• Acceptability criteria The allowable error within the method and are dependent on the effect size of each endpoint.

• Performance error Errors that occur because of how the experiment is conducted, for example, not following or deviating from the standard operating procedures.

• Total error The overall error in a test result that is attributed to imprecision and inaccuracy i.e. the net effect of random and systematic error in a method.

• Variability Describes how far apart study/experiment data points lie from each other and from the center of a distribution.

• Variance A measure of dispersion that takes into account the spread of all data points in a dataset/study. For more definitions of the method validation terminology refer to supplementary material (Additional file 1).