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<h1>Quality Assurance glossary</h1>

<p>This document has been created to define the use of vocabulary among our specifications and Quality Assurance activity. You can send suggestions at www-qa@w3.org with the topic [glossary] and the title of the mail. <strong>Any comments/suggested changes to the glossary must be accompanied by specific wording.</strong></p>

<p>The glossary is given to fix the terms used at W3C for the Quality
Assurance and Conformance activity. It should be used as a definition for
working groups to define their terms in Technical Reports and
documentation issued inside and outside W3C. This glossary has been written by Karl Dubost &lt;<a href="mailto:karl@w3.org">karl@w3.org</a>&gt; (W3C) and Mark Skall &lt;<a href="mailto:mark.skall@nist.gov">mark.skall@nist.gov</a>&gt; (<a href="http://www.nist.gov/">NIST</a>)</p>

<h2 id="id01">Glossary</h2>

<h3 id="A">A</h3>

<dl>
   <dt>Atomic Test</dt>
      <dd>A test case that tests a single rule from the specification and maps back to exactly one assertion. This is in contrast to some test cases that may test a combination of rules.</dd>
</dl>

<h3 id="C">C</h3>

<dl>
   <dt id="certification">Certification</dt>
   <dd>Acknowledgement that a validation was completed and criteria established by the certifying organization for issuing a certificate (or branding) has been met.</dd>

   <dt id="class-product">Class of Products</dt>
   <dd>The generic name for the group of products or services that would  implement, for the same purpose, the specification, (i.e., target of  the specification). A specification may identify several classes of  products.</dd>

   <dt id="compliance">Compliance</dt>
   <dd>This term is deprecated. The QA Working Group recommends to use the word Conformance. See Conformance.</dd>

   <dt id="conformance">Conformance</dt>
   <dd>Fulfillment by a product, process, systems, or service of a specified set of requirements.</dd>

   <dt id="conf-clause">Conformance clause</dt>
   <dd>A section of the specification that defines the requirements,  criteria, or conditions to be satisfied by an implementation in order to  claim conformance.</dd>

	<dt id="conf-deg">Conformance Degree</dt>
	<dd>Part of a nested hierarchy of multiple types of conformance allowed within a specification.</dd>

   <dt id="conf-doc">Conforming Document</dt>
   <dd>Document that obeys the rules defined in the
recommendation it was written for.</dd>

	<dt id="conf-level">Conformance Level</dt>
    <dd>Deprecated. See <a href="#conf-deg">conformance degree</a>.
        Note: "Conformance  level" is discouraged in new specifications, because of confusion with  "functional level".</dd>

	<dt id="conf-req">Conformance Requirement</dt>
	<dd>Term used to describe a necessary condition of a specification imposed on implementations.  Conformance requirements can have different degrees of  necessity: mandatory, recommended, or optional.</dd>

   <dt id="conf-test">Conformance Testing</dt>
   <dd>Testing the level of fulfilment with regard to the claim done on features implementation</dd>

</dl>

<h3 id="D">D</h3>

<dl>
   <dt id="deprecated">Deprecated feature</dt>
   <dd>	An existing feature that has become outdated
	and is in the process of being phased out,
	usually in favor of a specified replacement.
	Deprecated features are no longer recommended
	for use and may cease to exist in future
	versions of the specification.
</dd>

   <dt id="dimension-variability">Dimensions of Variability (DoV)</dt>
   <dd>The ways in which different products that are conformant to a  specification may vary among themselves.
</dd>
   <dt id="discretionary-item">Discretionary Item</dt>
   <dd>Deliberate and explicit grants of discretion by the specification to  the implementations that describe or allow optionality of behavior,  functionality, parameter values, error handling, etc.
</dd>
</dl>

<h3 id="E">E</h3>

<dl>
   <dt id="extension">Extension</dt>
   <dd>The ability to incorporate additional functionality beyond what is  defined in the specification. It broadens the possibility of the  technology.</dd>
   <dt id="extensible">Extensible</dt>
   <dd>The ability of a specification to accept extensions in a defined way. A specification is extensible if it provides a mechanism for any party to create extensions.</dd>
</dl>


<h3 id="I">I</h3>

<dl>
<dt id="implementation">Implementation</dt>
    <dd>An implementation is a realization of a technology in accordance to the principles defined in the technical specifications for this technology. This implementation can be a document, product, application, process, service, system, or other entity.</dd>

