Informationstillstånd

Informationstillstånd is a term used to describe the current state of information within a system. It refers to what information is known, inferred, or accessible to actors at a specific point in time, including the data values, their sources, timestamps, and the permissions and reliability attached to them. The concept emphasizes the temporal aspect of information: subsequent changes can alter the information state and, consequently, decisions and actions.

In information science and related disciplines, informationstillstånd is closely related to notions such as data state, knowledge state, and information state used in planning and epistemic reasoning. A given information state may comprise data items, metadata, provenance records, version history, and access controls. Modeling the information state helps explain how systems respond to queries, updates, and events.

Applications include database management, distributed systems, software agents and AI planning, decision support, and user interfaces. Managing informationstillstånd involves tracking provenance and versions, assessing data quality, enforcing privacy and security policies, and maintaining audit trails. Challenges include ensuring timeliness, scalability, and consistency across heterogeneous sources, as well as handling incomplete or uncertain information.

In some Swedish contexts the term may overlap with information structure in linguistics, where it relates to givenness or focus in discourse, though in most technical uses the emphasis is on the factual content and accessibility of information within a system.