CWA 16655-3:2013

Application profiles ("APs") have been discussed and used for well over a decade. For example: the ARIADNE Web Magazine issue 25 from September 2000 has an article, "Application Profiles: Mixing and Matching Metadata Schemas"; [1] the Dublin Core Metadata Initiative has published "Guidelines for Dublin Core Application Profiles" in 2009; [2] the relevant Wikipedia article was initiated in 2006. [3] APs for InLOC are much simpler than the more complex cases envisaged in these cited documents. APs for InLOC may include both small modifications to an existing specification, and recommendations within that specification on how to use the existing structures to refer to InLOC information, but there is no reason to change the main functional requirements of the existing specification, and this is not attempted. The purpose of APs for InLOC is simply to fulfill an extra requirement, which is to refer effectively to one or more definitions of learning outcome or competence (LOC), in a way that enables identification of and cross-reference between LOCs across different application, specifically (but not exclusively) allowing reference to InLOC-formatted information. In the Guidelines [4] to InLOC, there is a general explanation of how Integrating InLOC can work, referring to the particular European Learner Mobility specifications of particular interest in the context of InLOC. The job of the APs for InLOC documentation here is to provide technical details of how this can be done. There is no need for any profiling of the InLOC Information Model [5] itself, at least for InLOC to work well together with other European Learner Mobility specifications. Profiles may be desired for specific applications of InLOC, e.g. for the consistent creation of a set of competence standards by a particular authority, but this is understood as beyond the scope of the InLOC project.