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2
Guide to Meta-tagging with the IPSV
Contents
1. Introduction ....................................................................................................... 2
2. Objectives of subject meta-tagging .................................................................... 2
3. Assumptions and requirements ......................................................................... 3
4. Terminology and definitions ............................................................................... 3
5. Subject meta-tagging procedure ........................................................................ 3
5.1 Step 1 – Decide what the resource is about ................................................. 3
5.2 Step 2 – Select the terms ............................................................................ 4
5.3 Step 3 – Enter the terms ............................................................................. 9
5.4 Step 4 – Final check ................................................................................... 9
6. Metadata syntax ................................................................................................ 9
7. IPSV maintenance ........................................................................................... 10
8. Additional IPSV documentation ....................................................................... 10
Revision history of this Guide
Revision date
Previous revision date
2005-06-14
Summary of changes
First issue
2005-09-01
2005-06-14
Updated to reflect changes in
IPSV viewer on esd-toolkit
2006-03-31
2005-09-01
Minor update with references to
more guidance notes
2006-08-29
2006-03-31
Minor update to reflect an update
of e-GMS
Guide to Meta-tagging with the IPSV
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Metadata
Contributor
Maewyn Cumming, e-Government Unit, Cabinet Office
Coverage.spatial
UK
Creator
Stella Dextre Clarke, Consultant
Date.issued
2005-06-14
Date modified
2006-08-29
Description
Describes how to index (tag) electronic resources using IPSV
(Integrated Public Sector Vocabulary) for Subject metadata
Format
Text
Language
eng
Publisher
Porism Limited, London, SW9 8BJ
[email protected]
Rights.copyright
Crown copyright. This document may be used and copied
without payment or licence for research, private study or for
internal circulation within an organisation. This is subject to
the material being reproduced accurately and not used in a
misleading context. The source and copyright status must be
acknowledged in any copy of whole or part of the document.
Any other proposed use of the document requires a copyright
licence, which is available from www.opsi.gov.uk
Status
Version 1.3. For publication
Subject
Controlled vocabularies; Indexing; Metadata
Title
Guide to Meta-tagging with the IPSV
Type
Instructional
1. Introduction
The Integrated Public Sector Vocabulary (IPSV) is a structured list of terms for the Subject
metadata of public sector resources. Use of the IPSV is part of the compliance requirements
for the e-Government Metadata Standard.
The IPSV terms may be used to improve retrieval of information resources from websites,
intranets, and any other collection. Website directories need not follow the IPSV structure
exactly, but are easy to populate and maintain when based on mappings from IPSV terms in
the metadata of resources.
The IPSV was formed from three taxonomies: the Government Category List (GCL), which
was owned by the Cabinet Office, the Local Government Category List (LGCL), owned by
esd-toolkit, and the seamlessUK taxonomy, owned by Essex County Council. The IPSV’s
detailed coverage of community information and local authority services reflects the focus of
the latter two parent taxonomies.
2. Objectives of subject meta-tagging
Meta-tagging is the job of adding appropriate values to the metadata elements for a given
resource. At least one term from the IPSV must be assigned to the Subject element, and the
terms selected should match the main subject of the resource.
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The job may optionally be automated, but in this Guide it will be described at its simplest, with
a person selecting the terms.
Keywords from other controlled lists may also be entered as Subject values, providing the
system can recognise the source of each term.
3. Assumptions and requirements
For the sake of this Guide, we are assuming that:

IPSV is the only controlled vocabulary you will be using.

you are using a meta-tagger which is built into or works closely with your content
management system.

you have access to an IPSV interface resembling the interactive version on the esdtoolkit. The illustrations in this Guide are from esd-toolkit.
In this simplest scenario, you must add at least one IPSV preferred term as part of the metatagging process. More sophisticated scenarios may provide some automated help. For
example if your organisation uses a specialised taxonomy or thesaurus, then the software
might derive IPSV terms from your selection from that taxonomy, and fill them in automatically
for you. (See “Automatic categorisation for IPSV users” via link on IPSV home page) But the
principle is just the same: by some means or another, one or more relevant IPSV preferred
terms must get added to the Subject metadata.
4. Terminology and definitions
A term is a word or phrase describing a particular concept or thing. The IPSV terms are
arranged hierarchically and are of two types; preferred terms, which are the ones that should
be selected and added to the metadata, and non-preferred terms, which are usually
synonyms of preferred terms. For example, “Elderly people” is a non-preferred term, included
to help people find the preferred term “Older people”. Non-preferred terms are sometimes
also known as lead-in terms; do NOT use them for populating the metadata.
5. Subject meta-tagging procedure
The main steps are:
1.
