Glossary - I

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ibid. (ibidem)

Latin abbreviation for "in the same place."

i.e. (id est)

Latin abbreviation for "that is" or "in other words."

IEEE

Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers.

Illustration

A visual image that supports or clarifies text.

Illustrator (Adobe)

A vector-based drawing program used to create print quality line-art drawings, like logos and illustrations, and to export them to page layout programs.

Image map

An image with one or more hyperlinked areas. See also hotspot.

Impact analysis

An assessment of the pros and cons of following a particular course of action.

Implementation

Fourth phase of ADDIE, an iterative application model for instructional systems design. The goal of this phase is to conduct training. See also ADDIE.

A project document that defines the objectives, resources, and plans for installation and systems transition; for example, scheduling the transition from acceptance testing to full operational status, identifying staffing and training needs for system operation and maintenance, planning for data migration, and so on. The plan contains an overview of the system, a brief description of the major tasks involved in the implementation, the overall resources needed to support the implementation effort (such as hardware, software, facilities, materials, and personnel), and any site-specific implementation requirements. The plan is developed during and updated throughout the Design and Development phase; the final version is provided in the Testing phase and is used for guidance during the Implementation phase. TEMPLATE

Implementation requirements

A requirement that supports the development and maintenance concepts and approaches in the areas of operating environment, conversion, installation, training, and documentation.

Implied contract

An enforceable contract not made explicitly but rather implied from circumstances or the parties' conduct.

Impression

The display of a banner ad in a web page.

Incentive contract

A negotiated pricing arrangement that gives the contractor higher profits for better performance and/or lower profits for worse performance in specified areas.

Income

What is left after all expenses and costs are subtracted from revenues. Also called earnings, profit, or the bottom line (because it is usually the final line on the financial statement known as an income statement).

Income statement

A financial statement that reports an entity's income for a period of time, usually for a fiscal quarter or fiscal year (as contrasted with the balance sheet, which shows the status of assets, liabilities, and owner's equities at one point in time). Also called P&L, profit and loss statement.

Incremental development

A software development technique in which requirements definition, design, implementation, and testing occur in an overlapping, iterative (rather than sequential) manner, resulting in incremental completion of the overall software product.

Incremental funding

Budget authority that is or appears to be provided for only part of the estimated cost of a capital acquisition or part of a usable asset. When capital projects or useful segments are incrementally funded, without certainty if or when future funding will be available, it can result in poor planning, acquisition of assets not fully justified, higher acquisition costs, project delays, cancellation of major projects, the loss of sunk costs, or inadequate funding to maintain and operate the assets.

IND

Adobe InDesign graphics document file format.

INDD

Adobe InDesign document file format.

Indent

To place text some distance from the left margin. See also hanging indent.

Independent contractor

A person or a business, under a written or implied agreement or contract, that delivers a product or performs a service for another person or business.

Independent variable

A variable that the researcher controls or manipulates. See also variable types.

Independent verification and validation (IVV or IV&V)

The process of proving compliance to a specification by using personnel that are technically competent and managerially separate from the development team. Product risk is the driver for the IV&V team's degree of independence.

Independent verification, validation, and test (IVV&T)

A process performed by external sources, used to prove that a solution meets both specification and user requirements as evidenced by test and operational results.

InDesign (Adobe)

A professional design layout package, similar to Adobe Pagemaker.

Index

An alphabetized list of key terms and concepts in a document, and the pages on which they appear. See also back matter.

Indexing

A list of words or phrases along with page numbers or other pointers to the location of that information in a document.

Indirect costs

The costs for common or joint objectives that cannot be attributed to any specific project or activity; however, they can be allocated to projects on a prorated basis. Also called overhead or burden. See also cost types.

Individual knowledge

The result of a person's prior experiences, mental structures, and beliefs. See also knowledge.

Industrial design

The creation and development of concepts and specifications that optimize the aesthetics, function, and usability of products and systems, benefiting both the user and the manufacturer.

