Glossary
This glossary defines key terms used throughout this reference description. Definitions are aligned with the conceptual boundaries set out in What Is Decision Provenance?.
AI-Assisted Decision
A decision in which a human decision-maker relies, wholly or partly, on outputs generated by an AI system.
AI assistance may influence judgement even where formal responsibility remains with a human actor.
Audit Trail
A structured record of actions or events within a system, typically used to support verification, review or compliance.
Audit trails record that actions occurred. They do not necessarily preserve decision context or discretionary judgement.
Decision Context
The information, constraints, assumptions and conditions available at the time a decision is made.
Decision context is time-bound and cannot be reliably reconstructed from later knowledge of outcomes.
Decision Log
A record that a decision was made, often including the outcome and a brief rationale.
Decision logs vary in structure and completeness and may not preserve sufficient context to support later evidentiary scrutiny.
Decision Provenance
The preserved record of decision context, judgement and outcome as they existed at the time a decision was made.
Decision provenance is concerned with explanation and evidentiary integrity, not process optimisation.
Decision Reconstruction
The process of attempting to explain how and why a decision was taken by assembling records after the decision occurred.
Reconstruction relies on inference rather than contemporaneous preservation.
Evidentiary Risk
The risk that a decision cannot be adequately explained, justified or defended when later examined.
Evidentiary risk increases where context and judgement were not preserved at the time the decision occurred.
Hindsight Bias
A cognitive distortion in which knowledge of outcomes influences interpretation of earlier events.
Hindsight bias complicates retrospective explanation of decisions.
Retrospective Explanation
An explanation constructed after a decision has occurred, typically based on surviving records and recollection.
Retrospective explanation differs from contemporaneous preservation.
Contemporaneous Preservation
The recording of relevant decision context and judgement at the time a decision is made, rather than after the fact.
Contemporaneity is a defining feature of decision provenance.