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Deployment Decisions

Which information resources?

Information resources may be assigned metadata at the item-level or aggregate-level, the decision depending to a large measure on the information resources in question. Other important factors are: At what level do clients want to find resources? Do they need individual documents, or collections of documents?

Organisations will decide the appropriate level at which metadata is to be assigned, all the time ensuring compliance with the IPSMS requirement that all web-based resources be accessible via the use of metadata.

The deployment of metadata ought to be such as to ensure that all your Internet-accessible information resources are retrievable via the creation and deployment of metadata.

New Resources

New resources should have metadata assigned as a first order of priority.

Existing Resources

Assigning metadata to existing resources might require a phased approach. Information resources may need to be categorised according to importance, role, and usefulness to the end-user. To assist you in determining an order of priorities for applying metadata to existing resources, consider the following:

• information in high demand by the organisation's user community;
• information required by the citizen to understand his or her rights and entitlements;
• documents that allow the user to transact business with the organisation (e.g. application forms);
• information provided on foot of any statutory requirement (FOI);
• publications (e.g. reports, policy documents, etc.);
• press releases;
• text of speeches;
• entry points or indexes and menus to a range of closely related topics (aggregate-level metadata);
• information about the powers and responsibilities of the organisation in so far as they affect the citizen or target groups;
• information about the organisation, its services and activities.

The minimum requirement of the IPSMS is that the citizen and business community in their interactions with public sector bodies can discover the online resources provided by those bodies that they seek.

How much metadata should be created for each resource?

A metadata record should consist of the mandatory elements, and whatever number of non-mandatory elements as facilitates information discovery. Non-mandatory elements may also be included where they might facilitate other requirements, such as resource selection.

How much information is included in each element will depend to a large measure on the resource being described - a guiding principle is be concise and to the point and exclude redundant information.