2.
3.
4.
Decide what the resource is about
Select the terms
Enter the terms
Check
5.1 Step 1 – Decide what the resource is about
If you are the author, you already know what the resource is about, but if not you will need to
scan through it (the last paragraph is often more revealing than the first). If it has a good
summary, reading this may be enough. The title is also a key indicator, but is not usually
sufficient and can even be misleading,
When deciding the main subject, be sure to consider it from the perspective of the people you
expect to use it. Think about the needs of the citizen, especially the type of citizen the item
appears to be aimed at.
Very often there will be just one dominant subject area, but in some cases there will be two or
even more.
Next, turn to the IPSV to select the term(s) that correspond most closely.
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5.2 Step 2 – Select the terms
In general, you should choose the most specific term available to describe the item. It is not
always easy to find the right one. The IPSV interface provides access by two main means: by
browsing or by searching with a keyword.
5.2.1 Selecting terms by browsing
1. Look at the top level terms (Figure 1) and pick the most relevant one(s). The top level
terms are usually too broad in themselves, but provide a route to the others.
2. Click on the + box beside a chosen term to reveal the narrower terms below it (Figure 2).
3. Now select the term that match(es) the subject of the document, or click on the + to
display narrower terms at the next level down. When you click on the term itself, the righthand side of the screen will bring up extra information, sometimes with a scope note
explaining what the term covers, and cross-references to Related Terms in another
hierarchy (Figure 3). If you click on one of the related terms, you can switch over and see
full details (Figure 4). You may continue to browse in this way until you are happy you
have reached the most suitable term.
4. Add your chosen term to your metadata.
Example:
Figure 1: Top level terms in IPSV, as displayed in esd-toolkit
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Figure 2: Narrower terms shown after clicking on + beside “Economics and finance”
Figure 3: Click on a term in the left-hand pane to bring up full details on the right. The
Scope Note tells you what the term is intended to cover; Related Terms suggest
alternatives you might prefer
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Figure 4: Click on the Related Term “Business development” to navigate to a different
hierarchy
5.2.2 Selecting terms by searching with a keyword
If you have a term in mind but you can’t see where to find it, enter it in the search box for
“Name” (Figure 5).
Then press the button beside “Perform search”. A drop-down box will appear if the term is
present as part or whole of any IPSV term, and you can open it up to show all the places
where your term occurs (Figure 6).
Select the drop-down entry that seems closest to what you are looking for, and a display will
open up for that term with all its non-preferred synonyms (Figure 7). You can then decide if
that is the right term, or go back and look at some of the others in the drop-down box.
Having found the term that most closely matches the main subject of the resource you are
tagging, enter it in your metadata. Please be careful to use IPSV preferred terms only. In the
example of searching for “access”, the term “Parental access” was found because it is
present as a non-preferred synonym of “Parental contact”. Even if you think that “Parental
access” is closer to what you meant, it is not valid for use in metadata and so you must
choose “Parental contact” in its place.
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Figure 5: A search with the keyword “access”
Figure 6: A search for “access” brings up options in a drop-down box; if the resource
is about parents getting access to their children, “Parental contact” looks the closest
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Figure 7: “Parental access” is not a valid term; use “Parental contact” instead
5.2.3 Some difficult cases
a) Some concepts are too specific to be included in the IPSV. In this case, you have to
choose the most appropriate broader term present.
For example, suppose you are tagging a resource giving guidance on the amount of
cereals people should eat. You search for the term “cereals” and you find nothing.
Browsing under “Health, well-being and care” you find the term “Nutrition” and under
that, “Diet”, but no specific items of diet. In the same hierarchy there is a term “Food
and drink” with “Meat” and “Fruit and vegetables” under it, but again no cereals.
When stumped like this consider whether the term “Diet” or the term “Food and drink”
is closest to the subject of the resource, and add the one you’ve chosen.
b) Sometimes it is hard to decide which narrower term is best.
For example, you may be tagging a resource about plans for a new school. The
choice of terms is as follows:
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
Schools
. Alternatives to school
. Choosing a school
. Consultations on education
. Curriculum and qualifications (pre-16)
. Out of school activities
. Pupils
. School governance, management and finance
. School links with home, community and business
. School performance and standards
. School types
. School welfare, behaviour and attendance
. Studies and qualifications (post-16)
. Teachers and school staff
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If the resource is purely about financing the school, then “School governance, management
and finance” may be the appropriate choice. But if it also deals with other aspects, such as
the type of school or plans for recruiting staff, then the broader term “Schools” is more
appropriate. In general, you should choose the most specific term available to describe the
item, but not be shy of using a broader term if it matches the scope of the resource.
c) You may find the same term in two different places in the IPSV.
