{"schema_version":1,"experiment_id":"eoa_inverse_innovation_exp03_full320_20260801","cell_id":"layer_decay_and_expiration_management__education_pedagogy","trajectory_id":"R","attempt_index":0,"archetype_slug":"layer_decay_and_expiration_management","domain_slug":"education_pedagogy","decision":"CANDIDATE","problem_id":"stale_course_material_version_accumulation","causal_lever_id":"governed_instructional_artifact_lifecycle","proposal":{"problem":"HYPOTHESIS: Successive course shells, lesson plans, rubrics, readings, answer keys, accommodations, and policy notices remain discoverable or reusable after their instructional validity changes. Learners and instructors can mistake obsolete versions for current guidance, while staff avoid cleanup because deletion could erase accreditation evidence, authorship history, learner-work context, or material needed to reconstruct prior teaching decisions.","actors_substrate":["students and former students","instructors and teaching assistants","curriculum and program leads","learning-platform administrators","records, accessibility, and assessment staff","versioned course shells and instructional artifacts"],"observable_state":"Multiple dated or undated versions of the same instructional artifact coexist; obsolete items remain searchable, linked, or copied into new courses; ownership and last validation are missing; completed course shells grow without consistent archive, supersession, restoration, or exception states.","consequence":"INFERENCE: Stale materials can misdirect learning and assessment, increase search and maintenance effort, propagate outdated content into later courses, and make either retention or deletion difficult to defend.","affected_objective":"Keep instructional guidance current and interpretable while preserving the evidence and reconstructability legitimately required from earlier teaching periods.","structural_mapping":[{"archetype_element":"sequential deposits","domain_realization":"Each course offering and revision deposits another shell, syllabus, rubric, resource, assessment, or policy version.","claim_kind":"INFERENCE"},{"archetype_element":"stale layers remain active","domain_realization":"Superseded artifacts remain visible, searchable, linked, or available for copying without a clear loss of authority.","claim_kind":"HYPOTHESIS"},{"archetype_element":"unequal retention value","domain_realization":"Current guidance needs active access; prior assessments, learner-work context, and approval evidence may need restricted retention; routine duplicates may not.","claim_kind":"INFERENCE"},{"archetype_element":"dependency risk","domain_realization":"Links, grade explanations, accommodations, appeals, and later course copies may still depend on an older artifact.","claim_kind":"HYPOTHESIS"},{"archetype_element":"managed expiration","domain_realization":"Artifacts receive validation dates, expiry triggers, supersession labels, archive paths, exceptions, and reversible removal states.","claim_kind":"HYPOTHESIS"},{"archetype_element":"bounded searchable stack","domain_realization":"Current materials dominate ordinary discovery while recoverable historical materials move to labeled, lower-access archives.","claim_kind":"HYPOTHESIS"}],"component_map":[{"component":"layer_inventory_and_identity_map","status":"direct","domain_realization":"Identity-resolved register of course shells and instructional artifacts."},{"component":"deposition_order_and_age_index","status":"direct","domain_realization":"Course term, creation date, revision date, and version sequence."},{"component":"retention_policy_matrix","status":"adapted","domain_realization":"Artifact class mapped to active, review, archive, and disposal periods."},{"component":"decay_function_or_aging_rule","status":"adapted","domain_realization":"Review priority rises with time since validation, moderated by use and evidentiary value."},{"component":"expiration_trigger_definition","status":"direct","domain_realization":"Term close, supersession, validation lapse, or elapsed class-specific lifetime triggers review."},{"component":"layer_value_and_risk_score","status":"adapted","domain_realization":"Ranking combines current use, provenance, sensitivity, dependency, and reconstruction cost."},{"component":"dependency_and_reconstruction_check","status":"direct","domain_realization":"Check live links, grade context, course copies, appeals, and reconstruction needs before removal."},{"component":"pruning_or_archival_pathway","status":"direct","domain_realization":"Refresh, supersede, restrict, archive, consolidate, quarantine, or destroy."},{"component":"preservation_exception_register","status":"direct","domain_realization":"Named exceptions for contested, historically significant, evidentiary, or uniquely authored material."},{"component":"deletion_audit_and_rollback_window","status":"direct","domain_realization":"Recorded soft deletion with a time-bounded restoration period."},{"component":"resource_budget_and_storage_tier","status":"adapted","domain_realization":"Active-platform attention and storage reserved for current materials; history uses restricted archive tiers."