THE GLOSSARY

Speak the language of the deal.

Thirty-six useful terms, without the fog. Each definition points to a guide that puts it into practice.

AI & research

Alternative data

Information used alongside conventional sources to investigate a question or support a decision. Its usefulness depends on the task, sourcing, coverage, and evaluation.

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Rights & privacy

Anonymisation

A process intended to make people no longer identifiable in the relevant context. Removing direct identifiers alone does not establish that this threshold has been met.

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Data quality

Annotation

A label, judgment, or description added to a record. Annotation quality depends on instructions, reviewer processes, and how disagreement is handled.

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Commercial

API delivery

Making a data product available through a programmatic interface. The commercial terms should define access, usage, reliability, permitted uses, and support.

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AI & research

Availability time

The time at which an observation or version became usable by a recipient. It may differ from the time the underlying event occurred.

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Rights & privacy

Chain of rights

The documented sequence of permissions or agreements supporting a supplier’s authority to grant the proposed use of an asset.

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Commercial

Contribution

Revenue remaining after specified costs are subtracted. In our calculator it excludes taxes, financing, general overhead, and costs not entered by the user.

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Data quality

Coverage

The population, time period, geography, source mix, or other scope represented in a dataset. A coverage claim needs a defined reference population and exclusions.

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Commercial

Data broker

An intermediary that helps connect data supply and demand. Statutory definitions can be narrower and vary by jurisdiction; the commercial label does not settle legal obligations.

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Data quality

Data dictionary

A description of the fields in a dataset, including types, units, meaning, allowed values, missing-value conventions, and relevant restrictions.

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Rights & privacy

Data license

An agreement defining permitted uses of a specified data asset and the conditions attached to those uses. It is distinct from possession of the file.

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Commercial

Data marketplace

A channel where providers list, distribute, or transact data products. The marketplace operator is not necessarily the end buyer of a listed dataset.

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Data quality

Data provenance

Information about where a dataset came from and how it was collected, transformed, and maintained. Provenance supports investigation but does not itself grant rights.

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Data quality

Dataset card

A short product document explaining intended uses, source, rights, coverage, quality, limitations, and delivery. Its statements need supporting evidence.

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Data quality

Deduplication

Identifying and handling repeated records or content under a stated definition. Exact duplicates and task-relevant near duplicates may need different checks.

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Rights & privacy

Derived data

Data produced by transforming or combining source material. A transformation does not automatically remove contractual restrictions or rights in the source.

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AI & research

Distribution shift

A difference between the data used in one stage or setting and the data encountered in another. It can affect whether evaluation results transfer to actual use.

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Commercial

Due diligence

A structured assessment of a product, supplier, rights, and operating process before a decision. The depth of review should fit the use and risk.

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AI & research

Evaluation data

Material used to measure performance on a specified task. Useful evaluation requires appropriate scoring, representative coverage, and controls against misleading exposure.

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Rights & privacy

Exclusivity

A restriction on granting the same or related rights to others. Define its asset, use, territory, customer scope, and duration precisely.

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Rights & privacy

Field of use

The purposes or applications covered by a license. Internal analysis, model training, evaluation, and redistribution may require different grants.

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Data quality

Freshness

How current a data product is for its intended task. Measure it using defined events and timestamps rather than an unexplained claim of real-time delivery.

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AI & research

Label leakage

Information available during evaluation that improperly reveals an answer or would not be available in the intended real task. It can make performance appear better than it is.

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Data quality

Missingness

The pattern of absent values or records. The reason a value is absent can matter as much as the percentage of values present.

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Rights & privacy

Non-exclusive license

A grant that does not, by itself, reserve the licensed rights to one recipient. Other restrictions in the agreement still determine what the parties may do.

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AI & research

Point-in-time data

Data preserving what information was available at a particular historical moment, including the effect of publication delays and revisions.

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Rights & privacy

Pseudonymisation

A transformation that replaces or separates identifying information while allowing attribution using additional information. It does not automatically make a release anonymous.

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Data quality

Refresh cadence

The schedule on which a provider updates a data product. The agreement should distinguish expected timing, corrections, and service commitments.

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Data quality

Representative sample

A subset selected to reflect the aspects of the full product relevant to an evaluation. State the method, size, and limitations of the selection.

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Commercial

Revenue share

A commercial arrangement allocating a defined portion of revenue between parties. The revenue base, deductions, reporting, payment, and audit rights need agreement.

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AI & research

RL environment

An interactive setting where an agent acts, the state changes, and feedback can be measured. Historical logs alone are not an executable environment.

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Data quality

Schema drift

A change in data structure, field types, or definitions over time. Unannounced drift can break integrations or change the meaning of a result.

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Rights & privacy

Sublicensing

Granting licensed rights onward to another party. A recipient needs authority under the governing agreement before doing so.

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AI & research

Synthetic data

Data generated to model or imitate specified properties rather than directly record the represented events. A synthetic example should be labeled and not presented as proof of real coverage.

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Data quality

Version manifest

A delivery record identifying the asset version, files, counts, schema, extraction date, and integrity information needed to reproduce what was supplied.

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