Agreements on the use of standards are necessary to allow the knowledge chain in higher education to function. This chain ensures that scientific publications and professional literature are collected, made accessible and further disseminated. Clarity is necessary when the descriptive information has to be exchanged from one system to another, in particular from repositories (facilities for storing and managing digital information in a form accessible via the internet) to services such as the HBO Kennisbank and NARCIS, the portal with information about scientists and their work.
The Semantics agreement provides labels for concepts in the DIDL and MODS agreements, to prevent variations in spelling.