Outlook-Based Concept for the Population and Updating of a Meta-Information System in Environmental Administration

Abstract: Metadata is essential in retrieving information about the environment located at differently distributed organisational units of governmental administration. The population of the meta-information system may be done based either on a centralised concept (e.g. with support of external interviewers) or on a non-centralised concept requiring a software tool accessible at each desktop computer where the dataholder can enter the data directly. Often the implementation of such a tool is linked with a high effort in installation and training, especially if hundreds of clients have to be served. To overcome these disadvantages we developed a software tool based on MS Outlook supporting the non-centralised maintenance concept. The software tool is used in connection with the environmental data catalogue (Umweltdatenkatalog, abbr. UDK) developed by German and Austrian authorities