For Immediate Release
May 22, 2006

Data Sharing: Georgia Tech Research Institute Assists U.S. Government Agencies with National Information Exchange Model (NIEM)

Imagine a situation in which emergency medical, fire, law enforcement and hazardous materials personnel respond to an emergency – only to find that they all speak different languages and cannot communicate with one another. That scenario unfortunately describes the challenge government agencies often face today when they need to share information among incompatible database systems.

The National Information Exchange Model (NIEM) will help federal agencies share public safety and criminal justice information. In this photo, Customs and Border Protection officers review shipping paperwork. Photo: U.S. Customs and Border Protection

To address this long-standing concern, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and U.S. Department of Justice are collaborating with related federal agencies on a technology that will facilitate sharing of vital public safety and criminal justice information. Known as the National Information Exchange Model (NIEM), the new interagency effort will provide a foundation for sharing information using extensible markup language (XML), an open standard that allows exchange of information regardless of computer system or platform.

“The National Information Exchange Model (NIEM) was created to assist in developing a unified strategy, partnerships and technical implementations for national information sharing across all levels of government in support of justice, public safety, judicial, intelligence and homeland security interests,” said Jim Feagans, NIEM project manager at the U.S. Department of Justice. “Improving our nation’s ability to exchange mission-critical information cannot be solved by any one entity alone. It will require a partnership among organizations, governments at all levels, and industry.”

With technical support from the Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI), the NIEM builds on the successful Global Justice XML Data Model developed earlier for the criminal justice community nationwide. The NIEM has released early drafts of the system components and programming tools, with the goal of having a completed system ready for use by November 2006.

“By establishing a single standard for XML applications, the NIEM will build a foundation for exchanging information between the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, U.S. Department of Justice and supporting organizations responsible for emergency management, intelligence and other areas,” explained John Wandelt, principal research scientist at the Georgia Tech Research Institute’s (GTRI) Information Technology and Telecommunications Laboratory. “Building on the success of the Global Justice XML Data Model, NIEM will extend the benefits of a common data model to other agencies at the federal, state and local levels.”

To accomplish that, NIEM is developing broad-based support among potential user groups by involving them in the development process.

“NIEM recognizes that the development of successful solutions to improve critical information exchange requires a focus on user needs and requirements,” Feagans noted. “This means ensuring the appropriate input of both practitioners and policy-maker representatives across disciplines, jurisdictions and levels of government. Hence, NIEM supports a local government and practitioner-driven approach to improving information exchange, and will work cooperatively with the nation’s local and state governmental national associations.”

The Georgia Tech Research Institute assisted with the Global Justice initiative, and now serves as the technical lead for the NIEM Project Management Office – which was established as a collaborative effort between the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Justice. Working with GTRI, the group is identifying the core data components, reusable XML exchange packages and business-process models for information sharing that should be included in the NIEM. The Global Justice XML Data Model serves as a foundation for the expanded system.

“This project focuses on applying reusable components as the foundation and building blocks for our XML exchange packages,” explained Michael Daconta, metadata program manager for the Department of Homeland Security. “This standardization of exchange packages is critical to allowing the kind of information data sharing and interoperability needed among agencies with similar missions.”

Daconta said the NIEM effort will develop partnerships, encourage collaborations and present a unified strategy that will ultimately enable the justice and public safety communities – from the local to the federal level – to create a level of national interoperability that hasn’t existed before. Beyond interoperability, the system will also reduce costs for individual agencies by allowing re-use of standardized components.

The project’s goals include:

• Developing a unified strategy within the two lead agencies for an XML-based information-sharing capability;
• Meeting Presidential and agency directives regarding information sharing;
• Providing technical assistance to local, state, tribal and federal organizations seeking to implement revisions to the Global Justice XML Data Model; and
• Developing and demonstrating a pilot application of the NIEM to demonstrate and test its capabilities.

“The NIEM concept embodies next-generation enterprise data management technologies at the conceptual and implementation levels,” Wandelt added. “Key aspects include modularity aligned with common and stakeholder-specific needs, stakeholder consensus, and the collaborative development, sustainment and reuse of sets of core data types.”

Beyond the agencies initially involved in the NIEM, the effort may ultimately include other entities that need to share information, such as the Department of Transportation and the Department of Health and Human Services. The project has been supported by the Bureau of Justice Assistance within the U.S. Department of Justice’s Office of Justice Programs.

The earlier GJXDM initiative involved three major components: an object-oriented data model, a data dictionary and XML schema specification. The data model and dictionary are part of common “vocabulary” used by different computer systems to describe data objects to be shared. Using these standardized definitions, software scripts automatically translate information as it passes from one system to another.

“By providing a common language and vocabulary, the XML initiative allows agencies to efficiently share data while continuing to maintain their own data and operate their own computer systems,” Wandelt noted. “This avoids the cost and compatibility issues that would be involved in trying to develop a single unified national network. It also provides a foundation that individual agencies can use to develop compatible systems without having to re-invent key elements.”

The standardized data objects were chosen by representatives from the agencies and industry partners that worked together for three years. The group, known as the Global Justice Information Sharing Initiative, identified approximately 2,500 common data objects after reviewing more than 20,000 candidate objects, many of which were redundant.

Today, more than 50 justice information sharing projects use the Global Justice XML Data model, which was officially released in January 2004. The NIEM effort was officially launched in February 2005. For a listing of more than 50 projects using the Global Justice XML Data Model, please see: (http://www.it.ojp.gov/topic.jsp?topic_id=107).

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WRITER: John Toon