Friday, May 9, 2008

New Services Task Team Created

The Global Infrastructure/Standards Working Group (GISWG) has initiated a Services Task Team (STT) for the Justice Reference Architecture (JRA)with the help of the Department of Justice Bureau of Justice Assistance (DOJ BJA).  The task team is being managed as a joint project by IJIS, NCSC and SEARCH.  Jim Douglas from SEARCH chairs the STT.  Their first JRA service definitions will be for fusion center suspicious activity reports and fingerprint/biometric services.  State and local justice projects using the JRA are underway in Maine, New York, Utah and Illinois.  Nevada is also considering its use for a court data integration project. For more on GISWG go to their website at: http://www.iir.com/global/GISWG.htm

NIEM Technical Advisory Committee Update

NCSC VP for Research and Technology, Tom Clarke reports that the NIEM Technical Advisory Committee (NTAC) met recently and finished work on several important documents, while continuing work on other key policies.  The committee has defined a comprehensive list of quality assurance measures for NIEM, defined a comprehensive set of tool requirements in support of NIEM, and agreed on a conceptual approach that enables NIEM domains to issue their own version updates between major NIEM releases. 

The committee also completed work on the Naming and Design Rules (NDR) Version 1.3, which provides conformance guidance for the NIEM data model and IEPD's built using it.  In the coming months, NTAC will work with the other NIEM governance committees to prioritize the implementation of quality assurance measures and tool interface definitions.  Finally, NTAC recommends that no major NIEM release occur before at least early 2010.

Joint Technology Committee Approves E-Filing Standard Update

The Joint Technology Committee (JTC) of COSCA and NACM recently approved the use of the OASIS LegalXML Electronic Court Filing (ECF) Standard Version 3.1 after technical review by the Court Information Technology Officers' Consortium (CITOC).  The LegalXML Technical Committee is on the verge of issuing Version 4.0, which adds several case types and brings the standard into full compliance with both NIEM 2.0 and the Justice Reference Architecture.  We also understand that there are also several pilots of the e-filing technical standard underway in state and local court systems.