In the information sciences, an application profile consists of a set of metadata elements, policies, and guidelines defined for a particular application. The elements may come from one or more element sets, thus allowing a given application to meet its functional requirements by using metadata from several element sets - including locally defined sets. For example, a given application might choose a subset of the

Dublin Core 220px, Logo image of DCMI, which formulates Dublin Core The Dublin Core, also known as the Dublin Core Metadata Element Set (DCMES), is a set of fifteen "core" elements (properties) for describing resources. This fifteen-element Dublin Core has ...

that meets its needs, or may include elements from the Dublin Core, another element set, and several locally defined elements, all combined in a single schema. An application profile is not complete without documentation that defines the policies and

best practice A best practice is a method or technique that has been generally accepted as superior to other known alternatives because it often produces results that are superior to those achieved by other means or because it has become a standard way of doing ...

s appropriate to the application. As another example, the legal document standard Akoma Ntoso is universal scope and very flexible, which creates the risk of ambiguous representations. Therefore, when AKN is to be used in a local domain, it can be advisable to reduce the overall flexibility and complexity by specifying a uniform usage of a subset of AKN XML elements for the given use case.

Advantages

* Defines an application-appropriate set of properties in a public and communicable manner. This permits the building of loosely coupled systems (i.e. independent of each other's detailed specifications) that still offer powerful capabilities.

Disadvantages

* Narrow application scope, which may limit a profile's widespread applicability and also limits the likely

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from re-use of tools from other projects outside that scope. * Compared to the Dublin Core refinement approach (where a core property set may be made more specific, in a backwards-compatible manner), use of application profiles requires that applications ''must'' at least recognise these profiles and their roots. Even if the profile is based simply on Dublin Core, which the application already understands, this is of no use unless the application also recognises that this profile ''is'' treatable as Dublin Core.

Example profiles

* Bath Profile : An International

Z39.50 Z39.50 is an international standard client–server, application layer communications protocol for searching and retrieving information from a database over a TCP/IP computer network, developed and maintained by the Library of Congress. It is c ...

Specification for Library Applications and Resource Discovery *

e-GMS The e-Government Metadata Standard, e-GMS, is the UK e-Government Metadata Standard. It defines how UK public sector bodies should label content such as web pages and documents to make such information more easily managed, found and shared. The ...

: the UK e-Government Metadata Standard. An application profile of

References

{{reflist Metadata