This document provides a framework that applies to all resources and specifies how to describe resources. It includes rules governing the way in which descriptions are made.

This document provides principles, rules and structures for specifying the description of any type of resource; it identifies and establishes attributes for specifying properties, resources classes, vocabularies and application profiles and the rules governing their use. The key principles set out in this document are framed in a user-centric context and aim to meet the requirements of multilingual and cultural adaptability from a global perspective.

This document can be used for the specification of metadata describing any type of resource (not only learning resources). This document is information-technology-neutral and defines a set of common approaches.

This document specifies generic properties, generic resource classes and predefined rule sets for content value rules. These generic elements are proposed in such a way that they can be widely reused, thereby promoting interoperability.

This document is applicable to the development of:

—     application profiles based on the ISO/IEC 19788 series but not part of it or any other document based on it,

—     standards consisting of the description of resources (in a broad sense), whether they belong to the domain of education or to any other domain.