OIO - Offentlig Information Online


Februar 2002, vol. 1, nr. 1
OIO - Offentlig Information Online
Palle Aagaard fra Statens Information holdt foredrag på Online Information 2001 i London om de danske bestræbelser på at skabe en sammenhængende og systematisk brug af metadata på det offentliges websider (på engelsk).

For the year 2001 the Danish Ministry of Information Technology and Research have funded the OIO – Open Public Information Online – project with DKK 6 mill. (approx. EURO 805.000). The OIO project is located at the Danish State Information Service. OIO is based on the use of metadata.

The future goal of the OIO project is easy management of information and easy accessibility of governmental information for the citizens, for business etc. The goal is also interoperability of information – nationally and internationally. This means the OIO metadata must be compatible with metadata which are in use by other governmental and local government agencies – or be using the same metadata standards.

The understanding of the need for compatibility – and co-operation - is reflected by the various agencies which prepared the project proposal for the OIO project. This was key-persons from the National Association of Local Authorities in Denmark (the municipalities association), The Association of County Councils in Denmark, some municipalities, counties, ministries and the Danish State Information Service.

In principle, the OIO project consists of two main parts:

- Developing a metadata standard which is compatible with other governmental metadata standards - Developing applications based on the metadata

The applications actually developed in the OIO-project are:

- A link-service - A search engine for public information

The set-up and preliminary conclusion will be presented at the conference.

The OIO set-up
To get started there had to be made some choices. One of the vital choices was the decision that the metadata standard should be based on “Dublin Core Metadata Element Set Version 1.1” – and then later in the project develop a tailored application profile considering e-Governmental efforts elsewhere – especially in European countries and in the EU institution.

Then building the legacy systems where started and later the project should be promoted in the Danish public sector (state, municipalities and counties) with webmasters and information specialists as target groups.

The overall choice which was made was that the OIO should be based on:

- Co-operation in the Danish public sector - Metadata and encoding rules - Decentral in-put of data - One access-point for end-users (Fig. 1. Basics for OIO)

The basis for co-operation was already established via the consortium which prepared the project-proposal and only had to be extended. The basis for metadata elements and encoding rules then had to be established. The following figure illustrates the work in this field:

- Selection of elements from Dublin Core - Encoding rules for elements - Embedding syntax for elements - Category list – classification scheme (Fig. 2. Arranging the core of the OIO-system)

Where most metadata elements are easy to deal with, the metadata element “subject” is more difficult if you do not have an established classification system, thesaurus etc. No such existed for Danish e-Governmental use – so the OIO project also had to produce a category list/classification scheme:

- Scope of scheme: Government business areas - 21 main groups or headings - 3 hierarchical levels - Approx. 500 groups/headings - Information type facet with 10 types (Fig. 3. Arranging the perhaps most important part of the encoding rules)

ENERGY AND RESOURCES Scope Note with definitions and focus area - Renewal energy - Solar energy - Water power - Wind power (Fig. 4. Category list. Translated example)

The OIO system provides possibility for gathering metadata – by key in (meta)data or by harvesting from web-pages by robot. This means that metadata will be created by the information providers themselves. This also means that encoding rules must be defined and easy to use.

The encoding rules are based on Dublin Core recommandation and was written in Danish by the consultant department at the “Danish Royal School of Library and Information Science”. The category list was developed by the consultant department at the “Danish Bibliographic Centre Media A/S”.

The OIO-system
The OIO-system is based on input of data about public web-sites. The system is build so it is easy for e.g. webmaster to add data about their web-sites. And the system is build so it is possible with future additions of metadata elements.

(Fig. 5 indsættes her) Fig. 5. Arranging the system – access for users (webmasters and information specialists in the Danish public sector).

The left menu explained:

- (Set-up – of system for administration) - (System tables – for administration) - Add metadata - about web-sites (e.g. informationspecialist task) - View metadata - connected to web-sites - List of users - administration - Approving users - administration - Create user - administration - OIO-link service – application for webmasters - Adding public agencies - administration - (System – administration)

When logging on the super-administrator will meet an interface as seen in Fig. 5. Users (e.g. webmasters) will have access to a part of what is seen in Fig. 5. The super-administrator can add and approve users and can add or delete metadata elements etc.

When activating “Add-metadata” the following screen is displayed:

(Fig. 6 indsættes her) Fig. 6. Arranging the in-put data screen with fields for Title, Creator, Subject, Description etc.

