Running ahead toward interoperable e-government: The government of Canada metadata framework

The Government of Canada (GoC) has implemented several standardization initiatives toward establishing e-government in order to systematize the capture, description, organization and dissemination of data and information. This study examines the GoC's metadata strategy through the adoption of a Dublin Core (DC)-based metadata scheme toward establishing one unified metadata framework. The study examines the credibility of DC in relation to interoperability, application profiles, and controlled vocabularies and further provides a discussion on the current problems associated with metadata and possible improvements across government agencies in the GoC.