},{"component":"review_cadence_and_revalidation_loop","status":"direct","domain_realization":"Owner review before each reuse plus periodic archive and exception review."},{"component":"legal_hold_or_compliance_override","status":"adapted","domain_realization":"Authorized records or dispute holds suspend ordinary disposition."},{"component":"hot_warm_cold_access_state","status":"adapted","domain_realization":"Current, restricted recent-history, archived, and deep-archive access states."},{"component":"orphan_layer_detection","status":"direct","domain_realization":"Identify artifacts with no live links, course use, registered dependency, or required context."},{"component":"supersession_marker","status":"direct","domain_realization":"Obsolete artifact points to the authoritative successor and records its status."},{"component":"layer_compaction_candidate_flag","status":"adapted","domain_realization":"Flag redundant versions for consolidation with a preserved manifest."},{"component":"rehydration_or_restore_procedure","status":"direct","domain_realization":"Documented restoration of an archived shell or artifact with permissions and links."},{"component":"deletion_impact_estimate","status":"adapted","domain_realization":"Estimate affected courses, learners, evidence, links, and recovery difficulty."},{"component":"stale_context_detector","status":"adapted","domain_realization":"Flag broken links, departed ownership, supersession, changed policy context, or overdue validation."}],"mechanism_dispositions":[{"slug":"age_weighted_value_score","disposition":"selected_supporting","contribution_type":"TEST_DESIGN","adaptation_or_rejection":"Ranks a pilot review queue; age cannot override holds, dependencies, or instructor judgment.","counterfactual_removal":"The lifecycle remains viable, but pilot sampling and triage become less consistent."},{"slug":"archive_restore_test","disposition":"selected_supporting","contribution_type":"SAFETY_GUARDRAIL","adaptation_or_rejection":"Periodically restore sampled archived course artifacts and verify readability, permissions, links, and fidelity.","counterfactual_removal":"Archiving could silently become irreversible, hard-gating safe demotion of evidentiary material."},{"slug":"cache_eviction_rule","disposition":"considered_rejected","contribution_type":"NONE","adaptation_or_rejection":"Fast-tier capacity is not the diagnosed driver, and access recency is unsafe as an instructional-validity rule.","counterfactual_removal":"No material change; lifecycle transitions remain policy- and validity-driven."},{"slug":"dependency_safe_delete_check","disposition":"selected_load_bearing","contribution_type":"CORE_CAUSAL","adaptation_or_rejection":"Block removal while any live course, grade context, appeal, link, or reconstruction path depends on the artifact.","counterfactual_removal":"Cleanup could break teaching or accountability dependencies, making deletion unsafe."},{"slug":"lifecycle_storage_tiering_policy","disposition":"selected_supporting","contribution_type":"OPERATIONAL","adaptation_or_rejection":"Move noncurrent but retained materials from ordinary course discovery into progressively restricted archives.","counterfactual_removal":"Stale visibility can still be reduced, but affordable, differentiated retention becomes harder."},{"slug":"log_rotation_and_cleanup_job","disposition":"incompatible","contribution_type":"NONE","adaptation_or_rejection":"Course artifacts are heterogeneous, dependency-rich objects rather than a uniform append-only stream suitable for blind generational purging.","counterfactual_removal":"No change; content-blind rotation would increase risk."},{"slug":"retention_schedule","disposition":"selected_load_bearing","contribution_type":"CORE_CAUSAL","adaptation_or_rejection":"Assign lifecycle rules by instructional-artifact class, with documented exceptions and authorized holds.","counterfactual_removal":"Artifacts revert to indefinite active retention or ad hoc deletion without legitimate class rules."},{"slug":"soft_delete_quarantine_window","disposition":"selected_supporting","contribution_type":"SAFETY_GUARDRAIL","adaptation_or_rejection":"Hide approved removal candidates first, audit the decision, and permit restoration before destruction.","counterfactual_removal":"Mistaken cleanup becomes immediately irreversible, materially narrowing safe automation."},{"slug":"stale_layer_detection_dashboard","disposition":"selected_load_bearing","contribution_type":"CORE_CAUSAL","adaptation_or_rejection":"Expose identity, owner, authority, last validation, dependencies, and suspected staleness as an actionable review queue.","counterfactual_removal":"The distributed pile and misleading active versions remain difficult to observe or govern."},{"slug":"time_to_live_ttl_policy","disposition":"selected_supporting","contribution_type":"OPERATIONAL","adaptation_or_rejection":"Use TTL only as a review or archive trigger for suitable classes, never as automatic destruction.","counterfactual_removal":"Periodic review could substitute, but accumulation would be less automatically bounded."