Information Management, Standards and Data Quality

1. Information Management, Standards and Data Quality Brian Green ePSIplus Analyst funded by eContentPlus

2. Work Package 6 - deliverables • Prepare a background issue analysis to promote purposeful discussion on each of the three issue areas described in the WP objectives, (i data quality, ii discovery and access, iii key standards for public-private interoperability), supported by a good practice survey across the Thematic Network conducted through the website service. • Organise one thematic meeting on each of these issues. Ensure the appropriate involvement in specific meetings of players with a key interest in the area. These meetings will take place in Months 6, 12 and 18.

3. Work Package 6 - deliverables • Summarise and publicise for comment through the website the findings of these meetings. • Update and amplify descriptively the standards map produced by ePSINet in areas critical to public-private sector interoperability, consulting further with standards bodies and key players in the egovernment and private sectors. • Produce a summative report on the findings of this process, incorporating a review of progress and good practice and recommendation for further action needed, especially to improve cross-border interoperability and the development of Pan-European products based on the re-use of PSI.

4. Information Management: project brief • Identify emerging good practice and support clarification of standards issues in relation to improving on-line discovery and access to PSI held by central and local government agencies across PSI sectors and across national borders. www.ePSIplus.net

5. Information Management • Do the public sector bodies even know what information they have? • How is Public Sector Information structured, identified and described so that users and potential re-users can find the information relevant to them? • How is PSI made available for discovery, retrieval and re-use? www.ePSIplus.net

6. Asset Registries • Asset registry is key to information management • enables public sector organisations to follow an asset-based approach to managing their information resources; • provides a mechanism for maintaining and auditing key information assets; • provides a means of understanding what information assets are held by others; • reduces the risk of devaluing knowledge about information assets within a department when staff move; • facilitates compliance with the PSI Regulations. UK Office of PSI website

7. Constraints • Many public sector bodies don’t have an asset register and don’t have time and resources to build one • but what is the use of having information if you don’t know what you have? • Much PSI will never be reused so is it worth the effort to include it? • but how can you know what information might be useful for commercial re-use?

8. The role of search engines • With more and more information being made available on the web, this may be the solution going forward, but… • How do you know what you are allowed to do with the information when you find it? • Standards for expressing usage rights (ACAP) • What about the dreaded error message 404 “File not found” • Unique persistent identification and resource management standards (DOI)

9. Need for a central agency • Many countries have an egovernment agency…but are they responsible for encouraging PSI reuse? • ePSINet recommended • Establisha central organisation that publishes and maintains guidelines, provides tools and supports common approaches across the public sector, explicitly covering the exploitation of PSI (e.g. OPSI)

10. Standards – project brief • Create a basis for improving technical interoperability between the public (egovernment) and the private sectors, focusing especially on mission critical standards areas such as metadata and identifiers which have the potential to ease PSI re-use.

11. Standards: the key to public-private sector interoperability • Standards for what: • Creation / Structure • Identification • Description • Storage and preservation • Rights

12. ePSINet Standards Guidelines • ePSINET Standards Guidelines provided: • background to standards • brief summary standards categories and current issues in each category • Creation, Identification and description, Storage and preservation, Aggregation, publishing and presentation, Retrieval access and use

13. ePSINet Standards Map • Over 600 standards mapped • Not an attempt to duplicate information already available • Added value in taxonomy and selection and links • Index, definitions, taxonomies, URLs • ePSInet standards map still available at www.epsigate.org, but out of date

14. Too many standards? • Critics argued that very few of these were used in the Public Sector … BUT • Public sector should look at standards in use in the “real world”. • Several countries + Europe have standards initiative to facilitate interoperability across government departments (e-GIF, ) • Important for “joined-up government” although inevitably a loss of richness

15. Vertical, sectoral standards • Each sector has their own dedicated standards designed to meet their needs • Rich enough to provide the functionality required in order to serve their purpose • Sector specific metadata standards may include specialist identifiers, rich descriptive, technical, rights information • New sectoral standards are being developed all the time

16. ePSINet recommendation • “PSI metadata should not be confined to e-government schemes but should pay attention to rich metadata schemes that maybe in use in their commercial counterpart sectors” ePSINet Athens Workshop • How can we reconcile PSI and sector specific metadata? • How to persuade public sector bodies to consider industry standards?

17. Towards interoperability • The standards map should be selectively updated, concentrating on key areas of identification and metadata • New standards developments should be monitored by ePSIplus, with the help of sectoral experts • Standards and schemes that can facilitate interoperability should be identified and promoted (XML, DOI, ONIX/Dublin Core)

18. Monitoring new developments • Special attention to standards that can provide real benefit to PSI creators and users e.g. DOI (Digital Object Identifier) • Uniquely identifies objects persistently over time (even if location changes) • Links to metadata • Can link to rights information • Potentially interoperable across Government, across types and with private sector

19. Monitoring new developments • e.g. ACAP (Automated Content Access Protocol) • New development from newspaper, magazine and book sectors • Will tag digital data with access and usage rights information • Originally designed to express usage terms to search engines • Could tag PSI to indicate terms of public and commercial use

20. Data quality: project brief • Develop a clearer view and build consensus on what constitutes acceptable data quality for PSI re-use in different key sectors, whether the public sector should have a role in assuring it and if so, what mechanisms might be employed. • What is the impact of data quality for business re-use?

21. Data quality issues • To what extent should the sector be required to address the data quality concerns of potential re-users? • Improvements in data quality cost money – who pays? • Government departments often argue that quality requires investment that only their own commercial activity can provide

22. Data quality • If data quality is good enough for government, should commercial sector expect improvement? • Some commercial re-users build businesses on enhancing quality of PSI • One solution: data quality forums where PSI providers and users monitor quality jointly (e.g. UK Environment Agency)

23. Some issues for discussion • Information management / discovery • Are asset registers essential / practical? • Who is going to pay for their development? • Standards • Should PSI standards be about interoperability within government or within sectors? • Data quality • Should we expect improvement in PSI quality • Who will pay for it?

24. Interested in PSI then why not visit: www.ePSIplus.net