ANNEXURE C: GLOSSARY

ASCII (American Standard Code for Information Interchange)
ASCII is the most common format for text files used in computers. In an ASCII file, each alphabetic, numeric or special character is represented by a 7-bit binary number.

CD-ROM
This is a medium that can store digital data. A CD-ROM's storage capacity is approximately 650 megabytes.

Database
A database is a collection of data that is organised so that its contents can easily be accessed, managed and updated.

Delimiter
A delimiter is a character that identifies the beginning or the end of a character string (a contiguous sequence of characters).

Diskette (Floppy disk)
A diskette is a random access, removable data storage medium that can be used with personal computers. A floppy disk's storage capacity is approximately 1.44 megabytes.

DPI (dots per inch)
This is a measure of resolution for digital images and is also used for printers, scanners and displays.

Electronic data
Electronic data is information that can be used on the computer. Electronic data may have been information in hard copy that has been converted to an electronic format so that it is more convenient to move or process than hard copy. Alternatively, the electronic data may have been created in electronic format.

Field
A field represents a column of data within a database. Each record (row) can be made up of a number of pieces of information and, therefore, consists of a number of fields. These fields may be displayed as a box to enter or display data (in a form or report).

GIF (Graphics Interchange Format)
A GIF is one of the two most common file formats for graphic images on the World Wide Web. The other is JPEG.

HTML (Hypertext Markup Language)
HTML is the set of "markup" symbols or codes inserted in a file intended for display on a World Wide Web browser.

JPEG (Joint Photographics Experts Group)
A standard algorithm for the compression of digital images. JPEG format allows a digital image to be stored as a compressed file.

Image
An image is a picture that has been created or copied and stored in electronic form; it is like an electronic photocopy.

Medium
A medium is a third party or element through which information is communicated.

PDF (Portable Document Format)
PDF has been developed by Adobe Systems Inc. It is a file format for representing documents in a manner that is independent of the original application software, hardware, and operating system used to create those documents. Software to read PDF files is freely available on the Internet at Adobe Systems Inc.

A PDF file can describe documents containing any combination of text, graphics, and images in a device-independent and resolution independent format. These documents can be one page or thousands of pages, very simple or extremely complex with a rich use of fonts, graphics, colour and images.

Redacting
A method of masking, or "blacking out" text, such as confidential information, within a document.

RTF (Rich Text Format)
RTF is a file format that allows text files to be exchanged between different word processors in different operating systems.

SQL (Structured Query Language)
SQL is a standard interactive and programming language for getting information from and updating a database.

Structured format
Electronic documents that are created in a structured format means that parts of the document can be recognised by a computer in a certain way. For example, if a "mark" or "tag" is placed next to a document ID noted in a witness statement, a computer program can be written to recognise that Document ID and place a hypertext link to the image of the document.

TIF or TIFF (Tagged Image File Format)
TIFF is a common format for exchanging raster (bitmapped) images between application programs, including those used for scanning images.

Virus
A virus is a piece of programming code inserted into other programming to cause some unexpected and, for the victim, usually undesirable event. Viruses can be transmitted by downloading programs for infected sites (including Internet sites) or they may be present on an electronic file received from an infected system.