},{"slug":"tombstone_or_deletion_marker","disposition":"selected_supporting","contribution_type":"SAFETY_GUARDRAIL","adaptation_or_rejection":"Leave a bounded marker stating deletion or supersession and directing surviving references to the current artifact.","counterfactual_removal":"Users and links could confuse deletion with absence or revive stale copies."}],"causal_chain":["Inventory versions and expose authority, ownership, age, validation, and staleness.","Apply class rules and holds to separate current, reviewable, preservable, and expirable artifacts.","Check dependencies and deletion impact before disposition.","Refresh or mark authoritative successors; move retained history out of ordinary discovery.","Quarantine approved removals, preserve audit markers, and test restoration.","Revalidate rules and exceptions so current guidance stays prominent and the historical stack remains recoverable but bounded."],"baseline":"Completed course shells and copied materials remain available indefinitely under local naming conventions; instructors manually search, duplicate, hide, or delete items when problems become visible.","nearest_rival":"An annual instructor-led course cleanup using checklists but without a shared inventory, class-based retention rules, dependency gate, restoration drill, or reversible deletion state.","authority_safety":{"affected_parties":["students whose learning or records reference an artifact","instructors and artifact authors","teaching assistants and later course teams","program, records, accessibility, and assessment staff"],"decision_authority":"Course owners may validate or supersede teaching content; platform administrators execute access-state changes; designated institutional records authorities approve held, regulated, contested, or final-destruction decisions.","authorized_first_step":"Run a 12-week, one-program pilot on two completed course cohorts: create a read-only inventory, label suspected stale versions, and move a reviewed sample only to reversible restricted archive. Compare mistaken-version selections, time to locate authoritative material, unresolved dependencies, and successful restores against matched untouched courses.","excluded_actions":["automatic hard deletion","altering grades or learner submissions","removing contested, held, regulated, or uniquely reconstructive material","using age or a composite score as sole authority","making archived learner-sensitive material broadly accessible"],"halt_rollback":"Halt transitions on any broken live dependency, incorrect authority label, access-control breach, failed restore, active dispute, or unanticipated learner impact; restore quarantined items and revert discovery labels from the audit record."}},"negative_tests":{"strongest_counterevidence":"The proposal weakens if obsolete-version use is rare, existing platform version controls already identify authoritative material, historical artifacts improve teaching more than they confuse it, or most burden comes from poor search unrelated to age and supersession.","analogy_break":"Instructional artifacts are not passive storage objects: old examples can retain pedagogical value, interpretation depends on course context, and authority is shared among authors, institutions, and affected learners. Therefore age decay cannot determine worth or deletion by itself.","failure_condition":"The mapping fails if there is no accumulating temporal stack of distinguishable instructional artifacts, no stale artifact remains discoverable as current, or cleanup carries no meaningful dependency, reconstruction, or preservation risk.","problem_falsifier":"Across the scoped program, an inventory finds negligible duplication or superseded material, users reliably identify authoritative versions, and artifact age or validation status is not associated with search burden, mistaken use, or maintenance work.","intervention_falsifier":"Compared with matched baseline courses, lifecycle labeling and reversible archiving do not reduce mistaken-version selection or authoritative-material search time, while increasing broken dependencies, access errors, staff workload, or failed recovery beyond preset tolerances.","risks":["False staleness flags suppress useful historical examples.","Composite scores create false precision or encode local bias.","Archiving reduces legitimate access or creates accessibility barriers.","Sensitive learner or assessment material is exposed during inventory or restoration.","Holds and exceptions become permanent clutter.","Supersession markers or automated copying propagate an incorrect authority decision.","Quarantine conflicts with an authorized requirement for prompt destruction."]},"null_rationale":null,"classification":{"candidate_kind":"MECHANISM_COMPOSITION","prior_art_status":"UNSEARCHED","evidence_maturity":"HYPOTHESIS"},"revision_change_log":{"revision_kind":"ORIGINAL","prior_problem_id":null,"prior_causal_lever_id":null,"problem_changed":false,"causal_lever_changed":false,"conceptual_changes":[],"operational_changes":[],"repairs_addressed":[]},"confidence":0.86,"generator_notes":"Closed-book structural inference from the supplied archetype, mechanisms, and education-domain context. Empirical prevalence and effect claims remain hypotheses; no prior-art search was performed."}