Glossary

The Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Community Health Service (ATSICHS) Brisbane is a not-for-profit community-owned health care and community services organisation delivering on the unique health and wellbeing needs of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples in greater Brisbane and Logan.

A resource is accessible if it is possible to get a resource by a persistent identifier, or to get information about how to get the resource.

Agents are persons or organisations - things with agency that can have a role to play with respect to catalogued resources

Metadata about the agent and the role that they played with respect to a resource.

The Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies (AIATSIS) is an Indigenous-led, national institute that celebrates, educates and inspires people from all walks of life to connect with the knowledge, heritage and cultures of Australia’s First Peoples. Our vision is a world in which Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander knowledge and cultures are recognised, respected, celebrated and valued.

The AIHW is an independent statutory Australian Government agency producing authoritative and accessible information and statistics to inform and support better policy and service delivery decisions, leading to better health and wellbeing for all Australians.

The Australian Public Service (APS) comprises entities that employ their staff under the Public Service Act 1999 (PS Act). This includes all departments of state, and some other entities. Generally, APS agencies are ‘non-corporate’, being components of the legal entity that is the Commonwealth.

The ARDC is Australia’s leading research data infrastructure facility.

Indigenous peoples’ rights and interests in Indigenous data must be recognised and their authority to control such data be empowered.

Biocultural Labels are tools developed by the North American organisation Local Contexts to acknowledge Indigenous rights and interests in data, particularly in relation to genetic resources and associated information. These labels are designed to be customised by Indigenous communities to articulate expectations and conditions for the appropriate use of collections and data. While intended to support Indigenous authority over biocultural knowledge, their applicability and effectiveness outside North American contexts—such as in Australia—require careful consideration.

Collective Benefit, Authority to Control, Responsibility, and Ethics data principles

A collection of metadata records organised for easy access and use.

Data ecosystems shall be designed and function in ways that enable Indigenous peoples to derive benefit from the data.

A single unit of meaning or part of knowledge. Conepts are expressed as words or terms. Many concepts from the same knowledge system belong to a vocabulary.

Data Catalogue Vocabulary is the international standard for interoperability between data catalogues published on the Web.

A cloud-based digital infrastructure that coupled with governance strateies that allow a community to use, share, manage and analysee its data

Responsible for the safekeeping and stewardship of data assets and metadata

Selected concepts from the Data roles vocabulary

A Digital Object Identifier (DOI) is a unique, persistent string of numbers and letters used to identify a specific digital document (research paper, article, or book) and provides a reliable link to its location on the internet

Indigenous peoples’ rights and wellbeing should be the primary concern at all stages of the data life cycle and across the data ecosystem.

Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable data principles

A resource is findable if it is possible to find that resource. Resources are findable when they are described with consistent metadata and vocabulary concepts.

Commonwealth of Australia, Framework for Governance of Indigenous Data, was published 2024 and aims to provide “guidance to the APS in improving governance practices for data related to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. It seeks to move the APS beyond traditional methods of consultation, to ensure Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people have an equal position at the decision-making table on matters affecting them.

A cloud-based platform that acts as a hosting service for software development projects, using Git for version control

The Humanities, Arts, Social Sciences and Indigenous Research Data Commons is an initiative of the ARDC. It resources projects in partnership with research institutions, non-governmental organisations and government

The Improving Indigenous Research Capabilities is a two-phase project that (phase 1) reviews and refines national and international frameworks of Indigenous Data Governance and Indigenous Data Sovereignty to collectively strengthen the foundations of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander data governance principles, which are being translated and applied to Indigenous research data tools and infrastructure, and (phase 2) builds the Indigenous research capability program to enable Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and researchers at the interface of research data science and Indigenous knowledge systems to have access to effective research data tools.

Indigenous Cultural and Intellectual Property refers to the traditoional knowledge, traditional cultural expression and cultural heritage of Indigenous peoples

Indigenous data is all data generated by, about, or for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in Australia. Indigenous research data specifically refers to information that is collected, analysed, and interpreted within the context of Indigenous communities, cultures, and knowledge systems. It includes data gathered through research projects conducted by and with Indigenous peoples, as well as data that Indigenous communities have generated and maintained themselves. Indigenous research data includes traditional ecological knowledge, oral histories, cultural practices, and other forms of Indigenous knowledge.

For the purposes of the IIRC project, we define Indigenous data custodian as any individual, organisation, institution, or government agency that holds, manages, stores, or controls data that relates to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, communities, cultures, lands, or knowledges, including: (1) Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities and organisations. (2) Universities, researchers and other research organisations. (3) The GLAM sector, including libraries, archives and museums. (4) Commonwealth, state, territory and local governments; and (5) Private sector (including not-for-profit).

