A deposit opens the review of one determinate version. It is not immediate publication, scientific endorsement or a commitment to registration.

Eligible Dossier

The dossier must concern one identifiable object and contain at least:

  • a title, date and version number;
  • an explicit scope and, where useful, the elements excluded from that scope;
  • documented provenance, authorship and responsibilities, where known;
  • the rules, tables or procedures for which registration is requested;
  • the criteria for recognising a conforming application;
  • references to previous practice and an explanation of relevant differences;
  • authorisation to publish the submitted contributions and identification of third-party content.

A short proposal is eligible if its object is genuinely limited and its rules are complete within that scope. Text length is not an acceptance criterion.

Initial Deposit and Documentary Supplements

A specification may be deposited before its first use. The dossier must present sufficiently explicit rules, conformance criteria and the technical examples required by the selected module. Information about uses and implementations is optional. An empty field is omitted from publication.

Technical examples may be constructed to illustrate the specification. They present the inputs, expected results and rules applied.

During review and after registration, the holder of the private link may choose “Propose a documentary supplement” in the dossier. The request is automatically linked to the dossier and its version. One or two sections may be completed: “Documented uses and implementations” and “Subsequent developments and related specifications”. Sources and known dates are indicated in the text. The link may be entrusted to the documentary service following the deposit; it does not establish the contributor’s identity.

Supplements may concern uses, publications, corpora, references or subsequent developments. They are reviewed before publication and carry their own date, identifier and status in the dossier. A documentary supplement retains the specification number.

The initial PDF and history remain accessible. Accepted additions appear on the notice and at the end of a supplemented PDF. Each supplemented PDF edition bears a date and designation distinguishing it from the initial deposit. A change to the rules, scope or conformance criteria is handled as a new version.

A supplement received during review remains private until both the dossier and the supplement are approved. Its review does not change the decision on the specification; a supplement to a declined dossier does not reopen its review.

The submitter is a private administrative contact retained in the dossier. For a historical deposit, provenance and responsibilities are described from the available sources; active maintenance is not required.

Documentary supplement rules · Depot initial et complements documentaires (francais)

Institutional Preparation

When a specification comes from a laboratory, seminar, editorial team or working group, it is recommended that the deposit be prepared or validated by the service able to ensure the institution’s documentary continuity. Depending on the institution, this may be the research library, archives service, research support service or data service.

This service is not deemed to approve the scientific content. It may usefully verify the depositor’s authority, the deposited version, identifiers for persons and organisations, dissemination rights, references and the possibility of archiving the institutional source.

For a classification, vocabulary or knowledge organisation system, a scholarly society such as ISKO-France may be a relevant scientific interlocutor when a relationship already exists. It is neither a mandatory entry point for the Registry nor a dossier distributor.

Checks Before Deposit

1. Object and Version

The text bears a stable title, date and version. Its scope, exclusions and normative rules are identifiable. Maintenance responsibilities are indicated when documented. Relations with the main previous practices have been declared.

2. Authority and Rights

The depositor has the authority and rights necessary for the deposit. For a historical deposit, the depositor states the provenance and the basis for disseminating the documents. Original contributions may be published under the declared licence. Third-party quotations, illustrations, tables or data are identified and used on an appropriate legal basis.

3. Dossier Content

The dossier contains no secrets, confidential documents, restricted research data, sensitive data or personal information without documentary necessity. Persons named as authors, contributors or maintenance contacts have been informed of the intended public mention.

Prepare Your Answers Before Opening the Secure Form

This section is a preparation guide for the secure deposit form. It lists the questions that may be shown to a depositor, including conditional branches and response limits. The form shows only the questions relevant to the selected type of object. It describes the depositor-facing form only and does not reproduce the Registry’s internal processing configuration.

A normal deposit contains the three preliminary confirmations, one administrative field, 18 common fields, and one object-specific module of 7 to 10 fields. Two additional common fields appear only in particular cases, so the longest path contains 31 fields plus the three confirmations.

