Dokumentoivia

Dokumentoivia is a term used in information science and speculative fiction to describe a class of documents that embed self-describing metadata to capture provenance, version history, and inter-document relationships within the document itself. The concept aims to improve traceability and interoperability across systems.

The word combines "dokumento", from the Latinized form of "document", with "-ivia", a fictional suffix used to form a noun describing a system or approach. It appeared in early 21st-century discussions in archival theory and later in fictional world-building.

A dokumentoivia document includes embedded metadata blocks that can be machine-readable, such as structured JSON-LD, PROV-O compatible provenance, and cryptographic hashes. It supports metadata for authorship, creation date, version, permissions, and references to related documents. The metadata travels with the document, enabling automated provenance reconstruction, integrity verification, and cross-platform search. It remains compatible with standard formats by placing metadata in standard containers or sidecar files.

In theory, it would simplify long-term preservation, legal admissibility, and scholarly research by providing durable provenance. In practice, adoption faces challenges including interoperability, size overhead, and security considerations like metadata tampering. There may be privacy concerns with embedded data.

Dokumentoivia remains largely a conceptual or speculative construct rather than a widely adopted standard; discussions often appear in fiction or theoretical essays about document governance and archiving. See also metadata, provenance, digital preservation, archival science, digital forensics, PROV-O.