74 of the Digital Society glossary’s terms, each with the part of the syllabus where you first meet it.
Measuring an analogue signal at regular moments in time so that it can be converted into digital form; each sample is then rounded (quantised) to the nearest available level.
The level or size of the area at which a space, process or impact is studied, such as local, regional, national, global or virtual.
An interdisciplinary field that studies how science and technology are shaped by society, and how they in turn shape society, by examining designers, users, companies and governments.
The total time a person spends using devices with screens, such as phones, computers, televisions and games consoles; it is a simple measure that does not show what the person was doing.
An algorithm that finds an item, or items that match a request, within a collection of data.
Data that was collected by someone else, often for a different purpose, and is reused, such as census tables or published research.
An account or analysis based on other sources, such as a news analysis, a textbook chapter, a documentary or an academic review.
Choosing not to express an idea, opinion or experience, or changing how it is expressed, because of fear of negative consequences from the state, an employer, a platform or other people.
Learning in which individuals take the initiative to decide what to learn, find resources, set goals and judge their own progress, with or without help from others.
The practice of a platform giving its own products or services better treatment than those of rival businesses that depend on it, for example by ranking them higher or displaying them more prominently.
The process of managing how others see a person by choosing what to show, hide or emphasise, for example through profile photos, bios and the posts they share.
A model of how robots and autonomous systems work, in which sensors gather data about the environment, software processes the data to choose an action, and actuators carry out the action, in a continuous loop.
An input device that measures a physical property, such as temperature, light, movement, pressure or location, and converts it into data a computer can process.
The order in which an algorithm's instructions are carried out, one after another; changing the order usually changes the result.
A computer, or a program running on one, that provides data, resources or services to other computers, called clients, across a network.
A robot that performs useful tasks for people or equipment outside industrial manufacturing, such as cleaning, delivery, surgery, inspection or agriculture.
The use of a computer model to imitate the behaviour of a real system over time, so that researchers can test scenarios that would be impossible, unsafe, slow or expensive to test in reality.
An element of a system whose failure causes the whole system to stop working, because no other element can take over its function.
A complete computer built on one small circuit board, with its processor, memory and connections all on the board, such as the Raspberry Pi.
Low-effort online support for a cause, such as liking, sharing or changing a profile picture, which may make people feel they have helped without leading to real change.
An urban area that uses sensors, networks and data analysis to monitor and manage services such as transport, energy, water, waste and public safety, with the aim of making them more efficient and sustainable.
An electricity network that uses sensors, smart meters, two-way communication and software to monitor and balance supply and demand in real time, making it easier to integrate renewable energy and use existing capacity efficiently.
A home in which appliances, heating, lighting, security and entertainment devices are connected to the internet and can be monitored and controlled remotely or automatically, often through a phone app or voice assistant.
A mobile phone with an operating system, apps, sensors and internet access that make it a general-purpose, pocket-sized computer.
A system in which people, social structures and technology are so closely interconnected that neither the social nor the technical part can be understood or changed without the other.
The ability of a state or organisation to get what it wants through attraction and persuasion, such as its culture, values and reputation, rather than through force or payment.
The programs, instructions and associated data that tell a computer's hardware what to do.
A storage device that keeps data in flash memory chips with no moving parts, making it faster, quieter and tougher than a hard disk drive.
An algorithm that puts items into an order according to a rule, such as alphabetical, numerical, by date or by price.
Anything that provides information or evidence for an inquiry, such as a news report, dataset, interview, video, social media post or government document.
An algorithm or program written in a programming language, which people can read and edit and which is translated into machine code before a computer runs it.
The extent in which people, objects and information are located, arranged, connected and move, including the ways people organise, represent and give meaning to it.
A term from the sociologist Manuel Castells for the networks of data, money, goods and people that link distant places in real time, which he argued now organise economic and political power.
Unsolicited messages sent in bulk, usually by email, text or social media, often for advertising, scams or spreading malware.
An inequality in access to, or use of, digital systems between places, such as between urban and rural areas, between regions of a country or between countries.
The use of AI to convert spoken words into written text, so that a system can respond to voice commands or transcribe speech.
Malicious software that secretly collects information from a device, such as messages, passwords, location or keystrokes, and sends it to a third party without the user's knowledge.
A person, group or organisation that has an interest in a digital system, either because they can influence it or because they are affected by it, directly or indirectly.
A published specification agreed by a standards body or industry, such as IEEE 802.11 for Wi-Fi, that manufacturers follow so that their products work together.
Specific, justified recommendations for how an intervention, or the response to a challenge, should change in the future, based on its evaluation against the relevant criteria.
Hardware that keeps data and programs permanently, even when the power is off, such as a hard disk drive, a solid-state drive or a memory card.
Audio and video delivered over a network and played while the data arrives, rather than downloaded in full first; users pay for or receive access, not a copy.
An online service that delivers music, video, games or live events to users over the internet on demand, usually through a subscription or advertising model, without the user keeping a permanent copy.
A proposed form of AI that would have genuine understanding, and possibly consciousness, rather than only simulating intelligent behaviour. It is often used together with general AI and full AI for a system with human-level ability across all tasks.
Power that is built into the rules, institutions, organisations and systems within which people act, so that it shapes their choices without any single person having to give an order.
Data organised in a predefined format, such as the fields of a table, so that it can be searched and processed easily.
A group within a larger culture that shares distinctive values, styles, language or practices that set it apart from the mainstream, while still belonging to the wider society.
A fibre-optic cable laid on the seabed that carries internet and telephone traffic between countries and continents.
The fastest class of computer, linking thousands of processors to solve one very large problem, such as a weather forecast or a climate model.
Machine learning in which the algorithm is trained on labelled data, where each example has a known correct output, so that it learns to predict the output for new examples.
The systematic monitoring of people's behaviour, communications or movements, usually by governments or organisations, to gather information, influence behaviour or exercise control.
Shoshana Zuboff's term for an economic system in which companies collect data about people's behaviour, use it to predict and influence what they will do, and sell those predictions, mainly to advertisers.
Development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs; it balances economic, social and environmental goals.
17 global goals adopted by the United Nations in 2015, with targets for 2030, that cover poverty, health, education, inequality, climate, consumption, cities and ecosystems.
A significant improvement that helps existing organisations serve their current users better without changing who leads the field, such as a bank moving its customers to mobile banking.
A device that connects devices in a local area network and forwards each message only to the device it is addressed to, using MAC addresses.
Images, video, audio or text that are wholly or partly produced by artificial intelligence rather than recorded or written directly from the real world.
A set of interacting, interdependent or interconnected elements that are organised so that, together, they produce a particular pattern of behaviour or achieve a purpose.
The line, chosen by the person studying a system, that separates the elements treated as part of the system from its environment.
A single chip that combines a computer's main components, such as the CPU, GPU and memory controller, used in smartphones, tablets and single-board computers.
An approach that studies the relationships, flows and feedback between the elements of a system, and between the system and its environment, in order to understand and predict the behaviour of the whole rather than of each part separately.
A social media account controlled wholly or partly by software, which posts, likes or shares content automatically while appearing to be a real person.