The Integrated Public Sector Vocabulary (IPSV) is an 'encoding scheme' for populating the e-GMS Subject element. 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.
The Abridged version is a subset about one-fifth of the size of the full IPSV, having 549 preferred terms and 1472 non-preferred.
The scope of the Abridged IPSV, as for the full version, is all the subjects relevant to public sector organisations in the UK. In the full version, certain subject areas are expanded to extra levels of specificity, especially subjects relevant to local authorities and to community information providers. In the Abridged IPSV, these subjects receive no more emphasis than others. The aim is to cover local, regional and central government in equal depth, as well as providing for non-departmental public bodies, research councils, etc.
For local authorities needing to comply with the ODPM's Priority Service Outcome R3 "Community Information", the Abridged IPSV is not suitable - the full IPSV must be applied. But other organisations may use the Abridged version for broad categorisation of information resources. Subject metadata values chosen from the Abridged version are enough to comply with the eGMS (eGovernment Metadata Standard).
You can see the hierarchical tree structure online through the Interactive Viewer, or download it in any of the formats listed below - just follow the links.
Feedback on the usefulness of the Abridged version is very much needed. Please use the IPSV Discussion Forum (see link below) to make suggestions, raise any concerns and see what others say. Suggestions for amendments needed in the next update should be submitted by 15 September 2006.
Abridged IPSV version 2.00 was released on 3 April 2006:
The following alternative formats are available:
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.
To view the Abridged IPSV V2.00 as an interactive tree, Click here.
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. IPSV data should not be used in a derogatory manner or in a misleading context. If part or all of IPSV is reproduced elsewhere, its Crown copyright status should be mentioned, the title 'Integrated Public Sector Vocabulary' should be shown and the source of the material should be acknowledged, preferably by providing a link to the IPSV home page on the esd-toolkit website.