Informationwith

Informationwith is a term used in information design to describe information packages that accompany data with explicit contextual elements, such as metadata, provenance, and methodological notes. The goal is to improve transparency, interpretability, and reuse by enabling readers to understand how the data were collected, processed, and analyzed.

Core components include data, metadata describing structure and collection methods, provenance documenting origin and transformations, methodological notes or accompanying code, stated limitations and caveats, licensing information, and links to related resources. These elements together create an informationwith package that supports evaluation and replication.

Applications of informationwith appear in various fields. In scientific data releases, informationwith is commonly used to accompany datasets with READMEs, data dictionaries, provenance records, and reproducible analysis scripts. In journalism and policy, it appears as data-backed reporting that includes source documents, methods, and data visualizations. The concept emphasizes clarity about assumptions, data quality, and the conditions under which conclusions were drawn.

Standards and relationships: Informationwith draws on established metadata and provenance standards, including Dublin Core, schema.org, and the PROV-O ontology, and aligns with open data and reproducibility movements. Adoption often involves tooling and workflows to capture, version, and share contextual information.

Adoption and challenges: Implementing informationwith requires careful design of data packaging and documentation workflows. Challenges include overhead for authors, version control, privacy and licensing considerations, and ensuring interoperability across domains and platforms.

See also: metadata, data provenance, reproducibility.