The Integrated Public Sector Vocabulary (IPSV) is an 'encoding scheme' for populating the e-GMS Subject element of metadata. It is fully compliant with ISO 2788 and BS 8723, the International and British Standards for monolingual thesauri. The vocabulary was developed with the backing of the ODPM (Office of the Deputy Prime Minister) and the eGU (Cabinet Office e-Government Unit).
IPSV is just one of a family of lists you can obtain from the esd-standards site. See What are all these lists? for an introduction to the others. Stay with IPSV if your purpose is to populate Subject metadata..The guidance notes listed below give full information about IPSV - just follow the links to download them.
The vocabulary aims to include all concepts in the three earlier lists from which it was developed: GCL (Government Category List), LGCL (Local Government Category List) and seamlessUK taxonomy. The structure at the top levels broadly follows the GCL, but has been adapted to accommodate LGCL structures.
The full IPSV is much bigger than any of the source Lists, with 2732 preferred terms and 4230 non-preferred. An abridged version has also been prepared, with approximately 500 preferred terms and all the corresponding non-preferred terms. Because it is so much shorter, the abridged version may be unsuitable for community information applications. For more details, see the introductory sections of the downloadable Word documents for the abridged version.
The online display shows IPSV as a hierarchical tree structure, which can be searched interactively. For both the full and the abridged versions it uses the same conventions as in the esd-toolkit display of the LGCL, except that no distinction is made between "categories" and "keywords". The IPSV can also be downloaded in a variety of formats as listed below. Feedback is welcome on the usefulness or otherwise of the various formats.
IPSV Version 2.00 is scheduled for release in April 2006, and will incorporate a substantial 'Internal Vocabulary' extension, as well as regular updating. The Second Draft of IPSV V2.00 (superseding the First Draft released in November 2005) is now available for comment. Any further suggestions for Version 2.00 should be submitted by 10 February 2006, via the Discussion Forum.
IPSV version 1.00 was released on 4 April 2005:
| Description | Link |
|---|---|
| XML document | www.esd.org.uk/standards/ipsv/1.00/ipsv.xml |
IPSV version 2.0 (First Draft) has a submissions deadline of August 30th 2005 and has a planned release date of November 7th 2005. The submissions deadline for the Second Draft is December 2nd 2005.
The following alternative formats are available:
| Description | Link |
|---|---|
| Full IPSV - esd-standards Word format | www.esd.org.uk/standards/ipsv/1.00/ipsv.doc |
| Full IPSV - esd-standards Word 2003 XML format | www.esd.org.uk/standards/ipsv/1.00/ipsvword.xml |
| Full IPSV - esd-standards Adobe Acrobat PDF format | www.esd.org.uk/standards/ipsv/1.00/ipsv.pdf |
| Full IPSV - spreadsheet style - esd-standards CSV format | www.esd.org.uk/standards/ipsv/1.00/ipsv.csv |
| Full IPSV Index - ISO 2788 style - Word format | www.esd.org.uk/standards/ipsv/1.00/IPSV_FullIndexV1.0.doc |
| Full IPSV in plain text - ISO 2788 style - ASCII text | www.esd.org.uk/standards/ipsv/1.00/IPSV_Full_V1.0Plain.TXT |
| Full IPSV - comma-delimited ASCII text | www.esd.org.uk/standards/ipsv/1.00/IPSV_Full_V1.0CommaDel.txt |
| Full IPSV - set of HTML files in one compressed ZIP format file. Download, uncompress and open 'index.htm' | www.esd.org.uk/standards/ipsv/1.00/Full_IPSV_V1.0_in_HTML.zip |
| IPSV terms suitable for a Local Authority A-Z Web page - Word format | www.esd.org.uk/standards/ipsv/1.00/IPSVA-ZClassification.doc |
| IPSV terms suitable for a Local Authority A-Z Web page - Adobe Acrobat PDF format | www.esd.org.uk/standards/ipsv/1.00/IPSVA-ZClassification.pdf |
Available formats:
