OpenDecisions
Schema Reference

Provenance

Shared provenance object, required for every entity that carries factual claims

Provenance (shared)

Every entity that carries factual claims must include a provenance object. This enables the "no source, no claim" principle: every number can be traced to a Source and a last-update time.

Used in: Institution, Program, AdmissionCycle, CostProfile, OutcomeStats, CohortStats (and implicitly in DerivedIndex via computedFrom).


Properties

PropertyExpected typeRequiredDescription
sourcesstring[]YesArray of sourceId values. Every factual claim in the entity should be traceable to at least one of these sources.
updatedAtstring (dateTime)YesLast update time for this entity. ISO 8601 format (e.g. 2026-02-08T12:00:00Z).

Example

"provenance": {
  "sources": ["source:us:ipeds:2024:hd", "source:us:scorecard:2024:institution"],
  "updatedAt": "2026-02-08T12:00:00Z"
}

Relationship to Source

Each sourceId in provenance.sources should reference a Source entity that describes the dataset or document: publisher, title, URL, retrieval time, collection method, license, and optional confidence.