e-Government Unit

eGovernment Metadata Standard

Colette Coles, Cabinet Office

Ankara, Turkey

16-18 March 2005

Definitions

• Element: Properties, attributes, characteristics

• Refinement: Narrower or more specific meaning to an element

• Encoding schemes: Information to help interpret value of a term

e-Government Unit

<meta name=”eGMS.subject.category” Scheme=”GCL” Content=“e-government”>

Element Refinement Scheme Value

Meta tag example

e-Government Unit

Creator All

Date All

Subject.category All

Title All

Accessibility For websites

Identifier For websites

Publisher For websites

Mandatory elements

e-Government Unit

Recommended elements

Coverage All

Language All

e-Government Unit

Audience All

Contributor All

Description All

Disposal All

Format All

Relation All

Rights All

Source All

Status All

Type All

Optional elements

e-Government Unit

Optional – records management elements

Addressee RM

Aggregation RM

Digital signature RM

Location RM

Mandate RM

Preservation RM

Binding Types(metadata

technologies andindustry standards)

Functions(specific purposesfor which metadata

is used)

MetadataTerm

Declarations

ApplicationProfiles

(e-GMS profiles forspecific purposes)

Bindings(how to implementspecific ApplicationProfiles in specific

Binding Types)

MetadataRecords

Models(underlying metadata

model)

LocalMetadata

Terms•Figure 1: Basic e-GMS Model

Functions

• Functions are significant activities performed with the resources

• web resource discovery

• transfer of records to The National Archives

• Each function will be defined formally, in natural language

• No agreed list of functions at present

• Functions must be at a high level, reasonably concise, and not proliferate

into an unmanageably large set

e-Government Unit

Application Profiles

• Metadata required to perform certain functions

• An application profile will be defined to meet the function’s requirements,

including functional and standards compliance requirements

• A resource can have several metadata application profiles

• Some application profiles may apply to more than one function

• Application profiles will be defined in human-readable form

• Need a Binding for implementation

e-Government Unit

Binding Types

• Encoding and representing metadata (HTML, XML and RDF/XML)

• A “binding type” specifies the syntax used to encode the metadata

• Some application profiles can be represented using more than one binding

type

• Most binding types will be applicable to several application profiles

• The resulting Binding specifications are represented in the model by the

“binding” block.

e-Government Unit

Bindings

• A binding is an application profile represented according to the

specifications of one binding type.

• This combination will enable software developers to build software that

complies with a wide range of metadata standards

• Bindings will be defined in human-readable form with supplementary

specifications such as XML schemas provided where required

e-Government Unit

Metadata Records

• Metadata records associated with the resources held by an organisation

• e-GMS does not define how resources or metadata are stored

• Interoperable interfaces to these resources requires the exposure of

records that conform to specific e-GMS bindings

e-Government Unit

Metadata Term Declaration

• The terms used to construct metadata descriptions within a particular model

must be declared before they can be used

• A core set of terms is made available by a global standards body for

widespread use (e.g. the DCMI or IEEE) with additional terms being

declared separately by particular national or local initiatives.

e-Government Unit

Criminal records• Identifiers

• Data elements – date, address, name, gender

• Criminal offences

• Status of case

• Status of “offender”

• Types of courts, prisons

• Geographic location of courts, prisons

• Physical location of records

• Disposal and retention

• Related resources – birth certificate

e-Government Unit

Information and advice

e-Government Unit

• GovTalk site www.govtalk.gov.uk

• GovTalk email govtalk@cabinet-office.gsi.gov.uk

• Metadata documents www.govtalk.gov.uk/schemasstandards/metadata.asp

• Guidance on the use of metadata in e-Government www.cenorm.be/cenorm/businessdomains/businessdomains/isss/cwa/meta-data+dc.asp