1. Doing Justice to Data Standards: The Global Justice XML Data Model Ronald P. Reck RRecktek LLC. Chantilly, Virginia

2. Why Are Standards Important? Increase interoperability Serve as Documentation Constitute a formalized idea Depict correctness Serve as Building blocks for others

3. Some Qualities of Good Standards.  Availability means increased predictability.  Uniformity allows comparison with reduced effort.  Consistency increases repeatability.  Completeness means tackling the tough parts.  Cohesiveness ensures the best overall approach.

4. An Example of a Good Data Standard The Global Justice XML Data Model - GJXDM Formal Effort Began in March 2001 - directed by Office of Justice Programs (OJP) of the U.S. Department of Justice. Georgia Tech Research Institute was involved. Came from Justice and Public Safety communities. Started with 16,000 elements. Broken down into 2,000 common elements. Comprised of 300 objects.

5. GJXDM has Uniformity Uses Elements names that are “semantically precise”. Global XML Structure Task Force (XSTF)Prohibits synonyms and uses ISO/IEC Standard 11179 syntax for naming elements. The same tag can be produced by different authors in different circumstances because there is a prescribed method for tag naming.

6. GJXDM has Consistency  Discourages the use of acronyms  There is a list of all authorized abbreviations  Designed to serve the community not the authors  Intended to Reduce the chance for misunderstanding.

7. GJXDM Cohesiveness Social Security Number tagging is an example. IDEffectiveDate tag & IDIssuingAuthorityText are used. These tags are a subset of IDObject properties. An increased level of abstraction was used to tie things together.

8. GJXDM Completeness At least 16000 data elements were gathered. 16000 elements were reduced to 2000 unique elements. 2000 elements comprise 300 data objects. Data model is designed to be extended.

9. Conclusion Standards are useful and important for increasing interoperability through availability. Data efforts funded with public monies should be expected to comply with one or more standards. GJXDM has many qualities of a good standard.

10. Questions and Comments http://it.ojp.gov/topic.jsp?topic_id=43 http://www.ijis.org/traction/permalink/GTTAC2 http://justicexml.gtri.gatech.edu/developerworkshop/index.html