1. Improving the interoperability of metadata exchange in the ESS
Follow-up of discussion at the 2018 Standards Working Group

2. Introduction
The 2018 Standards Working Group saw a discussion on the various issues affecting the interoperability od metadata exchange in the ESS.
The discussion outlined some of the most notable obstacles to interoperability of metadata exchange, and suggested actions to improve the situation. The document presented at the Working Group is attached below. The purpose of this presentation is to give an overview of the progress on the actions agreed at the last Standards Working Group.

3. European Interoperability Framework

4. Legal interoperability
Improvement action
Progress
Develop a common approach for the inclusion of metadata and quality reporting in legal acts
Eurostat is considering amending or replacing Recommendation 2009/498/EC on the use of ESMS for reference metadata by a recommendation on the use of SIMS for metadata and quality reporting.
While the recommendation itself would be non-binding, it could be referenced in or used as a basis for legal acts on quality reporting, thus guaranteeing a common approach in legal acts.
As the issuance of a recommendation takes time, Eurostat's quality team is taking a more proactive approach on ensuring that legal acts on quality reporting are aligned to SIMS.

5. Organisational interoperability
Improvement action
Progress
Clearly indicate in the ESS-MH which metadata flows are currently actively used for national metadata and quality reporting
This is a pending improvement action in the ESS-MH
Establish a link between the inventory of datasets in EDAMIS and the inventory of metadata flows in the ESS-MH
This link has been established. The new EDAMIS 4 will allow this link to be visible in EDAMIS. However, due to delays in the EDAMIS 4 developments, this feature cannot yet be made available. We expect it may become available towards the end of the year.
Give Member States the possibility to provide information at different levels of granularity

6. Semantic interoperability
Improvement action
Progress
Clearly indicate in the ESS-MH which metadata flows are currently actively used for national metadata and quality reporting
See specific agenda point on "Approach to SIMS implementation"
Replace HTML templates by sub-concepts
(phase-out of grouping functionality needed for full implementation)
Allow Member States to submit a single report containing all SIMS concepts in case both ESMS and ESQRS are needed

7. Technical interoperability
Improvement action
Progress
Phase-out the grouping functionality
See specific agenda point on "Approach to SIMS implementation"
Automate the transmission of metadata and quality report transmission via the use of EDAMIS
Work on this is underway. A description of the envisaged workflow is available in the document below.
There are however some dependencies between the introduction of this functionality and EDAMIS 4, which means that delays in the EDAMIS 4 developments impact its availability.

8. Conclusions
Since the 2018 Standards Working Group meeting, the areas that saw the most concrete advancement were the ones related to semantic interoperability. This is due to the fact that they require changes in implementation practices rather than in the supporting IT systems.
The actions that require changes in the supporting IT systems (ESS-MH and EDAMIS) have progressed more slowly.