KIKERES: the Hungarian Public Administration Metadata Service Zsolt Sikolya Prime Minister’s Office Office of the Governmental Informatics and Civil Relations

Public Sector Information Resources Public sector organizations hold a huge amount of information, which is a key resource in the information society. One of the necessary conditions to make good use of this resource is to have an up-to-date registry of what information resources are available in public offices.

Legislative Background 1 Act XX. of year 1994: The Constitution of the Hungarian Republic 61. § (1) In the Hungarian Republic every one has the right … to learn and to distribute the data of public interest.

Legislative Background 2 Act LXIII. of year 1992 about the privacy and the publicity of data of public interest: 19. § (1)-(2) The organizations carrying out state or local duties as well as other organizations bearing public tasks … make the data about their data types … public, or make them accessible in other ways. Data about data = metadata

Legislative Background /2000. (XII. 27.) Governmental Act about the public administration data register metadata of public sector information resources and related terms setting up framework system: PMO, January, 2001 (KIKERES) providing initial metadata in the central administration: PMO (financing of initial upload, central operation, organization, methodological support) + ministries continuous maintaining metadata: ministries voluntary join of other public sector institutions

The Goals of KIKERES more knowledge on the accessibility, content, representation, quality, spatial and temporal extent and other features of public sector data better understanding of public sector data better utilization of the data asset of the public administration reducing redundancy in data management reasonable planning of financing and dissemination of data

Main Characteristics of KIKERES a governmental information locator system (GILS) a “discovery-type” metadata service accessible for anybody on the Internet: (presently more than metadata records, of them are spatial metadata) a distributed system: each data owner has its metadata server and maintains its own metadata it can be used as an internal data catalogue too (sophisticated authentication) an expandable metadata-structure for different data types: basic profile and spatial profile are available it is based on international standards (Dublin Core, XML/RDF, ISO 29350, etc.) optional English interface and content

Concept Store a structured terminological database concept: definition, word forms, annotations, relations available with a browser ( or through Web API for other information systems it can help in any searching process in KIKERES or in other information systems to use a unified conceptual system optionally multilingual presently some 5000 concepts are available (general administration, health, social insurance, regional development, protection of heritage, urban and regional planning, environment protection, transport, water management, education, geology, electronic signature, social administration and statistics)