Preview all questions that may be asked
1. Preliminary declarations - 3 required confirmations
  • I confirm that the deposited specification has a dated version, an explicit scope and rules sufficiently determined for review.
  • I confirm that I am authorised to make this deposit and have the rights necessary to publish the original contributions if the dossier is registered.
  • I confirm that the dossier contains no confidential or restricted material and no personal information without documentary necessity, and that named persons have been informed of the intended publication.
2. Administrative information - 1 optional field

  • Depositor - optional public credit - Optional · up to 300 characters.

    • Service, organisation, or person that transmitted this version.
    • This credit will appear in the public deposit metadata available from the version history. It will not be included in the PDF.
3. Common dossier questions - 18 normally shown + 2 conditional

  • Submission kind - Required · choose one.

    • Choices: New registry concept; Revision of an unregistered submission; New version of a registered specification; Corrigendum to a registered version.
    • Choose “new registry concept” unless this submission explicitly continues an earlier one.

  • Earlier submission or Registry identifier - Required · up to 100 characters.

    • Shown only when Submission kind is “Revision of an unregistered submission”, “New version of a registered specification”, or “Corrigendum to a registered version”.
    • Suggested format/example: FIAS-SUB-… or FOAR-CON2X-…

  • Full title - Required · up to 240 characters.

    • Name the specific specification within the broader research programme.
    • Suggested format/example: Scientific Latin Representation of Modern Persian

  • Short title or acronym - Optional · up to 80 characters.

    • Suggested format/example: SLRMP

  • Object type - Required · choose one.

    • Choices: General specification; Convention or editorial policy; Profile of an external standard; Encoding, writing, transliteration, or notation scheme; Nomenclature or controlled vocabulary; Classification or taxonomy; Identifier or citation scheme; Data model or interchange format; Procedure or protocol; Reference registry or normative list; Experimental proposal.
    • This answer selects the next module of questions.

  • Status claimed by the submitter - Required · choose one.

    • Choices: Draft proposal; Experimental specification; Specification; Project standard; Institutional standard; Community convention; Profile of an external standard; Historical standard or convention.
    • This records the submitter’s designation; Registry endorsement is evaluated separately.

  • Maturity of this version - Required · choose one.

    • Choices: Draft; Candidate for stable use; Stable; Superseded; Withdrawn; Historical, no longer maintained.

  • Version - Required · up to 40 characters.

    • Suggested format/example: 1.0

  • Principal subject area - Required · choose one.

    • Choices: Linguistics and philology; Biology and biodiversity; Chemistry and materials science; Theology, religious studies, and canon law; History, archaeology, and manuscript studies; Geography, cartography, and place names; Musicology and notation; Digital humanities; Information and library science; Social sciences; Mathematics and formal sciences; Computing and data engineering; Multidisciplinary; Other.

  • Keywords - Required · 2-12 entries · up to 80 characters per entry.

    • Use the object studied as well as the method, script, tradition, or data type.
    • Suggested format/example: One keyword per line

  • Submitter - Required · up to 200 characters.

    • Identify who submitted the materials.
    • Suggested format/example: Name; role; organisation, if any.
    • This is a private administrative contact retained in the private dossier and is not published.

  • Problem, scope, and exclusions - Required · up to 5,000 characters.

    • Suggested format/example: What problem is solved? What objects and uses are covered? What is deliberately out of scope?

  • Intended users and contexts - Required · 1-20 entries · up to 180 characters per entry.

    • Suggested format/example: One user group or use context per line

  • Relation to existing practice - Required · choose one.

    • Choices: Codifies an existing practice; Profiles an existing standard; Extends an existing standard or convention; Replaces an earlier specification; Reconciles several existing systems; Introduces a new proposal; Documents a historical convention.

  • Scientific Context, Sources, and Scholarly Discussion - Required · up to 40,000 characters.

