Metadata Watch Report #6 and Standards Framework Report #3

Appendix B: Government Domain

Correspondents: Makx Dekkers, Christian Eilert, PricewaterhouseCoopers

State of domain

A specific characteristic of the government domain is that there are two main approaches, the Dublin Core approach (see: http://dublincore.org/) and the GILS approach (see: http://www.gils.net/). Additional approaches can be found in specific areas that can be considered part of the government domain, such as FGDC for geographic data.

In broad terms, the GILS approach is used in the US government domain, whereas the Dublin Core approach is used in many countries and regions in the rest of the world. Many countries in Europe and around the world have adopted the Dublin Core approach as their national standard for e-Government applications, or are in the process of doing so, e.g. the UK, Ireland, Denmark, Finland, Australia, New Zealand, and Canada. Apart from national programmes, the Dublin Core approach has also been adopted by trans-national organisations, such as the European Environmental Agency, the United Nations Environment Program and the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations.

A major development in recent months has been the drafting of a proposal for extensions to the Dublin Core for e-Government applications. This proposal was prepared in the months July through September 2001, and has been evaluated by the Usage Board of the Dublin Core Metadata Initiative. A revised draft of this proposal is expected to be finalised early in 2002.

Activities

1)European co-operation

MIReG – Managing Information Resources for e-Government

Up to the beginning of 2001, there was no co-ordinated approach to metadata for government applications in Europe. Various activities were taking place, e.g. In the UK, Ireland, Denmark and Finland, but the European Commission was reluctant to take the lead until there were clear signals from the member states that it needed to become involved.

In early 2001, these signals were beginning to appear, especially from the UK and Denmark. This led to a meeting that took place in Brussels on 21 and 22 June 2001 under the title “Managing Information Resources for e-Government”. This meeting was co-hosted by the European Commission’s IDA programme and the Dublin Core Metadata Initiative Government Working Group. Representatives from e-Government programmes, mainly from the Scandinavian countries, the UK, Ireland, Hungary and European institutions in Brussels, and several non-European participants came together to explore the possibility of developing a framework for the use of metadata across European governments and parliaments. The objectives were (a) to determine the feasibility of such an activity and (b) to identify the resources - both technical and non-technical - that would be required to support it.

Common issues that emerged from the presentations and the discussions were:

All activities represented had selected the Dublin Core as the basis for their metadata standard:
All activities were looking to establish ontologies (controlled vocabularies, category lists, or thesauri) for use by government agencies, e.g. for subject classification, document types and geographic information, to increase interoperability between agencies;
Most activities had as their first priority to look into issues related to disclosure and discovery of government information; in the future however, issues related to the management of information resources and issues related to the disclosure and discovery of government services needed to be considered.

At the end of the meeting, it was decided by the participants that it would be valuable to aim at the establishment of a EU Government Metadata Framework to help establish interoperability between government activities on a Europe-wide scale

Very soon after the meeting, the TAC (IDA Member States Committee) agreed the establishment of an IDA Work Item, under the name of MIReG (Management of Information Resources for e-Government). It was also agreed that IDA would set up a working group of national experts on metadata.

MIReG is now part of the revised IDA work programme 2001, covering the government metadata framework, vocabulary control and other encoding schemes, ontologies and topic maps, software interfaces and best practice guidelines.

Web: http://ag.idaprog.org/Indis35prod/doc/312

2)United Kingdom

United Kingdom Cabinet Office, Office of the e-Envoy; UK Government Metadata Framework (UK-GMF)

UK GovTalk is part of the implementation strategy for the e-Government Interoperability programme aimed at achieving seamless electronic government. The public sector will now begin using the same standards and descriptors, or metadata, to tag its information resources. This will help citizens locate documents and web pages. The extensions to Dublin Core for government are now under discussion in the Usage Board of the Dublin Core Metadata Initiative. The proposed extensions are based on the draft UK standard, with records management elements removed, and a few other changes. However, the UK standard (e-GMS) is not yet on the site since it is subject to considerable change.

The purpose of the site is to enable the Public Sector, Industry and other interested participants to work together to develop and agree policies and standards for e-government. This is achieved through the UK GovTalk consultation processes. The site covers all aspects relating to the e-Government Interoperability Framework (e-GIF) and the e-Government Metadata Framework (e-GMF). It provides repositories for draft and agreed XML schemas, best practice and case studies, and also advice on toolkits and other relevant information. In addition, the site allows for Communities of Interest to be established and consultations to be conducted by those communities. These communities can relate to any aspect of introducing e-services into the UK public sector.

Web: http://www.govtalk.gov.uk/

3)Australia

National Archives of Australia

Originally conceived as a variant of the U.S. Government Information Locator Service (GILS), the Australian Government Locator Service (AGLS) abandoned the GILS framework and instead based the online locator service on the Dublin Core metadata standard.

The AGLS standard was developed under the auspices of the Government Technology and Telecommunications Committee, a cross-jurisdictional committee of officials who reported to the Online Council of Ministers. The ongoing development of the AGLS relies upon continued cooperation amongst the National Archives of Australia as lead agency for the initiative, the Office of Government Information Technology, Online Council Officials and, most importantly, all of those experts inside and outside of government who have an interest in promoting online resource discovery.

