Glossary
This glossary explains common words appearing on the MGH website. It is intended to reduce uncertainty without increasing knowledge beyond the level suitable for a public page.
Please note: definitions below are general descriptions only. Contractual, technical, security and delivery meanings are set elsewhere and may be more precise, less convenient, or unavailable to the public.
| Term | Public meaning |
|---|---|
| Archive | A place where older material is retained because somebody may ask for it after everyone has forgotten why it was produced. |
| Browser | The programme used to view this site. If the page appears correctly, the browser is adequate. If it does not, the browser is still probably adequate for many other things. |
| Control room | A room in which information is received, displayed, discussed and acted upon. It may contain radios, telephones, charts, desks and people trying not to be interrupted. |
| Controlled information | Information that is not for ordinary publication. The reason may be legal, contractual, security-related, commercial, personal, or simply none of the reader's business. |
| Customer | An organisation for which work is undertaken or may be undertaken. Public reference to a customer does not imply permission to discuss the work. |
| Delivery | The point at which something expected becomes something received, subject to acceptance, paperwork and the possibility that received is not the same as finished. |
| Event | A planned occurrence involving a venue, programme, audience, staff, suppliers, weather and a collection of assumptions waiting to be tested. |
| Form | A set of boxes requesting information in an order convenient to the person who made the form. Completion of a form is not proof that the matter has been accepted. |
| Framework | An arrangement under which future work may be ordered if the necessary conditions are satisfied. It is not, by itself, a guarantee that anything interesting will happen. |
| Notice | A statement published so that it can later be said to have been published. Notices may be important, routine, historic or mainly defensive. |
| Plan | A document or agreed understanding describing what is meant to happen. A plan is not the same as the thing happening. |
| Programme | A sequence of work, activity or delivery. It may also mean the printed paper handed out at an event. Context is expected to assist. |
| Queue | A line of people, vehicles, tasks or requests waiting to be dealt with in some order. The existence of a queue proves only that movement is desired. |
| Release | The act of making information, equipment or a statement available to an authorised recipient. Public release is the smallest and least detailed kind used on this site. |
| Requirement | Something stated as needed. Requirements may be written, assumed, revised, misunderstood or discovered late. |
| Route | The path by which people, vehicles, documents or enquiries are expected to travel. A public route is not necessarily the route used for controlled material. |
| Specification | A description of what is required or supplied. Website descriptions are not specifications unless they expressly say they are, which they generally do not. |
| Visitor | A person viewing the site or attending by arrangement. In either case, presence does not create authority to see restricted material. |
Use of this glossary
The glossary is not an index, manual, approved vocabulary, procurement annex or technical dictionary. It is a public aid to reading pages that already avoid most of the details people usually want.
Where a term appears in a contract, clearance instruction, site rule, event plan, security procedure or delivery document, that document controls the meaning for its own purpose. The shorter definition above should then be admired for its brevity and ignored for the serious work.
Page last updated 7 August 2003. Definitions may be made less helpful without notice.
