3 Business Process Model

3.1 Approach

This section defines the requirements of the system by means of a business process model. The model attempts to encapsulate all significant processes that could be required to make the Metadata Management Facility a success.

The model has been pitched at the level of detail necessary to provide sufficient depth and clarity of requirements for its intended audience. It has not been defined to the extent necessary to develop a bespoke solution, on the assumption that implementation will largely be achieved with vendor-supplied package solutions.

The model was developed with the following objectives.

• To identify the processes required at an agency to create NZGLS metadata and make it available to the Metadata Management Team.

• To identify the processes required by the Metadata Management Team to validate received metadata, update it into a central metadata repository, and report the status of the metadata back to contributing agencies.

• To identify the processes required by the Metadata Management Team to provide ongoing support for metadata collection and to ensure an optimal quality standard is maintained.

• To identify any processes that might provide added value to agencies as a by-product of the metadata creation process.

Some processes in the model will be the responsibility of agencies and will not be provided as part of the Metadata Management Facility. The Portal Business Group will provide advice and assistance if required but will not provide the supporting solutions for these. Although the extent to which agencies provide their own solutions is a matter of their own choice, the Metadata Management Facility will provide sufficient functionality to support an end-to-end metadata collection process for those agencies that choose to use it.

3.2 Key Processes

The key processes of the Metadata Management Facility, represented in the following diagrams, are as follows. They are grouped into logical functional areas and are numbered in accordance with the diagrams.

If a vendor's solution provides alternative process solutions to those specified, but still meets the same business need, then they` will be considered.

3.2.1 Create and Maintain Metadata

1.2 Find Metadata

1.3 Create & Maintain NZGLS Metadata

1.4 Add Agency Element Extension

1.6 Harvest Agency Metadata

1.7 Import Agency Metadata

1.8 Validate and Update Metadata

1.9 Publish Import & Harvest Report

3.2.2 Maintain User Manual

2.1 Maintain User Manual

3.2.3 Export Metadata

3.1 Export NZGLS Metadata

3.2.4 Maintain Reference Data

4.1 Maintain Thesaurus and Controlled Lists

4.2 Maintain Agency Details from Directory

3.2.5 Quality Assurance of Metadata

5.1 QA Metadata

5.2 Produce Status Report

3.3 Process Diagrams

This section presents the process model in diagrammatic form and makes the assumption that the reader already understands how to interpret such a diagram. It should be read in conjunction with the sections 'Actors and Data Stores' and 'Process Descriptions'.

1 Create and Maintain Metadata

2 Maintain User Manual

3.3.3 3 Export Metadata

3.3.4 4 Maintain Reference Data

3.3.5 5 Quality Assurance of Metadata

3.3.6 Processes Not Supported by the Metadata Management Facility

These processes will be performed by the Agencies but do not need to be supported by the Metadata Management Facility. They are included here to give a complete picture of the end to end process.

3.4 Actors and Data Stores

Following are high-level descriptions of the Actors and Data Stores found within the model. Process Descriptions are to be found in the next section.

3.4.1 Actors

Actors	Description
Agency Officer	A non-specific representation of a person employed by a government agency to participate in the metadata creation or management process. This description is deliberately non-specific because of the wide-range of approaches that agencies are likely to take with their metadata creation. For example, in some smaller agencies a single person might perform all the functions of the Agency Officer. In some larger agencies, however, the functions might be spread across a diverse range of people and roles, including content creators, cataloguers, and technicians.
Portal Business Group Officer	A person employed by the Portal Business Group to support the on-going creation and collection of metadata and to ensure quality standards are maintained. Depending on how the Portal Business Group is eventually structured, this could be a single role or multiple, devolved responsibilities.
Thesaurus Lead Agency Officer	A person employed by the Thesaurus Lead Agency to support the on-going creation and collection of thesauri entries and to ensure quality standards are maintained. Depending on how the Thesaurus Lead Agency is eventually structured, this could be a single role or multiple, devolved responsibilities.
System	The controlling process for automatic functions such as harvesting.
Agency QA Officer	An Agency Officer given rights to ensure the quality of metadata entered by the agency.
Portal Business Group QA Officer	A Portal Business Group Officer given rights to ensure the quality of all metadata.

3.4.2 Data Stores

Data Store	Description
Agency Format Metadata Repository	One or more physical repositories at an agency that contain Agency Format Metadata. It is quite likely that the variety of possible forms exceeds the number of participating agencies.
Agency NZGLS Metadata Repository	One or more physical repositories at an agency that contain NZGLS Format Metadata. This could have a variety of forms, depending on the agency, including a content management system, a database, a text file, and metadata included in a web page.
Directory	This is a logical grouping of agency name and address details. It could be a separate LDAP directory or a collection of database tables or internal to the metadata repository.
NZGLS Thesaurus	Two thesauri plus controlled lists, that are used to select and control the values inserted into certain elements of NZGLS Metadata.
User Manual	An electronic, customisable, version of the NZGLS Metadata Reference Manual plus help for using the MMF.
NZGLS Metadata Repository	The central repository where all NZGLS Metadata required by the portal will be housed. Includes information about NZGLS Metadata collected from agencies by either an import or harvesting process. It also includes administrative metadata about the process and any validation or input errors detected.

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