v2026.1; CC-BY 4.0

GIDA (Global Indigenous Data Alliance) - CASRAI (2026)
An international network of Indigenous-led organisations and individuals advancing Indigenous Data Sovereignty and Indigenous Data Governance globally, and the source of the CARE Principles for Indigenous Data Governance.
dictionary_term; CASRAI Dictionary v2026.1; CC-BY 4.0

Indigenous Data Sovereignty - CASRAI (2026)
The recognition of Indigenous Peoples' inherent and inalienable rights and interests relating to the collection, ownership, application, and stewardship of data about their peoples, lifeways, territories, and resources.
dictionary_term; CASRAI Dictionary v2026.1; CC-BY 4.0

CARE Principles - CASRAI (2026)
A set of principles for Indigenous data governance articulated by the Global Indigenous Data Alliance in 2019, encompassing Collective Benefit, Authority to Control, Responsibility, and Ethics, intended to complement the FAIR data principles with people- and purpose-oriented obligations.
dictionary_term; CASRAI Dictionary v2026.1; CC-BY 4.0

Open vs closed research - CASRAI (2026)
The open-versus-closed distinction in research security policy separates fundamental research, which is openly published and broadly shared, from closed research — classified work, work involving controlled unclassified information, export-controlled work, or work under contractual pre-publication restrictions — each of which carries different dissemination, access, and personnel controls.
dictionary_term; CASRAI Dictionary v2026.1; CC-BY 4.0

Five Eyes alliance (research context) - CASRAI (2026)
The intelligence-sharing partnership between Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States, increasingly invoked as a coordinating channel for aligned research security policies among the five countries.
dictionary_term; CASRAI Dictionary v2026.1; CC-BY 4.0

JASON Report on research security - CASRAI (2026)
A 2019 report by the JASON advisory group, commissioned by the US National Science Foundation, analysing risks to fundamental research from foreign government influence and recommending a transparency-and-disclosure-based response rather than restrictive measures.
dictionary_term; CASRAI Dictionary v2026.1; CC-BY 4.0

CHIPS and Science Act - CASRAI (2026)
A 2022 United States federal statute that authorises substantial public investment in semiconductor manufacturing and scientific research, and incorporates significant research security provisions affecting federally-funded researchers and institutions.
dictionary_term; CASRAI Dictionary v2026.1; CC-BY 4.0

Trusted research framework (UK) - CASRAI (2026)
The Trusted Research framework is UK guidance, jointly published by the National Protective Security Authority (NPSA, formerly CPNI) and the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC), helping universities, researchers and industry partners make risk-based decisions about international research collaboration to protect sensitive research and intellectual property.
dictionary_term; CASRAI Dictionary v2026.1; CC-BY 4.0

Joint appointment (foreign) - CASRAI (2026)
A formal appointment in which a researcher holds simultaneous positions at their primary institution and a foreign institution, each with defined roles, time commitments, and supervisory relationships.
dictionary_term; CASRAI Dictionary v2026.1; CC-BY 4.0

Visiting scholar agreement - CASRAI (2026)
A written agreement between a host institution and a visiting researcher (and frequently their home institution) defining the terms, duration, access, intellectual property, and compliance expectations of the visit.
dictionary_term; CASRAI Dictionary v2026.1; CC-BY 4.0

Deemed export - CASRAI (2026)
The release of controlled US technology or source code to a foreign national, even within the United States, that is treated under export control regulations as an export to the foreign national's country of nationality.
dictionary_term; CASRAI Dictionary v2026.1; CC-BY 4.0

Fundamental research exemption - CASRAI (2026)
A provision in US export control regulations exempting basic and applied research, conducted at accredited institutions of higher education, the results of which are ordinarily published and shared broadly within the scientific community, from many export licensing requirements. Rooted in NSDD-189, it is lost when publication, foreign-national access, or dissemination is contractually restricted.
dictionary_term; CASRAI Dictionary v2026.1; CC-BY 4.0

Export-controlled research - CASRAI (2026)
Research subject to government regulations restricting the transfer of certain items, software, technologies, or technical data to foreign persons, foreign destinations, or end uses, regardless of whether transfer occurs domestically or internationally.
dictionary_term; CASRAI Dictionary v2026.1; CC-BY 4.0

Controlled unclassified information (CUI) - CASRAI (2026)
United States government information that requires safeguarding or dissemination controls pursuant to law, regulation, or government-wide policy, but is not classified under Executive Order 13526 or the Atomic Energy Act.
dictionary_term; CASRAI Dictionary v2026.1; CC-BY 4.0

Sensitive technology - CASRAI (2026)
Sensitive technology is research-security shorthand for a field a national government has formally flagged as warranting extra scrutiny of who is involved in it and how its outputs and collaborations are managed. The specific areas named vary by jurisdiction and change over time, but recurring categories include advanced semiconductors, quantum information science, advanced biotechnology, advanced materials, hypersonics, and certain artificial-intelligence applications. National authorities in the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, and Australia each maintain their own published list or fr
dictionary_term; CASRAI Dictionary v2026.1; CC-BY 4.0

Undue foreign influence - CASRAI (2026)
The exertion of pressure, control, or hidden incentives by a foreign government or its proxies that distorts research conduct, integrity, or outputs to advance the interests of that foreign state at the expense of the funding country, host institution, or scientific community.
dictionary_term; CASRAI Dictionary v2026.1; CC-BY 4.0

Foreign talent recruitment programme - CASRAI (2026)
A formal or informal arrangement sponsored, organised, or supported by a foreign state, instrumentality, or affiliated entity to recruit researchers based abroad, typically offering compensation, resources, or other benefits in exchange for affiliations, research outputs, or services.
dictionary_term; CASRAI Dictionary v2026.1; CC-BY 4.0

In-kind contribution disclosure - CASRAI (2026)
The disclosure of non-monetary support provided in support of research, including access to laboratories, equipment, materials, personnel, data, or computational resources, regardless of whether a financial transaction occurs.
dictionary_term; CASRAI Dictionary v2026.1; CC-BY 4.0

Pending grants disclosure - CASRAI (2026)
The disclosure of all research proposals submitted but not yet awarded or declined at the time of application, including those under review and those awaiting submission decision.
dictionary_term; CASRAI Dictionary v2026.1; CC-BY 4.0

Active grants disclosure - CASRAI (2026)
The disclosure of all research grants currently providing financial or in-kind support to an investigator at the time of application or progress report.
dictionary_term; CASRAI Dictionary v2026.1; CC-BY 4.0

Other support (NIH format) - CASRAI (2026)
The NIH-specific disclosure document listing all resources made available to a researcher in support of their research endeavours, including financial support and in-kind contributions, regardless of relevance to the NIH-funded project.
dictionary_term; CASRAI Dictionary v2026.1; CC-BY 4.0

Current and pending support - CASRAI (2026)
A standardised disclosure of all current, pending, and in-kind sources of research support available to an investigator, regardless of monetary value, funding source, or relationship to the proposed work.
dictionary_term; CASRAI Dictionary v2026.1; CC-BY 4.0

