context [English]

Syndetic Relationships

InterPARES Definition

n. ~ IP2 · The framework in which a record is created, used, and maintained.

Other Definitions

  • Gartner IT Glossary (†298 s.v. context): Generally refers to the combination of user identity, environmental, process and community-based information about the customer, leading to real-time offers, delivered at the right time via the right touchpoint, and valuable to the customer. Refers to meanings that are clear to the sender or receiver (e.g., application or person), either because they are stated elsewhere in the message or because they have been predefined (e.g., the number “30” means “30 pounds of flour” in one message and “30 cases of orange soda” in another message). Sender and receiver may have different interpretations of meaning (i.e., different context). For example, “customer” could be the party that pays the freight bill in a billing application, but the receiver of the item (which might not be the payer) in a warehousing application.
  • IP2 Dictionary (†242 s.v. context): n., The framework in which a record is created, used, and maintained. [Archives] n., The position of an archaeological find in time and space, established by measuring and assessing its associations, matrix, and provenance. The assessment includes the study of what has happened to the find since it was buried in the ground. [Sciences] n., The physical and cultural circumstances surrounding the deposition of archaeological material and the formation of archaeological deposits. [Sciences] n., The circumstances that a user may bring to a document that influences that user’s understanding of the document. [Archives] n., The organization functional and operational circumstances in which documents are created and/or received and used. [Archives] n., The framework in which the action in which the record participates takes place. The types of context included., The framework in which the action in which the record participates takes place. The types of context include juridical-administrative context, provenancial context, procedural context, documentary context, and technological context. [Archives] n., The framework of action in which the record participates. [Archives] n., In a grammar it refers to the symbols before and after the symbol under consideration. If the syntax of a symbol is independent of its context, the grammar is said to be context-free. [Computer and Information Sciences]
  • IP2 Dictionary (†242 ): n. ~ The position of an archaeological find in time and space, established by measuring and assessing its associations, matrix, and provenance. The assessment includes the study of what has happened to the find since it was buried in the ground. [Sciences] n., The physical and cultural circumstances surrounding the deposition of archaeological material and the formation of archaeological deposits. [Sciences] n., The circumstances that a user may bring to a document that influences that user’s understanding of the document. [Archives] n., The organization functional and operational circumstances in which documents are created and/or received and used.[Archives]
  • IP2 Glossary (†386 s.v. context): n., The framework in which a record is created, used, and maintained. [Archives - "Template for Analysis." , Page: 198 ]
  • SAA Glossary 2005 (†241 ): n. ~ 1. The organizational, functional, and operational circumstances surrounding materials' creation, receipt, storage, or use, and its relationship to other materials. ‐ 2. The circumstances that a user may bring to a document that influences that user's understanding of the document. ¶ Notes: Along with content and structure, context is one of the three fundamental aspects of a record.

Citations

  • ISACA Glossary (†743 s.v. context): The overall set of internal and external factors that might influence or determine how an enterprise, entity, process or individual acts. Context includes: technology context (technological factors that affect an enterprise's ability to extract value from data), data context (data accuracy, availability, currency and quality), skills and knowledge (general experience and analytical, technical and business skills), organizational and cultural context (political factors and whether the enterprise prefers data to intuition), strategic context (strategic objectives of the enterprise). (†1771)
  • Yeo 2013 (†380 9-10): The contexts of records include not only the actions in which records are involved and the persons connected with them, but also the wider environments in which records are created and maintained. These wider environments include, but are in no way limited to, the functions of workgroups, organizations and nuclear and extended families; they also extend to the broad societal, legal, cultural and physical contexts in which individuals, families, partnerships, workgroups, communities and organizations operate. Nor is context confined to a moment or moments in time; behind every one of its aspects lies a complex web of prior events, occurrences, actions and situations, an evolving sequence of historical contexts for what we perceive as the contexts of the present day. As South African archivist Verne Harris has said, ‘there is no end to a search through this terrain’;61 context is infinite, and every context has contexts of its own. In practice, if archivists and archival institutions seek to document context, they have to decide what levels of context are most relevant to their needs or the needs of their users; this means making decisions about what to emphasize and what to ignore, decisions that will inevitably privilege some aspects of context above others. (†412)