e-GMS

The e-Government Metadata Standard, e-GMS, is the UK e-Government Metadata Standard. It is an application profile of the Dublin Core Metadata Element Set.

The e-GMS defines how UK public sector bodies should label content such as web pages and documents in order to make such information more easily managed, found and shared.

The metadata standard consists of mandatory, recommended and optional metadata elements such as title, date created and description.

The e-GMS is part of the eGovernment Interoperability Framework (e-GIF).

Metadata elements

The standard defines several dozen elements, some of which are mandatory, the others recommended or optional. These include the following:

1. Creator
2. Date
3. Subject Category
4. Title
5. Accessibility (if applicable)
6. Identifier (if applicable)
7. Publisher (if applicable)
8. Coverage (recommended only)
9. Language (recommended only)

Subject metadata and the Integrated Public Sector Vocabulary (IPSV)

The Public Sector Information Domain - Metadata Standards Working Group has agreed to recommend this change to eGMS on the use of subject metadata

Where you identify value in using the subject element of metadata it should be populated from a controlled vocabulary that is used consistently across the sector to which the information relates. In preference, vocabularies should be published according to SKOS and publicly available for free re-use, which then enables tagged information to be further grouped, and associated, by an agent SKOS also encourages cross-references to be made across otherwise unconnected vocabularies.

This change reflects advances in searching techniques since the introduction of eGMS, and modern approaches to cataloguing and cross-referencing information against evolving terminologies.

IPSV is no longer directly referenced and mandated within eGMS, allowing the publisher to consider if subject tagging is valuable, and to use the vocabulary that best describes their business. Therefore, the mandate to use IPSV no longer applies, although IPSV remains an option.

The local government esd-toolkit (link below) has indicated its intention to continue hosting IPSV and current URIs will remain valid.

See also

Examples of UK government sponsored GovTalk XML standards that use e-GMS include

• NaPTAN
• TransXChange