What is an Application Profile?
An application profile is, put simply, a data-model. It is a set of metadata elements, refinements and the proposed encoding schemes and guidelines defined for a given application. The elements may be taken from one or more namespaces (link to above question), including a locally defined namespace. For example, the AGRIS Application Profile, which defines an exchange format for the AGRIS Database (link to website) takes elements from three different namespaces: – The Agricultural Metadata Element Set (AgMES) – The Dublin Core Metadata Element Set (DCMES) – The Australian Government Locator Services (AGLS) The Application Profile or AP can be presented as a machine-readable schema or a Word document, which define human-understandable explanations and provide best-practice guidelines.
Metadata standards – and related schemas, vocabularies and taxonomies – are designed to provide users with a means of sharing basic information especially relevant to a particular knowledge domain. At times, however, not all requirements of a community of practice may be met by a standard requiring that the community extend or modify it. Thus the term Application Profile has emerged as a means of describing this practical reality. Your application (how you apply the standard to your requirements) may therefore include ‘local’ elements or even include elements sourced from multiple metadata standards.
The application profile contains information which the Developer has provided about their application and the related files. It will contain technical information so that you can check for compatibility with your mobile phone, provide you with a download section for files and some basic information about what the application does. Most developers will also provide information about how to download and install their application, as well as user instructions about how the app works. We encourage developers to provide as much information as possible, to make their application easy to use, and to make the feedback they receive more relevant to the development process of the next version of their app.
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