It was recognised that the prime purpose of assigning AGLS metadata, namely enabling resource discovery and resource retrieval by authorised users, is also one of the requirements of a record keeping system. Hence, AGLS metadata assigned to records should theoretically be a subset of any standardised metadata set specified for electronic record keeping purposes.

The National Archives of Australia is currently developing a government record keeping metadata standard for Commonwealth Government use. It is envisaged that the draft government record keeping metadata standard that is currently being developed by the National Archives will dovetail neatly with AGLS. Such compatibility would ensure that at document creation, AGLS metadata could be captured as part of the record keeping metadata capture process.

Web: http://www.naa.gov.au/recordkeeping/gov_online/agls/summary.html

4) Canada

Canada Treasury Board Secretariat

A major driver in the Government of Canada in giving access to government information is a strong commitment to citizen-centric service delivery. Clients want more precise search access to Canadian government Internet information, while departments need information management standards and guidelines to support implementation of Common Look and Feel standards and Portal, Gateways and Cluster managers need standards and guidelines to support managing and sharing information across departments.

In 1995-1999, attempts have been made to define a Canadian implementation of GILS. This was never adopted as a Government Standard. In the context of the Common Look and Feel standard which evolved from the GILS work, all government Web sites must adopt five metadata elements for description of web resources: Title, Originator, Language of Resource, Date and Controlled Subject.

In the last two years, work has been going on to define Record Keeping Metadata Requirements expanded from Dublin Core and GILS.

Early adopters of metadata solutions in the Government of Canada are:

Environment Canada (implemented GILS in 1995, converted to Dublin Core in 2000)
Natural Resources Canada - geospatial metadata standards
Cultural agencies - Dublin Core for digital content
SchoolNet - Dublin Core for educational resources

Most departments are awaiting demonstrated use of metadata in government search engines, clearer guidance from the Treasury Board and adoption of a standard by the government.

In the course of 2001, the following proposals have been developed:

Government of Canada Metadata Framework for Information Resources
Adoption of Dublin Core as Government of Canada (GoC) core metadata standard for resource discovery
Adoption of a Controlled Vocabulary Standard and GoC Core Subject Thesaurus

5) United States

National Biological Information Infrastructure

The NBII is the biological component of the Administration's effort to develop a National Information Infrastructure (NII), a network of distributed databases and information sources on biological resources data and information sources. The goal of the NBII is to provide swift user access to biological databases, information products, directories, and guides maintained by Federal, State, and local government agencies, non-government institutions, and private sector organizations in the United States and around the world. Typically, users come from both the public and private sectors--scientists, planners, decision makers within the Department of the Interior (DOI) and other Federal agencies, State and local governments, industry, international entities, teachers and students, and private citizens.

The NBII Clearinghouse lets users search descriptive information (metadata) about various biological databases on a network of computers. A key to implementing the Clearinghouse has been the development of an accepted set of metadata standards by BRD and partners (see below).

BRD has developed a national metadata standard for documenting biological data and information. The standard is compatible with other data cataloguing standards, including the Federal Geographic Data Committee (FGDC) metadata standard for geospatial data and the U.S. Machine Readable Cataloguing (USMARC) standard for published materials, books, and journal articles. For a graphical representation of their metadata standard, see http://www.nbii.gov/metadata/standards/current.status.html.

Web: http://www.nbii.gov/

National Environmental Data Index

The overall goal of the NEDI, within the National Information Infrastructure (NII), is to facilitate the use of the widest possible range of environmental data and information to support the ability to protect human health, safety, and welfare; to maintain and restore ecological integrity; and to sustain economic stability and growth.

NEDI is intended to provide distributed access to existing environmental information locator systems that describe data holdings (metadata databases). Providing one-stop access to separate indexes for environmental data and information queries is a high priority task in the design and implementation of the NEDI, which will increase the effectiveness of the collective system.

The design leverages existing standards and proven technologies, supporting multiple metadata standards, using the Internet and other communication links, support distributed searches (Z39.50) and allowing multiple access points to NEDI. The design is intended to be compatible with agency systems and with issue-specific systems such as the Government Information Locator Service (GILS), the Federal Geographic Data Committee (FGDC) Clearinghouse, the Global Change Data and Information System (GCDIS), the Global Change Master Directory based on the Data Interchange Format (DIF) and the USMARC used in the library community.

Web: http://www.nedi.gov

National Archives and Records Administration, Strategic Plan

NARA is an independent Federal agency that helps preserve US history by overseeing the management of all Federal records. Over the ten years of this plan, they want to stem the losses already occurring in their nation's recorded history, prepare to document the 21st century fully and efficiently, and take advantage of new technologies to extend our rich resources to every office, school, and home.

Its mission is to ensure ready access to the essential evidence that documents the rights of American citizens, the actions of Federal officials, and the national experience. One of the goals is to “expand current efforts to build a nationwide, integrated online information-delivery system that educates citizens about NARA and its facilities, services, and holdings.”

One such project is the NARA Archival Information Locator (NAIL), a pilot database of descriptions of various NARA holdings nationwide. In addition, some of the descriptions have links to digital copies of the documents being described. NAIL is the cornerstone of a larger Electronic Access Project through which they plan to develop an online catalogue of all of their holdings nationwide.

Web: http://www.nara.gov/nara/vision/naraplan.html

Maintained by: UK Office for Library and Information Networking (UKOLN)
Last updated: 13 November 2001