e-Government core vocabularies handbook : using horizontal data standards for promoting interoperability

In Europe, citizens and businesses increasingly live, work, and conduct business across borders. Their increased mobility must be supported by cross-border public services, such as the registration of a foreign branch, obtaining a licence to conduct business in another country, or getting a birth certificate. In such an environment, public administrations must be capable of interacting efficiently and effectively across borders through the seamless exchange of data. Unfortunately, the environment in which data exchange takes place amongst EU Member States is complex, creating many semantic interoperability conflicts during the execution of European public services. Such semantic interoperability conflicts are caused by discrepancies in the interpretation of administrative procedures and legislation, the lack of commonly agreed data models, the absence of universal reference data, etc. In order to overcome these conflicts, the ISA Programme has created the Core Vocabularies specifications in the period 2011-2013 with international Working Groups of Member State representatives and experts. The Core Vocabularies are defined as simplified, reusable and extensible data models that capture the fundamental characteristics of a data entity in a context-neutral and syntax-neutral fashion.