System Developments

Application Profile

The seamlessUK Application Profile is based on the Dublin Core metadata profile with some additional elements added specifically for the seamlessUK system. Metadata can be defined as structured data about data.

The UK Government is currently developing and implementing a variety of standards across public sector information in order to improve the visibility and accessibility of this information online.

The seamlessUK Application Profile complies with the e-Government Metadata Standard (e-GMS) version 2.0 2003. Adding metadata for seamlessUK to your web site will help you comply with government recommendations.

The seamlessUK profile provides a way of indexing resources within the system so that they can be found effectively without requiring a detailed knowledge of the structure of public services. Standardising descriptions of information ensures searches find relevant and meaningful hits in response to their enquiries.

The seamlessUK Application Profile

• defines metadata for use with web resources
• provides mapping points for database fields so that they can be searched and displayed when records are returned in the system

The Profile consists of 35 elements (plus 9 draft elements not yet in use) of which 7 are mandatory and must be included for all resources in the system. The remaining 27 elements are optional and can be used if appropriate depending on the type and content of the resources to be included in seamlessUK.

The Profile has been developed to ensure consistent searching and retrieval across the seamlessUK system by defining metadata elements for web resources and for mapping database fields to a standard set of elements. The mappings and the creation of metadata for your web resources will be discussed and agreed at content meetings.

Comments on the Profile are very welcome, please send to Cathy Day

Seamless.dot

(password access only)

Metadata is a way of describing briefly the information on the web page so it can be found when someone searches seamlessUK.

Seamless.dot is a tool to help create seamlessuk metadata for html web pages by filling in a simple template. The details are verified by the system and metadata produced in the right form ready for pasting to your html pages. Seamless.dot is configured to the Application Profile and produces Dublin Core metadata conforming to the government metadata standard.