National Information Exchange Model

What Is NIEM?
NIEM stands for the National Information Exchange Model. NIEM is an interagency initiative to provide the foundation and building blocks for national-level interoperable information sharing and data exchange. The NIEM project was formally announced at the Global Justice XML Data Model (Global JXDM) Executive Briefing on February 28, 2005. It is initiated as a joint venture between the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) with outreach to other departments and agencies. The base technology for the NIEM is the Global JXDM. The NIEM will leverage both the extensive Global JXDM reference model and the comprehensive Global JXDM XML-based framework and support infrastructure.

Background
DOJ created the Global JXDM by gathering approximately 16,000 data elements from 35 data dictionaries comprised of DOJ agencies as well as various local and state government sources. The developers removed the redundancies and duplications and resolved semantic differences. Currently, Global JXDM consists of a well-defined and organized vocabulary of 2,754 reusable components out of which there are 400 Complex Types, 150 Simple Types, and 2,209 Properties that facilitate the exchange and reuse of information from multiple sources and multiple applications. The Global JXDM has effective governance mechanism and widespread recognition and is rich, flexible, extensible, and used by local and state agencies.