GJXDM: A major milestone
There have been several major milestones in the history of law enforcement and criminal justice information systems that set off new waves of progress. An example is the creation of the National Crime Information Center (NCIC) which set off a wave of state and local messaging and database systems to provide one stop shopping for information on wanted persons, stolen vehicles, etc. Because of this innovation, law enforcement agencies have been sharing information for decades, but not very efficiently or in the depth required after September 11.
The Global Justice XML Data Model (GJXDM) is another breakthrough milestone. It represents the first time on a national level that there is a data dictionary for the data elements important to information exchange. The GJXDM also provides a structure for reusable objects to further simplify and ease the complexity of information sharing.
This is not a standard by most definitions in that there is yet no official standards body that has given it a stamp of approval. It is at most a consensual standard that is so important to the criminal justice world that it will unquestionably become the way to do things. While the justice information technology world has climbed the wall to XML as the basis for document exchanges, the lack of a common vocabularly and agreed-upon objects would have resulted in little improvement over past methods of information exchange. Now we have the means to let the computers talk to each other.
This important work was done through the information sharing initiative of the Office of Justice Programs, in conjunction with its Global Information Sharing Federal Advisory Committee, and a Global-sanctioned working group called the XML
Structure Task Force which provided domain guidance to Georgia Tech Research Intsitute (GTRI) who did the heavy lifting and designed the whole model. GTRI took some 16,000 separately identified data elements used in about 15 states and boiled them down to around 2,500 common elements that could be described in ways to make them apply to all the various state data interpretations. Now we have a workable model that can foster information sharing.
OJP realized that both industry and public sector developers need some education on this important new tool, and a major developers' workshop is being held May 11-13 in Atlanta. The workshop is mostly taught by GTRI experts, and is free.
The next stage is now essential: developing standards for the transport layer and the query capability to facilitate inter-system communications. Not enough work is being done in this area, but it is essential that we take good advantage of the momentum of the GJXDM and keep focussed on the ultimate end of making information exchange easier.
The GJXDM will also foster new methodologies, tools, and companies as ways to better use XML docments are discovered. This piece is like the basic infrastructure of a whole new world of information sharing that will lead to the introduction of disruptive technologies in justice information sharing.
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