A Canonical Data Model for Records Management in the Portuguese Public Administration

Abstract

The Portuguese public administration is a highly regulated environment, where business processes are subject to strong requirements for records management. Therefore business metadata must be produced and maintained along with the regular business objects, to enable effective information exchange. In that sense, when entities of this domain engage in exchanges of information, it is helpful for those involved if also the metadata produced can be exchanged, which requires it to be commonly understood. This research proposes a Canonical Data Model that supports semantic interoperability in the Portuguese public administration, by defining a set of metadata elements for describing records. The proposed solution is compared against other related data models, and its qualities are assessed using the Bruce-Hillman metadata quality framework. Furthermore, the analysis of the proposed solution reveals the proposed model promotes semantic interoperability within the Portuguese public administration, by ensuring the information exchanged retains its original business context meaning.