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Chief Information Officer Branch

Information Management

Metadata

Metadata can be defined as data that defines and describes other data and it is used to aid the identification, description, location or use of information systems, resources and elements.

Metadata to Describe Canadian Federal Web Resources

Metadata resources sorted by organization are also available:

Cancore

Canadian Core Learning Object Metadata Application Profile (CanCore)
This site is the official home for documents, presentations and other resources related to the Canadian Core Learning Object Metadata Application Profile. The CanCore Profile is intended to facilitate the interchange of records describing educational resources and the discovery of these resources both in Canada and beyond its borders.

Council of Federal Libraries

Government of Canada Metadata Implementation Guidelines for Web Resource Discovery, 5th edition, December 2006
This guide is an introduction to metadata and provides practical explanations and examples for creating metadata content for federal government Web resources in accordance with Treasury Board metadata standards.

Foreign Affairs and International Trade

Metadata Standards: State of Play
Nora Fontaine. Presentation to GOL Metadata Working Group.
This presentation, on behalf of the GOL Ad Hoc Inter-departmental Metadata Working Group, discusses the role of metadata in meeting GOL objectives.

Government of Canada

Audience Scheme
<dc.audience> Sub-Group
The Government of Canada Audience Scheme was created by the <dc.audience> Sub-group of the Government On-Line Metadata Working Group. The scheme was finalized in March, 2003 and is intended to be used with the optional Dublin Core metadata element Audience.

<dc.format>Guidelines
<dc.format> Sub-group
Effective Date: November 2003
These guidelines describe the use, application, and modification procedures for the Government of Canada Format Scheme.

Format Scheme
<dc.format>Sub-group
The Government of Canada Format Scheme is intended to be an exhaustive list of formats found on Government of Canada Web sites.

Government of Canada Core Subject Thesaurus
The Subject Thesaurus is a bilingual standardized vocabulary designed to facilitate the indexing and retrieval of resources available through the Depository Services Program (DSP), Canadian Government Publishing (CGP), and the Canada Site.

Guidelines for Search Services on Web Sites (Link to Government of Canada Web Archive)
Resource Discovery Sub-group
Effective Date: March 19, 2003
This document is intended for content producers, system administrators and business managers. It attempts to document best practices for managing search engines, recognizing that the quality of the search result depends on a number of factors.

Guidelines for Writing Descriptions for Government of Canada Web Sites
This document provides guidance on the creation of Dublin Core element <dc.description>, which is not a mandatory Common Look and Feel element, as well as the HTML Description tag. Both should show the same content.

Indexing Federal Government Web Pages: Guidelines for the Development of an Indexing Policy
These guidelines were developed by members of the GOL Metadata Working Group during the summer of 2002 and were approved at the September 17, 2002 meeting. This document targets departments developing indexing policies for the population of the Common Look and Feel mandatory element <dc.subject>.

Metadata status within the GC.CA domain
An analysis of the metadata on Web sites within the GC.CA domain was conducted in December 2003 as part of a review of the contents of the Canada Site search engine. The analysis used a set of randomly chosen Web pages that were published on Government of Canada (GC) Web sites that exist in the GC.CA domain. The metadata from these pages was compared against the published metadata standards that exist for GC Web sites.

Metadata Brochure - RTF
This brochure describes the nature of metadata and is a useful handout to include as part of a training session. The brochure is available in two formats: HTML and RTF. For text only, see the HTML version. For the fully formatted and printable brochure, see the RTF version. Please note that the RTF version was designed to be a bilingual, one-sheet handout. The file is, therefore, optimized for duplex printing so that the English version will appear on one side of the page and the French version on the other.

Metadata Implementation Guide for Clusters and Gateways
CMS Metadata Working Group
Last Revision: April 2003
These guidelines are intended to assist those responsible for implementing the metadata requirements for Government On-Line (GOL) clusters and gateways. They provide supplemental guidance to the Council of Federal Libraries' Government of Canada Metadata Implementation Guide for Web Resources developed for departmental metadata managers and metadata developers.

Record Keeping Metadata Requirements for the Government of Canada
Government of Canada. Information Management Forum. January 2001 (PDF format)
This document was developed by the Records / Document / Information Management (RDIMS) Working Group on Work Processes and Practices (WGWPP) and has been endorsed by the Information Management sub-group on Metadata. The paper describes the function of metadata in recordkeeping, including discussion of element descriptions. Record Keeping Metadata is defined broadly to include the type of information Departments are required to capture to describe the identify, authenticity, content, context, structure and management requirements of records created in the context of a business activity.