    • Describe the scientific problem, the work underlying the specification, and its relationship to existing approaches, citing relevant sources.
    • Identify the research groups, projects, seminars, conferences, or other scholarly settings in which the proposed solution or its formalisation as a specification was presented or discussed.
    • Describe the context and nature of these exchanges, including informal or closed discussions.
    • For each exchange, indicate whether it concerned the underlying ideas, their formalisation as a specification, or both.

  • Documented uses and implementations (optional) - Optional · up to 50 entries · up to 500 characters per entry.

    • Identify projects, publications, corpora, software, courses or other activities that have used this specification.
    • Where known, give the version used, the date or period and a reference identifying the use.
    • Leave this field empty if this information is unavailable. It can be supplemented after registration.

  • External standardisation status - Optional · choose one.

    • Choices: None intended; Possible later submission; Submission is in progress; Recognised by an external body.

  • Licence for the submitted specification - Required · choose one.

    • Choices: CC0 1.0; Creative Commons Attribution 4.0; Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0; MIT License; Custom or other licence; Not yet decided.
    • Default: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 (CC BY 4.0).
    • CC BY 4.0 is recommended for the text of the specification. CC0 1.0 is mainly suitable for a factual appendix when you control all necessary rights. Third-party content remains under its own rights.

  • Custom licence details - Required · up to 1,200 characters.

    • Shown only when Licence for the submitted specification is “Custom or other licence”.

  • Publication declaration - Required confirmation.

    • I request review of this version. If approved, I authorise the Registry to publish the approved notice and the reference PDF under the declared licence. I understand that structured answers, working files, and review opinions are not published by default.
4. Which object-specific module will be shown?

The answer to Object type selects exactly one module:

  • Normative specification - General specification; Convention or editorial policy; Experimental proposal.
  • Profile of an external standard - Profile of an external standard.
  • Encoding, writing, transliteration, or notation scheme - Encoding, writing, transliteration, or notation scheme.
  • Nomenclature or controlled vocabulary - Nomenclature or controlled vocabulary.
  • Classification or taxonomy - Classification or taxonomy.
  • Identifier or citation scheme - Identifier or citation scheme.
  • Data model or interchange format - Data model or interchange format.
  • Procedure or protocol - Procedure or protocol.
  • Reference registry or normative list - Reference registry or normative list.
5. Normative specification - 7 fields

Shown for: General specification; Convention or editorial policy; Experimental proposal.

  • What exactly is being prescribed or proposed? - Required · up to 3,500 characters.

  • Terms requiring explicit definitions - Required · 1-40 entries · up to 300 characters per entry.

    • Suggested format/example: Term - definition - source, if any

  • Form of normative requirements - Required · choose one.

    • Choices: MUST / SHOULD / MAY; Numbered normative rules without modal keywords; Normative tables; Machine-readable schema or grammar; Mixed method.

  • Normative requirements - Required · up to 12,000 characters.

    • Give each rule an identifier, such as R1, R2, R3. Separate normative rules from rationale.

  • Conformance test - Required · up to 5,000 characters.

    • How can an independent reader determine whether an implementation conforms?

  • Worked examples and counterexamples - Required · up to 8,000 characters.

  • Change and versioning policy - Required · up to 3,000 characters.

6. Profile of an external standard - 8 fields

Shown for: Profile of an external standard.

  • Base standard, version, and stable reference - Required · up to 2,000 characters.

  • What is the conformance target? - Required · choose one.

    • Choices: Document or publication; Dataset or record collection; Software implementation; Organisational process; More than one target.

  • Required features selected from the base standard - Required · 1-80 entries · up to 400 characters per entry.

  • Excluded or forbidden features - Required · 1-80 entries · up to 400 characters per entry.

  • Extensions or local constraints - Required · up to 6,000 characters.

  • Compatibility with conforming base-standard implementations - Required · choose one.

    • Choices: Every conforming profile instance also conforms to the base standard; The profile extends the base standard; Compatibility is partial or conditional; The profile intentionally breaks compatibility.

  • Compatibility explanation - Required · up to 4,000 characters.

  • Profile conformance test - Required · up to 5,000 characters.

