How does the National Information Exchange Model (NIEM) facilitate effective information exchange?
The National Information Exchange Model (NIEM) is identified by the ISE as a standards body, which provides a set of reusable common information standards.
To effectively exchange information across domains, there must be a common semantic understanding of data among participating agencies, and the data must be formatted in a semantically consistent manner. For example, two agencies
may each gather information about persons charged with committing a crime. If the agencies share information regarding these persons, there must be a common understanding of the terminology each agency uses. One agency, for example, may refer to the person as the “offender,” while another refers to them as the “defendant.” Agencies do not necessarily need to entirely retool their information systems or adopt standards and coding schemes that impose an
artificial uniformity in data collection that fails to meet their operational business needs, but there must be common understanding and semantic consistency in the structure of the data that crosses agency lines if it is to be successfully shared.