Regions of Canada Scheme
Geographic Coverage Sub-Group
This scheme was created by the Geographic Coverage Sub-group of the Government On-Line Metadata Working Group. The document gives the rationale behind a suggested set of regions of Canada that is usable for classifying sites for the Government Online (GOL) initiative and provides some basic criteria needed for these regions, as well as a table giving the regions and their definitions.

Selecting and Implementing a Metadata Standard for the Government of Canada
Government On-Line Ad hoc Interdepartmental Metadata Working Group. March 22, 2001
The objective of this paper is to raise awareness among senior managers, webmasters and information management practitioners about the need for systematic metadata and the selection of Dublin Core as a metadata standard with potential for use in diverse government applications. The paper discusses the pressing need for a standard, the process by which a standard has been selected, gaining broader approval, and the work needed to implement the standard.

Type Scheme
<dc.type> Sub-Group
The Government of Canada Type Scheme was created by the <dc.type%gt; Sub-Group of the GOL Metadata Working Group. The scheme is to be used as a source of standardized terminology for the indexing and retrieval of resources by type. Its main function is to standardize the external form and meaning of index terms, thus ensuring that a particular resource type will always be represented in the same way in the index.

Usage Guidelines: dc.type
<dc.type> Sub-group
Effective Date: February 7, 2003
The "dc.type" element is used to describe the nature, genre, purpose, function and aggregation level of the content of the resource. It is important not to confuse "type" with "subject" (what the resource is about) or "format" (physical manifestation or file format, such as mpeg, wav, etc. of the resource).

Health Canada

Canadian Health Network
The Canadian Health Network (CHN) is a national, bilingual Internet-based health information service. This site illustrates the use of metadata to facilitate client searches for health information.

Industry Canada

Approaches to Metadata Implementation at Industry Canada
This presentation reviews the role of metadata in information management, including the scope of application. It also summarizes appropriate metadata strategies and new technological approaches.

IMRC - The Metadata Tagging of the Business Start-Up Assistant
The objective of this report is to document the processes, resources and tools used for the application of metadata to the links in the Business Start-Up Assistant (BSA), but moreover, to measure metadata tagging activities.

Library and Archives Canada

Bath Profile Maintenance Agency
This Profile defines searching across multiple servers to improve international and extranational search and retrieval among library catalogues, union catalogues, and other electronic resources worldwide. It also describes and specifies a subset to allow basic cross-domain search and retrieval of networked resources including library catalogues, government information, museum systems, and archives.

Canadian <Metadata> Forum
The Canadian <Metadata> Forum was held on September 19-20, 2003 at Library and Archives Canada. Presentations were given on all aspects of metadata including descriptions of standards developing in different communities for different applications; discussions of challenges of interoperability between different types of resources; and examples of practical implementations leveraging the power of metadata for Web resource exposure, discovery and management.

Persistent Locators for Federal Government Publications
This study was conducted in February and March 2002 to review existing research and current practice with respect to persistent locators/digital object identifiers and to recommend steps to implement a system of persistent uniform resource locators in federal government publishing.

Persistent Uniform Resource Locators (PURLs)
Terry Kuny
February 15, 1996
One of the primary metadata problems that must be solved to ensure the accurate and reliable retrieval of Internet information is how to describe where information is "marked-and-parked" so that people may retrieve it easily. Persistent Uniform Resource Locators (PURLs), as currently deployed by OCLC Inc. in the United States, represents a significant effort to address this problem.

Registering a Controlled Vocabulary
The NLC is mandated by the Treasury Board Information and Technology Standard TBITS 39.2, Controlled Vocabulary Standard as registrar of standardized vocabularies used in the Government of Canada (GoC). The function of this Registry is two-fold: To make standardized vocabularies available to search engines, information creators and those involved in developing and maintaining vocabularies; To provide a centralized mechanism of schema identification for use in metadata elements for GoC departments and agencies.

Natural Resources Canada

Successful Metadata Implementation and Lessons Learned
Bev Kouri (Natural Resources Canada)
Sara McKenzie (Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat)
Presentation at IM Day. September 13, 2002
Departments and agencies faced with the task of implementing metadata for documents in their Web sites will be interested in hearing about the experiences of others who have gone before them. These links include presentations on two successful metadata initiatives, each of which took a different approach.

Public Works and Government Services Canada

Building the Foundation for Citizen-Focussed, Cross-Jurisdictional Information Sharing and Delivery: Content Management and Standard Metadata
Helen Jelich, Public Works and Government Services Canada
Laurie Sweezie, Management Board of Cabinet, Government of Ontario
This presentation describes the Government of Canada initiative to develop a robust content management solution to support the Government On-Line service delivery goals of Gateways and Clusters. It describes the drivers and challenges involved in realizing those goals; how the experience of the Clusters and Gateways was leveraged in designing the solution; and the key role of standard metadata.

