Local Government Category List v1.0 released

The LAWs Information Architecture & Standards Workstrand is pleased to release version 1.0 of the Local Government Category List (LGCL) and meta data recommendations.

Produced within the LAWs National Project, by London Borough of Camden in conjunction with Porism Ltd, the new category list is based on the original APLAWS list. Compiled as a result of consultative workshops run across the country earlier this year, it will map to both the Government Category List and the PID List in the esd-Toolkit.

The LGCL will form a proposed standard for Local Government, Agencies and Communities to use as a basis for the storage, retrieval and categorisation of any form of content whether it is to be used for a web site, a Content Management system, a Customer Relationship Management system or Knowledge Management system.

Roland Mezulis of West Sussex County Council, who are the lead partner in the LAWs project, said:
“This is more than just a flat list. Made available in the esd-Toolkit in this way the LGCL will truly revolutionise the way we look at categorisation and classification of content in Local Authorities”

The list is available to download in a variety of formats from the esd-Toolkit web site and will be integrated within the toolkit. More information can be found on both the APLAWS and LAWs web sites. Work on the list will continue until the end of the LAWs National Project in March 2004. The IA&S team would very welcome comments from the Local Government community.

http://www.esd-toolkit.org/laws
http://www.aplaws.org.uk

sheila.apicella@camden.gov.uk

mthacker@porism.com

Comments

Is there going to be a document showing the LAWS headings and the appropriate PID no?

Why is the laws category list XML schema different from the aplaws schema?

We are happy to support these evolving lists, but surely every time a new category list is released the way it is listed in XML doesn't need to change?

1) Where the Category List covers areas of services provided by authorities, these will be mapped to corresponding PID numbers.

2) The XML format (marked 'draft') was based on the terminologies used by the Government Category List. There has been much discussion on the format and it will undergo major changes. A revised draft should be issued in the next week and a final version soon after that. It will not go on changing after that. The format will need to differ from that of the original ACL because of extra information being held.

The status of this release (v1.0) is unclear. Mike Thacker's note 2 indicates approx. 1.5 weeks before a final version, and is dated c. 1.5 weeks ago. Please clarify here, and on ESDT%lkit. Thanks.

Dave, we are working flat out on a new version with all associated XML and XSLT. We are now shooting for the end of this week. This may not be a 'final' format but will be a lot closer. We have a lot of people waiting for the XML and are expecting feedback which might lead to other minor revisions.

If you can bear with us for a couple more days, things should become clearer.

LAWs IA&S has now published version 1.01 of LGCL. This comes in XML format and includes a trasnformation back to the old APLAWS Category List (ACL) format for those who wish to use that format.

The List and other resources are avaiable from:
www.esd-toolkit.org/laws.

Having browsed through the APLAWS Meta data standards document for local gov websites, I noticed that there was an element with the name of SUBJECT that has a refinement of PROCESS IDENTIFIER. It may be an idea that this refinement could be used to hold the ProcessID as stated within the ESD-Tookit. This would give immediate information as to what process the current content belonged to.

Thanks you for that comment Nigel. We are working on a revised version of the APLAWS metadata standards for LAWs. The process identifier is one of the issues we are addressing.

The 'PID' in esd-toolkit is strictly a _service_ identifier. The name 'PID' (for Process area IDentifier) does cause some confusion, so the 'PID List' is also being referred to as the Local Government Service List (LGSL).

Version 1.01 of the Local Government Category List does map to the Service List (LGSL / PID List).

We are proposing that new refinements of the eGMS 'subject' element be added for 'service' and 'interaction' type. The combination of these two constitutes a process, but either may be used on its own.

Where a resource is referenced against a service (from LGSL / PID List), the LGCL Category and the GCL category can be derived via mapping.

If you have further queries/comment, you could raise these in the LAWs IA&S forum of esd-toolkit, where there is a lot of discussion at present.

Mike Thacker
Porism Limited and LAWs IA&S