Foreign component disclosure - CASRAI (2026)
The disclosure of any significant scientific element or segment of a federally-funded research project performed outside the awardee country, including collaborators, resources, or activities conducted abroad.
dictionary_term; CASRAI Dictionary v2026.1; CC-BY 4.0

Research security policy - CASRAI (2026)
An institutional or governmental policy framework that establishes safeguards, disclosures, and review processes intended to protect research integrity, intellectual property, sensitive data, and national interests from undue foreign influence or unauthorised transfer.
dictionary_term; CASRAI Dictionary v2026.1; CC-BY 4.0

NSPM-33 - CASRAI (2026)
United States National Security Presidential Memorandum 33, issued January 2021, directing federal research agencies to standardise disclosure requirements for researchers receiving federal funding and to strengthen protections against foreign government interference in the US research enterprise.
dictionary_term; CASRAI Dictionary v2026.1; CC-BY 4.0

ICH GCP (Good Clinical Practice) - CASRAI (2026)
ICH GCP is the ICH-issued international standard (current core revision: E6(R3), finalized 6 January 2025) for the ethical and scientific conduct, recording, and reporting of interventional clinical trials involving human subjects, incorporated into FDA, EMA, MHRA, PMDA, and Health Canada regulatory frameworks.
dictionary_term; CASRAI Dictionary v2026.1; CC-BY 4.0

Conflict of interest disclosure - CASRAI (2026)
The institutional process by which investigators report significant financial interests, fiduciary relationships, and other competing interests that could directly and significantly affect the design, conduct, or reporting of their research, enabling the institution to assess and manage, reduce, or eliminate identified conflicts.
dictionary_term; CASRAI Dictionary v2026.1; CC-BY 4.0

Data processor - CASRAI (2026)
A natural or legal person, public authority, agency or other body that processes personal data on behalf of the controller, as defined in Article 4(8) of the GDPR, only on documented instructions from the controller and bound by a written contract meeting Article 28 requirements.
dictionary_term; CASRAI Dictionary v2026.1; CC-BY 4.0

Data controller - CASRAI (2026)
The natural or legal person, public authority, agency or other body that, alone or jointly with others, determines the purposes and means of the processing of personal data, as defined in Article 4(7) of the GDPR.
dictionary_term; CASRAI Dictionary v2026.1; CC-BY 4.0

Privacy by design - CASRAI (2026)
The obligation under Article 25 of the GDPR for a controller to implement appropriate technical and organisational measures at the time of determination of the means of processing and at the time of processing itself in order to implement data-protection principles effectively and integrate the necessary safeguards into the processing.
dictionary_term; CASRAI Dictionary v2026.1; CC-BY 4.0

Data Protection Impact Assessment (DPIA) - CASRAI (2026)
A documented assessment required under Article 35 of the GDPR where a type of processing is likely to result in a high risk to the rights and freedoms of natural persons, describing the processing, assessing necessity, proportionality, and risks, and identifying mitigating measures.
dictionary_term; CASRAI Dictionary v2026.1; CC-BY 4.0

Right to erasure - CASRAI (2026)
The right under Article 17 of the GDPR for a data subject to obtain from the controller the erasure of personal data concerning them without undue delay where one of the grounds in Article 17(1) applies and no exception in Article 17(3) operates.
dictionary_term; CASRAI Dictionary v2026.1; CC-BY 4.0

Data subject rights (GDPR) - CASRAI (2026)
The collective set of rights conferred on identifiable individuals by Chapter III of the GDPR (Articles 12-22), including the rights to be informed, of access, to rectification, to erasure, to restriction of processing, to data portability, to object, and not to be subject to solely automated decision-making with legal or similarly significant effects.
dictionary_term; CASRAI Dictionary v2026.1; CC-BY 4.0

Withdrawal of consent - CASRAI (2026)
The exercise by a research participant of the right to revoke their consent to ongoing participation in research, after which the investigator must cease prospective collection of data or biospecimens from that participant and apply the protocol-specified handling of data already collected.
dictionary_term; CASRAI Dictionary v2026.1; CC-BY 4.0

Dynamic consent - CASRAI (2026)
A consent model implemented via a secure digital platform that enables participants to grant, modify, or withdraw consent for specific research uses over time and to receive ongoing communication about studies that use their data or samples.
dictionary_term; CASRAI Dictionary v2026.1; CC-BY 4.0

Broad consent - CASRAI (2026)
A regulatory consent option introduced by the 2018 revised Common Rule at §46.116(d) by which a subject consents prospectively to the storage, maintenance, and secondary research use of identifiable private information or identifiable biospecimens for future unspecified studies, subject to the elements enumerated in that paragraph.
dictionary_term; CASRAI Dictionary v2026.1; CC-BY 4.0

Informed consent - CASRAI (2026)
The voluntary agreement of a prospective research participant, or their legally authorised representative, to take part in a specific research activity, given after disclosure of the information required by the applicable regulation and free from coercion or undue influence.
dictionary_term; CASRAI Dictionary v2026.1; CC-BY 4.0

HIPAA Privacy Rule - CASRAI (2026)
The US federal regulation at 45 CFR Parts 160 and 164 Subparts A and E that establishes national standards for the protection of individually identifiable health information held or transmitted by covered entities and their business associates, requiring authorisation, a waiver, or another permitted basis for any use or disclosure for research.
dictionary_term; CASRAI Dictionary v2026.1; CC-BY 4.0

GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) - CASRAI (2026)
The European Union regulation that governs the processing of personal data of individuals in the EU, requiring a lawful basis for processing, transparency to data subjects, data-minimisation, security, and accountability, with extraterritorial application where data subjects in the EU are targeted or monitored.
dictionary_term; CASRAI Dictionary v2026.1; CC-BY 4.0

Confidentiality agreement (NDA) - CASRAI (2026)
A contract by which one or more parties agree to keep specified non-public information in confidence and to use it only for a defined purpose for a defined period, typically as a precursor to scientific discussions or contract negotiations.
dictionary_term; CASRAI Dictionary v2026.1; CC-BY 4.0

Data Sharing Agreement (DSA) - CASRAI (2026)
A contract between two or more parties that governs the bidirectional or multilateral exchange of data, allocating responsibilities for data quality, security, lawful basis, sub-processor use, and any controller-to-controller or joint-controller obligations.
dictionary_term; CASRAI Dictionary v2026.1; CC-BY 4.0

Data Use Agreement (DUA) - CASRAI (2026)
A contractual instrument required before a recipient may access an identifiable, restricted, or limited dataset that defines permitted uses, security obligations, re-disclosure prohibitions, destruction requirements, and breach-notification duties.
dictionary_term; CASRAI Dictionary v2026.1; CC-BY 4.0

Material Transfer Agreement (MTA) - CASRAI (2026)
A bilateral contract governing the transfer of tangible research materials between two institutions that defines permitted uses, ownership of the original material and derivatives, publication rights, liability, and onward-transfer restrictions.
dictionary_term; CASRAI Dictionary v2026.1; CC-BY 4.0

