Information Coherence Authority for Defence (ICAD)
Details of information architecture services provided by ICAD across Defence
The Information Coherence Authority for Defence (ICAD) provides services for identifying authoritative reference data and delivering metadata and controlled vocabularies. ICAD gives advice to IS projects and DII(F) implementation teams to improve the quality, discovery and effective re-use of data. This leads to better interoperability and decision-making in support of operational activities across Defence.
ICAD Deliverables
The Controlled Values Repository and Authoritative Reference Data
The Controlled Values Repository (CVR) is a centrally managed web application that provides access to Authoritative Reference Data (ARD) that has been approved for use by a Community of Interest (COI). ARD is defined as reference data that meets agreed quality criteria and is made available through the CVR. This means that every piece of ARD held in or referenced through the CVR has an owner, is managed and maintained, is subjected to a review cycle and is considered to be accurate. The CVR directly supports the Chief Information Officer’s information coherence policies in Joint Service Publication (JSP) 329, as ARD helps Defence to identify the right data for a specific use or purpose.
Users of the CVR include:
- those adding UK Defence Terminology keywords to documentation for retention and retrieval
- those using recognised standards such as ISO3166 Country Codes when compiling information
- system administrators and developers who want to identify definitions and lists of values from authoritative sources so systems are delivered to agreed MOD standards
The UK Defence Terminology
The UK Defence Terminology is a collection of terms describing MOD activities. It includes the UK Defence Taxonomy, which provides the broad subjects of terms to categorise document folders and other electronically held content, and the UK Defence Thesaurus, which provides the keywords to describe unstructured content in greater detail. This terminology, which is held in the CVR is vital to the effective delivery of MOSS, as it enables information and can be found more easily by search engines. ICAD also facilitates and provides subject matter expertise for the development of specialist terminologies.
DII(F) Metadata Implementation
ICAD is leading work to optimise metadata capture and categorisation for DII(F) collaborative tools. Metadata are the labels, including title, author, date, keywords, protective marking, that is being assigned in MOSS and Meridio, with the purpose of improving information discovery, interoperability, and provenance. We are working with ATLAS and stakeholders to address implementation/functionality issues, and to support improvement of search engine results.
If you would like to know more about ICAD then please contact our helpdesk at DBSKI-ICADOffice@mod.uk or write to:
ICAD Helpdesk
Hackett Building
The Defence Academy of the UK
Shrivenham
SN6 8LA