7. Encoding, writing, transliteration, or notation scheme - 10 fields, including 1 conditional field

Shown for: Encoding, writing, transliteration, or notation scheme.

  • Source system or repertoire - Required · up to 3,000 characters.

    • Source script, sound system, symbols, objects, or notation being represented.

  • Target system or repertoire - Required · up to 3,000 characters.

  • Unit of mapping - Required · choose one.

    • Choices: Character or grapheme; Phoneme or sound category; Word or token; Scientific or musical symbol; Context-sensitive sequence; Mixed units.

  • Mapping rules or table - Required · up to 16,000 characters.

    • Suggested format/example: Source | Target | Condition | Rule ID | Note

  • Reversibility - Required · choose one.

    • Choices: Fully reversible; Reversible under stated conditions; Intentionally non-reversible.

  • Ambiguity and collision policy - Required · up to 5,000 characters.

  • Unicode repertoire and normalisation - Required · up to 5,000 characters.

    • Address code points, combining behaviour, NFC/NFD, fallback behaviour, and unsupported characters.

  • Contextual rules - Required · up to 7,000 characters.

    • Address capitalisation, punctuation, word boundaries, diacritics, historical forms, and proper names.

  • If information is lost, identify it and justify the loss - Required · up to 4,000 characters.

    • Shown only when Reversibility is “Reversible under stated conditions” or “Intentionally non-reversible”.

  • Test cases - Required · up to 10,000 characters.

    • Suggested format/example: Input | Expected output | Rule ID
8. Nomenclature or controlled vocabulary - 8 fields

Shown for: Nomenclature or controlled vocabulary.

  • What entities, concepts, or names are governed? - Required · up to 3,500 characters.

    • Examples: taxa and synonyms; chemical substances; doctrines; councils; saints and feast days; manuscript works; morphological characters.

  • Mandatory fields for one vocabulary entry - Required · 2-40 entries · up to 220 characters per entry.

    • One field per line, e.g. stable ID; preferred label; definition; language; source; validity interval.

  • Preferred labels, synonyms, and language policy - Required · up to 6,000 characters.

  • Criteria for deciding whether two entries denote the same entity - Required · up to 5,000 characters.

  • Rules for forming or selecting new terms - Required · up to 5,000 characters.

  • Deprecation, replacement, and synonym policy - Required · up to 5,000 characters.

  • Procedure for adding, correcting, or challenging an entry - Required · up to 5,000 characters.

  • Representative entries - Required · up to 12,000 characters.

    • Provide at least three complete examples, including one difficult case.
9. Classification or taxonomy - 9 fields

Shown for: Classification or taxonomy.

  • What entities are classified? - Required · up to 3,500 characters.

  • Classification structure - Required · choose one.

    • Choices: Single hierarchy; Multiple-parent hierarchy; Faceted classification; Graph or network; Flat classes; Hybrid structure.

  • Inclusion and exclusion criteria - Required · up to 6,000 characters.

  • Criteria for distinguishing neighbouring entities or classes - Required · up to 7,000 characters.

  • Borderline, disputed, unknown, and mixed cases - Required · up to 6,000 characters.

  • Split, merge, move, and deprecation rules - Required · up to 6,000 characters.

  • Temporal and tradition-specific validity - Required · up to 5,000 characters.

    • State whether classifications can differ by date, jurisdiction, confession, school, or evidential state.

  • Crosswalk to external classifications - Required · up to 7,000 characters.

  • Classified examples, including difficult cases - Required · up to 10,000 characters.

10. Identifier or citation scheme - 8 fields

Shown for: Identifier or citation scheme.

  • What receives an identifier? - Required · up to 3,000 characters.

  • Identifier syntax or grammar - Required · up to 5,000 characters.

    • Give a grammar, regular expression, or component table.

  • Assignment authority and collision prevention - Required · up to 5,000 characters.

  • Persistence and reassignment policy - Required · up to 5,000 characters.

  • Resolution or lookup mechanism - Required · up to 5,000 characters.

