An Overview of e‑Government Metadata Standards and Initiatives based on Dublin Core

Abstract

The broad definition of metadata is 'data about data' or 'data that describe data or information'. In more specific terms, 'metadata is data about other data or objects, used to describe digitized and non‑digitized resources located in a distributed system in a network environment' (Haynes, D, p 8). In e‑Government applications it may be used, amongst other for the discovery and retrieval of government information, as well as to assist in the management of government electronic resources. In other words, metadata is the key to interoperability. This paper aims to highlight the use of metadata in e‑Government projects with a review of the most widely metadata standard used in e‑Government application (DC). Also, it will compare the work which has been carried out in the UK, Australia, New Zealand, Canada and Ireland with DC, as all these metadata projects are based on simple Dublin Core metadata. Finally, roadmap for metadata development will be proposed.