Indigenous data governance refers to the principles, practices, and systems by which Indigenous communities exercise control over the collection, ownership, management, and use of data that is relevant to them. It recognises the unique rights, interests, and needs of Indigenous peoples regarding their data and aims to ensure that data is collected, stored, and utilised in a manner that respects their self-determination, cultural values, and sovereignty. Indigenous data governance sets the foundations for data democracy at the community level, supporting Indigenous access, generation, and use of data.

The IDN was established in 2018 to support and coordinate the governance of Indigenous data for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and empower Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities to decide their own local data priorities.

The Indigenous Data Network Catalogue of Indigenous datasets includes metadata held by IDCs across Australia, including research data generated by the IDN in partnership with those custodians. The IDNC demonstrates improved metadata models and rating systems for data and metadata to improve Indigenous data governance.

Refers to the rights of Indigenous communities to own and control data about them, their communities, cultures, lands, and resources. It is grounded in principles of self- determination and cultural autonomy, asserting authority over information and knowledge systems.

Within the IDN project, we refer to Indigenous research data as all data generated by, about or for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in Australia. Indigenous research data specifically refers to information that is collected, analysed, and interpreted within the context of Indigenous communities, cultures, and knowledge systems. It includes data gathered through research projects conducted by and with Indigenous peoples, as well as data that Indigenous communities have generated and maintained themselves. Indigenous research data includes traditional ecological knowledge, oral histories, cultural practices, and other forms of Indigenous knowledge that may not fit traditional Western research paradigms. It may involve collaborative research approaches that prioritise Indigenous self-determination, community engagement, and the equitable sharing of benefits.

Intellectual property (IP) refers to creations of the mind. It could include a brand, logo, invention, design or artistic work, or new plant variety

A Internationalised Resource Identifier (IRI) is an internet protocol standard that extends Uniform Resource Identifiers (URIs) to allow a much wider set of characters

The ability to share information between different collections or catalogues that might use different tools.

A method for storing and sharing Resource Description Framework metadata.

Kurrawong AI is a small, Artificial Intelligence company in Australia specialising in Knowledge Graphs.

Location Index (Loc-I) is a framework that provides a consistent way to seamlessly integrate data on people, business, and the environment.

Linked data is structured data which is associated to other data

Concepts that express local and specific conditions such as community rules, governance and protocols for using and sharing knowledge.

Data that provides information about other data, but which is not the content of the data itself

A tool that helps to create and upload metadata about resources.

The prefix of an identifier that groups concepts or resources together.

The National Indigenous Australians Agency (NIAA) works to ensure that the needs and aspirations of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples are met through government policies, programs and services.

The North Australian Aboriginal Justice Agency (NAAJA) is the provider of legal aid services to Aboriginal people in the Northern Territory.

Metadata about the relationships between things.

Open Researcher and Contributor ID (ORCID) is a free, unique, 16-digit persistent digital identifier for researchers and academic contributors

A Persistent Identifier (PID) is a long-lasting, unique reference to a digital object, person, or organisation

A set of rules or guidelines for creating consistent metadata.

The Regional Insights for Indigenous Communities (RIFIC) website brings together a range of regional statistics about the health and wellbeing of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and their communities.

Research Data Commons

An item included in a catalogue. Each resource is described with metadata.

Resource Description Framework is a method to describe and exchange graph data

Those working with Indigenous data have a responsibility to share how those data are used to support Indigenous peoples’ self-determination and collective benefit.

A resource is reuseable if there is permission from those responsible for the resource to use it.

The relationship between people or organisations and catalogued resources.

An extension of the World Wide Web, developed by W3C to make web content machine-readable and understandable. This process structures data with semantic metadata transforming the web from a collection of documents into an interopable database

Information that adheres to a rigid, predefined model or schema, organizing it into a highly organized, machine-readable format

party that the resources contains information about

Person or organisation that the resource is about.

Traditional Knowledge Labels, also developed by Local Contexts, enable communities to express local and specific conditions for sharing and engaging in research and relationships in ways that align with existing community rules, governance, and protocols for using, sharing, and circulating knowledge and data. These labels seek to provide a normative framework in signalling provenance and permissions; however, their relevance and practical integration within Australian Indigenous data governance frameworks remain contested and warrant critical engagement.

A method for storing and sharing Resource Description Framework metadata.

A Uniform Resource Identifier is a compact string of characters used to uniquely identify an abstract or physical resource on the internet

A Uniform Resource Locator, commonly known as a web address, is a specific string used to reference and locate resources on the internet, such as web pages, images, or documents

A type of persistent identifier that is universally unique.

information that does not have a pre-defined data model, fixed format, or organizational schema

A tool that checks if metadata conforms to the rules of a profile or standard.

Tracking changes to resources over time.

A set of predefined words or phrases used for describing metadata records consistently.

World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) is the main international standards organisation for the World Wide Web

party that the resources contains information about

Person or organisation that the resource is about.