audience

• Obligation:  See Application Profiles
• Occurrence:  See Application Profiles
• Conditions:  See Application Profiles
• Scheme:  See Application Profiles

Element Semantics (Definition)

A class of entity for whom the resource is intended or useful.

General

• Name:  audience
• Label:  Audience
• Namespace:  http://purl.org/dc/terms/
• Registration Authority:  Dublin Core Metadata Initiative (DCMI)
• Notes:  A class of entity may be determined by the creator or the publisher or by a third party.

Best Practices

1. Where the creator or publisher of the resource being described explicitly states that the resource is intended to address the needs of a specific audience, information about that audience should be included by the cataloger. Thus, terms for making statements about the audience for the resource should be drawn directly from the text of the resource. Unless qualified, the cataloger should not make statements about the audience that are merely implied from the resource.
2. The kinds of information about the audience that have proven useful for educators searching for resources include statements about the following audience characteristics:
   • Mediator Roles/Characteristics (e.g., teachers, parents, administrators)
   • Academic/Training Level (e.g., 5th grade students, middle school student, sophomores)
   • Beneficiary Roles/Characteristics
     • Student Aptitude/Attainment (e.g., gifted students)
     • Physical/Emotional Disabilities (e.g., visually impaired students, students with attention deficit disorder)
     • Cultural/Linguistic Groups (e.g., Hispanic American students, Torres Strait islanders)
     • Gender (e.g., female, male)
     • Linguistic Ability (e.g., Spanish, Russian (note: the native language of the target audience may be different from the encoding language of the resource, etc.)
     • Learning Prerequisites (knowledge that audience members are assumed to possess in order to successfully complete the learning associated with the resource)
     • Age

Metadata Encodings Examples

• Resource Description Framework (RDF/XML)
  

  Example #1 (English):
  
  <?xml version='1.0' encoding='UTF-8'?>
  <rdf:RDF xmlns:rdf='http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#'
      xmlns:dcterms='http://purl.org/dc/terms/'>
  <rdf:Description>
      <dcterms:audience xml:lang='en'>
      Teacher
      </dcterms:audience>
  </rdf:Description>
  </rdf:RDF>
  
  Example #2 (French):
  
  <?xml version='1.0' encoding='UTF-8'?>
  <rdf:RDF xmlns:rdf='http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#'
      xmlns:dcterms='http://purl.org/dc/terms/'>
  <rdf:Description>
      <dcterms:audience xml:lang='fr'>
      Enseignant
      </dcterms:audience>
  </rdf:Description>
  </rdf:RDF>

• XML (Tags & Attributes)
  

  Example #1 (English):
  
  <?xml version='1.0' encoding='UTF-8'?>
  <record xmlns:dcterms="http://purl.org/dc/terms/">
  <dcterms:audience xml:lang='en'>
      Teacher
  </dcterms:audience>
  </record>
  
  Example #2 (French):
  
  <?xml version='1.0' encoding='UTF-8'?>
  <record xmlns:dcterms="http://purl.org/dc/terms/">
  <dcterms:audience xml:lang='fr'>
      Enseignant
  </dcterms:audience>
  </record>

• Crosswalks
  IEEE LOM: 5.5:Educational.IntendedEndUserRole
  MARC: To be done