What are the aims of e-GIF?

• to enable the seamless flow of information across government / Public Service Organisations
• to set practical standards using stable well supported products
• to provide support, guidance and toolkits to enable the standards to be met
• to provide a long-term strategy that is able to accommodate and adapt.

Key e-GIF policies

• alignment with the Internet: the universal adoption of common specifications used on the Internet and World Wide Web for all public sector information systems
• adoption of XML
  XML
  Extensible Markup Language is a set of rules for encoding documents in machine-readable form. It is defined in the XML 1.0 Specification produced by the W3C, and several other related specifications, all gratis open standards....
  
   as the primary standard for data integration
  Data integration
  Data integration involves combining data residing in different sources and providing users with a unified view of these data.This process becomes significant in a variety of situations, which include both commercial and scientific domains...
  
   and presentation tools for all public sector systems
• adoption of the browser as the key interface; all public sector information systems are to be accessible through browser based technology; other interfaces are permitted but only in addition to browser based ones
• the addition of metadata to government information resources
• the development and adoption of the e-Government Metadata Standard
  E-GMS
  The e-GMS is the UK e-Government Metadata Standard. It is an application profile of the Dublin Core Metadata Element Set.The e-GMS defines how UK public sector bodies should label content such as web pages and documents in order to make such information more easily managed, found and shared.The...
  
   (e-GMS) based on the international Dublin Core
  Dublin Core
  The Dublin Core metadata terms are a set of vocabulary terms which can be used to describe resources for the purposes of discovery. The terms can be used to describe a full range of web resources: video, images, web pages etc and physical resources such as books and objects like artworks...
  
   model
• the development and maintenance of the Government Category List
  Government Category List
  The United Kingdom Government Category List was a type of controlled vocabulary called a taxonomy, for use in choosing Subject metadata and keywords, primarily for indexing government web pages. The use of GCL terms in the metadata of all government resources is intended to facilitate, encourage...
  
  (GCL).
• adherence to the e-GIF Technical Standards Catalogue
• adherence to the e-GIF is mandated throughout the public sector.

Selection of e-GIF specifications has been driven by

• interoperability - only specifications that are relevant to systems interconnectivity, data integration, e-services access and content management are specified
• market support - the specifications selected are widely supported by the market, and are likely to reduce the cost and risk of government information systems
• scalability - specifications selected have capacity to be scaled to satisfy changed demands made on the system, such as changes in data volumes, number of transactions or number of users
• openness - the specifications are documented and available to the public at large.

Establishing competence and capability in e-GIF

• The e-GIF Accreditation Authority accredits organisations for their capability and competence in delivering e-GIF compliant solutions. There is also a programme of individual certifications at Foundation and Expert levels aimed at developing and recognising e-GIF skills and experience, referenced against an e-GIF Competency Framework.

• The e-GIF Compliance Assessment Service offers a self-assessment tool for e-GIF compliance in projects and programmes.

News sites which cover e-gif developments

• The e-GIF Accreditation Authority
• The e-GIF Compliance Assessment Service
• Kablenet includes e-gif developments in their coverage in their reporting on UK and other eGovernment
• Support Insight has published several articles on e-GIF and is monitoring its progress.

External links

• http://www.govtalk.gov.uk/ The website responsible for publishing developments regarding e-GIF
• http://www.egifcompliance.org e-GIF Compliance Assessment Service
• http://www.kablenet.com Kablenet