GCL (Government Category List) Resources
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GCL-Government Category List

Version 2.10

GCL Links:

Description

The Government Category List (GCL) was published by the Office of the e-Envoy to act as a controlled vocabulary for populating the mandatory 'subject.category' element of metadata for all government electronic resources. GCL is published in the standard format for local government controlled lists in order to support mappings from the Local Government Category List. Official GCL resources are published at: http://www.govtalk.gov.uk/schemasstandards/gcl.asp.

XSD and RDFS schemas are subject to modification following definition of standards by the e-Government Unit Metadata Technical Working Group and the W3C taxonomy group. In the event of changes, we shall endeavour to support the formats given as legacy formats.

List usage

This list is used 1,291,408 times (reduced to 292,259 times after removal of near duplicate pages) by 204 public sector Web sites - see here for a list of Web sites. View organisations registered as users of this list. See interactive viewer 'Term Usage Count' for details.

XML files

GCL version 2.10 was released on 15 July 2004:

Description Link
XML document www.esd.org.uk/standards/gcl/2.10/gcl.xml

GCL is deprecated in favour of IPSV .

This XML file is the unofficial version. The file is still considered to be a draft because there is extensive discussion in the local government community about that and LAWs is eager to accommodate a wide ranger of requirements. It is likely that the format of gcl.xml will not be subject to much further revision. However component files from which gcl.xml is constructed may be revised.

Alternative styles and formats for downloading GCL

The XML file can also be viewed in these human readable formats:

Description Link
Word document www.esd.org.uk/standards/gcl/2.10/gcl.doc
Word 2003 XML document www.esd.org.uk/standards/gcl/2.10/gclword.xml
Adobe Acrobat PDF document www.esd.org.uk/standards/gcl/2.10/gcl.pdf
CSV spreadsheet www.esd.org.uk/standards/gcl/2.10/gcl.csv

GCL mappings

A list of mappings to GCL from LGCL :

Description Link
LGCL GCL mapping www.esd.org.uk/standards/lgcl/1.03/lgclgclmapping.xml
LGCL GCL mapping as a Word document www.esd.org.uk/standards/lgcl/1.03/lgclgcl.doc
LGCL GCL mapping as an Adobe Acrobat PDF document www.esd.org.uk/standards/lgcl/1.03/lgclgcl.pdf
LGCL GCL mapping as a CSV spreadsheet www.esd.org.uk/standards/lgcl/1.03/lgclgcl.csv

GCL documents/guidance

Description Link
GCL Version Changes in HTML format www.esd.org.uk/standards/gcl/2.10/versionchanges.html

GCL resources

Click here for a diagrammatic representation of the XML resources making up GCL. Associated schemas and XSLT resources are also given, with hyperlinks to each.

Click here for an interactive tree of GCL.

Feedback

Please post questions and comments on the LAWs Information Architecture and Standards Forum of the esd-toolkit at www.esd-toolkit.org.

If you are unable to use the esd-toolkit, comments can be sent by e-mail to standards@esd-toolkit.org.

If you create your own XSLT for the List, please send it to us so it can be made available to others via this site.

Liability, Ownership, Protection

GCL is made available for use, without guarantees and without licensing costs, by local authorities, community organisations and any other bodies referencing local and community resources. Neither the LAWs Project nor any other party will be liable for any losses due to errors or omissions in the List or associated resources.

The content of GCL and all associated resources on this Web site be reproduced free of charge in any format or media without requiring specific permission. This is subject to the material not being used in a derogatory manner or in a misleading context. The source of the material must be acknowledged as the LAWs Project and esd-toolkit and the title all document must be included when being reproduced as part of other publications or services.