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). Version 1.00 was released in April 2005; Version 2.00 supersedes it, as of 3 April 2006.
Version 1 was developed by merging three earlier lists: the GCL (Government Category List), LGCL (Local Government Category List) and seamlessUK taxonomy. It had 2732 preferred terms and 4230 non-preferred. Version 2 is much bigger, with 3080 preferred terms and 4843 non-preferred. As a result, IPSV now covers internal-facing as well as public-oriented topics. You can still refer back to the
superseded version if necessary.
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.
Two subsets of IPSV are now available:
- The Internal Vocabulary covers only the 'internal-facing' topics. It has 756 preferred terms and 1333 non-preferred.
- The Abridged version covers the whole scope of IPSV but is limited to the upper levels. It has 549 preferred terms and 1472 non-preferred.
The online display shows IPSV as a hierarchical tree structure, which can be searched interactively. It uses the same conventions as in the esd-toolkit display of the LGCL, except that no distinction is made between "categories" and "keywords".
IPSV can be downloaded in a variety of formats as listed below. You can also download mappings from LGCL and LGSL terms. For tips on how to use IPSV, and explanations of all the resources, see the guidance notes lower down.
IPSV is updated on a regular basis and your suggestions for it are invited, you can submit them via the Discussion Forum. We also welcome feedback on any other aspect of IPSV, the formats, the guidance notes, etc. An update to IPSV terms had been scheduled for 31 October 2006, however this will be postponed whilst new funding and governance models are being defined. In the meantime, please continue to submit your feedback.
The mappings from IPSV to the LGNL are voluntarily maintained and provided by Lichfield District Council (formerly by Bridgnorth District Council). esd-toolkit are grateful for the hard work that goes into keeping the mappings up to date.
This list is used 980,033 times (reduced to 816,475 times after removal of near duplicate pages) by 230 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.
IPSV version 2.00 was released on 3 April 2006:
The following alternative formats are available:
A list of mappings to IPSV from LGCL
:
A list of mappings to IPSV from LGSL
:
A list of mappings to LGNL from IPSV
:
A list of mappings to IPSV from SNL
:
IPSV was prepared as a result of the Vocabulary Merger Project (VMP), so some of the earlier documents refer to VMP rather than IPSV.
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.org.uk/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 by individuals and organisations for incorporation in products and services that are made available to others without requiring a licence or payment of 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 damages the integrity of the IPSV. We shall not be liable for any losses due to errors 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.