National Information Exchange Model
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A National Information Exchange Model is an XML-based information exchange framework from the United States.
- AKA: NIEM.
- See: XML Schema, GJXDM, Information Sharing, Information Exchange, Emergency Management, Data Component.
References
2016
- (Wikipedia, 2016) ⇒ http://wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Information_Exchange_Model Retrieved:2016-2-15.
- The National Information Exchange Model (NIEM) is an XML-based information exchange framework from the United States. NIEM represents a collaborative partnership of agencies and organizations across all levels of government (federal, state, tribal, and local) and with private industry. The purpose of this partnership is to effectively and efficiently share critical information at key decision points throughout the whole of the justice, public safety, emergency and disaster management, intelligence, and homeland security enterprise. NIEM is designed to develop, disseminate, and support enterprise-wide information exchange standards and processes that will enable jurisdictions to automate information sharing.
NIEM is an outgrowth of the United States Department of Justice's Global Justice XML Data Model (GJXDM) project. NIEM is now being expanded to include other federal and state agencies such as the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, United States Department of Defense, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Texas, Florida, New York, Pennsylvania, and others.
- The National Information Exchange Model (NIEM) is an XML-based information exchange framework from the United States. NIEM represents a collaborative partnership of agencies and organizations across all levels of government (federal, state, tribal, and local) and with private industry. The purpose of this partnership is to effectively and efficiently share critical information at key decision points throughout the whole of the justice, public safety, emergency and disaster management, intelligence, and homeland security enterprise. NIEM is designed to develop, disseminate, and support enterprise-wide information exchange standards and processes that will enable jurisdictions to automate information sharing.
- (Wikipedia, 2016) ⇒ http://wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Information_Exchange_Model#NIEM_key_concepts Retrieved:2016-2-15.
- The following key concepts are essential to understanding the purpose, architecture, processes, and other capabilities of NIEM, as well as to establish a common knowledge base with which to develop the ability to use NIEM effectively.
- Data Components. The fundamental building block of NIEM is the data component. Data components are the basic business data elements that represent real-world objects and concepts. Information exchanged between agencies can be broken down into individual components – for example, information about people, places, material things, and events. Components that are frequently and uniformly used in practice are specified in NIEM and can then be reused by practitioners for information exchanges, regardless of the nature of their business or the operational context of their exchanges, provided they are semantically consistent.
- Information Exchange Package Documentation. The information that is commonly or universally exchanged between participating domains can be organized into information exchange packages (IEPs) in the form of XML Schemas. An example of this collection of information is data associated with an arrest. The data to be exchanged includes not only descriptive and personal identification data regarding the individual arrested (i.e., the person component described above) but also information about the person's alleged offense, the location of the offense, the arresting officer, etc. The IEP represents a set of data that is actually transmitted between agencies for a specific business purpose (e.g., initiating a charging document by the local prosecutor). It includes the actual XML instance that delivers the payload or information. Additional information regarding this specific exchange can be further documented in the form of an information exchange package documentation (IEPD), which also contains data describing the structure, content, and other artifacts of the information exchange. An IEPD supports a specific set of business requirements in an operational setting.
- NIEM Core. Data components within an information exchange that are universally shared and understood among all (or almost all) domains are identified as universal components (e.g., person, address, and organization). To become a universal component, consensus by all domains is needed on the semantics and structure of the component. The set of NIEM universal components is stable (once established) and relatively small.
- Domains. For purposes of NIEM, a domain refers to a business enterprise broadly reflecting the agencies, units of government, operational functions, services, and information systems which are organized or affiliated to meet common objectives. NIEM domains are organized to facilitate governance, and each has some measure of persistency. Each domain traditionally includes a cohesive group of data stewards who are subject matter experts (SMEs), have some level of authority within the domains they represent, and participate in the processes related to harmonizing conflicts and resolving data component ambiguities.
- Communities of Interest. Communities of interest (COIs) are collaborative groups of users who exchange information in pursuit of shared goals, interests, missions, or business processes and who therefore must have a shared vocabulary for the information they exchange. COIs reuse data components and artifacts found in NIEM to document their information exchanges. One or more COIs can coordinate to develop new domain content as they identify gaps in the data components needed for documenting information exchanges.
- NIEM Conformance. There are NIEM conformance rules that serve as guidelines for agencies utilizing NIEM to implement their information sharing exchanges. Grantees developing inter-agency XML-based exchanges must comply with the special condition language contained in the grant, and follow the associated NIEM implementation guidelines.
- The following key concepts are essential to understanding the purpose, architecture, processes, and other capabilities of NIEM, as well as to establish a common knowledge base with which to develop the ability to use NIEM effectively.
2015
- https://www.niem.gov/aboutniem/Pages/niem.aspx
- QUOTE: NIEM — the National Information Exchange Model — is a community-driven, standards-based approach to exchanging information.
NIEM may sound complex, but the premise of it is simple: NIEM connects communities of people who share a common need to exchange information in order to advance their mission. NIEM is not a database, system, software, technology stack, or a silver bullet.
Well, what is it, then?
Information exchange is about connecting data from one computer to another, and another, and so on. Maybe you drink "soda", but I drink "pop". The problem is — even though we're both talking about sweet fizzy beverages, our computers treat my "pop" as entirely different from your "soda".
The same is true for diverse, real-world examples, such as this one from maritime domain awareness. If I say "vessel" and you say "boat", and he says "ship" and she says "conveyance", we may mean the same thing, but we have no way to tell our computer systems to behave and treat the words as having the same meaning. Until we do, we'll all have different facts about the same world —pieces of the big puzzle—but no common understanding
- QUOTE: NIEM — the National Information Exchange Model — is a community-driven, standards-based approach to exchanging information.