Common Rule (45 CFR 46) - CASRAI (2026)
The US federal policy for the protection of human subjects codified at 45 CFR Part 46 Subpart A and adopted by twenty federal departments and agencies, which applies to all non-exempt human-subjects research conducted or supported by those agencies.
dictionary_term; CASRAI Dictionary v2026.1; CC-BY 4.0

IACUC (Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee) - CASRAI (2026)
An institutionally appointed committee constituted under the US Animal Welfare Act regulations and the PHS Policy on Humane Care and Use of Laboratory Animals that reviews and approves all proposed activities involving vertebrate animals before such activities may begin.
dictionary_term; CASRAI Dictionary v2026.1; CC-BY 4.0

REC (Research Ethics Committee) - CASRAI (2026)
A UK or EU committee constituted to provide an independent ethical opinion on a research proposal involving human participants, their tissue, or their identifiable data before the research may lawfully commence.
dictionary_term; CASRAI Dictionary v2026.1; CC-BY 4.0

IRB (Institutional Review Board) - CASRAI (2026)
An institutionally designated committee constituted under 45 CFR 46.107 that reviews, approves, requires modification of, or disapproves research involving human subjects before any such research may be initiated at the institution. Depending on risk level, review proceeds through one of three pathways – exempt, expedited, or full board – and, for FDA-regulated research, the IRB also operates under the parallel 21 CFR Part 56 regulation.
dictionary_term; CASRAI Dictionary v2026.1; CC-BY 4.0

Whistleblower (research) - CASRAI (2026)
A person who, in good faith, raises a concern about possible research misconduct, breach of research integrity, or other serious wrongdoing in a research context. The label applies when the concern is reported through a recognised channel and the reporter would benefit from protections against retaliation.
dictionary_term; CASRAI Dictionary v2026.1; CC-BY 4.0

Expression of concern - CASRAI (2026)
An expression of concern (EoC) is a formal editorial notice, published by a journal and attached to a specific article, alerting readers to credible, unresolved doubts about the reliability of that article's data, methods, or conclusions. It is distinct from a retraction: an EoC does not remove the article's standing in the literature, and it is issued specifically when the available evidence does not (yet) meet the bar for retraction, or when conclusive evidence cannot be obtained within a reasonable time.
dictionary_term; CASRAI Dictionary v2026.1; CC-BY 4.0

Correction (corrigendum) - CASRAI (2026)
A formal post-publication notice that amends an error in a published article without invalidating its overall conclusions. A correction is appropriate when the error is bounded and the central findings remain reliable; a retraction is appropriate when the conclusions are unreliable.
dictionary_term; CASRAI Dictionary v2026.1; CC-BY 4.0

Retraction - CASRAI (2026)
The formal withdrawal of a published article from the literature by the journal, with a public retraction notice explaining the reason. An article is retracted when the journal determines that its findings are unreliable due to misconduct, honest error, or other invalidating factors.
dictionary_term; CASRAI Dictionary v2026.1; CC-BY 4.0

Hong Kong Principles (2020) - CASRAI (2026)
Five principles for assessing researchers, articulated by Moher and colleagues at the 6th World Conference on Research Integrity in Hong Kong (2019) and published in 2020, designed to incentivise responsible research practices through hiring, promotion, and funding decisions. An institution adheres to the principles if its assessment processes embody all five.
dictionary_term; CASRAI Dictionary v2026.1; CC-BY 4.0

Singapore Statement on Research Integrity (2010) - CASRAI (2026)
A short framework statement of four principles and fourteen responsibilities for the responsible conduct of research, adopted at the 2nd World Conference on Research Integrity in Singapore in 2010. It is referenced as a foundational global statement rather than a regulatory instrument.
dictionary_term; CASRAI Dictionary v2026.1; CC-BY 4.0

ENRIO - CASRAI (2026)
The European Network of Research Integrity Offices, a network of national research-integrity bodies and offices across European countries that share practices, case experience, and policy positions. An organisation joins ENRIO by application from a national body with a research-integrity remit.
dictionary_term; CASRAI Dictionary v2026.1; CC-BY 4.0

UKRIO - CASRAI (2026)
The UK Research Integrity Office, an independent advisory body providing confidential, expert advice on research integrity matters to UK research organisations and researchers. A query falls within UKRIO's remit if it concerns the conduct or governance of research in a UK context.
dictionary_term; CASRAI Dictionary v2026.1; CC-BY 4.0

ORI (US Office of Research Integrity) - CASRAI (2026)
The US federal office within the Department of Health and Human Services that oversees and monitors investigations of research misconduct involving Public Health Service-funded research. A case is in ORI's jurisdiction if PHS funds (NIH, CDC, FDA, etc.) supported the research at issue.
dictionary_term; CASRAI Dictionary v2026.1; CC-BY 4.0

COPE (Committee on Publication Ethics) - CASRAI (2026)
An international membership organisation providing standards, guidance, and case-by-case advice on publication ethics to editors and publishers across all research disciplines. A journal or publisher is a COPE member if it adheres to the COPE Core Practices and pays the membership fee; COPE itself does not certify, audit, or guarantee the ethical quality of a member's output.
dictionary_term; CASRAI Dictionary v2026.1; CC-BY 4.0

Citation cartel - CASRAI (2026)
A group of authors, editors, or journals that systematically cite one another's work beyond what the underlying scholarship would independently warrant, in order to inflate citation-based metrics such as the Journal Impact Factor. A citation pattern is treated as cartel-like when the citation flows between the group's members are dramatically denser than the flows to comparable non-members, assessed through bibliometric network analysis — not merely because a group of researchers cite each other often.
dictionary_term; CASRAI Dictionary v2026.1; CC-BY 4.0

Tortured phrases - CASRAI (2026)
Unusual paraphrases of established technical terminology that result from automated synonym substitution, often used to evade plagiarism detection. A phrase is tortured when a domain reader recognises it as a mangled rendition of a standard term.
dictionary_term; CASRAI Dictionary v2026.1; CC-BY 4.0

Paper mill - CASRAI (2026)
A commercial operation that produces fabricated or low-effort manuscripts and sells authorship slots, or that brokers acceptance of such manuscripts into journals, typically at industrial scale. A submission is described as originating from a paper mill when the underlying research was not conducted by the named authors, was fabricated to order, or was assembled from a shared, reused template — an assessment made through pattern evidence and formal investigation, not a label to attach to an individual paper on suspicion alone.
dictionary_term; CASRAI Dictionary v2026.1; CC-BY 4.0

Image duplication - CASRAI (2026)
The undisclosed reuse of an image, or portion of an image, to represent a different experimental condition, time point, or sample. Duplication is problematic when the figure legend implies the images are distinct sources.
dictionary_term; CASRAI Dictionary v2026.1; CC-BY 4.0

Image manipulation - CASRAI (2026)
Adjustment of a research image (gel, blot, microscopy, etc.) in a way that misrepresents the underlying data or violates journal image-integrity policies. Manipulation is problematic when it changes the conclusion a reader would draw or when it would not survive disclosure.
dictionary_term; CASRAI Dictionary v2026.1; CC-BY 4.0

