1. A computer-implemented method comprising: associating a concept described by a data set of data elements with a concept globally unique identifier (cGUID) to be shared by particular data elements referring to the concept, each data element comprising a unit of content; associating a first data element that describes the concept with an incarnation globally unique identifier (iGUID); associating the concept with the first data element, further comprising: receiving a first user input from a user comprising the first data element, and a context in which the data element is being used and describing a language or version of the first data element, querying a terminology database using the context, the terminology database containing a record of the concept and the cGUID corresponding to the concept and a record of the data element associated with the concept and the iGUID corresponding to the data element, receiving a list of likely concept matches for the first data element from the terminology database based on querying the terminology database, the each likely concept match having a corresponding cGUID and iGUID, receiving a second user input from the user selecting a match from the list of likely concept matches that correlates with the first data element, and directly associating the cGUID and the iGUID corresponding to the selected match with the data set, further comprising linking the cGUID and the iGUID in the data set and the terminology database; identifying the cGUID based on receiving a search term associated with the concept, the search term indicating that the user is attempting to locate the concept; identifying the first data element based on identifying the cGUID; replacing the first data element with a second data element associated with the concept; and outputting the data set including the second data element.