In-put data screen explained in brief:

- The Danish State Information Service (Statens Information) has a web-site URL (http://www.si.dk/netsteder). - This web-site belongs to the 3rd level subject class ”Web-sites” which is placed in the subject hierarchy “Communication (1st level) – Publishing (2nd Level) – Web-sites (3rd level)”. Note: Taken from the OIO project Category list – classification scheme - The web-site has the type facet “General information”. - There is a description (Beskrivelse) - Etc. for other metadata elements
http://www.si.dk/netsteder/

The users (webmaster and/or informations specialists) can enter – e.g. key-in (meta)data as seen in Fig.6 - connected to a web-page and web-site, correct their own data etc. The encoding rules can be activated by click at the question marks. Users – who have embedded metadata at their web-pages - can choose only to enter an URL and then let the system harvest these metadata.

When the information providers are maintaining the information/metadata they have added to the system, the system is constructed so other users always will have persistent links.

Application: Link-service
One use of the OIO system is the link-service application. This link-service is especially for use when the citizens – i.e. end users – have a need for comparing similar services by different public institutions – e.g. waiting lists at different hospitals – e.g. the quality of different schools etc.

In terms of metadata, this link-service works by only 3 Dublin Core Metadata Elements, which are Creator, Subject and Identifier (URL).

(Fig. 7 indsættes her) Fig. 7. Arranging the link-service screen. Original proto-type

The users (e.g. webmasters) can pick a link and add it to their own web-sites e.g with a deep-linking purpose. The purpose is then to provide a “more relevant information link” on selected web-pages for the end-users. And the OIO-system should make this kind of linking much easier to administrate.

For end-users there will also be build a search interface from which it is possible to search public web-information based on the metadata in the OIO-system.

OIO and metadata standardization
Another chosen point of view in the project is that metadata – in the future – will be added to information while the information is created or in process.

This means that metadata for managing the information/document should be part of the metadata model. Where the other part of the metadata model is metadata for resource discovery – information retrieval - as reflected by the metadata for the OIO system. The future goal of the OIO project is easy management of information and easy accessibility of governmental information for the citizens, for business etc. All together this means that the metadata model must contain metadata

- For resource discovery (e.g. Dublin Core elements) - For management/handling purpose - Which are compatible with other metadata implementations in other countries - Which is the firm and stable core for future developments of metadata elements – and connected applications

This means the OIO project had to investigate similar e-Government metadata efforts elsewhere in the world and especially in Europe. This investigation concluded that those countries, which declared a “metadata policy” all endorsed the metadata set “Dublin Core” but also often considered element extensions for making it more tailored to e-Government purposes.

The investigation also showed, that some vital “players at the scene”, joined forces as an “Advisory Board” for making the “EU Government Metadata Framework”. These players where the EU-programme IDA, Dublin Core Governmental WG, UK Office of the e-Envoy and the Danish State Information Service. The “EU Government Metadata Framework” is actually produced by the EU-programme IDA work item MIReG (Management Information Resources for e-Government) in collaboration with the “Advisory Board” and is expected finished by January 2002.

Because interoperability is necessary, the OIO metadata part will wait for the result of the MIReG work.

Results from the OIO project
The search engine will be build in October 2001. The OIO project will promote the OIO services for information providers in the Danish public sector from October 2001. Results of these efforts will be presented at the conference. No conclusions are available at the moment.

Future of the OIO project
The OIO project, especially the metadata part, is together with a Danish e-Government XML-standardization process conducted by the Danish IT and Research Ministry, seen as the fundament for the Danish public information and data interoperability infrastructure. The OIO metadata part has in the autumn 2001 joined forces with the Danish e-Government XML-standardization process. The OIO-system will continue its operation and gather metadata connected to Danish public web-sites. It is possible that all Danish e-Government metadata and XML-standardization efforts will get the common name OIO – Open Public Information Online.
http://www.oio.dk/

Af Palle Aagaard

Overheads

http://www.si.dk/netsteder/foredrag/london/oio-london2-filer/frame.htm

Palle Aagaard
Palle Agaard, MLISc, is Communications Consultant for the Danish State Information Service. In this role he has developed guidelines for web accessibility for disabled users, publishing web-forms; publishing electronic publications; and other guidelines and recommendations for wider Danish egovernmental use of the web.

Palle is also Project Manager for the metadata project – Open Public Information Online, and has conducted the funding application for the Danish metadata harvesting project BibHit: www.bibhit.dk. Palle’s interests also include automatic concordance between classification schemes and automatic clustering regarding thesaurus construction. He has worked with IT and information for more than 15 years.

Palle is Co-chair of the Dublin Core Government WG; a member of several committees including: Advisory Board for developing an EU government metadata framework; DCMI Advisory Committee; MMI-DC Workshop (metadata for multimedia information); and the XML-WG conducted by the Danish IT and Research Ministry. Palle is also a frequent published author.



Palle Aagaard

Redigeret 19-12-2001