{ "title": "Built on explicit agreements — Standards & citation", "text": "MODAVIS (2026). Built on explicit agreements — Standards & citation. Research notebooks, September 2026 · expanded edition. https://modavis.org/editions/2026-09-r3/standards/introduction/", "bibtex": "@misc{modavis_standards_introduction_2026_09_r3,\n author = {{MODAVIS}},\n title = {Built on explicit agreements — Standards & citation},\n year = {2026},\n month = {09},\n version = {2026-09-r3},\n url = {https://modavis.org/editions/2026-09-r3/standards/introduction/},\n note = {Content SHA-256: 8e84315433382f1273ba6f383be229a67e72eb4b9efca57355ac6507145b52b3}\n}", "url": "https://modavis.org/editions/2026-09-r3/standards/introduction/", "sha256": "8e84315433382f1273ba6f383be229a67e72eb4b9efca57355ac6507145b52b3", "edition": "2026-09-r3", "date": "2026-09-26", "canonicalPayload": "{\"book\":{\"number\":\"08\",\"slug\":\"standards\",\"title\":\"Standards & citation\"},\"chapter\":{\"blocks\":[{\"text\":\"MODAVIS connects complementary standards rather than asking one format to do everything. The ontology describes meaning and relationships. VAO binds digital resources into an exchange and preservation contract. Repositories supply persistent version records.\",\"type\":\"p\"},{\"headers\":[\"Layer\",\"Role\"],\"rows\":[[\"MODAVIS Ontology Network\",\"Semantic identities and evidence-qualified relationships.\"],[\"VAO Standard\",\"Manifest, resources, profiles, carriers and file integrity.\"],[\"Persistent identifiers\",\"Stable references to entities and exact releases.\"],[\"Provenance\",\"Documented source, transformation and editorial lineage.\"]],\"type\":\"table\"},{\"text\":\"Established media and research-object formats remain useful within this architecture. A VAO is an integration envelope; it does not replace an audio format, a repository or a domain ontology.\",\"type\":\"p\"},{\"id\":\"agreements\",\"text\":\"The agreement at each boundary\",\"type\":\"heading\"},{\"headers\":[\"Boundary\",\"Agreement needed\"],\"rows\":[[\"A source enters a research workflow\",\"Identity, capture context, transfer structure and attribution.\"],[\"A statement becomes a research representation\",\"Semantic identity, evidence, interpretation and historical applicability.\"],[\"A representation becomes an exchange package\",\"Exact manifest, resources, profiles, rights and carrier mappings.\"],[\"A package becomes a published release\",\"Persistent version information, file identities and repository metadata.\"]],\"type\":\"table\"},{\"text\":\"These agreements address different kinds of interoperability. Two applications can read the same audio encoding while disagreeing about which instrument state the recording represents. Two catalogues can use the same label while assigning it to different concepts. Interoperability therefore requires both usable bytes and an explicit account of their meaning.\",\"type\":\"p\"},{\"id\":\"media-formats\",\"text\":\"Reuse established formats inside the envelope\",\"type\":\"heading\"},{\"text\":\"VAO can identify realizations in established media and research formats, such as WAVE or FLAC audio, glTF geometry and MIDI or score data. The carrier adds the relationships, fixed identities and declared capabilities needed to interpret those realizations together. The chosen format still carries its own technical requirements; packaging a file does not make an incompatible renderer understand it.\",\"type\":\"p\"},{\"id\":\"contract-version\",\"text\":\"Version the contract as carefully as the content\",\"type\":\"heading\"},{\"text\":\"Record the exact schema, profile and vocabulary versions used by a release. A moving “latest” pointer can be convenient for discovering documentation, but it cannot identify the rules under which an earlier package was prepared. When migrating, keep the source release available and describe what changed. A successful migration creates an attributable successor rather than retroactively rewriting the old contract.\",\"type\":\"p\"},{\"text\":\"State which contract and profile are supported, and retain the evidence of validation. Conformance is specific to those declarations; it is not a general certificate of historical truth or scientific adequacy.\",\"title\":\"A declared standard is a checkable claim\",\"type\":\"note\"},{\"items\":[{\"detail\":\"The versioned specification and reference tools.\",\"href\":\"https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.22214248\",\"label\":\"VAO Standard 0.5.0\"},{\"detail\":\"The published semantic model.\",\"href\":\"https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.22126086\",\"label\":\"MODAVIS Ontology Network 0.1.0\"}],\"type\":\"links\"}],\"intro\":\"Standards make it possible to exchange a research object without losing the meaning of its parts.\",\"slug\":\"introduction\",\"sources\":[{\"detail\":\"The versioned specification and reference tools.