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Metadata and the government portal

Metadata and the government portal

Agencies are required to create metadata that complies with the New Zealand Government Locator Service (NZGLS) standard. This makes it easier to find information using the government portal.

The government portal

The government portal brings information about all agencies and their services together in one place. People can readily access the portal and link to all agency websites 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

In June 2004, people could use the government portal to access information on 307 agencies, 1541 services and 2774 documents. By the end of the year, people will be able to access 4775 pieces of legislation through the portal. Popular search topics are immigration, legislation, jobs, education, Māori and the Treaty of Waitangi, business and tax.

The portal means that:

  • people only need a single website address to access government
  • people have improved access to information about services (they do not need to know which agency to contact or how government is structured)
  • people can rely on the portal to access government websites only (unlike Internet search engines such as 'Google' that include non-government websites).

Public Service departments are required to ensure their information and services are included on the portal, while the wider State sector is encouraged to include information on the portal. Coverage of the wider State sector is therefore not as comprehensive, although agencies outside the core Public Service continue to create records for the portal. Some Crown entities, such as Accident Compensation Corporation, New Zealand Qualifications Authority and the Land Transport Authority, have extensive information available through the portal.

Local authorities have also put significant effort into making information about their services available on the portal. Local government services on the portal are treated generically, with a single record for services provided by multiple local authorities. The construction of such a list of services, 130 in all, has had the added benefit of helping many authorities identify information gaps and prompt improvements to their own websites.

Use of the government portal

Of the participants in the Channel Surfing survey who had contacted government over the Internet, 15% had used the portal. Of the participants in the GO2003 survey who had contacted government over the Internet, 23% had used the portal. Seventy-eight percent of the GO2003 participants said that being able to find government information through one website would be most useful.

Of those GO2003 participants who had used the portal:

  • 72% found the information easy to find
  • 86% considered the information easy to understand
  • 82% said they found the information they wanted.

Metalogue

Government agencies create and maintain metadata records about their services and resources in Metalogue, an electronic catalogue of information that supplies information to the government portal. Metalogue does not describe every service or document on government websites, but collections of documents (such as a group of media releases). It also stores metadata describing resources that are not available online such as non-electronic services, printed brochures or pamphlets.

Metalogue

Metadata in Metalogue is also used in specialist portals. As Metalogue is a central repository of information, it can be sorted by subject to create audience-focused portals. Reusing this information saves agencies time and money on development, data gathering and operating costs.

Several government sectors have audience-focused portals:

Finding government services

The government portal enables people to access government according to their need rather than having to know which agency to contact. Agencies need to use the correct terms in the definitions and thesauri [The portal uses the Subjects of New Zealand (SONZ) and the Functions of New Zealand (FONZ) thesauri to describe government information, services and other resources in a consistent manner] so that the public can easily find the information or service they need.

For example, a search on 'tramping' returns service records such as 'Make a Great Walks booking', 'Purchase an annual hut pass' and 'Find an easy scenic walk'. The word 'tramping' is both a keyword description and a thesauri term in SONZ. This ensures the service is found easily through the portal's search function and people are then referred to more information in supporting documents.

If people want information about a government agency, they can search by organisation rather than by service.

Contribution to ready access

Agencies have created metadata in Metalogue, thereby providing access through the portal. The majority of agencies have created a number of records, providing ready access to their key services and information resources (including offline resources such as brochures) through the portal.

Metadata is generally of a high quality. Agencies need to ensure they have the business processes and resources to continue to develop quality metadata and review existing metadata. Agencies should create additional metadata for information and services not easily accessible through the portal. Metadata should use plain language and succinct descriptions. The EGU is working with agencies to help them to improve the quality of their metadata.

The portal bypasses the need to navigate agency websites. So even if an agency website is not arranged to focus on the agency's services, users can still readily access that information through the portal. Some agencies choose to create metadata records that link directly to specific documents, or create records that are more general and link to a section of a website such as an index page. It is particularly important for those agencies with metadata that link to specific documents, to review them regularly, as broken links are more likely to occur.

Agencies metadata should link to specific areas of their websites (for example, an online form or an index page on a certain subject) rather than to the home-page.

A number of agencies' have accurate, well written, up-to-date metadata that provides good coverage of information and services.

Best practice: Metadata records

Ministry for Culture and Heritage

Education Review Office

National Library of New Zealand

Ministry of Pacific Island Affairs

Ministry for the Environment

Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade

Common metadata issues

Coverage

Several agencies have opportunities to add metadata in order to provide full coverage of their information and services. Some agencies' metadata records are missing information about areas of their work. Agencies have been made aware of these subject areas so that they can create additional metadata.

Links

Broken links to documents occur occasionally. To ensure a high standard, government agencies need to review their metadata records as a regular part of their business processes. This is especially important for larger or more operationally-focused agencies, where website content changes frequently.

Language

Some metadata descriptions are too long or use bureacratic language. Descriptions should be succinct and easy for people to understand. The reading level of the portal is intended to be the same as most newspapers. Metadata records should be written with this in mind, and technical language avoided where possible. Descriptions should include key words so that people can easily find for the information they want.

Maintenance

A few agencies had records that were out-of-date. Agencies can avoid this by having their metadata link to agency's index pages instead of specific documents. In this way, people can find current information and documents, as well as information and documents that have been superceded.

Some agencies have offline services, such as brochures and pamphlets, that should be published online.


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