IEPD
IEPDs
What is an IEPD?
An Information Exchange Package Documentation (IEPD), is a specification for a data exchange and defines a particular data exchange. For example, there is an IEPD that defines the information content and structure for an AMBER Alert, a bulletin or message sent by law enforcement agencies to announce the suspected abduction of a child.
An IEPD is a set of artifacts consisting of normative exchange specifications, examples, metadata, and documentation encapsulated by a catalog that describes each artifact. The entire package is archived as a single compressed file. When uncompressed, the catalog is a hyperlinked index into the IEPD and can be opened in a standard browser. The user may use the catalog to overview the IEPD contents or to open each individual artifact (provided the appropriate software required to open a given artifact is installed). The artifacts in the NIEM IEPD specification are an extension of the work on IEPD guidelines done for the Global Justice XML Data Model, specifically Information Exchange Package Documentation Guidelines.
The IEPD Lifecycle
As the focal point of interoperability, the concept of IEPD is fundamental to the National Information Exchange Model (NIEM) reference architecture. A NIEM IEPD's lifecycle has six steps:
Conduct Business Analysis and Requirements Review: This step defines the business requirements associated with an information exchange for which NIEM is used. It incorporates scenario-based planning, which is the recommended methodology for elaborating the business context of events, incidents, or circumstances in which information exchange takes place.
Complete Information Exchange Mapping and Data Modeling: This uses established methodologies to map and model operational information exchanges. Moreover, it describes the process a community of interest (COI) follows to map their data sources to NIEM and identify IEPDs available for reuse and/or gaps between its data source and NIEM. The COIs can use the NIEM repository to search and discover existing data components to decrease the time needed to construct their IEPDs.
Build and Validate IEPDs: This step addresses the importance of using common documentation standards, such as IEPDs, to ensure there is consistency in the way information is captured, stored, and exchanged, and that uniform methodologies exist to support the generation of the IEPDs. Once the COI validates its IEPD, it may submit the IEPD to its domain-specific area (proceed to step 5) or nominate data components for inclusion into Common (proceed to step 4).
Data Harmonization and Promotion: The appropriate NIEM governance stakeholders form a team to review an IEPD submission and determine whether any of the data components should be included in Universal or Common. The team evaluates the submission and makes a recommendation regarding which, why, how, and when to integrate the proposed changes into NIEM.
Publish and Implement IEPDs: Once an IEPD is approved, it is stored in the NIEM repository. Other stakeholders or COIs can then search and discover published IEPDs for reuse or extend for a specific instance of the information exchange.
Garner Feedback and Enhance and Expand IEPDs: This step describes how the COIs work with the NIEM PMO to ensure existing IEPDs remain up to date and compliant with NIEM.