On February 26, 2014, the Association for Enterprise Integration (AFEI) hosted the first webinar in a series about the Department of Defense’s adoption of NIEM. At the event, Donna Roy, Executive Director of NIEM and David DeVries, Deputy CIO for the Information Environment, teamed up to give an overview on the implementation process and to answer questions from the community.

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) will soon release an updated schema that includes 2013 supplemental material to the ANSI/NIST-ITL 1-2011 standard and that will align with NIEM 3.0. NIST is working hand-in-hand with the NIEM Biometrics domain to ensure that all existing and new modalities in the standard are properly aligned with NIEM 3.0, including the Biometrics domain schema. The current NIST schema is aligned with NIEM 2.1.

On February 19, we hosted a technically-focused Virtual Town Hall. More than 240 NIEM community members joined to discuss NIEM-UML. We also kicked off the Design Patterns initiative.

Today, we can track NIEM adoption across the majority of federal agencies, 50 states, and even internationally—and now, NIEM is gaining the attention of an even wider audience.

On February 17, ABC7/WJLA, the ABC affiliate for the greater Washington, DC, area, focused on NIEM during its “Government Matters” segment, stating, “In the highly scrutinized, and often-criticized, world of federal IT, NIEM is considered a great investment.”

Kshemendra Paul, program manager, Information Sharing Environment (ISE) announced on Jan. 9 the release of the Strategic Implementation Plan for the President’s National Strategy for Information Sharing and Safeguarding. The plan details 16 priority objectives that span federal, state, local, and tribal governments, as well as private sector and international partners.

Join us February 19, 2014 from 2:00-3:00 p.m. for the first Virtual Town Hall of the year, which will feature NIEM-UML. February’s Town Hall will answer many frequently asked questions, including:

Imagine you are a parole officer. You monitor 60 parolees1 on average, assist with their reintegration into society, and ultimately ensure the public’s safety. In order to do your job, you need the most accurate information available about your parolees as quickly as possible, especially if one comes into contact with law enforcement. The Hawaii Integrated Justice Information Sharing (HIJIS) program leveraged NIEM to provide real-time updates to parole and probation officers whenever a supervisee comes into contact with law enforcement in the state.

If you haven't heard the news, a Best of NIEM 2013 Award winner has been bringing home some serious hardware this year! In addition to being named a 2013 Computerworld Honors Laureate and winning the 2013 Virginia Governor's Technology Award, on November 19, the City of Richmond IT Department, a 2013 Best of NIEM awardee, was recognized by GCN for having "technical creativity, a willingness to test emerging technology, and the perseverance to push for big cross-agency IT improvements."

On Wednesday, November 6, 256 in-person and virtual members of the NIEM community “did something different” and came together for NIEM in November. Hosted at the National Defense University, NIEM in November was a day-long gathering to share exciting news, updates, and accolades.

On Wednesday, November 6t​h, NIEM Executive Director Donna Roy led an information-packed NIEM in November program. The agenda highlighted efforts by NIEM PMO support staff, NIEM domains and NIEM participants leading up to the release of NIEM 3.0. Commenting on the contributions of the Biometric Domain, Ms. Roy added a "special call-out to the NIEM Biometric Domain" for the "huge amount of work from the team".

This past month, the annual Biometrics Consortium Conference (BCC) was held in Tampa Florida (September 17–19th). Speakers from all over the world converged to discuss the rapidly evolving field of biometrics and identity management. The NIEM Biometrics Domain (NBD) was on hand to offer training and share the new NIEM data model relating to the upcoming ANSI NIST modality expansion.

Last Tuesday, the NIEM community came together for the second NIEM Virtual Town Hall of 2013! In total, 118 community members—from federal, state, local, international, and the private sector—tuned in to hear how Prescription Drug Monitoring Information Exchange (PMIX) is supporting the fight against drug abuse and diversion at the state level.

Next week in Tampa, Florida, the annual Biometrics Consortium Conference (BCC) will welcome speakers from all over the world to discuss the rapidly evolving field of biometrics and identity management.

As part of NIEM in November on November 6, 2013, the Best of NIEM awards recognize NIEM implementation projects that show how intergovernmental collaboration and innovative technology:

The NIEM 3.0 Release Candidate (RC) is here! RC reflects feedback we have received from Alpha and Beta. 

Attention, NIEM exchange developers. Coming soon: recommendations for embedding geography markup language (GML) within existing NIEM architecture! This enhanced geospatial capability within NIEM will enable the NIEM community to more effectively document and exchange critical geospatial information.

Mark your calendar! The next NIEM Virtual Town Hall is on Tuesday, September 17, 2013 at 2:00 p.m. EST.

The NIEM Program Management Office (PMO), in collaboration with the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC), Department of Homeland Security, and the Program Manager for the Information Sharing Environment (PM-ISE), have partnered to enhance NIEM’s geospatial exchange capability through the Geo4NIEM initiative.

In July, the IJIS Institute Technical Advisory Committee (I-TAC) released a white paper recommending that organizations use the Unified Modeling Language (UML) profile for NIEM (NIEM-UML) for current and future information exchange projects. NIEM-UML is based on the Object Management Group’s (OMG) Model Driven Architecture (MDA) standards.

The National Association of State Chief Information Officers (NASCIO) recently highlighted NIEM as an example of effective governance that enables cross-jurisdictional collaboration. NASCIO has been a leader in discovering best practices for developing and sustaining state and county collaboration. This paper explains both why governance is a key ingredient and how efforts like NIEM are making it happen. Be sure to check out their paper and learn more about NIEM and other models for effective governance!