Two descriptive metadata standards are in use in the Australian Government sector:
AGLS is a more general-purpose metadata standard for online resource discovery.
Each metadata set has strong backing within particular communities as the basis of discovery systems for government information. The descriptive functionality of the two element sets is quite similar. Nevertheless, differences in the obligation and generality of the two element sets mean that conversion from ISO 19115 instances to AGLS is more straightforward than the converse. We present a mapping between the metadata elements sets to accomplish this.
You can also see CWA 14857, a mapping between the Dublin Core Metadata Element Set and ISO 19115 prepared by the European Committee for Standardization in 2004.
This mapping is based on an earlier map, ANZLIC to AGLS (2000). A copy of this map is availible by contacting the National Archives via the Agency Service Centre.
| AGLS element | Description | AGLS
Obligation | ISO
Obligation | Australian Government ISO 19115 Profile |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Creator | The entity primarily responsible for making the resource content, usually the name of the person or organisation responsible for making the resource content. Preferred encoding uses Government OnLine Directory (GOLD). | M | RO | Dataset Responsible Party (#367) – Role (#379) MD_Metadata.identificationInformation>MD_DatatIdentification.citation>CI_Citation.citedResponsibleParty then individualName OR organisationName (roleCode = originator, code 006) |
| Publisher | The entity responsible for making the resource available. Used for providing information about ownership of the resource. Where this is an organisation name, it will usually be the same as Creator, or the Department of a Creator Subunit/Section where Creator is listed to this detail. | C | RO | Dataset Responsible Party (#367) – Role (#379)
MD_Metadata.identificationInformation>MD_DatatIdentification.citation>CI_Citation.citedResponsibleParty then individualName OR organisationName (roleCode = originator, code 006) |
| Title | A name given to the resource. | M | M | Dataset Title (#360)
MD_Metadata > MD_DataIdentification.citation >CI_Citation.title |
| Date | A date associated with an event in the life of a resource formatted according to ISO 8601 –created, modified, valid, issued. Preferred encoding uses ISO8601. | M | M | Dataset Date (#362) date attributed to resource (#394) & date type (#395))
MD_Metadata > MD_DataIdentification.citation >CI_Citation.date then refDate and refDateType NB ISO has no correspondant for “valid” |
| Description | An account of the content of the resource. | M | M | Abstract (#25)
MD_Metadata>MD_DataIdentification.abstract |
| Type | Signals the aggregation level of a resource and specifies the resource type. At a high level resources can be of one of three types: document, service or agency. Preferred encoding is using agls-document; agls-service. | M | RO | Class ofResource (#6 hierarchyLevel)
C/ M if hierarchyLevel not "dataset"; MD_Metadata>hierarchy.hierarchyLevel and hierarchyLevelName |
| Subject | The topic of content of the resource described using a thesaurus or controlled vocabulary to provide adequate terms to allow resource discovery. | M | M | Dataset TopicCategory (#41 – an enumerated list)
MD_Metadata > MD_DataIdentification.topicCategory |
| Availability | How the resource can be obtained or accessed or contact information – primarily used for non-electronic resources to provide information on how consumers may obtain physical access to the resource – encoded list or free text. | C | M | Metadata Point of Contact (#8)
MD_Metadata.contact > CI_ResponsibleParty |
| Identifier | An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context. Identifies the resource by means of a string or number conforming to a formal identification system. Preferred is through URI. | C | RO | dataSet URI (#11.1) |
| While Mappings exist for the following Elements, NAA AGLS Advice stated they suited different purposes to those relating to geospatial data and were thus N/A. | ||||
| Coverage
(NA) | The extent or scope of the content of the resource. Used to describe the geographic or time related aspects of a resource. It allows a search to be restricted to resources about a certain place or time. Preferred encoding: ISO8601 (for temporal qualifier); AglsJuri (for jurisdiction names). | M | C | #334 EX_Extent (Additional Extent Information (vertical and temporal)
MD_Metadata>MD_Dataidentification.extent>Ex_Extent>EX_TemporalExtent or EX_VerticalExtent EX_GeographicDescription #348 (description of the geographic area using identifiers, then #349, #207) or (Optional administrativeArea #383) MD_Metadata>MD_DataIdentification.extent>EX_Extent>EX_GeographicExtent>EX_GeographicDescription |
| Function
(NA) | The business function to which the resource relates – not the function of the resource itself but the function of the organisation to which the resource being described relates. | C | RO | Dataset Responsible Party (#367) – Role (#379)
MD_Metadata.identificationInformation>MD_DatatIdentification.citation>CI_Citation.citedResponsibleParty then organisationName (roleCode = originator, code 006) |
M = Mandatory; C = Conditional; RO = Recommended Optional
Comments and feedback should be sent to the Agency Service Centre.