Navigating the Standards Landscape

1. Navigating the Standards Landscape 2006 SEARCH Symposium March 12-15, 2006

2. Navigating the Standards Landscape • Types of Standards • The Business Case: How do functional standards help the practitioner to develop an information sharing architecture? • Data Exchange Standards • IEPDs • Conformance • How Do I Connect the Silos? Here is the Help!

3. Types of Standards • Data Exchange Standards: XML • XML Schema • XSL/XSLT • Namespaces • XQuery • XML Signature

4. Types of Standards • XML Vocabularies • Global Justice XML Data Model (GJXDM) • National Information Exchange Model (NIEM) • Uniform Business Language (UBL) • EDXL (OASIS Emergency Management) • Electronic Business XML (ebXML) • Extensible Access Control Markup Language (XACML) • ACORD XML for Life Insurance • eXtensible Business Reporting Language (XBRL)

5. Types of Standards • Information Exchange Package Documentation (IEPDs) • Law Enforcement • Court • Prosecutor • Corrections • Transportation • Prescription Drugs • State/Jurisdictional • Identity Theft

6. Types of Standards • XML Specifications and Service Models • Biometrics (ANSI-NIST ITL-2006) • FBI Electronic Fingerprint Transmission Specification (EFTS) • Uniform Rap Sheet • Sex Offender, Serious Violent Offender, Wants, Warrants, Hot Files Protection Orders • OASIS Court Filing 3.0

7. Types of Standards • Business process Standards • Justice Information Exchange Model (JIEM) • Functional Standards • National Center for State Courts (NCSC) • American Probation and Parole Association (APPA) • Law Enforcement Information Technology Standards Council (LEITSC)

8. The Business Case • Standards are important if you want to: • SHARE DATA (speak the same language) • SAVE MONEY (use the same products) • LOWER RISK (increase the probability that your exchange will be interoperable with other justice entities throughout the nation • INCREASE PUBLIC SAFETY (get it there faster, more accurately, in a consumable format) • INCREASE PUBLIC ACCESS (accurate information accessible through the web)

9. The Business Case • Benefits of Standards • On-demand real time data access by practitioners who need it to make decisions • Standard products from vendors at lower cost • Leverage your legacy system investment • Evolve with emerging technology in a phased approach • If you care about PUBLIC SAFETY, standards are important because these standards can dramatically lower the lifecycle cost of sharing data • If you care about ACCOUNTABILITY FOR THE PUBLIC’S MONEY, standards are important because they will help to significantly lower the lifecycle cost of sharing data

10. Functional Standards • Law Enforcement Information Technology Standards Council (LEITSC) • Functional standards for Computer Aided Dispatch (CAD) and Records Management Systems (RMS)

11. Data Exchange Standards: JIEM • Business-Driven Information Sharing Looks at ALL of the dimensions of information sharing

12. Data Exchange Standards: JIEM • Mapping the business Process: The Justice Information Exchange Model (JIEM) • Conceptual framework for understanding, describing, and reengineering information exchange • Consists of five dimensions that identify exchanges • Each exchange is a unique combination of entries for each dimension, plus additional data

13. Data Exchange Standards: XML • XML provides a natural way to build new vocabularies or languages • XML tools (parsers, validators, native XML databases) are abundant, relatively inexpensive and can support any and every vocabulary that conforms to the XML standard • XML allows us to express information in the operating system/computer architecture/ language independent way

14. Data Exchange Standards: XML • XML can represent all parts of the information exchange • Information that needs to be shared; • Information about this information (who created it, when, why, etc.); • Information about destination of this information (addressing, routing); • Security and authorization information (sensitivity level, who can read it, how it should be disposed of, etc.); • Validation and verification rules (XML schema, DTD, business rules)

15. Role of the XML business vocabulary • Describing data objects relevant to the business problem in a consistent and re-usable format. • XML tags provide both human-readable descriptions and computer instructions for mapping and validation. • Two different organizations may express two different concepts with the same XML tag. Example: • <dmv:Person.identification> in the DMV environment could mean driver’s license. No further specialization is required. • <immigration:Person.identification> in the ICE environment could mean passport. • Business vocabularies should be reconciled for the purpose of the information exchange, creating a new vocabulary: • <infoEx:Person.identification idType = {driver’s license | passport}> • Examples of business vocabularies: GJXDM, NIEM, EDXL

16. Information Exchange Package Documentation (IEPD) • Old terminology: Reference exchange documentsNew terminology: Information Exchange Package Documentation • IEP – (per Federal Enterprise Architecture) a set of data that is transmitted for a specific business purpose; the actual XML instance that delivers the payload or information (on the wire). • IEPD – a collection of artifacts that describe the structure and content of an IEP; does not specify other interface layers (e.g. Web services). IEPDs may contain: GJXDM schema subset, constraint schema, extension schema, document schema, business rules, sample instances, and other optional artifacts Refer to GJXDM IEPD Guidelines v1.1: https://it.ojp.gov/topic.jsp?topic_id=196

17. Role of Information Exchange Package Documentation (IEPD) • Putting business framework around information exchange • Leveraging existing vocabularies and building out new vocabulary for information exchange. • Defining specific data objects included into information exchange and common meaning of these objects for all users or participants. • Expand and refine Data Dictionary, e.g., GJXDM through experienced feedback; resolve vague definitions • Constrain/restrict down to key choices to support interoperability

18. IEPD Goals and Objectives • Information exchange data does not belong to only one domain • Example: Protection Order is not just a court document • LEA is an exchange partner • FBI is an exchange partner • Most important: a group of representative exchange partners working through the business and technical requirements of the exchange

19. IEPD Process

20. IEPD Goals and Objectives • Remember: the goal is to exchange information, not to build databases • The more we standardize the container and the payload of components, the more it supports our goals • Standard, non-proprietary, consistently structured artifacts helps all of us to leverage IEPDs as models for information sharing

