RBU_JR_LIS_V23_2021-FULL_TEXT-E-Copy

RBU Journal of library & Information Science, V. 23, 2021
standards, etc. across various government set up in order to
describe the information and services of the government.
Madalli, D, P. (2007), highlighted the role of metadata and
data standards (MDDS) in e-governance, need for
interoperability in e-Governance in Indian context. She
also discussed a conceptual model towards achieving
semantic level interoperability of e-governance systems
with the help of metadata and data standards.
Alasem (2009) illustrates that number of national and
international metadata standards are evolved to describe
government information and services. So that they can be
used across the public information systems and sectors in
those countries.
Various e-governance services and applications need to
exchange information that are required for providing
services to people, organizations, and other government
divisions and offices. Such a data exchange requires a
consistently perceived set of vocabularies, having the same
meaning or semantic content among all clients or for
applications (Abideen P. S., 2011). Thus before
performing any e-governance program, it is imperative to
have information/data normalization just as the
normalization of the information elements and
resources/assets.
Governance exercises are information-driven, and
government divisions and different partners of the policy
implementation framework receive, produce, and utilize
enormous quantum of information. For successful use of
these information produced in the administration, both at
the national and regional level, it should be adequately
deployed by defining metadata for different information
sources in the government. Such data description enables
speedy, relevant, and timely retrieval of the e-governance
information. This is taken care of by the metadata
frameworks, standards, and specifications. Metadata
assists citizens to dive through a huge quantum of e-
governance data sources (Abideen P. S., 2011).
In a government system, information is received at various
stages of administrative activities like during submission
of application by the people, while processing the
application, during policy formulation of the government,
or while providing the service to the people. These
information/data to be standardized for a uniform pattern
for machine processing and interoperability between
administrative framework and services (Abideen P. S.,
2011).
Communication calls for a commonly understood set of
vocabularies having the same semantic content among all
these users. Therefore, it is critical that data
standardization and standardization of information
elements and resources be performed in e-Governance
programs. The standardization will also help in reducing
redundancy, enhancing clarity and will facilitate
interoperability and to reuse data elements across all
departments.
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1. Significance of Metadata Standards in e-
Governance
The e-Government Metadata Standard (e-GMS) brought
out by the Cabinet Office, (2006) summarises the
significance of e-Governance standards, which include:
Better use of official information.
Joining-up of government systems, policies, and
services which designed to meet the needs of citizens.
Easy accessibility of government information
from common centralized portals.
Device new systems for handling government
information.
Manage or find information which may be in the
form of web pages, electronic documents, paper files
or databases.
Achieve consistency of data across systems.
According to Tambouris et al., (2007) 'metadata can
facilitate the discovery of e-government resources, by
identifying resources, bringing similar resources together,
distinguishing dissimilar resources, and giving location
information.
2. e-Governance Metadata Standards:
Global Scenario
A review of the literature shows that the need for metadata
standardization in e-governance has been realized at the
global level. Different studies and surveys conducted by
Booth (2002), Tambouris, E and Tarabanis, K (2004),
Madalli, D. P. (2007), SuKantarat, W (2008), Alasem
(2009), Abideen P. S., (2011), Mahajan (2014), Milic et al.
(2021) etc. illustrate various e-Governance metadata
initiatives in several parts of the world. Backus (2001)
performed an analysis of e-government initiatives in
developing countries and explained the technical features
of e-governance. The Dublin Core is a fifteen element
metadata element set intended to facilitate the discovery of
electronic resources (Dublin Core Metadata Initiative,
2021). The Dublin Core being a prominent metadata
standard for information management, a survey on its use
and adoption in e-governance information management
was undertaken by Andrew & Aagaard (2003).
Tambouris, E and Tarabanis, K (2004) conducted a
comparative study of metadata initiatives across the world
and reviewed various national metadata standards. These
were compared with Dublin Core and presented a metadata
element set, that was proposed by the European
Committee for Standardization. SuKantarat, W (2008),
conducted a study on use of metadata in the digital
initiatives in Thailand, and the study reveals that the
Dublin Core metadata is being followed in these
initiatives.
Alasem (2009) also provided an overview of e-
Government Metadata Standards and initiatives based on
Dublin Core. Alasem (2009) demonstrated various