by Vanessa Scott, Content Manager, eServices, Information Victoria, Dept of Innovation, Industry & Regional Development. Paper presented to the Metadata seminar in Canberra on 27 May 2009.

1. Victoria Online: Quality, Reliability & Trust
Vanessa Scott
Content Manager
eServices, Information Victoria
Dept of Innovation, Industry & Regional Development
27 May 2009

2. Victoria Online
• Provides Victorians with a single entry point to
online Federal, Victorian State and Local
Government information and services
• Key project of the State Government’s
eGovernment policy Putting People at the
Centre

3. Introduction
• History of Victoria Online
• Design – different
taxonomies
• Search and browse
• Why we designed it that
way
• What we are planning
next

4. Introduction
• History of Victoria Online
• Design – different
taxonomies
• Search and browse
• Why we designed it that
way
• What we are planning
next

5. History of Victoria Online
• 1996 – Flat html
• 2000 – Cold Fusion
• 2003 – Accesspoint
• 2006 – Design refresh

7. Victoria Online – new features
• Web 2.0 features
– Twitter
– RSS feeds
– Blog
• Events Calendar
• Online newsletter –
subscribe/unsubscribe
• Rate this site

8. Victoria Online – new features (cont.)
• Number 1 search term “jobs”
– link to external website
• Cross-promotion of other
channels within Info Victoria:
– Bookshop (external link)
– Call centre number

9. Victoria Online – What is it?
• Discovery portal – authoratative source of
government information & services, latest news
and government contact information
• Main entry point (gateway)
– Browse/Search/Contextual Search (Browse & Search)
– Content eg. Latest News, Public holidays, Daylight
Saving, School Term Dates
– Specific up-to-date content eg. Bushfires – played
central role

10. Search & browse
• Searches 3 tiers of government plus quasi (eg. Metlink, Grand Prix)
• Search results are relevance ranked
• Searches Topic taxonomy and Services & Payments taxonomy
• Browses to 3 levels in Topic taxonomy
• Browse results are alphabetical
• Title, Description and Keywords play important role for Search
• Keywords based on Victoria Online Thesaurus – natural language

11. Search results - browse

12. Search results - search

13. Search
• Integrated Search and Browse
– search within a topic
– search within results
• Search thesaurus provides
– Did you mean
– Narrow search by

14. Search – Victoria Online Thesaurus
• Developed September 2005
• Updated regularly (2 public releases each year)
• Nearly 6,000 terms (nearly 2,500 preferred
terms)
• Terms sourced from user’s search terms
• Focus on natural language, not ‘government
speak’

15. Search – Victoria Online Thesaurus
• Describing resources in Victoria Online in the
DC.Subject field
• Assists cataloguers with selection of keywords
• Consistency with use of keywords
• Reduces typos
• Improves search results

16. Search – Victoria Online Thesaurus
Based on ANSI/NISO Standard Z39.19-2003 Guidelines for the
Construction, Format and Management of Monolingual Thesauri
Report available at: http://www.egov.vic.gov.au/index.php?env=-
innews/detail:m2110-1-1-8-s-0:n-9-1-0--
HTML version available -
http://www.egov.vic.gov.au/victoriaonlinethesaurus/index.htm

17. Quality - How metadata is used
• 4,000 “hand-crafted” links, fully AGLS-compliant
with 25 metadata elements
– High Importance, High Relevance, High Hit
– 3 tiers
• Maintained by content manager at Victoria
Online
• Use of natural language
• Dead-link check daily

18. Quality - How metadata is used (cont.)
• Structured information about a web resource
• Provides supporting description about the content,
owners, context and structure of the resource
• Describing resources to help people find or ‘discover’
them (resource discovery metadata)
• Informs Browse (85% of users) and Search
• Allows multiple browse pathways through our taxonomy

19. Quality - We analyse our stats
• Web analytics
– Google analytics, Nielsen
– Analyse search terms (internal & external), top
content pages, browse pathways
– Exit links
– Trends (seasonal eg. daylight saving, budget)
– Analysis assists with changes
– Responsive & reliable

20. Reliability
• Available 24/7 – external hosting
• Browser based CMS – ability to work from
home. This was critical during the recent
bushfires in Victoria
• Top domain vic.gov.au
• Good SEO with external search engines
• Main entry point for Vic Govt

21. Trust - We listen to our users
• Feedback
– Qualitative
– Downstream feedback
– Responsive – all feedback answered within 5 working
days
– Action it
• Rate this site

22. We carried out research
• Consumer - Survey (1600 people) –
Focus Groups
• Portal Best Practice Benchmarking
• Discoverability – tools, architecture,
metadata
• Content Definition
• Content Management

23. We carried out research (cont.)
Research Results – Our users wanted:
• Information
• Services
• improved discoverability (browse/search)
– Multiple pathways
• three levels of government (transparently)
• easy to use, fast, reliable, relevant, accessible, trustworthy
• subject-based, natural language
• directories / contact information
• citizen-centric, not government-centric

24. Further developments - search
• Suggested auto-
text from VO
thesaurus
• Due June 2009

25. Further developments
Packaged information and services
• Aggregated content
- search results
- Topically related
• Geo-spatial content
• User engagement
- Subscription updates
- User polls
- Have your say
- Expanded Feedback function

28. What we are planning next
• Continuous Improvement of Victoria Online as
front door to government
• Greater citizen engagement approach via Web 2.0
tools, social media

29. Contact info
Vanessa Scott
Content Manager
eServices, Information Victoria
Department of Innovation, Industry & Regional
Development
e: vanessa.scott@diird.vic.gov.au
p: (03) 9938 0517
Twitter: InfoVic