NIEM=National Information Exchange Model program in US

( Interaksjon C2G, B2G, G2G, etc hvor C=Consumer, B=Business , G=Government og 2=to )

A national program supported by the US Federal government, NIEM connects communities of people who share a common need to exchange information in order to advance their missions.

The NIEM Vision

The NIEM vision is to be the best practice, by choice, for intergovernmental information exchange. Practitioners at all levels of government and industry will share accurate, complete, timely, and appropriately secured information to enable informed decision making for the greater good. NIEM will provide a common vocabulary to ensure consistency and understanding among domains that may not collaborate traditionally to simplify the process of information sharing between them.

NIEM:

• • Is dynamic. Current cross-domain challenges need to be addressed head-on as we live in a shared-mission age. These challenges and opportunities are too large for any one unit, organization, sector, or nation to take on alone.

  • Offers a common vocabulary and an online repository of information exchange package documents (IEPDs) to support information sharing.

  • Provides technical tools to support development, discovery,dissemination, and reuse of IEPDs.

  • Provides a community of users, tools, common terminology, governance, methodologies, and support that enables enterprise-wide information exchange.

  • Is not limited by national borders. NIEM is used internationally.

NIEM is Not:

• • A standard. NIEM enables the creation of standards.

  • The actual exchange of information. NIEM describes the data that is in motion in the exchange

  • A database. NIEM does not store information.

  • Software.

  • Just for law enforcement and justice. Twelve domains participate in NIEM with additional domains such as human services and agriculture forming.

  • Strictly for federal government. NIEM is used in all 50 states, as well as local and tribal governments and private industry.

  • Intrusive to existing systems. NIEM allows organizations to move information quickly and effectively without rebuilding systems.

For more information:

( Letter in Norwegian )

Letter to Resource group "ICT and e-Health" in The Norwegian Computer Society

• IEPD in NIEM

• XML Schemas in NIEM

• XML Namespaces in NIEM

Why NIEM?

The NIEM Value Proposition: NIEM provides a foundation for information exchange that improves effectiveness and efficiency of government.

We live in the age of shared missions. Whether protecting our citizens, responding to a disaster, monitoring prescription drug abuse, identifying welfare assistance eligibility, or sending out an AMBER Alert for a missing child—none of these missions can be accomplished without cross-boundary collaboration that requires information exchange.

In making countless decisions every day, officials must have immediate access to timely, accurate, and complete information. Regardless of whether the situation involves a police officer conducting a routine traffic stop, a security officer conducting passenger screening at an airport, or a customs official screening cargo arriving at an international port, effective decision making requires information that often must be exchanged across a broad landscape of systems, agencies, and jurisdictions. The challenge is clear – how do we connect the wide array of computer systems operating in various agencies to exchange information.

The National Information Exchange Model (NIEM) is designed to enable government and industry to address this problem. By providing a common vocabulary and mature framework to facilitate information exchange, NIEM enables diverse communities to "speak the same language" as they share, exchange, accept, and translate information efficiently.

NIEM's mission is to provide a commonly understood way to connect data that improves government decision making for the greater good. NIEM Connects.

NIEM improves the way information is exchanged throughout the nation by:

• • Eliminates debate around data standards and creates agreement about and a common understanding of underlying data.

  • Breaks down inter (and intra)-agency stovepipes and creates the opportunity for conversation and collaboration between different organizations.

Enhancing operational efficiency. NIEM:

• • Shortens the time frame for information exchange development.

  • Reduces errors and increases data reliability and quality.

  • Decreases data integration headaches.

  • Allows for more effective decision-making by making actionable information more accessible.

  • Does not require agencies to change their existing systems and databases or the way they currently do business, yet opens up possibilities for data exchange among other agencies.

NIEM and Shared Services. NIEM provides a framework for enterprise architecture practices for the development of information exchanges which increases the efficiency in the deployment of shared services. Multiple agencies at the federal and state levels of government are using NIEM as the basis for all common services in their shared service strategy. NIEM enables higher reuse of services based on standardization. Reuse leads to lower costs for deployment, and quicker time for delivery. In addition to reuse, NIEM promotes the development of reference exchanges: common 'Whole of Government' approaches to a discrete exchange across all levels of government.