Metadata Application Profiles
Your Secret Weapon for Smarter Information Management
Let’s be honest: when most people hear the word metadata, their eyes glaze over. It conjures up visions of dry spreadsheets, nested fields, and jargon-filled documentation that feels like it was designed to confuse more than clarify.
But here’s the thing: metadata is magic, and when you tailor it properly, it can turn chaos into clarity. That’s where Metadata Application Profiles (MAPs) come in. If you’re an information professional trying to make metadata work (not just exist), application profiles are your new best friend.
“Think of it as the difference between buying a cookbook and writing your own menu.”
What Is a Metadata Application Profile?
A metadata application profile (MAP) is a set of clear, customized rules for how to use metadata in a specific situation. Think of it like a menu: instead of creating a new metadata standard from scratch, you combine what already exists and tailor it to your needs.
With a MAP, you can:
Use elements from established standards like Dublin Core, MODS, or PREMIS
Add your fields or extensions to meet local needs
Decide which fields are required, optional, or can be repeated
Set rules for how values should be entered—for example, using specific formats or controlled vocabularies
“A MAP turns metadata into something your users can actually apply—not just something you check off for compliance.”
Why Metadata Application Profiles Are a Game-Changer
Metadata application profiles (MAPs) give you the tools to make your metadata smarter, more consistent, and easier to manage. Here are three ways they transform how information professionals work:
1. Achieve Interoperability Without Sacrificing Specific Needs
A MAP helps you follow international standards while tailoring metadata to fit your local or organizational requirements. You don’t have to choose between compliance and usability—you get both. For example, you can follow Dublin Core for basic structure, but require that every “creator” field includes an ORCID. You can also make sure your “date” fields use a consistent format, like ISO 8601. That way, your metadata stays compatible with external systems while remaining meaningful and useful within your own.
2. Improve Data Quality and Maintain Consistency
MAPs take the guesswork out of metadata entry. Instead of leaving fields open to interpretation—or worse, filled with vague values like “misc”—you define exactly what goes where. You decide which fields are required, what terms are valid, and how values should be formatted. That structure leads to more accurate, reliable, and consistent metadata across projects, systems, and teams.
3. Provide Clear, Usable Documentation
Outdated PDFs and forgotten spreadsheets don’t help anyone. A well-maintained MAP acts as a living guide that documents your metadata rules and expectations. It becomes a shared reference point for developers, catalogers, curators, and policy staff. Everyone stays aligned, and new team members can get up to speed faster. The MAP becomes your metadata playbook—practical, accessible, and ready to use.
“A metadata application profile transforms vague intentions into clear instructions—making your metadata usable, consistent, and durable.”
From Theory to Practice: InterPARES and the Power of Application Profiles
The concept of metadata application profiles didn’t emerge overnight. It grew out of a need to bridge the gap between high-level standards and the real-world challenges of managing digital records. One of the most influential efforts in this area came from the InterPARES Project (International Research on Permanent Authentic Records in Electronic Systems), which began in the late 1990s.
InterPARES recognized early on that preserving digital records required more than just storing bits—it demanded structured metadata that could support authenticity, integrity, and long-term usability. The project’s researchers and practitioners didn’t stop at theory. They rolled up their sleeves and developed metadata application profiles tailored to specific record types, archival functions, and preservation requirements.
During the InterPARES Trust phase (2013–2018), the project expanded its focus globally. Teams worked with archives, universities, and research institutions across North America, Europe, Africa, and Asia to implement these profiles. They used application profiles to define how preservation metadata—such as fixity checks, provenance documentation, and rights declarations—should be captured and managed. These profiles weren’t just pilot projects; they became blueprints for real-world systems and policies.
By aligning metadata requirements with the principles of archival science and the realities of digital infrastructure, InterPARES helped show the world how a well-constructed MAP can translate policy into practice—and how that translation ensures digital records remain trustworthy over time.
“A well-built metadata application profile doesn’t just support a system—it safeguards the integrity of the record. InterPARES proved that by doing the work.”
Application Profiles in the Wild
Metadata application profiles aren’t just abstract tools for metadata specialists—they’re already embedded in many systems and services that professionals use every day. If you’ve ever harvested, aggregated, or shared metadata across systems, you’ve likely benefited from a MAP—whether you realized it or not.
Take Europeana, the pan-European digital platform for cultural heritage. To bring together content from thousands of libraries, archives, and museums across dozens of countries, Europeana developed the Europeana Data Model (EDM). This model is a robust application profile that harmonizes diverse metadata standards, like Dublin Core, LIDO, and EDM extensions, into a common framework. The EDM ensures that metadata about a 17th-century painting in Italy can be meaningfully integrated with metadata about a 20th-century photograph in Finland.