Newsroom Search
Supporting the Communications Policy and Implementing the Management of Government Information policy, the Newsroom is the first GoC enterprise wide Web-based news multi-channel publishing and distribution service available for free to Government of Canada institutions. The Newsroom was developed to provide the media and citizens with a convenient single source for GoC news in both official languages that is distributed via the Web, Wireless devices and RSS. The Search function for the Newsroom is metadata-driven.

Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat

Common Look and Feel Metadata Definitions and HTML Examples
This document provides examples of how metatagging will appear in the html coding of Government of Canada web pages, as well as definitions and usage guidelines for each of the required elements.

Common Look and Feel Standard 6.3
All GoC Web sites must adopt the following five metatags as a metadata standard for description of Web resources: Title, Creator, Language, Date and Subject.

Departmental Examples
This section includes links to Government of Canada sub-sites considered to be in accordance with Common Look & Feel Standard 6.3, under which all GoC web sites must adopt Title, Creator, Language, Date, and Subject as metatags for the description of Web resources.

Dublin Core Application Profile (DCAP) for Web Resource Discovery in the Government of Canada
Treasury Board Secretariat
March 25, 2006
The purpose of the Dublin Core Application Profile (DCAP) for Web Resource Discovery in the Government of Canada is to document how the Government of Canada (GC) uses Dublin Core (DC) terms to describe its Web resources. It identifies and describes the attributes of the terms for the metadata elements and refinements maintained by the Dublin Core Metadata Initiative (DCMI) that the GC has adopted to aid discovery of its Web resources. The profile also identifies recommended registered encoding schemes for use when applying the element values.

Government of Canada Metadata Framework (Link to Government of Canada Web Archive)
The Government of Canada (GoC) Metadata Framework establishes a strategy for the development of metadata within the GoC. The Framework shows the relationship between the generic international standard adopted by the GoC (the Dublin Core) and other extensions for specific subject domains or purposes.

Information Management Standards to Improve Access to Government Information and Services
Presentation to the Electronic Service Delivery Committee. Nancy Brodie. June 4, 2001
This presentation provides an overview on the need to adopt Information Management Standards for the Government of Canada. Included is a review of the Metadata Framework for Information Resources, adoption of Dublin Core as a core GoC metadata standard for resource discovery as well as a Controlled Vocabulary Standard incorporating a Core Subject Thesaurus.

Metadata Implementation Guide for Clusters and Gateways
CMS Metadata Working Group
These guidelines are intended to assist those responsible for implementing the metadata requirements for Government On-line (GOL) clusters and gateways. They provide supplemental guidance to the Council of Federal Libraries' Government of Canada (GoC) Metadata Implementation Guide developed for departmental metadata developers and managers, as well as guidance for some additional Dublin Core elements and cluster-specific elements.

Metadata Training Package
A training package is now available to assist instructors in providing metadata training in their departments. The package consists of three components: 1) a trainers' manual that provides suggestions and instructions on how to teach the course and engage the participants; 2) a presentation that instructors can use during their training sessions; 3) a participant workbook that can be used as a reference guide by participants during and after the session. Trainers are encouraged to modify these components to suit the needs of their audience.

Recommendations for Common Look and Feel Standards and Guidelines for Intranets and Extranets (CLFIE)
October 7, 2003
In June 2001 Treasury Board Secretariat, under the auspices of the Internet Advisory Committee, organized an interdepartmental Working Group tasked with developing recommendations for CLF Standards and Guidelines for implementation on institutional intranets and extranets. These recommendations, modeled on standards and guidelines for the Internet, are presented in this document.

TBITS 39: Treasury Board Information Management Standard, Part 1: Government On-Line Metadata Standard November 8, 2001
This standard adopts the Dublin Core as the core metadata standard for resource sharing and interoperability goals of Government On-Line. Establishing a metadata standard will ensure that, across domains and clusters and business functions, the effort that goes into assigning metadata is coordinated, cost effective and client-service focused.

TBITS 39: Treasury Board Information Management Standard, Part 2: Controlled Vocabulary Standard November 8, 2001
This standard adopts the principle of controlled vocabulary for the management of electronic information. The use of controlled vocabulary is necessary to classify and describe information and to support navigation, searching, information sharing and interoperability goals of Government On-Line (GOL).

Université de Montréal

MetaMap
Professor James Turner
The MetaMap is a pedagogical graphic that takes the form of a subway map. Its aim is to help the information science community to understand metadata standards, sets, and initiatives of interest in this area.