Coercive citation - CASRAI (2026)
The practice by editors or reviewers of pressuring authors to add citations that are not scientifically warranted, typically to the journal or to the reviewer's own work, as a condition of acceptance. A request is coercive when no substantive scientific reason is given and the citations would not otherwise be added.
dictionary_term; CASRAI Dictionary v2026.1; CC-BY 4.0

Gift authorship - CASRAI (2026)
The inclusion as an author of a person who did not meet the substantive authorship criteria, typically as a courtesy, in exchange for resources, or for prestige. An authorship is a gift when removing the named person would not require any change to the manuscript.
dictionary_term; CASRAI Dictionary v2026.1; CC-BY 4.0

Ghost authorship - CASRAI (2026)
The undisclosed substantial contribution to a manuscript by a person not listed as an author or named in the acknowledgements. A contribution is ghost-written when, by ICMJE criteria, it would have warranted authorship had it been disclosed.
dictionary_term; CASRAI Dictionary v2026.1; CC-BY 4.0

Authorship dispute - CASRAI (2026)
An authorship dispute is a disagreement among collaborators, or between collaborators and an institution or journal, over who should be listed as an author, in what order, or whether a listed individual actually met authorship criteria — resolved through a defined procedure (co-authors, then institution, then journal editor via COPE guidance) rather than a single fixed rule, since authorship criteria themselves require judgment.
dictionary_term; CASRAI Dictionary v2026.1; CC-BY 4.0

Salami slicing - CASRAI (2026)
Salami slicing (salami publication) is dividing the results of a single coherent study or dataset into multiple separately submitted papers, each too fragmentary to represent the work fully, without disclosing the relationship to editors or readers.
dictionary_term; CASRAI Dictionary v2026.1; CC-BY 4.0

Duplicate publication - CASRAI (2026)
Duplicate publication is publishing an article that substantially overlaps in hypothesis, data, discussion, and conclusions with a previously published article, presented as new, without disclosure to or agreement from the editors involved.
dictionary_term; CASRAI Dictionary v2026.1; CC-BY 4.0

Self-plagiarism - CASRAI (2026)
Reusing substantial portions of one's own previously published work in a new publication without disclosure or appropriate citation, such that a reader is led to believe the material is new. Not generally illegal or copyright infringement (absent a prior copyright transfer to a publisher) and, in the US, excluded from the federal 42 CFR Part 93 research-misconduct definition of plagiarism — but treated as a publication-ethics and institutional-policy violation by COPE, journals, and most universities.
dictionary_term; CASRAI Dictionary v2026.1; CC-BY 4.0

Plagiarism - CASRAI (2026)
Plagiarism is presenting another person's words, ideas, data, or unpublished material as one's own without appropriate attribution. The US Office of Research Integrity (ORI) formally splits it into plagiarism of text (copying or closely paraphrasing wording without credit) and plagiarism of ideas (using someone else's uncredited intellectual contribution, even when every word is rewritten). Whether a given instance rises to a misconduct finding depends on an institutional process, not on any single tool's output.
dictionary_term; CASRAI Dictionary v2026.1; CC-BY 4.0

Falsification - CASRAI (2026)
Manipulating research materials, equipment, processes, or data such that the research record does not accurately represent the actual results. A modification qualifies if it is undisclosed and changes the conclusions a reader would draw.
dictionary_term; CASRAI Dictionary v2026.1; CC-BY 4.0

Fabrication - CASRAI (2026)
Making up data or results and recording or reporting them as if real (42 CFR § 93.211). A finding is fabrication if no underlying experiment, observation, or measurement actually produced the reported result — distinct from falsification, where genuine data are altered.
dictionary_term; CASRAI Dictionary v2026.1; CC-BY 4.0

Research misconduct - CASRAI (2026)
Fabrication, falsification, or plagiarism (FFP) in proposing, performing, or reviewing research, or in reporting research results. An act qualifies if it is a significant departure from accepted practices, committed intentionally, knowingly, or recklessly, and proven by a preponderance of evidence.
dictionary_term; CASRAI Dictionary v2026.1; CC-BY 4.0

Research integrity - CASRAI (2026)
The umbrella construct covering accurate reporting, faithful data representation, fair attribution, conflict-of-interest declaration, humane treatment of subjects, and responsible resource stewardship, distinct from research ethics and research compliance.
dictionary_term; CASRAI Dictionary v2026.1; CC-BY 4.0

Synthetic benchmark - CASRAI (2026)
A benchmark whose evaluation items are wholly or partially generated by another model or procedural method, rather than collected from natural human-produced sources, used to probe specific capabilities or to scale evaluation cheaply.
dictionary_term; CASRAI Dictionary v2026.1; CC-BY 4.0

RLHF (Reinforcement Learning from Human Feedback) - CASRAI (2026)
A training methodology in which a language model is fine-tuned using a reward signal derived from human preferences over pairs (or larger sets) of candidate model outputs, typically by first training a reward model and then optimising the policy against it via PPO or a related algorithm.
dictionary_term; CASRAI Dictionary v2026.1; CC-BY 4.0

Constitutional AI (concept) - CASRAI (2026)
A training methodology in which a model is trained to align its outputs with a written set of principles ('a constitution'), with the model itself used to critique and revise candidate responses against those principles in place of direct human feedback at scale.
dictionary_term; CASRAI Dictionary v2026.1; CC-BY 4.0

Prompt injection - CASRAI (2026)
An attack where untrusted content – supplied directly by an attacker or planted in data the model later retrieves – causes an AI system to follow instructions its operator didn't intend, because the model can't reliably separate trusted instructions from untrusted data.
dictionary_term; CASRAI Dictionary v2026.1; CC-BY 4.0

Jailbreak (LLM) - CASRAI (2026)
A prompt or interaction pattern that causes a language model to bypass its safety training and produce outputs the model was tuned to refuse, such as harmful instructions, restricted content, or violations of provider policy.
dictionary_term; CASRAI Dictionary v2026.1; CC-BY 4.0

Red-teaming - CASRAI (2026)
Adversarial testing in which people or models deliberately try to make an AI system produce harmful, unsafe, or policy-violating output, surfacing failure modes that fixed benchmarks don't test for.
dictionary_term; CASRAI Dictionary v2026.1; CC-BY 4.0

AI safety case - CASRAI (2026)
A structured, evidence-based argument that an AI system is acceptably safe to deploy in a defined context, modelled on safety cases from established engineering disciplines (nuclear, aviation, medical devices).
dictionary_term; CASRAI Dictionary v2026.1; CC-BY 4.0

AI evaluation card - CASRAI (2026)
A structured documentation artefact specifically describing an evaluation of an AI system, separate from the model card, including the evaluation methodology, datasets, metrics, results, and known limitations of the evaluation itself.
dictionary_term; CASRAI Dictionary v2026.1; CC-BY 4.0

Reproducible AI experiment - CASRAI (2026)
An AI experiment for which sufficient artefacts and metadata are released (data, code, seed, environment, hyperparameters, training procedure) that an independent investigator can re-run it and obtain numerically equivalent or statistically indistinguishable results.
dictionary_term; CASRAI Dictionary v2026.1; CC-BY 4.0