\",\"href\":\"https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.22214248\",\"label\":\"VAO Standard 0.5.0\"},{\"detail\":\"The published semantic model.\",\"href\":\"https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.22126086\",\"label\":\"MODAVIS Ontology Network 0.1.0\"}],\"title\":\"Built on explicit agreements\"},\"date\":\"2026-09-26\",\"edition\":\"2026-09-r3\",\"figures\":{}}", "payload": { "edition": "2026-09-r3", "date": "2026-09-26", "book": { "slug": "standards", "title": "Standards & citation", "number": "08" }, "chapter": { "slug": "introduction", "title": "Built on explicit agreements", "intro": "Standards make it possible to exchange a research object without losing the meaning of its parts.", "blocks": [ { "type": "p", "text": "MODAVIS connects complementary standards rather than asking one format to do everything. The ontology describes meaning and relationships. VAO binds digital resources into an exchange and preservation contract. Repositories supply persistent version records." }, { "type": "table", "headers": [ "Layer", "Role" ], "rows": [ [ "MODAVIS Ontology Network", "Semantic identities and evidence-qualified relationships." ], [ "VAO Standard", "Manifest, resources, profiles, carriers and file integrity." ], [ "Persistent identifiers", "Stable references to entities and exact releases." ], [ "Provenance", "Documented source, transformation and editorial lineage." ] ] }, { "type": "p", "text": "Established media and research-object formats remain useful within this architecture. A VAO is an integration envelope; it does not replace an audio format, a repository or a domain ontology." }, { "type": "heading", "text": "The agreement at each boundary", "id": "agreements" }, { "type": "table", "headers": [ "Boundary", "Agreement needed" ], "rows": [ [ "A source enters a research workflow", "Identity, capture context, transfer structure and attribution." ], [ "A statement becomes a research representation", "Semantic identity, evidence, interpretation and historical applicability." ], [ "A representation becomes an exchange package", "Exact manifest, resources, profiles, rights and carrier mappings." ], [ "A package becomes a published release", "Persistent version information, file identities and repository metadata." ] ] }, { "type": "p", "text": "These agreements address different kinds of interoperability. Two applications can read the same audio encoding while disagreeing about which instrument state the recording represents. Two catalogues can use the same label while assigning it to different concepts. Interoperability therefore requires both usable bytes and an explicit account of their meaning." }, { "type": "heading", "text": "Reuse established formats inside the envelope", "id": "media-formats" }, { "type": "p", "text": "VAO can identify realizations in established media and research formats, such as WAVE or FLAC audio, glTF geometry and MIDI or score data. The carrier adds the relationships, fixed identities and declared capabilities needed to interpret those realizations together. The chosen format still carries its own technical requirements; packaging a file does not make an incompatible renderer understand it." }, { "type": "heading", "text": "Version the contract as carefully as the content", "id": "contract-version" }, { "type": "p", "text": "Record the exact schema, profile and vocabulary versions used by a release. A moving “latest” pointer can be convenient for discovering documentation, but it cannot identify the rules under which an earlier package was prepared. When migrating, keep the source release available and describe what changed. A successful migration creates an attributable successor rather than retroactively rewriting the old contract." }, { "type": "note", "title": "A declared standard is a checkable claim", "text": "State which contract and profile are supported, and retain the evidence of validation. Conformance is specific to those declarations; it is not a general certificate of historical truth or scientific adequacy." }, { "type": "links", "items": [ { "label": "VAO Standard 0.5.0", "href": "https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.22214248", "detail": "The versioned specification and reference tools." }, { "label": "MODAVIS Ontology Network 0.1.0", "href": "https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.22126086", "detail": "The published semantic model." } ] } ], "sources": [ { "label": "VAO Standard 0.5.0", "href": "https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.22214248", "detail": "The versioned specification and reference tools." }, { "label": "MODAVIS Ontology Network 0.1.0", "href": "https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.22126086", "detail": "The published semantic model." } ] }, "figures": {} } }