<dt id="ics">Implementation Conformance Statement  (ICS)</dt>
<dd>A questionnaire or checklist for providing information about an implementation to a specification, by presenting in a uniform manner the implemented capabilities (e.g., functions, features) and options as well as limitations of the implementation. </dd>
	<dt id="informative-def">Informative</dt>
	<dd>Text in a specification whose purpose is informational or assistive  in the understanding or use of the specification, and which contains no  conformance requirements or test assertions.
</dd>

</dl>

<h3 id="L">L</h3>

<dl>
	<dt id="level">Level</dt>
		<dd>A technology subset that is one of a hierarchy of nested subsets, ranging from minimal or core functionality to full or complete functionally.</dd>
</dl>

<h3 id="M">M</h3>

<dl>
	<dt id="module">Module</dt>
		<dd>A collection of semantically related features that represents a unit of functionality.</dd>
</dl>

<h3 id="N">N</h3>
<dl>
	<dt id="normative-def">Normative</dt>
	<dd>Text in a specification which is prescriptive or contains conformance  requirements.</dd>
</dl>

<h3 id="O">O</h3>

<dl>
   <dt id="obsolete">Obsolete feature</dt>
   <dd>An existing or deprecated feature that has ceased to
	exist and that is listed for historical purpose.</dd>
</dl>

<h3 id="P">P</h3>

<dl>
	<dt id="profile">Profile</dt>
		<dd>A subset of a technology that is tailored to meet specific functional requirements of a particular application community.</dd>
</dl>

<h3 id="Q">Q</h3>

<dl>
   <dt id="qa">Quality Assurance, QA</dt>
      <dd>The process assuring the quality of one organization's outcomes.</dd>
</dl>

<h3 id="S">S</h3>

<dl>
   <dt id="sem-req">Semantic Requirement</dt>
      <dd>Same as test assertion</dd>

   <dt id="standard">Standard</dt>
      <dd>a set of language or protocol rules serving as a rallying
point, as a base for independent agents to communicate together without a
specific and a priori agreement.</dd>

	<dt id="specification">Specification</dt>
		<dd>Document that prescribes requirements to be fulfilled by a product, process, or service.</dd>

	<dt id="strict-conformance">Strict Conformance</dt>
		<dd>Conformance of an implementation that employs only the requirements  and/or functionality defined in the specification and no more (i.e., no  extensions to the specification are implemented).</dd>

</dl>

<h3 id="T">T</h3>

<dl>
	<dt id="testability">Testability</dt>
		<dd>A proposition is testable if there is such a procedure that assesses the truth-value of a proposition with a high confidence level.</dd>

   <dt id="test-assert">Test Assertion</dt>
      <dd>A measurable or testable statement of behavior, action, or condition. It is derived from the specification's requirements.</dd>

   <dt id="test-case">Test Case</dt>
      <dd>An individual test that corresponds to a test purpose,
which in turn maps back to the assertion(s), and finally the spec.</dd>

   <dt id="test-purpose">Test Purpose</dt>
      <dd>An explanation of why the test was written, and must map
directly to one or more test assertions.</dd>

   <dt id="test-req">Test Requirement</dt>
      <dd>Same as test assertion</dd>

   <dt id="test-suite">Test Suite</dt>
      <dd>A set of documents and tools providing tool developers with an
objective methodology to verify the level of conformance of an implementation for a given standard</dd>
</dl>

<h3 id="V">V</h3>

<dl>
   <dt id="validation">Validation, Validate, Validating</dt>
      <dd>The process necessary to perform conformance testing in accordance with a prescribed procedure and an official test suite.</dd>
</dl>

<h3 id="W">W</h3>

<dl>
   <dt id="w3c-rec">W3C Recommendation</dt>
      <dd>A standard agreed upon by the Web industry and community
represented in W3C.</dd>

   <dt id="well-formed">Well-formed</dt>
      <dd>As defined in the XML recommendation, it's a textual object
which obeys to the <a href="http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-xml.html#sec-well-formed">rules 2.1 of XML 1.0 recommendation</a>.</dd>
</dl>

<h2>Sources</h2>

<ul>
	<li><a href="http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/ioc/glossary.htm">Glossary of Conformance Terminology</a>, Interoperability and Conformance Technical Committee, OASIS</li>
</ul>

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<p class="author">
Created Date: 2002-01-28 by <a href="mailto:karl@w3.org">Karl Dubost</a><br/>
Last modified $Date: 2005/04/28 11:18:08 $ by $Author: dom $</p>

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