NIEM Announces New Major Release

NIEM Announces New Major Release

Tuesday, March 30, 2021

The National Information Exchange Model (NIEM) has released NIEM 5.0. This major release makes it easier to use NIEM, enabling interoperability across diverse and complex systems and organizations. The model is streamlined and simplified and now contains a Universal Modelling Language (UML) capability for easier development of message specifications.

NIEM 5.0 increases NIEM’s flexibility, establishing the framework for the NIEM metamodel currently in development. As planned, the metamodel will allow the development of NIEM conformant message specifications to not be limited to the XML data format. NIEM JSON’s Specification v5.0 is anticipated to be released in May, establishing the technical basis for using JavaScript Object Notation (JSON) as a data format. NIEM’s TechHub provides the developer community with resources and training.

Technical repositories are simplified for ease of navigation and use. The landing page for NIEM Specifications is located at https://niem.github.io/reference/specificati ons/.

The release includes expanded content from NIEM domains and communities of interest, including Cyber, NIEM’s newest domain, and the planned Statistics domain. Major updates were made to the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s National Crime Information Center National Data Exchange (NDEx) and Uniform Crime Reporting (and NIBRS) code tables, as well as the Public Health Emergency Operations Center’s Minimum Data Set associated with the NIEM Emergency Management Domain. New and reusable message specifications have been developed, such as the Department of Transportation’s model for crash reporting.

“NIEM 5.0 represents three years of extensive NIEM user-community input, development, and harmonization efforts to deliver information exchange solutions addressing our users’ needs,” said Katherine Escobar, Managing Director, NIEM Management Office. She continued, “With NIEM’s community-powered, open- source approach, users directly contribute both content and technical expertise, propelling NIEM’s growth forward with timely solutions to challenging interoperability problems.”

NIEM’s Core contains the data components within information exchange elements which are universally available to all NIEM users. New and updated specifications better describe what data look like and mean. NIEM’s strength of extensibility allows individual domains and agencies to further define data elements specific to their unique needs and requirements, in accordance with naming and design rules that support interoperability standards.

NIEM currently supports exchange efforts among fifteen chartered domains and communities of interest working towards becoming a domain. State and local agencies are particularly served by the domains of biometrics, cyber, justice, emergency management, human services, family services, and the planned domains associated with statistics and transportation. Participants in NIEM are representatives from federal, state, local, tribal, territorial, international, and the private sector. Overall, the NIEM model defines more than 11,000 existing elements, or properties, that define the semantic content of the model.

Key changes to NIEM accomplished in version 5.0 can be viewed at https://release.niem.gov/niem/5.0/README.html To review the NIEM 5.0 release package , visit release.niem.gov. Online tools are available to search and view NIEM release content. To learn more about NIEM and how to participate in the State, Local, Tribal, and Territorial (SLTT) Tiger Team, please contact NIEM. About the National Information Exchange Model

The National Information Exchange Model (NIEM) provides a model framework with rules and guidance designed to develop consistent, well-defined, enterprise level information exchanges. For sixteen years, NIEM has successfully supported information communities of interest with a shared need to exchange data within the federal, state, local, tribal, and territorial agencies and organizations, the private sector, and internationally. To learn more, please visit www.NIEM.gov.

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