Glossary

Metadata:
Data associated with documents to provide information on their contents, context and use.
MO:
Magneto Optical. A rewritable optical disk technology. It stores data as a magnetic pattern which can be changed by a combination of a magnetic field and the heat generated locally by a laser beam. Reading is by detecting the direction of rotation of the reflected polarised laser beam from the magnetised spot.
Monochrome:
Displays capable of only two colours, usually black & white.
MPEG:
(Motion Picture Experts Group) Grouping associated with ISO who have defined the MPEG compression/decompression standard for motion video images. See also JPEG.
NAS:
Network Attached Storage see SAN.
OCR:
Optical Character Recognition. Technique for analysing images and recognising and translating the alphanumeric characters into machine-readable text. See also ICR.
OMR:
Optical Mark Recognition. A recognition technology for detecting the presence or absence of marks in a defined space, e.g. ticks or crosses in boxes.
Pattern Recognition:
An electronic application utilising an algorithm that searches data for like patterns and flags or extracts the pertinent data.
PDF:
Portable Document Format. The platformindependent document format used by Adobe's Acrobat universal distribution viewer.
Portal:
A gateway used to provide unified access to internal document repositories and third party Web sites.
RAID:
Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks. A bank of hard disks which is usually an extension to a computer system. Data is organised on the disks such that the failure of any single disk does not cause a total loss of data. This enables the system to continue in use while the faulty disk is replaced.
Raster graphics:
The technique of displaying an image as a series of points in a column and row grid format. Each point is called a pixel and has a value which describes the point in terms of its colour and intensity. The outputs from fax machines, scanners and television cameras are all raster images.
Records Management:
A system will be described as such when it adheres to the guidance defined by the National Archives. Their Standard is the recognised benchmark for caring for records and providing access to them. A records management system is likely to also adhere to the Dublin core or similar formal metadata standard. Operated properly these systems will meet the standards for legal admissibility.
Redaction:
A portion of the image is blacked out intentionally to conceal information from the document. Scanner: see Document scanner.