The Building trust in the public record policy recommends that information practitioners contribute to interoperability programs ensuring that metadata management, migration and disposal functionality meet information management requirements. (action 11).

The potential of your agency's information assets (records, information and data) to be shared and re-used depends on their quality, discoverability, and overarching management.

To achieve this potential, your agency needs to build interoperability across a range of themes – business, security, legal, semantic and technical.

Building interoperability means you can exchange information and data between different systems. It is dependent on clear, shared expectations for the context and meaning of data across systems.

Data governance and management is the foundation for building interoperability. It supports standardisation and management to facilitate discoverability and sharing. It is an essential component of information governance, particularly in data-centric agencies.

To start learning about interoperability, read about:

• interoperability key themes
• interoperability development phases
• interoperability scenarios
• the Data Interoperability Maturity Model.

Why interoperability?

Interoperability supports the use and reuse of government information and data as key assets and can:

• provide consistent, coordinated and more timely services
• improve accessibility
• lessen the impact of structural changes in government
• reduce the risks of technical obsolescence
• inform policy development and decision-making
• reduce the cost of information and data management through reuse and shared infrastructure.

More information

• DATA scheme – Office of the National Data Commissioner
• Australian Government public data policy initiatives
• Data.gov.au – Australian open government data
• Australian Government Architecture – Digital Transformation Agency
• Australian Privacy Principles – Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC)
• Protective Security Policy Framework – Attorney-General's Department (AGD)
• Information Security Manual – Australian Signals Directorate (ASD)
• National Healthcare Interoperability Plan 2023-2028 – Australian Digital Health Agency
• Intergovernmental Agreement on data sharing between Commonwealth and State and Territory governments
• Multi-Agency Data Integration Project (MADIP) – Australian Bureau of Statistics