Daconta: NIEM can help realize the Data Reference Model

An Office of Management and Budget attempt to nudge federal agencies into adopting the National Information Exchange Model could make the information sharing environment envisioned by authors of the Data Reference Model a reality.

NIEM uses XML schemas to standardize core data components for exchange and allows other communities of interest to create mutually-intelligible data components specific to their communities. Agencies must report to OMB by May 1 whether NIEM would be a suitable basis for "reference information exchange package descriptions to support specification and implementation of reusable cross-boundary information exchanges," according to guidance from Federal Chief Architect Keshmanda Paul.

The Data Reference Model was an effort that concluded in 2005 to define standards for data description, data contest and information exchange--in many ways seeking to achieve what NIEM has since managed to do mostly in the homeland security and law enforcement communities.

"I wanted [the DRM] to be very detailed, very specific to the point where we had begun developing a specific DRM XML data model," said Michael Daconta, who led the multi-agency DRM task force. But rather than become an operational construct, the final version of the DRM was mostly an advisory document, due mostly to objections from the intelligence community.

Daconta, who is now chief technology officer at Vienna, Va.-based Accelerated Information Management, recently spoke at length with FierceGovernmentIT about NIEM and data sharing; read the full interview here.

As result of compromise with the intelligence community, Daconta said, agency implementation of the DRM has been variable.

"NIEM--certainly for DHS--was absolutely our implementation of the exchange part of the DRM. The short answer is that NIEM absolutely is a good implementation for the information exchange part of the DRM," he said.

A one-size fits all standards approach to data sharing across the entire federal government might not work, Daconta warned, but neither will a plethora of standards.

"I do not believe that standards, especially government standards, are an area where you look for too much competition. Too much competition kills the whole notion of standards," he said.

He endorses OMB's mandate that agencies at least look at NIEM. "I think this is very promising. Getting a standard information exchange model across the government will absolutely improve information sharing. IT's not a question of ‘maybe,' it will improve it," he said.

For more:
- read the FierceGovernmentIT Q&A with Michael Daconta
- see a reminder from Federal Chief Architect Keshmanda Paul about the May 1 reporting deadline (.pdf)

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