Inflation

The proportionate rate of change in the general price level, as opposed to the proportionate increase in a specific price. Inflation is usually measured by a broad-based price index, such as the implicit deflator for Gross Domestic Product or the Consumer Price Index.

Informal knowledge

Knowledge gained through experience outside a classroom. See also knowledge.

Information architecture

The process of organizing information--including the structure, design, layout and navigation--to facilitate finding, understanding, and managing the information.

Information delivery

Providing information to everyone who impacts key business processesâ€”in real time and in a format they can use.

Information design

As defined by STC's Special Interest Group on Information Design, a field that "applies traditional and evolving design principles to the process of translating complex, unorganized, or unstructured data into valuable, meaningful information. The practice of information design requires an interdisciplinary approach which combines skills in graphic design, writing and editing, instructional design, human performance technology, and human factors."

Information development

The process of transforming technical content into knowledge that can be transferred to users and managed as a corporate asset.

Information engineering

A development methodology where models are created to improve the users' ability to understand and define the functions and flow of information within their organization. A business model is developed to identify the key areas of interest for the business, the tasks required for each area, and the activities that make up each task. The business model prioritizes and identifies top management goals and then establishes the information needs necessary to reach those goals. A data model is developed to describe the data and the relationships among data. The data model further divides the business model into user-defined relationships (for example, an entity relationship model).

Information management

The proper organization and control, including records management, of information transmitted by any means.

Information systems life cycle (ISLC)

See Systems Development Life Cycle.

Information technology (IT)

As defined by the Clinger-Cohen Act of 1996, any equipment or interconnected system or subsystem of equipment that is used in the automatic acquisition, storage, manipulation, management, movement, control, display, switching, interchange, transmission, or reception of data or information. Information technology includes computers, ancillary equipment, software, firmware and similar procedures, services (including support services), and related resources. It does not include any equipment that is acquired by a Federal contractor incidental to a Federal contract.

Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL)

A service management standard/model that documents best practices for the support and delivery of IT services. See also project management methodologies.

Infringement

The violation of an exclusive right to intellectual property.

Initial concept

A project idea that has a sponsor and mission relevance but has not had formal cost/benefit, alternative, or requirements analyses.

Initial public offering (IPO)

A company's first public sale of stock.

Initialism

A phrase or multi-word name represented using the first letter of each word, and pronounced as a series of individual letters; for example, WWW. See also abbreviation, acronym.

Initiation

Authorizing a project or phase.

Initiative

A proposal for the development/acquisition of a new information system, for an enhancement to an existing system which will result in a major system, or for the acquisition of new information technology.

Inkscape (open source)

A vector drawing application that uses the W3C standard scalable vector graphics (SVG) file format.

Innovation capital

An organization's ability to improve and develop un- or under-utilized potential and generate long-term wealth. See also human capital, intellectual capital, market capital, organizational capital.

Innovators

One of five adopter categories. Describes individuals who are the first to embrace change and adopt new technologies. See also adopter categories, early adopters, early majority, laggards, late majority.

In-page navigation

Links to major content headings, usually at the top of a long web page, that give a sense of the topics contained on the page. See also footer navigation, primary navigation.

Input data

A set of data required for successful completion of a series of test procedures. The system uses the data to ensure resolution of problems and correct performance. See also data types.

Inquiry

The process of investigating and developing a plan to solve a problem.

Insight

A project surveillance method that refers to the process of gathering a minimum set of product or process data that provides adequate visibility into the integrity of the product or process. The data may be acquired from contractor records, usually in a non-intrusive parallel method.

Installation and checkout

The period of time during which a software product is integrated into its operational environment and tested in this environment to ensure it performs as required.

Installation testing

Testing to confirm that the application under test recovers from expected or unexpected events without loss of data or functionality. Events can include shortage of disk space, unexpected loss of communication, or power-out conditions.

Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE)

A non-profit professional association for the advancement of technology.

Instructional analysis

The process of breaking an instructional task or goal into steps and objectives to develop lesson and unit objectives.

Instructional design

The process of creating instruction to close a performance gap that is due to a lack of knowledge and skills.