For example, “Common Agricultural Policy” appears under “European Union” as well
as under “Farming”. It means the same, with exactly the same scope, in both places
and you do not have to add it twice.
d) Some web pages have a mix of news items, with a variety of subjects that may change
from one day to the next. It would be very hard to keep the tagging accurately up-to-date for
each subject. The best solution may be to consider what is the general focus of the news. For
example, if this is the news page of a police service, you could choose the term “Police” as
likely to stay reliable even when the specific news items change.
e) Some resources are about a place, such as Egypt or Glasgow or Dartmoor. They may
provide statistics, or a travel guide, or a history of the locality. There is no difficulty in deciding
that the real subject is the place, the problem arises because place names should be entered
using the Coverage metadata element, not the Subject element, but you are still required to
put something under Subject. The IPSV itself does not provide a really good answer, but your
organisation’s own metadata policy may advise, taking into account the type of information
resources you deal with and how the metadata is to be exploited. If you still draw a blank at
this stage, don’t worry too much, because people searching for such resources will find them
easily enough using the Coverage element instead of Subject metadata. Just fill in something
that will not mislead users. You could consider “Foreign policy”, “Heritage” or Tourism” for the
item about Egypt, depending on the rest of its content; “Urban communities” for Glasgow and
“Countryside”, “Rural communities” or “Natural habitats” for the Dartmoor item.
f) Sometimes you cannot find the concept you need in the IPSV, and you think a new term
should be added. In this case, you must select the best of what is available in IPSV. But also
consider asking the IPSV Editor to add your term at the next update. Your suggestion should
be posted on the IPSV discussion forum.
5.3 Step 3 – Enter the terms
The procedure will be determined by the administrator of your own system. But be sure to
enter the preferred term(s) and not the synonyms or lead-in terms.
5.4 Step 4 – Final check
Check the Subject box in your template to make sure the right terms have gone in.
If you are in any doubt, ask yourself, “When someone looks under that term, will they be
pleased to find the resource I have just assigned to it?” The answer should be “Yes”, and if
not, you should find a better term. Also ask yourself, “Is there another term in the IPSV under
which users are likely to search for this resource?” If there is, add it.
6. Metadata syntax
After the terms have been selected, they have to be inserted in the HTML or XML (particularly
RDF/XML) metadata associated with the resource. This is usually done by an automatic
procedure, set up not by the person who chooses the terms but by a system administrator.
Here are some examples showing the correct syntax for Subject metadata with IPSV terms:
<meta name="DC.subject" scheme="eGMS.IPSV" content="Housing benefit"/>
<meta name="DC.subject" scheme="eGMS.IPSV" content="Advertising"/>
<meta name="DC.subject" scheme="eGMS.IPSV" content="Tax"/>
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As many lines like this as necessary may be entered in the metadata of the same resource.
Extra lines may be included if an additional controlled vocabulary is used; in the following
example it is MeSH (Medical Subject Headings of the US National Library of Medicine):
<meta name="DC.subject" scheme="DCTERMS.MESH" content="Tennis elbow"/>
More complete guidance and examples of syntax may be found in the e-Government
Metadata Standard (e-GMS). Version 3.1 of this standard was issued in August 2006.
7. IPSV maintenance
The IPSV is maintained by an Editor, with support from the Editorial Panel. To keep it up to
date, they need input from the people who use it. Please post your suggestions (not only new
terms, but also amendments to existing terms, scope notes and related terms) on the
discussion forum at http://www.esd.org.uk/Forums/viewforum.php?f=39. You can register
and login from http://www.esd-toolkit.org/integratedforums/
8. Additional IPSV documentation
Name of document
Comment
IPSV FAQs
The easiest place to start
Automatic categorisation for IPSV users
Hints for automated help with meta-tagging
Implementing IPSV to your own advantage
Tips for getting more out of IPSV, and
adapting it to your own needs
IPSV Guidance Notes
Especially useful for local authority users
Design/selection criteria for software used to
handle controlled vocabularies
Helps with choosing software for any part of
the implementation
IPSV Editorial Policy
Includes discussion of the issues leading to
development of the policies now in force
IPSV Maintenance Guide
Useful for the IPSV editor and for developers
of other category lists, thesauri, etc.
Which IPSV? A guide to the versions and
formats available
Full description of the options: online display,
downloadable files, full or abridged, machinereadable or for human eyes
e-Government Metadata Standard (e-GMS)
Full details of all the metadata elements
needed for interoperability in the public sector
Note: Comments on this Guide should be posted on the IPSV discussion forum
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