iiRDS InformationObject: one identity for every language and revision

Example

A manufacturer of palletizing robots delivers the topic "Replacing the gripper vacuum hose" in English, German and Spanish. After a design change, all three languages are revised. The iiRDS package now holds six topics, each with its own IRI, iirds:language and iirds:revision. All six point to one InformationObject with iirds:is-version-of. The German and Spanish topics also state iirds:is-translation-of toward the English source. A service technician in Mexico opens the service portal and sees revision 2 in Spanish; if a Spanish translation of a later revision is still missing, the portal can recognize the English revision as the same information and offer it instead of showing nothing.

How it applies

Technical documentation

Delivery portals use the information object to deduplicate. Instead of listing every variant, they show one entry and pick the unit that matches the reader's language and the newest revision. Editorial teams can see at a glance which languages lag behind the source revision, because all versions hang on the same identity.

Migration

Many component content management systems already manage a logical object ID across languages and versions. When exporting to iiRDS, that ID maps naturally onto an InformationObject IRI, with the system's own ID kept as an identity. Legacy PDF manuals in several languages can be linked the same way, one Document per language.

MedTech

Instructions for use are often revised and translated for many markets. Grouping revisions under one information object makes it easier to show which language versions and revisions of an IFU belong together. It records relationships; it does not by itself demonstrate that a given revision was approved or delivered with a device.

AI and retrieval

An index that treats every translation and revision as independent text returns near-identical answers in several languages or from outdated revisions. With the information object as a grouping key, a retrieval pipeline can keep one current version per object and language, cite it, and still know where the alternatives are.

InformationObject vs. InformationUnit vs. Identity

Concept	What it is	Has files?	Typical link
InformationUnit	Concrete content in one language and revision, with metadata	Yes, via renditions (optional)	iirds:is-version-of → object
InformationObject	Shared identity of all versions	No	Target of iirds:is-version-of
Identity	An identifier from another system, with its domain	No	iirds:has-identity from object or unit

The direction matters: units point to the object, never the reverse. A unit's IRI identifies one version; the object's IRI identifies the content across all versions.

In RDF

An English source topic and its German translation, both revision 1, grouped by one information object. Shown in Turtle for readability — inside a package, metadata.rdf is written in RDF/XML.

@prefix iirds: <http://iirds.tekom.de/iirds#> .

<https://example.com/iirds/objects/gripper-hose> a iirds:InformationObject .

<https://example.com/iirds/gripper-hose/en/1> a iirds:Topic ;
    iirds:title "Replacing the gripper vacuum hose"@en ;
    iirds:language "en" ;
    iirds:revision "1" ;
    iirds:is-version-of <https://example.com/iirds/objects/gripper-hose> ;
    iirds:has-rendition [
        a iirds:Rendition ;
        iirds:format "text/html" ;
        iirds:source "content/en/gripper-hose.html"
    ] .

<https://example.com/iirds/gripper-hose/de/1> a iirds:Topic ;
    iirds:title "Vakuumschlauch des Greifers ersetzen"@de ;
    iirds:language "de" ;
    iirds:revision "1" ;
    iirds:is-version-of <https://example.com/iirds/objects/gripper-hose> ;
    iirds:is-translation-of <https://example.com/iirds/gripper-hose/en/1> ;
    iirds:has-rendition [
        a iirds:Rendition ;
        iirds:format "text/html" ;
        iirds:source "content/de/gripper-hose.html"
    ] .

In topic-based authoring and modular architectures

In topic-based authoring, a DITA topic file is usually one language and one state of a module, while the CCMS keeps track of the module across translations and versions. DITA itself has no element for that cross-language identity; iiRDS makes it explicit in the delivered metadata. In a modular delivery architecture, the information object becomes the stable key that downstream systems can store: a service ticket, a machine display or a knowledge graph can refer to the object's IRI and resolve it at runtime to the right language and revision. Because units of the same object may arrive in different packages over time, a consumer can recognize an update as a new version of known content rather than as something unrelated.