Impact on organisations

32 The impact of creating metadata on each organisation, and therefore the cost, will vary according to the following factors:

• Legal form: whether it is part of the Public Service, the wider State sector, or local government; and therefore whether it is mandatory to create metadata or not;
• Size and function: affecting the number of services it delivers and/or information resources it is responsible for; and should therefore make discoverable via the Portal;
• Readiness: factors such as whether it already uses metadata for discovery purposes, and whether it can already accurately describe its services and information;
• Commitment: affecting the actual effort it applies;
• Resources: its ability to devote resources (management and technical) to the task;
• Discretion: decisions it will make about what information and services to create metadata for;
• Skills base: the level of in-house expertise (management and technical) it has available;
• Labour market: the availability and cost of any external expertise required; and
• Training and support: the quality of the tools and support provided by the EGU (the EGU estimates that creation of a metadata record, using EGU provided training and tools, should take about 20 minutes).

33 Following creation of sufficient NZGLS-compliant metadata to enable the Portal to meet expectations by 30 June 2002, organisations will continue to create metadata until all services and relevant information holdings can be discovered via the Portal's metadata search engine. Organisations must maintain the quality, currency and coverage of their metadata records from June 2002 onwards. The cost of this will be absorbed in baselines.

34 It should be noted that creating NZGLS compliant metadata is expected to become a routine part of public sector information management, and information and service delivery processes, from 1 July 2002 onwards. Organisations will not find this onerous or costly once they have completed the initial creation process.