NIEM Newsletter
The Texas Path to NIEM
In order to bring the National Information Exchange Model (NIEM) to the state of Texas, the Texas Department of Public Safety, the Texas Office of Court Administration, and the Texas Department of Criminal Justice—in collaboration with the Texas Integrated Justice Information Systems (TIJIS) Advisory Committee—partnered together to release a Request for Proposal on a project entitled The Texas Path to NIEM. TIJIS is a users’ group dedicated to developing justice information sharing capabilities in Texas. The contract was awarded to UNISYS.
The Texas Path to NIEM project calls for two major deliverables to be completed by October 31, 2007. The deliverables are intended to bring immediate value to justice agencies in their information sharing efforts and to lay the foundation for Texas agencies to reach NIEM compliance over time:
- The vendor, in collaboration with representatives from local and state users, must review and update the Texas Justice Information Integration Initiative Plan (TJI3), a previous integration plan written in 2002. The result will be a new information sharing plan for the state that uses NIEM compliance as its guiding principle.
- Separately, the project requires a “gap analysis” of certain information exchanges within the Texas justice community, the modeling of 28 justice exchanges, and the development of the initial version of a NIEM-compliant Texas Data Reference Model based upon those 28 justice exchanges.
Because of the very short deliverable time frame required, the exchanges under evaluation are limited to external exchanges between local and state justice agencies that bring immediate value to information sharing. The initial version of the data reference model will form the foundation upon which NIEM compliance can be built in Texas. It will be a public document to which other Texas NIEM efforts can add additional data and exchanges, as they are developed. This project will form the foundation upon which justice, homeland security, and other disciplines will be able to build future information sharing projects in Texas.
—David Gavin, Assistant Chief, Crime Records Service, Texas Department of Public Safety
Harmony Release Schedule
The Harmony Release Candidate 1, posted to NIEM.gov on Monday, June 4, 2007, is available for use and comment. A link to an errata file associated with the release is also provided. The file at this link will be updated as errors or issues are discovered. In late June, Release Candidate 2 (RC2)—incorporating corrections to identified errors—will be posted to NIEM.gov. Depending on stakeholder feedback to the RC2 release, the 2.0 Production Release will be generated and posted. The 2.0 Production Release is considered to be the stable release and falls under the standard NIEM configuration management processes.
The NIEM Naming and Design Rules document was released June 13, 2007. We encourage you to use and comment on it.
The NIEM tools update (new features and enhanced support features) will be released in late June.
Please continue registering your IEPDs at www.it.ojp.gov/iepd so that others will be aware of your work. This will foster opportunities for collaboration and leverage the expertise of other organizations, as well as help you to avoid duplicating efforts. Please visit www.niem.gov for the most current information about NIEM.
Registration Now Open for the Global Justice Information Sharing Users’ Conference
Registration is now open for the Third Annual Global Justice Information Sharing Users’ Conference, scheduled for August 21–23, 2007, in Chicago, Illinois. Sponsored by the U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, Bureau of Justice Assistance, in partnership with the Global Justice XML Data Model (GJXDM) Training and Technical Assistance Committee, the Global Justice Information Sharing Users’ Conference will highlight best practices and lessons learned and will feature new implementation projects. The presentations will highlight both the development of NIEM and the many GJXDM projects. For additional information on this conference, including information on how to register, please visit https://registration2.iir.com/globalconference2007/Default.aspx.