Open-source model (criteria) - CASRAI (2026)
A model meeting the criteria articulated by the Open Source Initiative's Open Source AI Definition: open data information, open code, and open weights, with each released under terms compatible with the OSI's freedoms to use, study, modify, and share.
dictionary_term; CASRAI Dictionary v2026.1; CC-BY 4.0

Open weights model - CASRAI (2026)
A model whose trained parameter values are publicly released and downloadable, typically under a named licence, distinct from but often described as 'open' even when training data and code are not released.
dictionary_term; CASRAI Dictionary v2026.1; CC-BY 4.0

Model weight licence - CASRAI (2026)
A model-weight licence is the specific legal document governing use, modification, and redistribution of a released set of trained AI model parameters, distinct from any licence covering the training/inference code and from separate training-data licensing terms.
dictionary_term; CASRAI Dictionary v2026.1; CC-BY 4.0

Model checkpoint - CASRAI (2026)
A saved snapshot of a model's parameters (and optionally optimiser state) at a specific point in training, identified by a step number or version tag and serialised to a file format such as safetensors or .pt.
dictionary_term; CASRAI Dictionary v2026.1; CC-BY 4.0

Model evaluation suite - CASRAI (2026)
A defined collection of benchmarks, tasks, and metrics, with standardised prompting and decoding rules, used to characterise a model's capabilities and behaviour across a range of dimensions.
dictionary_term; CASRAI Dictionary v2026.1; CC-BY 4.0

Model fine-tune lineage - CASRAI (2026)
The specific portion of model lineage that records the sequence of fine-tuning operations applied to a base model: dataset, method (SFT, DPO, RLHF, LoRA), hyperparameters, and resulting checkpoint identifier.
dictionary_term; CASRAI Dictionary v2026.1; CC-BY 4.0

Model lineage - CASRAI (2026)
The chain of provenance for a model recording its base model, the fine-tuning datasets and procedures applied, and any further derivatives, such that any deployed model can be traced back to its constituent training operations.
dictionary_term; CASRAI Dictionary v2026.1; CC-BY 4.0

Inference carbon footprint - CASRAI (2026)
The greenhouse-gas emissions associated with serving inference requests from a deployed model, typically expressed per-request (e.g., gCO2e per query) or in aggregate (kgCO2e per month).
dictionary_term; CASRAI Dictionary v2026.1; CC-BY 4.0

Training carbon footprint - CASRAI (2026)
The total greenhouse-gas emissions, expressed in kilograms or tonnes of CO2-equivalent, attributable to training a machine-learning model, estimated from energy consumption and the carbon intensity of the electricity supply.
dictionary_term; CASRAI Dictionary v2026.1; CC-BY 4.0

Compute (FLOPs estimate) - CASRAI (2026)
The total floating-point operations consumed by training a model, conventionally reported as a single number (e.g., 3.0 x 10^25 FLOPs) used as a regulatory and scientific proxy for training-run scale.
dictionary_term; CASRAI Dictionary v2026.1; CC-BY 4.0

Training data composition - CASRAI (2026)
The actual makeup of a training corpus used to build an AI model – the mix of languages, domains, source types (licensed, scraped, user-generated, synthetic), and demographic or geographic representation it contains – as distinct from where that data came from (see training data provenance).
dictionary_term; CASRAI Dictionary v2026.1; CC-BY 4.0

Parameter count - CASRAI (2026)
The total number of learnable scalar weights in a machine-learning model, conventionally reported as a count (e.g., 7B = 7 x 10^9 parameters) and disclosed as a basic model metadata field.
dictionary_term; CASRAI Dictionary v2026.1; CC-BY 4.0

Mixture-of-experts (MoE) - CASRAI (2026)
A model architecture that replaces a single dense layer with many parallel expert sub-networks and a learned router that sends each input to only a small subset of experts, decoupling total parameter count from per-token compute cost.
dictionary_term; CASRAI Dictionary v2026.1; CC-BY 4.0

Frontier model - CASRAI (2026)
A foundation model whose capabilities meet or exceed the most advanced publicly known systems at the time of training, often defined operationally by training-compute thresholds or by performance on canonical benchmarks.
dictionary_term; CASRAI Dictionary v2026.1; CC-BY 4.0

Foundation model - CASRAI (2026)
A large machine-learning model trained on broad data at scale and adaptable to a wide range of downstream tasks through fine-tuning, prompting, or retrieval augmentation.
dictionary_term; CASRAI Dictionary v2026.1; CC-BY 4.0

MMLU benchmark - CASRAI (2026)
The Massive Multitask Language Understanding benchmark, a 57-subject, 15,908-question multiple-choice test spanning elementary through professional-level knowledge, used to measure and compare broad-coverage language-model knowledge.
dictionary_term; CASRAI Dictionary v2026.1; CC-BY 4.0

HELM benchmark - CASRAI (2026)
The Holistic Evaluation of Language Models benchmark, a multi-metric framework evaluating language models across accuracy, calibration, robustness, fairness, bias, toxicity, and efficiency on a fixed set of scenarios.
dictionary_term; CASRAI Dictionary v2026.1; CC-BY 4.0

BIG-bench - CASRAI (2026)
The Beyond the Imitation Game benchmark, a community-contributed collection of more than 200 tasks designed to probe capabilities of large language models that may be missed by narrower benchmarks.
dictionary_term; CASRAI Dictionary v2026.1; CC-BY 4.0

MLCommons benchmark - CASRAI (2026)
A benchmark published by the MLCommons consortium for measuring AI system performance under standardised workloads, datasets, and submission rules, with the principal suites being MLPerf Training, MLPerf Inference, and MLPerf HPC.
dictionary_term; CASRAI Dictionary v2026.1; CC-BY 4.0

Hugging Face Hub (concept) - CASRAI (2026)
A web-based platform and ecosystem for sharing machine-learning models, datasets, and demonstration applications ('Spaces'), with conventions for model cards, dataset cards, and versioned repositories.
dictionary_term; CASRAI Dictionary v2026.1; CC-BY 4.0

NIST AI RMF (Risk Management Framework) - CASRAI (2026)
The US National Institute of Standards and Technology's voluntary framework for managing risks associated with AI systems across the AI lifecycle, structured around the functions Govern, Map, Measure, and Manage.
dictionary_term; CASRAI Dictionary v2026.1; CC-BY 4.0

ISO/IEC 42001 (AI management system) - CASRAI (2026)
An international standard, published in 2023, specifying requirements for establishing, implementing, maintaining, and continually improving an AI Management System within an organisation, structured analogously to ISO 9001 (quality) and ISO/IEC 27001 (information security).
dictionary_term; CASRAI Dictionary v2026.1; CC-BY 4.0

AI conformance assessment - CASRAI (2026)
A formal evaluation, conducted by the AI system provider or a notified third-party body, demonstrating that an AI system meets the applicable regulatory or standard-based requirements before being placed on the market.
dictionary_term; CASRAI Dictionary v2026.1; CC-BY 4.0

AI assurance - CASRAI (2026)
The process of measuring, evaluating, and communicating the trustworthiness of AI systems through evidence-based mechanisms such as audits, certifications, impact assessments, and conformity declarations.
dictionary_term; CASRAI Dictionary v2026.1; CC-BY 4.0

