Generntagning

Generntagning is a term used in information management to describe the practice of assigning generation-level metadata to digital objects. The concept focuses on capturing the lineage of an item—its generation or edition—so that later users can identify its source, revisions, and the context of its creation. The term combines "generation" with the Scandinavian noun "tagning" meaning tagging and is used in technical literature and digital humanities in that linguistic sphere.

Implementation typically involves a generation identifier (for example, gen-1, gen-2), timestamps, and information about the author or agent responsible for the generation, along with a short rationale. Generntagning can be applied at the level of an entire object or to components within a composite item. Metadata standards such as PREMIS, Dublin Core, or schema.org are commonly extended to include generation fields, and workflows may automate generation tagging on creation, edit, or import events.

Applications include digital archives, where generntagning supports provenance and audit trails; research data management, where it enables reproducibility by making the exact version of a dataset or analysis visible; and publishing or content management, where it helps manage updates and forks of documents, code, or media.

Benefits of generntagning include improved traceability, version control, and searchability. Challenges involve designing consistent rules for when generation tags are incremented, avoiding tag proliferation, and integrating generation metadata with existing schemas and workflows.

See also: provenance, version control, data lineage, tagging, metadata standards.