Instructional designer

The person who develops the methodology and delivery systems for presenting course content.

Instructional goals

Brief statements that describe the tasks that can be performed as a result of the training.

Instructional objectives

See performance objectives.

Instructional strategies

The methods used to transfer content and skills from the training delivery system to the learner; for example, discussion, hands-on activities, practice, lecture, on-the-job training, and simulations.

Instructor-led training (ILT)

Delivery of a course in a traditional classroom setting.

Intangible assets

Assets that have no physical substance, such as goodwill, trademarks, patents, or the protection provided by an insurance policy. Even though they have no physical substance, intangible assets can and often do appear on the balance sheet. See also tangible assets.

Integrated project team (IPT)

A multi-disciplinary team led by a program manager responsible and accountable for planning, budgeting, procurement, and life-cycle management of the project to achieve its cost, schedule, and performance goals. Team skills include: budget, finance, capital planning, procurement, user, program, value management, earned value management, and other skills as appropriate.

Integrated services digital network (ISDN)

A telephone system network that it integrates speech and data on the same lines.

Integration Plan

A project document that defines the activities necessary to integrate the software units and software components into the software item. The Integration Plan contains an overview of the system, a brief description of the major tasks involved in the integration, and the overall resources needed to support the integration effort. The plan is developed during the Design and Development phase and is updated during the Testing phase; the final version is provided in the Implementation phase. TEMPLATE

Integration testing

Testing of combined parts of an application to determine whether they function together correctly. Usually performed after unit testing and functional testing, and especially relevant to client/server and distributed systems. This orderly progression of testing verifies:

The internal integrity of a collection of units (modules)

Their integration into components, products, subsystems, and systems

Their interfaces and interdependencies to ensure that they are properly designed and implemented.

Intellectual capital

Within an organization, the sum of human capital, innovation capital, market capital, and organizational capital an organization can leverage to produce an asset that is equally as or more important than land, capital, and labor. See also human capital, innovation capital, market capital, organizational capital.

Intellectual property

Concepts, ideas, notions, thoughts, and processes that are definable, measurable, and proprietary in nature. Also, legally, the copyrights, patents, service marks, trademarks, and trade secrets that a company holds.

Interaction design (ID)

Creation of behavior and communication tools and processes to facilitate humans' communication with and manipulation of objects, services, and physical or virtual environments.

Interactive multimedia

Media that allows two-way interaction with direct response to input, as opposed to one-way communication from elevision, video, or other non-responsive medium.

Interactive television (WebTV)

A proprietary browser that allows users to access email, the web, and interactive digital content without a personal computer.

Interface

See user interface.

Interface Control Document

A project document that defines the requirements imposed on one or more systems, subsystems, hardware configuration items, computer software configuration items, manual operations, or other system components to achieve one or more interfaces among these entities. It specifies interface requirements that the participating systems must meet, describes the concept of operations for the interface, defines the message structure and protocols that govern the interchange of data, and identifies the communication paths along which the data will flow. Upon formal approval, the ICD is incorporated into the requirements baseline for each system. TEMPLATE

Interface design

The activity concerned with the interfaces of the software system contained in the software requirements and software interface requirements documentation. The design consolidates the interface descriptions into a single interface description of the software system.

Interface requirement

A requirement that specifies an external item with which a software product or system must interact, or that sets forth constraints on formats, timing, or other factors caused by such an interaction.

Interface testing

Testing conducted to evaluate whether software components pass data and control correctly to one another.

Internal assessment

An analysis of an organization's performance, problems, position, and potential.

Internal marketing

The process of eliciting support within an organization to promote its goals. See also marketing types.

Internal rate of return (IRR)

Calculation of annual financial return for a given outlay without considering any external or related factors. The IRR for an investment is the discount rate for which the total present value of future cash flows equals the cost of the investment. The higher an investment's IRR, the better the investment's return relative to its cost. In simpler terms, the IRR is the value another investment must generate in order equal the cash flow of the investment you are considering.