Trustworthy AI - CASRAI (2026)
AI systems exhibiting properties (lawful, ethical, technically robust) that warrant the trust of users, affected parties, and society, as articulated in the EU High-Level Expert Group's framework and adopted in subsequent regulation.
dictionary_term; CASRAI Dictionary v2026.1; CC-BY 4.0

Responsible AI - CASRAI (2026)
An umbrella term covering the design, development, deployment, and governance practices intended to ensure AI systems are ethical, fair, transparent, accountable, robust, secure, and respectful of privacy.
dictionary_term; CASRAI Dictionary v2026.1; CC-BY 4.0

Use card - CASRAI (2026)
A documentation artefact recording an intended deployment context for a model or system, including the user population, the decisions the model informs, the supervision regime, and out-of-scope uses.
dictionary_term; CASRAI Dictionary v2026.1; CC-BY 4.0

Algorithm card - CASRAI (2026)
A documentation artefact describing the algorithmic method or family (e.g., a particular gradient-boosting estimator, a clustering algorithm) independent of any particular trained instance, including inductive biases, assumptions, complexity, and intended use cases.
dictionary_term; CASRAI Dictionary v2026.1; CC-BY 4.0

Bias audit (model) - CASRAI (2026)
A model audit scoped specifically to fairness and discrimination criteria: measuring quantitative fairness metrics and qualitative failure-mode patterns across pre-specified groups, often to satisfy a specific legal requirement.
dictionary_term; CASRAI Dictionary v2026.1; CC-BY 4.0

Model audit - CASRAI (2026)
A structured assessment of a machine-learning model by an independent party against pre-specified criteria covering performance, robustness, fairness, security, privacy, and conformance with stated policy.
dictionary_term; CASRAI Dictionary v2026.1; CC-BY 4.0

Data statement (NLP) - CASRAI (2026)
A standardised description of an NLP dataset covering curation rationale, language variety, speaker and annotator demographics, speech situation, text characteristics, and recording quality.
dictionary_term; CASRAI Dictionary v2026.1; CC-BY 4.0

Datasheet for datasets - CASRAI (2026)
A structured document accompanying a machine-learning dataset that records its motivation, composition, collection process, pre-processing, intended uses, distribution, and maintenance, modelled on electronic-component datasheets.
dictionary_term; CASRAI Dictionary v2026.1; CC-BY 4.0

System card - CASRAI (2026)
A documentation artefact describing an AI-enabled system in its production configuration, including the constituent models, the pre- and post-processing pipeline, safety filters, monitoring, and operational guardrails.
dictionary_term; CASRAI Dictionary v2026.1; CC-BY 4.0

Model card - CASRAI (2026)
A short, structured document accompanying a machine-learning model that records its intended use, training data, evaluation methodology, performance characteristics across population sub-groups, and known limitations.
dictionary_term; CASRAI Dictionary v2026.1; CC-BY 4.0

Scientific rigour - CASRAI (2026)
The strict application of the scientific method to ensure unbiased and well-controlled experimental design, methodology, analysis, interpretation, and reporting of results.
dictionary_term; CASRAI Dictionary v2026.1; CC-BY 4.0

Authentication of key resources - CASRAI (2026)
The verification, by methods appropriate to the resource type, of the identity and integrity of biological and chemical materials used in research, including cell lines, antibodies, animal models, and specialty chemicals, as required by the NIH Rigor and Reproducibility policy for resources central to a proposed study.
dictionary_term; CASRAI Dictionary v2026.1; CC-BY 4.0

NIH Rigor and Reproducibility policy - CASRAI (2026)
The set of US National Institutes of Health policies, effective from 2016, requiring applicants and grantees to address scientific premise, scientific rigour, biological variables (including sex as a biological variable), and authentication of key biological and chemical resources in grant applications.
dictionary_term; CASRAI Dictionary v2026.1; CC-BY 4.0

STROBE - CASRAI (2026)
STROBE (STrengthening the Reporting of OBservational studies in Epidemiology) is a 22-item reporting checklist for observational study designs — cohort, case-control, and cross-sectional — published by von Elm et al. in 2007.
dictionary_term; CASRAI Dictionary v2026.1; CC-BY 4.0

PRISMA 2020 - CASRAI (2026)
The 2020 update of the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic reviews and Meta-Analyses, a 27-item checklist with accompanying flow diagram for reporting systematic reviews.
dictionary_term; CASRAI Dictionary v2026.1; CC-BY 4.0

CONSORT 2010 - CASRAI (2026)
The 2010 edition of the Consolidated Standards of Reporting Trials, a 25-item checklist and participant-flow diagram covering items that should be reported in any randomised controlled trial publication.
dictionary_term; CASRAI Dictionary v2026.1; CC-BY 4.0

ARRIVE 2.0 - CASRAI (2026)
ARRIVE 2.0 is the 2020 revision of the ARRIVE (Animal Research: Reporting of In Vivo Experiments) reporting guideline, restructuring the original 2010 checklist into a 10-item "Essential 10" minimum-reporting set and an 11-item "Recommended Set" for animal research manuscripts.
dictionary_term; CASRAI Dictionary v2026.1; CC-BY 4.0

TOP Guidelines - CASRAI (2026)
The Transparency and Openness Promotion Guidelines, an eight-standard framework for journal policies covering citation, data, materials, code, design, analysis, pre-registration, and replication.
dictionary_term; CASRAI Dictionary v2026.1; CC-BY 4.0

Crowdsourced replication - CASRAI (2026)
A coordinated effort in which many independent laboratories or teams attempt to replicate the same set of studies under pre-specified protocols, in order to estimate field-wide replicability.
dictionary_term; CASRAI Dictionary v2026.1; CC-BY 4.0

Many-analysts study - CASRAI (2026)
A many-analysts study is a research-methods design in which multiple independent teams are given the identical dataset and research question and asked to analyse it separately, used to directly measure how much a study’s conclusions vary purely as a function of analytic choices, holding the data and question constant.
dictionary_term; CASRAI Dictionary v2026.1; CC-BY 4.0

Researcher degrees of freedom - CASRAI (2026)
The many individually defensible decision points in designing, running, analysing and reporting a study – exclusions, covariates, outcome measures, stopping rules – that collectively let a researcher reach a significant result far more easily than one pre-specified analysis would allow.
dictionary_term; CASRAI Dictionary v2026.1; CC-BY 4.0

Garden of forking paths - CASRAI (2026)
The Gelman-Loken metaphor for the implicit, data-dependent multiplicity of analytical choices made in the course of an empirical study, even by analysts not engaged in explicit p-hacking.
dictionary_term; CASRAI Dictionary v2026.1; CC-BY 4.0

Forking paths - CASRAI (2026)
The phenomenon by which the cumulative effect of many small, data-contingent analytical choices inflates false-positive rates even when each individual choice appears defensible.
dictionary_term; CASRAI Dictionary v2026.1; CC-BY 4.0