| Description | Link |
|---|---|
| Abridged IPSV - Hierarchical style - Word format | www.esd.org.uk/standards/ipsv/1.00/IPSV_AbridgedV1.0Hierarchies .doc |
| Abridged IPSV Index - ISO 2788 style - Word format | www.esd.org.uk/standards/ipsv/1.00/IPSV_AbridgedIndexV1.0.doc |
| Abridged IPSV in plain text - ISO 2788 style | www.esd.org.uk/standards/ipsv/1.00/IPSV_AbridgedV1.0Plain.TXT |
A list of mappings to IPSV from LGCL :
| Description | Link |
|---|---|
| LGCL IPSV mapping | www.esd.org.uk/standards/lgcl/1.03/lgclipsvmapping.xml |
| LGCL IPSV mapping as a Word document | www.esd.org.uk/standards/lgcl/1.03/lgclipsv.doc |
| LGCL IPSV mapping as an Adobe Acrobat PDF document | www.esd.org.uk/standards/lgcl/1.03/lgclipsv.pdf |
| LGCL IPSV mapping as a CSV spreadsheet | www.esd.org.uk/standards/lgcl/1.03/lgclipsv.csv |
A list of mappings to IPSV from LGSL :
| Description | Link |
|---|---|
| LGSL IPSV mapping | www.esd.org.uk/standards/lgsl/2.02/lgslipsvmapping.xml |
| LGSL IPSV mapping as a Word document | www.esd.org.uk/standards/lgsl/2.02/lgslipsv.doc |
| LGSL IPSV mapping as an Adobe Acrobat PDF document | www.esd.org.uk/standards/lgsl/2.02/lgslipsv.pdf |
| LGSL IPSV mapping as a CSV spreadsheet | www.esd.org.uk/standards/lgsl/2.02/lgslipsv.csv |
IPSV was prepared as a result of the Vocabulary Merger Project (VMP), so some of the earlier documents refer to VMP rather than IPSV.
| Description | Link |
|---|---|
| Which IPSV? A guide to the versions and formats available | www.esd.org.uk/documents/IPSVVersionsAndFormats.pdf |
| Guide to Meta-tagging with the IPSV | www.esd.org.uk/documents/IPSVHowToMetatag.pdf |
| IPSV Maintenance Guide | www.esd.org.uk/documents/IPSVMaintenanceGuide.pdf |
| Integrated Public Sector Vocabulary - Guidance Notes For Local Authority and Other Users | www.esd.org.uk/documents/IPSVGuidanceNotes.pdf |
| LAWs Press Release, including policy for users of other vocabularies | www.esd.org.uk/documents/IPSVPressRelease.pdf |
| IPSV Editorial Policy | www.esd.org.uk/documents/IPSVEditorialPolicy.pdf |
| Vocabulary Merger Project Scoping Study Report | www.localegov-standards.gov.uk/index.asp?pgid=3218 |
| Integrated Public Sector Vocabulary Merger Project Questionnaire Analysis | www.esd.org.uk/documents/IPSVMPQuestionnaireAnalysis.pdf |
| Integrating Taxonomies: SeamlessUK and the Local Government Category List | www.localegov-standards.gov.uk/index.asp?pgid=2485 |
| Purpose of the IPSV | www.esd.org.uk/documents/IPSVPurpose.pdf |
Click here for a diagrammatic representation of the XML resources making up IPSV. Associated schemas and XSLT resources are also given, with hyperlinks to each.
Please post questions and comments on the Integrated Public Sector Vocabulary forum at http://www.esd.org.uk/Forums/viewforum.php?f=39. Your normal Local e-Government Standards Body and esd-toolkit login applies. You can register and login from http://www.esd-toolkit.org/integratedforums/. (You do not need to be a local government officer to use this forum.)
Integrated Public Sector Vocabulary (IPSV) © Crown copyright.
We wish to encourage the re-use of the IPSV. It may be downloaded byindividuals and organisations for incorporation in products and services that are made available to others without requiring a licence or paymentof fees.
Anyone who includes the IPSV in a product or service should ensure that they do not alter the data or its presentation in any way that damagesthe integrity of the IPSV. We shall not be liable for any losses due toerrors or omissions in the IPSV. In addition esd-toolkit requires that the data is not used in a derogatory manner or in a misleading context. The source of the material must be acknowledged as esd-toolkit and the title referring to Integrated Public Sector Vocabulary should appear on all documents and must be included when being reproduced as part of other publications or services.