Glossary

Accessibility
Ensuring that a website is made usable to all visitors, including those with cognitive, physical or sensory disabilities;

Analytics
Data about site traffic and usage, such as the number of people visiting a site, how they arrived at the site and how long they stayed on a given page;

Application
A software programme designed to perform a specific task or group of tasks such as word processing, instant messaging or file-sharing;

Asynchronous
Communication that occurs with a spatial and temporal delay, allowing participants to respond at their own convenience – deliberation in a forum is mostly asynchronous;

Beta
A version of an application or exercise that is made available for testing prior to the official release or roll-out;

Blog
Short for weblog. A weblog is a content managed website that presents its entries in reverse chronological order and allows visitors to comment;

Blogger
Someone who has a blog;

Blogosphere
Describes the interconnected nature of blogs or the blogging community;

Browser
An application that enables a user to access and interact with the internet;

Bug
An error or fault in a computer programme that prevents it from working correctly;

Content
On a web page, content refers to the audio, text and visuals;

Consultation
A process of communication among various groups or individuals with the aim of obtaining views, imparting advice and exchanging information on given topics;

Convergence
The coming together of two or more disparate disciplines or technologies to produce something new;

Deliberation
The process of considering all sides of an issue or question before making a decision or passing judgment;

Digital
Refers to information processing techniques that convert data for more efficient transmission and storage;

Domain
A name by which a website is known and found via a browser – often referred to as URL or web address;

Download
To copy or move a file from a site to a device;

eCommerce
The process of buying or selling products via the web;

eDemocracy
The use of ICT to conduct political processes;

eGovernment
The utilisation of ICT to conduct the business of government;

eVoting
Voting enabled by ICT;

End user
The person who uses a computer application, as opposed to those who develop or administer it;

Engagement
Refers to a transaction between government and a member of the public or a stakeholder group;

Extranet
A company or organisation’s internal computer network (intranet) that is partially accessible to outside users;

File sharing
The practice of swapping files with other people over the internet;

Firewall
A firewall allows or blocks traffic into and out of a private network;

Flash
An animation format used to develop interactive graphics for websites as well as desktop publications and games;

HTML
Abbreviation of ‘hyper text mark up language’ – the authoring language used to create world wide web pages;

Hardware
The electronic, electrical and mechanical components of a computer system – the computer, printer, terminal;

ICT
Abbreviation of information and communication technology – commonly used to refer to software;

IT
Abbreviation of information technology – commonly refers to hardware;

Instant messaging
A form of communication which takes place online in real time;

Internet
The worldwide, publicly accessible network of interconnected computer networks, which allows users to interact and exchange information;

Intranet
An intranet is a private computer network used by companies, institutions and organisations;

Link
An active connection to another web location or other internet resource – commonly a link is presented as text;

Microsite
Satellite site attached to but independent of a corporate site;

Mobile
Portable or wireless communications devices such as mobile phones, laptops and PDA;

Moderation
In an online context, moderation is a way of maintaining rules or standards on a website. A moderator may remove unsuitable, aggressive or offensive contributions from the website or forum in accordance with the site’s moderation policy;

MP3
An audio file type;

Narrowcast
The process of delivering data to a specific audience segment;

Online forum
An application for holding themed discussions between large groups of participants;

Open source
Refers to any programme whose source code is made available for anyone to work on, modify or learn from;

Participation
The act of sharing in the activities of a group. In politics, it refers to the process by which individuals, groups and organisations are consulted about or have the opportunity to become actively involved in a policy project, discussion or decision making;

Platform
The type of computer or operating system on which a software application runs – for example, PC or Mac;

Podcasting
The method of distributing multimedia files via subscription, such as audio programmes or music videos over the internet for playback on mobile devices or computers;

Portal
A website ‘gateway’ that serves as a starting point to other destinations and services on the web such as email, forums and search engines;

Proxy blogging
When someone produces a blog pretending to be someone else;

RSS
Abbreviation for really simple syndication- an alternative means of accessing the vast amounts of information that now exist on the world wide web. Instead of browsing websites for information of interest the information is sent directly to the user via an aggregator or feeder;

Real time
‘Live’ internet activity taking place as it is happening without delay;

Referrer
The webpage from which a visitor came to another webpage based on an active link;

Rich media
Multimedia content on a website such as audio, video or special effects, allowing user interaction;

Search engines
An internet facility that helps users find websites – examples include Google or MSN. Users can locate the information they want by using keywords;

Site map
A diagram or arrangement of words that shows users of a site how the content and pages of the site are linked and accessed;

Social software
Software that lets people connect, meet and collaborate by use of the internet;

Social networks
Term often used to refer to the websites used to connect and interact with other individuals. Interaction is often informal and entirely web-based;

Software
Programmes that tell a computer which tasks to perform, for example, word processing or photo editing. Distinguished from hardware, which refers to the physical parts of a computer;

Spam
Refers to unsolicited, unwanted or irrelevant messages, especially commercial advertising in mass quantities;

Spyware
Any software that gathers information about a person or organisation without their knowledge, used mainly for advertising purposes;

Stakeholder
A stakeholder is a person who has an interest in a policy or project;

Streaming
Technology that enables the playback of sound or video without the need to download the entire resource file in advance;

Tagging
Assigning keywords to content to make it easier to search for;

Tags
In HTML, tags are the codes that determine the structure and presentation of information within a document. Tag codes are enclosed in brackets, for example, Introduction is a tag indicating that the word ‘introduction’ should be treated as a level 1 heading. ‘Tags’ are also used to refer to keywords used to summarise a website or the content of page;

Technology
Hardware and software that allow users to do tasks more efficiently and effectively;

Track back
A mechanism for communication between blogs whereby different websites can post messages to one another to alert one another to related resources;

UGC
Short for ‘user generated content’. Content on websites that has been created and uploaded by the users of that site;

URL
Abbreviation of ‘uniform resource location’, the global address of documents and other resources on the web;

Unique visitors
The individual visitors that visit a site. A unique visitor may visit a site several times a week; however, because it is the same person, it can only count as one visitor;

Upload
Opposite of download. Transferring data from a device to a site;

VoIP
Stands for ‘voice over internet protocol’. The technology used to transmit voice conversations over the internet – sometimes known as internet telephony;

Viral
In an online marketing context, this means a technique that encourages people to pass on a campaign to their peers, resulting in exponential growth of that campaign’s visibility and participation rates;

Virus
A programme written to cause damage to a computer system. Many viruses can damage files and even hardware. Viruses can be transmitted via email attachments, downloads or be present on a disk;

Web 2.0
Refers to a ‘second generation’ of software available on the web, that lets users collaborate and share information online – blogs, wikis, tags, podcasts are all examples of web 2.0 applications;

Webchat
Form of instant messaging application allowing real time interaction;

Wiki
Web-based application which allows users to add content to or edit a webpage;

Wireless
Networking without any wires, meaning that data is transmitted over electromagnetic waves rather than wire connections;

World wide web
Often referred to as www or the web, it is the collective term for information and sites accessed over the internet using a web browser;

WYSIWYG
Stands for ‘what you see is what you get’ in reference to text editors that allow users to format their comments and posts;

XML
Short for ‘Extensible Markup Language’ – is a system for structuring information and services in a way that computers and humans can understand.