HARKing (Hypothesising After Results are Known) - CASRAI (2026)
HARKing is presenting a post hoc, data-driven hypothesis in a paper's Introduction as though it were the a priori hypothesis that motivated the study's design, disguising exploratory findings as confirmatory ones.
dictionary_term; CASRAI Dictionary v2026.1; CC-BY 4.0

P-hacking - CASRAI (2026)
P-hacking is the practice of exploiting flexibility in data collection, exclusion, or analysis choices — often unconsciously — to steer a result toward statistical significance, undisclosed in the final report as if the reported analysis were the only one that had been tried.
dictionary_term; CASRAI Dictionary v2026.1; CC-BY 4.0

Reproducibility audit - CASRAI (2026)
A systematic, post-publication examination of whether a study's published results can be obtained from its deposited data and code, typically performed by an independent analyst.
dictionary_term; CASRAI Dictionary v2026.1; CC-BY 4.0

Code review (research software) - CASRAI (2026)
Code review for research software is a check of analysis or research software code by someone other than its author, for correctness, clarity, and reproducibility, before or alongside publication of the results it produced.
dictionary_term; CASRAI Dictionary v2026.1; CC-BY 4.0

FORCE11 Software Citation Principles - CASRAI (2026)
A citation practice satisfies the FORCE11 Software Citation Principles (Smith, Katz & Niemeyer, 2016, PeerJ Computer Science) to the extent it meets all six: Importance, Credit and Attribution, Unique Identification, Persistence, Accessibility, and Specificity (down to the exact version used). It is a standard for citing software, not for making software FAIR – see the separate FAIR4RS Principles.
dictionary_term; CASRAI Dictionary v2026.1; CC-BY 4.0

FAIR4RS (FAIR Principles for Research Software) - CASRAI (2026)
Software satisfies FAIR4RS to the extent it meets the four adapted FAIR categories – Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable – with sub-principles rewritten for software's executable, versioned, dependency-bound nature (RDA/FORCE11/ReSA, 2022, DOI 10.15497/RDA00068). It is a standard for making software FAIR, not for citing it – see the separate FORCE11 Software Citation Principles.
dictionary_term; CASRAI Dictionary v2026.1; CC-BY 4.0

Reproducible Research Practices (RRP) - CASRAI (2026)
Reproducible research practices are the concrete workflows a research team adopts — version-controlled code, pinned computational environments, data and code deposit, documented pipelines, pre-registration where applicable — that make a specific published result independently checkable.
dictionary_term; CASRAI Dictionary v2026.1; CC-BY 4.0

Nextflow (concept) - CASRAI (2026)
A workflow orchestration system based on dataflow programming with a Groovy-based domain-specific language, designed for scalable, container-native, multi-platform execution of computational pipelines.
dictionary_term; CASRAI Dictionary v2026.1; CC-BY 4.0

Snakemake (concept) - CASRAI (2026)
A Python-based workflow management system that expresses computational pipelines as rules with explicit inputs, outputs, and shell or script bodies, and infers a directed acyclic graph (DAG) of jobs from those rules.
dictionary_term; CASRAI Dictionary v2026.1; CC-BY 4.0

Container image (Docker/Singularity/Apptainer) - CASRAI (2026)
A packaged, immutable filesystem and configuration that contains an application together with all its dependencies, runnable identically on any compatible container engine (Docker, Podman, Singularity, Apptainer). A Singularity container specifically refers to this artifact built or run via the Singularity/Apptainer engine – a single portable .sif image file executed without a privileged daemon.
dictionary_term; CASRAI Dictionary v2026.1; CC-BY 4.0

Workflow Language (CWL/WDL) - CASRAI (2026)
A declarative specification language for describing multi-step computational analyses such that the steps, their inputs and outputs, and their software dependencies are portable across compatible workflow execution engines.
dictionary_term; CASRAI Dictionary v2026.1; CC-BY 4.0

Computational environment - CASRAI (2026)
The full software and hardware context in which an analysis runs, including operating system, language runtime, library versions, configuration, environment variables, and hardware-specific dependencies (e.g., GPU drivers).
dictionary_term; CASRAI Dictionary v2026.1; CC-BY 4.0

Code Availability Statement - CASRAI (2026)
A statement in a published article describing where the source code used in the study can be obtained, under what licence, and at what version, typically required by journal policy.
dictionary_term; CASRAI Dictionary v2026.1; CC-BY 4.0

Data availability statement - CASRAI (2026)
A data availability statement is a mandatory manuscript section, distinct from the paper's methods, that tells readers where and under what conditions the underlying research data can be obtained.
dictionary_term; CASRAI Dictionary v2026.1; CC-BY 4.0

Open data - CASRAI (2026)
The practice of making research data freely available for any user to access, use, modify, and share, subject only to attribution requirements, typically through deposit in a public repository under an open licence.
dictionary_term; CASRAI Dictionary v2026.1; CC-BY 4.0

Open materials - CASRAI (2026)
The release of the non-data, non-code materials used in a study (stimuli, survey instruments, experimental protocols, training materials, intervention manuals) such that future investigators can re-implement the procedure.
dictionary_term; CASRAI Dictionary v2026.1; CC-BY 4.0

Open code - CASRAI (2026)
The practice of releasing the source code used in a study, under an open-source licence, alongside the publication, such that any reader may inspect, reuse, and re-execute the analysis.
dictionary_term; CASRAI Dictionary v2026.1; CC-BY 4.0

Robustness check - CASRAI (2026)
An additional analysis, supplementary to the headline result, that varies one or more analytical choices in order to demonstrate that the main conclusion is not artefactual to those choices.
dictionary_term; CASRAI Dictionary v2026.1; CC-BY 4.0

Multiverse analysis - CASRAI (2026)
An analytical approach in which all reasonable combinations of data-processing and modelling choices are executed, producing a distribution of results that displays the impact of researcher degrees of freedom on the conclusion.
dictionary_term; CASRAI Dictionary v2026.1; CC-BY 4.0

Specification curve - CASRAI (2026)
An analytic and visual technique that plots the estimated effect across a large set of theoretically defensible model specifications, ordered by effect size, to convey the sensitivity of the result to analytical choices.
dictionary_term; CASRAI Dictionary v2026.1; CC-BY 4.0

Pre-analysis plan - CASRAI (2026)
A detailed, time-stamped document specifying the statistical models, variable transformations, exclusion criteria, and inference rules to be applied to a dataset, lodged before the analyst sees the outcome data.
dictionary_term; CASRAI Dictionary v2026.1; CC-BY 4.0

Pre-registration - CASRAI (2026)
The practice of publicly recording a study's hypotheses, design, sample, and analysis plan in a time-stamped registry before data collection or (in secondary-data work) before data access, in order to distinguish pre-specified from post-hoc analyses.
dictionary_term; CASRAI Dictionary v2026.1; CC-BY 4.0

Reproducibility crisis - CASRAI (2026)
The widely reported finding that substantial proportions of published research, particularly in biomedical, psychological, and social sciences, fail to reproduce or replicate when re-tested.
dictionary_term; CASRAI Dictionary v2026.1; CC-BY 4.0

