Metatietoina

Metatietoina is a term used in information science to denote metadata about metadata, focusing on the descriptions of metadata elements themselves and the processes that produce them. As an abstract layer, metatietoina complements primary metadata by recording provenance, version history, quality assessments, and lineage information for metadata records.

The term derives from metatieto (metadata) with the Finnish suffix -ina, which forms nouns referencing a collective or conceptual domain. In practice, metatietoina refers to the set of attributes and relations that describe how metadata was created, how it has changed over time, and how reliable or complete it is.

Key concepts include metadata provenance (who created the metadata and when), metadata lineage (the chain of transformations that metadata has undergone), quality indicators (completeness, accuracy, timeliness), and version control. Metatietoina can be modeled as a separate metadata graph or as properties attached to existing metadata records within a data catalog, repository, or knowledge graph.

Architectures for metatietoina commonly use graph-based or schema-driven approaches, enabling linkage between data assets, their metadata, authorship, workflows, and access policies. Practical implementations appear in data governance regimes, data quality programs, and archival systems, where tracking the metadata’s own lifecycle supports auditability and reproducibility.

Challenges include standardizing metatietoina concepts across domains, ensuring interoperability between systems, managing performance overhead, and addressing privacy concerns when metadata contains sensitive provenance or usage data.

See also: metadata, data governance, data lineage, provenance, metadata registry.