Dokumenttiin

Dokumenttiin is a conceptual framework used in digital documentation and archival science to describe a structured approach for recording, preserving, and communicating information about digital and physical artifacts, processes, and events. The term is used in Finnish- and Estonian-speaking scholarly and cultural heritage communities to denote a holistic documentation practice that integrates content, metadata, and provenance. The name draws on Finnish linguistic roots, with 'dokumentti' meaning document.

Its guiding principles include completeness and traceability of sources, clear provenance, versioning, and interoperability across technologies. Dokumenttiin emphasizes machine-readable metadata and representations that endure beyond a single system. Practitioners commonly employ established standards such as Dublin Core, PREMIS, and RDF for linked data, along with persistent identifiers to anchor records in long-term archives.

Typical components include content records describing artifacts or events, metadata records documenting characteristics and provenance, an evidence trail showing transformations or decisions, and access and rights information. Implementations often rely on archival information packages, version control, and documentation platforms that export to standard formats.

Applications include cultural heritage repositories, research project documentation, and software or data repositories. The approach supports long-term preservation by enabling reconstruction of past states and understanding of decisions. Critics note that it can impose overhead and require governance to maintain cross-collection consistency.

Compared with other documentation approaches, Dokumenttiin seeks to integrate content and metadata with clear provenance and repeatable processes, enabling future researchers to locate, interpret, and reuse materials with confidence.