Standards Bodies — How ISO, IEC, OGC, and OIML deploy Glossarist

Glossarist powers the public terminology registries of multiple international standards bodies. Each deployment serves a different community but uses the same data model, the same validators, and the same concept-browser. This page is the cross-cutting view — for domain-specific deep dives, see the Metrology and Geospatial use cases.

Deployments at a glance

Body	Deployment	Concepts	Languages	Concept-browser features used
ISO/TC 211 (Geographic information)	GeoLexica	1,507	15	Edition series, sphere, sections tree
ISO/TC 204 (Intelligent transport systems)	ISO/TC 204 Geolexica	100+	varies	Cross-references to ISO/TC 211
OSGeo (Open Source Geospatial Foundation)	OSGeo Geolexica	444	6	Curated subset of GIS terminology
OIML (Legal metrology)	OIML VIML	600+	4	Edition series (1968 / 2000 / 2013 / 2022), lineage group
OIML (G 18 alphabetical glossary)	OIML Terms	2,132	2	Cross-vocabulary `see` links back to VIM/VIML
IALA (Marine aids to navigation)	IALA Vocabulary	varies	varies	Domain-specific term types

The shared infrastructure

What makes this a movement rather than six independent projects: every deployment above runs on the same software stack — they differ only in data and configuration.

┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│  concept-model (data model, schemas, SHACL, validators) │
└─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘
                          ↑
┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│  glossarist-ruby / glossarist-js (libraries)            │
└─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘
                          ↑
       ┌────────────────────┴──────────────────┐
       │                                         │
┌──────────────┐                       ┌──────────────────┐
│ Each body's  │                       │ concept-browser  │
│ dataset repo │                       │ (SPA renderer)   │
└──────────────┘                       └──────────────────┘
       │                                         │
       └────────────────────┬──────────────────┘
                            ↓
              ┌──────────────────────────┐
              │  Per-body deployment     │
              │  (site-config.yml + data)│
              └──────────────────────────┘

A fix to concept-model SHACL shapes propagates to every deployment on the next rebuild. A new concept-browser feature (e.g. the 3D relation sphere) lands once and lights up across all sites.

Common patterns across bodies

Multi-edition vocabularies (lineage groups)

OIML VIML has 4 editions (1968, 2000, 2013, 2022). Each edition is a separate dataset; concepts in newer editions declare supersedes edges to their predecessors. The concept-browser renders an edition-series timeline sidebar with current-edition markers.

# datasets/vim-2022/concepts/measurement-result.yaml
related:
  - type: supersedes
    ref:
      source: urn:oiml:pub:v:2-200:2007
      id: '2.9'

See Metrology use case → Cross-edition navigation.

Cross-vocabulary reference (topic groups)

OIML Terms (G 18) is an alphabetical glossary of 2,132 terms sourced from 88 OIML publications. Many entries originate in VIM or VIML. Cross-dataset see edges link each G18 term to its authoritative definition:

# datasets/g18/concepts/00079.yaml (measuring instrument)
related:
  - type: see
    ref:
      source: urn:oiml:pub:v:2-200:2007
      id: '3.1'

This enables a reader on the G18 alphabetical glossary to jump directly to the VIM authoritative definition with one click.

Curated subsets

OSGeo Geolexica is a curated subset of 444 concepts from the larger ISO/TC 211 register, focused on open-source geospatial tooling. The tags field on ManagedConcept enables curation:

tags: [osgeo-curated, foundational-gis]

The concept-browser’s curated group kind renders these with curator attribution.

Multi-dataset aggregation

GeoLexica aggregates concepts from multiple standards bodies (ISO/TC 211 + IEC Electropedia + others) into a single browseable interface. Each dataset retains its identity (color, owner, sections tree), but readers can search and navigate across all of them.

Why standards bodies chose Glossarist

Pain point	Pre-Glossarist	With Glossarist
Multilingual publication	Hand-translated per edition, drift over time	Structural localizations; one concept → N language entries, all in sync
Cross-edition consistency	Manual link auditing per edition	`supersedes`/`superseded_by` derived automatically at build
Standards compliance	Per-body formatting; hard to audit	Built-in ISO 704 / ISO 10241-1 / ISO 12620 / TBX alignment — see /reference/iso-10241-1-mapping and /reference/iso-12620-mapping
RDF / semantic web publication	Per-body Turtle generation	Automatic SHACL-conformant Turtle + JSON-LD per concept
Reviewer workflow	Email threads + Word comments	GitHub pull requests with structured change requests
Reader UX	Per-body custom sites	Same concept-browser UX across all deployments; readers learn once

Adopting the same pattern

If you maintain a terminology registry for a standards body, scientific union, or regulatory agency, the path to a Glossarist deployment is:

Survey your data — how many concepts, how many languages, what relations exist
Map your fields to the Glossarist model using ISO 10241-1 mapping and ISO 12620 mapping
Migrate a sample — convert ~50 concepts using the migration guide
Deploy a staging concept-browser using the Quickstart
Iterate with your editorial team — see Adoption Guide for the full workflow

The Glossarist team is happy to advise on migrations. Open an issue to start the conversation.