Inferential reproducibility - CASRAI (2026)
Inferential reproducibility is when independent investigators, working from the same or comparable data, reach qualitatively similar scientific conclusions, even where their specific analytical choices differ — the highest of the three reproducibility types proposed by Goodman, Fanelli and Ioannidis (2016).
dictionary_term; CASRAI Dictionary v2026.1; CC-BY 4.0

Results reproducibility - CASRAI (2026)
The narrow sense in which a study's reported quantitative results can be recreated from the deposited data using the deposited analysis procedures.
dictionary_term; CASRAI Dictionary v2026.1; CC-BY 4.0

Methods reproducibility - CASRAI (2026)
The degree to which a study's methods are reported in sufficient detail that another investigator could re-implement them, independent of whether the same numerical or empirical results would follow.
dictionary_term; CASRAI Dictionary v2026.1; CC-BY 4.0

Empirical reproducibility - CASRAI (2026)
The ability to obtain consistent observations when an empirical procedure (laboratory, field, or measurement) is independently repeated under matched conditions.
dictionary_term; CASRAI Dictionary v2026.1; CC-BY 4.0

Computational reproducibility - CASRAI (2026)
The narrow technical sense of reproducibility: obtaining the same numerical outputs from the same data and code, on a comparable computational environment.
dictionary_term; CASRAI Dictionary v2026.1; CC-BY 4.0

Generalisability - CASRAI (2026)
The extent to which a study's findings extend to populations, settings, or conditions other than those directly sampled.
dictionary_term; CASRAI Dictionary v2026.1; CC-BY 4.0

Robustness - CASRAI (2026)
The property of a finding, estimate, model, or system remaining materially unchanged under defensible variation in analytic choices, input data, or operating conditions, rather than depending on one narrow configuration.
dictionary_term; CASRAI Dictionary v2026.1; CC-BY 4.0

Replicability - CASRAI (2026)
The ability to obtain consistent results when an independent investigator collects new data using the same study design and analysis procedures.
dictionary_term; CASRAI Dictionary v2026.1; CC-BY 4.0

Reproducibility - CASRAI (2026)
The ability to obtain consistent computational or analytical results when the same data and analysis procedures are applied by an independent investigator using the same code and tools.
dictionary_term; CASRAI Dictionary v2026.1; CC-BY 4.0

Sensitive-data handling (in DMP) - CASRAI (2026)
Sensitive-data handling in a data management plan is the section documenting how personal, confidential, or culturally sensitive data will be classified, secured, and governed across the research lifecycle, including its legal basis and any Indigenous data governance commitments.
dictionary_term; CASRAI Dictionary v2026.1; CC-BY 4.0

Sharing commitment (in DMP) - CASRAI (2026)
A statement in a DMP specifying which datasets will be shared, to whom, on what licence, with what timing relative to project end, and through which infrastructure.
dictionary_term; CASRAI Dictionary v2026.1; CC-BY 4.0

Retention period (in DMP) - CASRAI (2026)
The minimum duration for which a specified dataset will be retained after project end, expressed as a calendar period and recorded as part of the DMP's preservation commitments.
dictionary_term; CASRAI Dictionary v2026.1; CC-BY 4.0

Preservation commitment (in DMP) - CASRAI (2026)
A statement in a DMP specifying which datasets will be preserved beyond project end, in which repository, for how long, and under what conditions.
dictionary_term; CASRAI Dictionary v2026.1; CC-BY 4.0

Cost element (in DMP) - CASRAI (2026)
A line item in a DMP describing a financial commitment associated with data management, such as repository deposit fees, long-term storage, data steward time, or anonymisation services.
dictionary_term; CASRAI Dictionary v2026.1; CC-BY 4.0

Output management plan (OMP) - CASRAI (2026)
A broader successor concept to the DMP that covers all categories of research output (data, software, samples, protocols, models, publications) within a single management plan.
dictionary_term; CASRAI Dictionary v2026.1; CC-BY 4.0

Software management plan (SMP) - CASRAI (2026)
A structured plan covering how research software will be developed, documented, licensed, tested, released, and maintained over a project's lifetime, increasingly required alongside or as an extension of a DMP.
dictionary_term; CASRAI Dictionary v2026.1; CC-BY 4.0

Data steward role (in DMP) - CASRAI (2026)
A named individual or role accountable for the day-to-day execution of a DMP's commitments, typically distinct from the principal investigator and reported in the DMP's contributor metadata.
dictionary_term; CASRAI Dictionary v2026.1; CC-BY 4.0

DMP component - CASRAI (2026)
A discrete, reusable section of a DMP corresponding to a logical entity (project, dataset, contributor, host, cost, security_and_privacy) as modelled in the RDA DMP Common Standard.
dictionary_term; CASRAI Dictionary v2026.1; CC-BY 4.0

DMP compliance check - CASRAI (2026)
An automated or rules-based verification that a DMP satisfies the structural and policy requirements of a specific funder, institution, or standard, typically returning a binary or itemised pass/fail outcome.
dictionary_term; CASRAI Dictionary v2026.1; CC-BY 4.0

DMP assessment - CASRAI (2026)
The structured rating of a DMP against a published rubric to produce a comparable score across plans, used in funder evaluation, institutional benchmarking, and capacity-building.
dictionary_term; CASRAI Dictionary v2026.1; CC-BY 4.0

DMP review - CASRAI (2026)
A formal or informal evaluation of a DMP by a peer, data steward, librarian, or funder reviewer against quality criteria such as completeness, plausibility, and policy alignment.
dictionary_term; CASRAI Dictionary v2026.1; CC-BY 4.0

Living DMP - CASRAI (2026)
A DMP that is versioned, citable, and intended to evolve over the life of the project, with each significant change captured as a new version of the plan.
dictionary_term; CASRAI Dictionary v2026.1; CC-BY 4.0

Static DMP - CASRAI (2026)
A DMP that is produced at a single point in time (typically grant submission) and not subsequently updated, regardless of whether the project's data realities evolve.
dictionary_term; CASRAI Dictionary v2026.1; CC-BY 4.0

Active DMP - CASRAI (2026)
A DMP that is actively maintained, updated, and queried during project execution, typically in machine-actionable form, in contrast to a one-off document filed at proposal stage.
dictionary_term; CASRAI Dictionary v2026.1; CC-BY 4.0

DMP closeout phase - CASRAI (2026)
The final phase of the DMP lifecycle, at or after project end, when the plan is reconciled against actual outputs, preservation commitments are confirmed, and the DMP is archived as part of the project record.
dictionary_term; CASRAI Dictionary v2026.1; CC-BY 4.0

DMP active phase - CASRAI (2026)
The phase of the DMP lifecycle during project execution, when the plan is iteratively updated as data are actually generated, processed, and deposited – distinct from the award's own post-award phase, which it runs concurrently with but does not track.
dictionary_term; CASRAI Dictionary v2026.1; CC-BY 4.0

DMP creation phase - CASRAI (2026)
The phase of the DMP lifecycle covering initial drafting, typically at grant-proposal stage, when data types, volumes, and intended sharing arrangements are projected rather than known.
dictionary_term; CASRAI Dictionary v2026.1; CC-BY 4.0