21. IEPD Information Search

22. IEPD Details

23. How will JIEM and IEPDT interoperate? Access IEPDT UI with pointer to Exchange Context URI IEPD Tool 3 • JIEM database • Reference model • Site DB 1 • … • Site DB n • Repository • Data model components • IEPD artifacts • Exchange contexts • CMT data • User account data Web service 1 2 Business context, Exchange Content requirements Exchange Context URI

24. Building blocks for the information exchange: GJXDM and NIEM • Both started as a grass roots effort to define a common vocabulary: GJXDM for law enforcement and criminal justice, NIEM – based on GJXDM, but aiming at much wider audience from multiple domains; • GJXDM defined fairly large objects, reflecting the broad scope of the effort and attempts to accommodate needs of everyone across the wide spectrum; • NIEM, having much broader audience in mind from the beginning, took a different approach – divide constructs by applicability: • Start with smallest, universally understood and usable; • Specialize for the particular exchanges, common to some or many; • Provide a space for additional specialization relevant to a specific area

25. GJXDM and NIEM (continued) • GJXDM includes constructs not “native” to the criminal justice, like health or intelligence domain – created without a benefit of the subject matter expertise; • NIEM aggregates knowledge from multiple domains, where each community of interest maintains its own domain and contributes to the common set; • GJXDM also includes constructs that in NIEM are classified as Universal or Common, which leads to the larger schema and generally larger individual objects than those in NIEM; • Separating concepts into Universal, Common and domain-specific keeps NIEM objects generally smaller, more nimble, though the number of objects is larger than that in GJXDM

26. BloodTypeCode BloodTypeCodeType National Information Exchange Model (NIEM) NIEM Core (a collection of namespaces) Core: jointly governed through the NIEM governing body Core Universal namespace Structuresnamespace The minimally supported set for all participating domains;universally understood; very stable; minimal or no subsetting Common namespace Requires joint governance and reconciliation; but relatively stable Where tiger teams operate Intelligence namespace • NIEM Participants: • Bring domain content to NIEM. • Conform to NIEM NDR. • Agree to NIEM governance policies and procedures. • Participate in NIEM governance. Justicenamespace Emergency Mgt namespace Domains Immigration namespace Governed by XSTF-like committees that coordinate and cooperate with the NIEM governing body

27. GJXDM and NIEM (continued) • GJXDM community could benefit from focusing only on the criminal justice domain; • Since initial NIEM domains are created from GJXDM, all GJXDM content is preserved in NIEM and the opportunity exists for an easy migration to NIEM with little or no learning curve; • “Migration” does not have to mean re-creation of all existing and working IEPD’s from GJXDM to NIEM until the changes in business requirements warrant the need to use new constructs or domains available in NIEM; • Effort required to transition from GJXDM to NIEM would be comparable to the effort required to transition from one version of GJXDM to the next.

28. GJXDM Migration/ NIEM Timeline

29. GJXDM Conformance • DOJ Special Conditions Language • Requires conformance with the GJXDM • DHS Special Conditions Language • Mirrors the DOJ language • DOJ-DHS Memorandum of Understanding • Executive Order 13356, replaced by E.O. 13388 (October 25, 2005) • Establishes an Information Systems Council • Focus on information sharing and interoperable systems

30. Semantic Conformance • What do we mean by Conformance? • Conformance means the ability to share accurate and reliable information using the GJXDM such that the information has the same meaning for the sender as it does for the receiver

31. Technical Conformance • Import and reference GJXDM namespace or a correct subset • If it exists, use the appropriate GJXDM component (i.e., do not create a duplicate of one that exists) • Be semantically consistent • Use GJXDM components in accordance with their definitions • Do not use an element to represent data other than what its definition describes

32. Technical Conformance • Apply XML Schema extension rules correctly and consistently • Naming and Design Rules ( NDR ) • Exchanges conform, NOT systems • What you call data or how you use it in your own system does not impact conformance • What counts is how you package data as XML for exchange • There is no concept of partial conformance

33. How Do I Connect the Silos? GJXDM Resources Available today • SEARCH JIEM Modeling Tool • GJXDM Spreadsheet • NCSC Wayfarer Search Tool • Schema Subset Generation Tool • Unified Modeling Language Tools • GJXDM National Virtual Help Desk Near future • Performance Testing • Registry/repository • IEPD Tool

34. 2005-2006 Workshops and Conferences • Washington, DC March 2005 • **Users Conference** Atlanta June 2005 • Anchorage, July 2005 • Madison, WI – August 8-12, 2005 • Lone Tree, CO – August 24-26, 2005 • NLETS Conf. Phoenix, AZ – January 11-13, 2006 • Washington DC – March 2006 (SEARCH Symposium) • Albuquerque NM – May 22-25, 2006 • Anchorage AK – July 2006 • **Users Conference** San Diego, September 2006

35. GJXDM & IEPD Information Site: www.it.ojp.gov

36. NIEM Information Site www.niem.gov

37. NIEM Configuration Control Tool www.niem.gov

38. SEARCH GJXDM Initiatives • XML Structure Task Force (XSTF) • GJXDM Training and Technical Assistance Committee (GTTAC) • IJIS Institute XML Committee • Technical Assistance and Training • GJXDM User Guide • Sponsor 1st Annual GJXDM User Conference • Lead developer of Reference Information Exchange Package Documentation (IEPDs) • GJXDM National Virtual Help Desk support

39. SEARCH 2006 Focus • Increased Collaboration • Messaging/Transport/SOA • Documentation • Privacy • Service Oriented Architecture • JIEM Tool Development • IEPDs and horizontal analysis of components

40. Q&A