  • Concept, version, edition, and fragment granularity - Required · up to 5,000 characters.

  • Alias, merge, split, and deprecation behaviour - Required · up to 5,000 characters.

  • Valid, invalid, and edge-case examples - Required · up to 9,000 characters.

11. Data model or interchange format - 8 fields

Shown for: Data model or interchange format.

  • Entities, records, and relationships - Required · up to 7,000 characters.

  • Serialization and media type - Required · up to 4,000 characters.

    • JSON, CSV, XML, RDF, YAML, text, or another representation.

  • Required fields and cardinalities - Required · up to 9,000 characters.

  • Datatypes, controlled values, nulls, and unknown values - Required · up to 7,000 characters.

  • Machine validation mechanism - Required · choose one.

    • Choices: JSON Schema; XML Schema; SHACL; CSVW or table schema; Custom validator or grammar; No machine validator yet.

  • Validator, schema, or grammar details - Required · up to 6,000 characters.

  • Forward and backward compatibility - Required · up to 6,000 characters.

  • Complete minimal example - Required · up to 12,000 characters.

12. Procedure or protocol - 8 fields

Shown for: Procedure or protocol.

  • Inputs, prerequisites, and materials - Required · 1-80 entries · up to 400 characters per entry.

  • Ordered procedure - Required · up to 12,000 characters.

    • Number every step and state decision points explicitly.

  • Parameters, units, tolerances, and allowed ranges - Required · up to 7,000 characters.

  • Expected outputs and records to retain - Required · up to 6,000 characters.

  • Controls, calibration, and acceptance criteria - Required · up to 7,000 characters.

  • Failure modes and invalid runs - Required · up to 6,000 characters.

  • Safety, ethics, and legal constraints - Required · up to 5,000 characters.

    • Write “not applicable” only with a brief reason.

  • Independent reproducibility test - Required · up to 6,000 characters.

13. Reference registry or normative list - 8 fields

Shown for: Reference registry or normative list.

  • What kind of entry does the registry contain? - Required · up to 3,500 characters.

    • Examples: saints; councils; doctrines; ecclesiastical jurisdictions; historical polities; chemical substances; taxon names; manuscript works.

  • Mandatory fields for each entry - Required · 2-50 entries · up to 240 characters per entry.

  • Inclusion and exclusion criteria - Required · up to 6,000 characters.

  • Evidence and authority sources for an entry - Required · up to 6,000 characters.

  • Identity, duplicate, and cross-reference rules - Required · up to 6,000 characters.

  • Dates, jurisdictions, traditions, and competing assertions - Required · up to 7,000 characters.

  • Addition, correction, challenge, and deprecation process - Required · up to 6,000 characters.

  • Seed entries - Required · up to 14,000 characters.

    • Provide at least five complete entries and one disputed or borderline example.

How to Use This Guide

You may prepare your answers before opening the secure form. The secure form remains the authoritative interface for the actual deposit and may display only the questions relevant to your selections. Completing every displayed field does not by itself imply acceptance or registration.

This public preparation guide intentionally omits the Registry’s internal processing configuration.

Preliminary Declarations

The three boxes are required. The first describes the object, the second the authority to deposit, and the third the transmitted content. They do not prejudge the outcome of the review.

Access the secure form

The form will request these confirmations again so that they are recorded with the submitted dossier.

Publication and Preservation

If registered, the Registry publishes a bibliographic notice and the reference PDF. It does not publish the complete structured form or the internal review documents.

A dossier closed without publication is deleted according to the Dossier processing, publication and preservation policy. The private link provided after deposit is the means of access to tracking; it must be preserved by the depositor.

Documentary Landmarks

To prepare identification and preservation of the object, the depositor may consult the following preparation landmarks: the DataCite metadata kernel, ORCID and ROR where they exist, CINES resources on long-term archiving, and the Unicode Proposal Guidelines as an example of prior control of authors, rights, attestations and technical materials.

These resources do not constitute additional general conditions and do not guarantee registration or external indexing of the document.