Another prominent example is DataCite, a global organization that supports research data citation. DataCite developed a metadata schema specifically for assigning DOIs (Digital Object Identifiers) to datasets, publications, and other research outputs. Their application profile defines exactly which metadata fields are required (like title, creator, publication year), which are optional, and how those fields should be formatted. This consistency enables reliable discovery, access, and citation of research data across repositories worldwide.
In the UK, Archives Hub provides another practical use case. As a national aggregator of archival descriptions, it collects metadata from contributing institutions and uses a defined application profile to ensure that submissions—whether in EAD (Encoded Archival Description) or Dublin Core—conform to structured requirements. This allows them to normalize data and support richer search and browse experiences for users across the Hub.
“If you’ve ever shared, reused, or aggregated metadata—across repositories, platforms, or institutions—you’ve relied on the hidden scaffolding of an application profile.”
Application profiles are the quiet workhorses behind seamless interoperability. They allow systems to “talk to each other” without forcing everyone to use the same language. By offering a shared structure with just enough flexibility, MAPs enable collaboration across borders, disciplines, and technologies.
How to Build Your Metadata Application Profile
Creating a metadata application profile may sound technical, but it’s really about designing metadata that works for your specific purpose. You don’t need to reinvent the wheel—you just need to adapt it so it rolls smoothly in your environment. Here’s a step-by-step guide to help you get started:
1. Start with a foundation you trust.
Choose an established metadata standard as your starting point—something well-supported and widely understood. Dublin Core is often a good choice because it’s simple, flexible, and compatible with many systems. If you’re working in a more specialized domain (like cultural heritage, preservation, or geospatial data), you might consider MODS, PREMIS, ISO 19115, or another domain-specific standard.
2. Define the purpose of your profile.
Clarify what your metadata needs to do. Are you building a digital archive? Supporting long-term digital preservation? Facilitating public discovery through search engines? Preparing data for analytics or reporting? Your goals will shape which elements matter most—and how much structure or precision your metadata requires.
"The clearer your goals, the sharper your metadata decisions will be."
3. Customize the elements to match your needs.
Don’t treat every field as equally important. Decide which elements are mandatory, which are optional, and whether any can be repeated (like multiple subjects or contributors). Add local fields if needed, such as internal tracking numbers, institution-specific terms, or workflow statuses. Use controlled vocabularies and format rules wherever possible to improve consistency and reduce ambiguity.
4. Document your profile clearly and accessibly.
Write down everything. Use plain language to explain what each field means, who should fill it out, and how. Include examples. A simple spreadsheet or shared document is fine to start. Later, you can refine it into formal documentation or integrate it into metadata editing tools and repository systems.
“A good MAP is one that people can understand and apply—even if they didn’t write it.”
5. Test your profile in real conditions—and adjust.
Apply your draft MAP to real records in your actual system. See what works, what confuses people, and where the gaps are. Revise as needed. Metadata profiles are living documents—they should evolve as your users, systems, and priorities change.
Why This Matters Now
We live in an era of constant information exchange. Data flows across platforms, organizations, nations, and even sectors, at a scale and speed we’ve never seen before. Researchers deposit datasets into shared repositories. Government agencies release open data for public reuse. Libraries and archives digitize collections and make them accessible online. Meanwhile, artificial intelligence systems scrape and analyze this information at lightning speed.
All of this activity relies on metadata—the descriptions, labels, and context that make information understandable, searchable, and usable.
But here’s the catch: structure without strategy is just noise.
When metadata fields are inconsistent, unclear, or incomplete, the result is confusion, not connection. That’s where metadata application profiles (MAPs) come in. They bring order, intention, and clarity to the chaos. A MAP doesn’t just say, “Include a title.” It says, “This is the title field. It must be filled in. It must be human-readable. It must match this format. And here’s an example.” That level of precision turns a generic structure into actionable guidance.
“Without a shared understanding of what metadata means and how to apply it, interoperability is an illusion.”
As AI becomes more deeply embedded in search, access, and analysis workflows, metadata matters more, not less. AI tools don’t just need data; they need well-described data. Poor metadata leads to missed connections, biased algorithms, or lost records. Strong metadata, guided by a solid application profile, ensures that machines and humans alike can navigate digital environments with trust and accuracy.
MAPs also help organizations meet growing demands for compliance, accountability, and preservation. Whether you're subject to GDPR, HIPAA, Freedom of Information laws, or digital preservation mandates, you need metadata that proves who created a record, when it was modified, where it came from, and whether it’s authentic.
“MAPs make metadata not just findable and readable—but trustworthy, actionable, and aligned with policy.”
In short, metadata application profiles sit at the intersection of technology, governance, and usability. They give us a way to ensure that the information we manage today remains accessible, meaningful, and verifiable tomorrow.
So if you’re responsible for managing records, curating collections, or building systems that rely on metadata, don’t treat your schema as a static checklist. Treat it as a living map. And make sure it’s written in a language your whole organization can follow.
“In a digital world, metadata is power—but only if it’s meaningful.”
And meaning doesn’t just happen. You design it—with a MAP.