IEPD Specification Change History

The NIEM Information Exchange Package Documentation (IEPD) Specification can be updated with major NIEM releases, occurring every three years. The following highlights the changes that have been made.

Along with the NIEM 5.0 major release, the Model Package Description (MPD) Specification, version 3.0.1, was simplified, renamed, and updated to the IEPD Specification, version 5.0.

The MPD Specification was originally written to support multiple kinds of models, including releases, IEPDs, domain updates, and Enterprise Information Exchange Models (EIEMs). In practice, however, IEPDs were almost the sole use case so the specification in 5.0 was tailored specifically to IEPDs and the potentially confusing model package description (MPD) terminology was removed.

There was no update to the MPD Specification for the NIEM 4.0 major release, so the 3.0.1 version applies to all IEPDs using a release from NIEM 3.0 to NIEM 4.2.

Key changes

Key changes to the 5.0 version of the specification include:

  • Updated the name of the specification from “Model Package Description (MPD) Specification to Information Exchange Package Documentation (IEPD) Specification

  • Replaced “MPD” terminology throughout the spec with “IEPD”.

  • Renamed the mpd-catalog.xml and mpd-catalog.xsd files as iepd-catalog.xml and iepd-catalog.xsd.

  • Updated the IEPD catalog element and attribute names to replace mpd with iepd

  • Updated the example IEPD for 5.0

IEPD catalog changes

In the renamed iepd-catalog.xsd schema, the following elements and attributes have been renamed:

MPD 3.0.1 IEPD 5.0
c:Catalog/c:MPD c:IEPDCatalog - (renamed and flattened)
c:MPDInformation c:IEPDInformation
c:mpdURI c:iepdURI
c:mpdClassURIList c:iepdConformanceTargetIdentifierURIList
c:mpdName c:iepdName
c:mpdVersionID c:iepdVersionID
c:MPDChangeLog c:IEPDChangeLog

Please see the new IEPD catalog schema and IEPD catalog example for more.

Conformance targets

The following conformance target applicability codes have been updated in version 5.0:

  • WF-IEPD (Well-formed IEPD) - was MPD (Model Package Description)
  • IEPD-catalog (IEPD catalog document) - was MPD-catalog (MPD catalog document)

The following applicability codes remained unchanged:

Removed rules

Two rules have been removed from the IEPD specification for version 5.0:

Rule 3-2 (MPD): MPD with MPD class of IEPD is an IEPD

A model package description with an MPD class of http://reference.niem.gov/niem/specification/model-package-description/3.0/#IEPD MUST be an information exchange package documentation.

Rule 5-9 (WF-MPD): MPD Class Determined by Conformance Target Identifier in c:mpdClassURIList

An MPD MUST have an MPD class of a conformance target identifier if and only if that conformance target identifier appears in the c:mpdClassURIList attribute within its MPD catalog document.

Modified rules

Added missing rule titles

Two rule titles were left blank in the MPD 3.0 specification, which has been corrected in the IEPD 5.0 specification:

MPD 3.0 IEPD 5.0 Applicability Title
5-31 5-30 WF-IEPD Schema document set interpreted as constraint schema document set
5-41 5-40 IEPD-Catalog Validity contraint context is value of c:xPathText

Modified rule numbers

Due to the removal of the two 3.0 rules outlined above, some rule numbers from the MPD 3.0 version have shifted in the IEPD 5.0 version.

Expand to view the 39 adjusted rule numbers
MPD 3.0 IEPD 5.0 Applicability Title
3-1 3-2 WF-IEPD IEPD is well-formed
3-3 3-1 IEPD IEPD conformance target identifier
5-10 5-9 WF-IEPD IEPD Version Number Syntax
5-11 5-10 WF-IEPD IEPD URI Is Absolute
5-12 5-11 WF-IEPD IEPD URI Supports Fragment
5-13 5-12 WF-IEPD IEPD URI Has No Fragment
5-14 5-13 WF-IEPD IEPD Artifact URI Syntax
5-15 5-14 WF-IEPD c:pathURI Resolves to a Resource
5-16 5-15 WF-IEPD c:pathURI for c:XMLCatalog
5-17 5-16 WF-IEPD c:pathURI for c:IEPDChangeLog
5-18 5-17 WF-IEPD c:pathURI for c:ReadMe
5-19 5-18 WF-IEPD c:pathURI for c:IEPSampleXMLDocument
5-20 5-19 WF-IEPD c:pathURI for c:BusinessRulesArtifact
5-21 5-20 WF-IEPD c:pathURI for c:XMLSchemaDocument
5-22 5-21 WF-IEPD c:pathURI for c:ExternalSchemaDocument
5-23 5-22 WF-IEPD c:pathURI for c:ReferenceSchemaDocument
5-24 5-23 WF-IEPD c:pathURI for c:ExtensionSchemaDocument
5-25 5-24 WF-IEPD c:pathURI for c:SubsetSchemaDocument
5-26 5-25 WF-IEPD c:pathURI for c:Wantlist
5-27 5-26 WF-IEPD c:pathURI for c:SchematronSchema
5-28 5-27 WF-IEPD c:pathURI for c:RelaxNGSchema
5-29 5-28 WF-IEPD c:pathURI for c:SchemaDocumentSet
5-30 5-29 WF-IEPD c:pathURI for c:ConstraintSchemaDocumentSet
5-31 5-30 WF-IEPD Schema document set interpreted as constraint schema document set
5-32 5-31 WF-IEPD Resolve IEPD URI with Fragment
5-33 5-32 XML-catalog XML Catalog uri Value Resolves to Resource
5-34 5-33 XML-catalog XML Catalog uri Value Resolves to Resource with Correct Target Namespace
5-35 5-34 IEPD IEPD Has a Change Log
5-36 5-35 WF-IEPD Readme Describes Purpose, Scope, Business Value, etc.
5-37 5-36 IEPD IEPD Has a ReadMe Artifact
5-38 5-37 IEPD-catalog Conformance Target Identifier
5-39 5-38 IEPD-catalog IEP Conformance Target Has a structures:id
5-40 5-39 IEPD IEPD Declares One or More IEP Conformance Targets
5-41 5-40 IEPD-catalog Validity contraint context is value of c:xPathText
5-42 5-41 IEP IEP has Document Element
5-43 5-42 IEP Validating an XPath Expression
5-44 5-43 IEPD IEPD Has an IEP Sample for Each c:IEPConformanceTarget
5-45 5-44 IEP Validating an IEP Sample XML Document
5-46 5-45 IEPD IEPD Has Conformance Assertion