Folks,
This thread happened to coincide with a
rather detailed study of NIEM that I have been doing recently. In fact, I just
posted to my blog http://grandpaham.com a comment
on what I like most about NIEM and a warning not to force like concepts from
differing contexts into the same structure. I am going to repeat the blog post
here (although if I wanted to drive traffic I would make you go to my site):
I have
been studying the National
Information Exchange Model (NIEM) fairly extensively over the last few
weeks. I have even read the NIEM Naming and Design Rules document from
beginning to end. I will admit that I went into it with something of a
jaundiced view. As a veteran contributor to the DoD data model and an
outside observer of the GJXDM (recently), and a large scale IBM model (a long
time ago), I have real reservations about the usability and maintainability of
any all-knowing, all-seeing model. I have, at least at this point, become
a believer in NIEM. Why? Because NIEM accepts the notion that
a federation between separately name-spaced models makes sense, both within
NIEM, and with external standards defined outside the heavy NIEM NDR discipline
(or defined with a different heavy discipline). The notion of
defining an Adapter for NIEM use of other standards is a brilliant concept.
This, combined with the Information Exchange Package Documentation (IEPD)
methodology for documenting the contextual use of data used in exchanges has
made me a fan.
The
problem with this “federation of standards” concept is that it makes tools (and
“auto-magic” validation) harder to build. As a result there is a tendency
to try and force all of the standards back into the all-knowing, all-seeing
model. It is a seductive idea, but not a good idea. Let’s look at a very
simple example: EDXL Resource Management uses the Customer Information Quality
(CIQ standard) for Person Names. This allows internationalization for all kinds
of different Naming structures and for a wide variety of Addressing
schemes. NIEM (as a national model) is much more U.S. centric,
particularly in the use of PersonName tag. Both CIQ and NIEM are appropriate in
their respective namespaces (and the NIEM NDR respects this fact by allowing
for the adapter wrapper for external standards). If we try to
combine the two standards by defining CIQ elements as NIEM elements directly in
order to make the subschema generator work more easily, we blur important
distinctions that were developed for good reason.
So, we
need to use NIEM IEPD methods. They are excellent. But we must resist the desire
to force single definitions for concepts that may appear to be the same, but
actually differ due to the context in which they were defined. In other
words, do not force a merger of conceptual domains, unless they actually are
the same. NIEM lets us federate in the building of an IEPD.
We should take advantage of that capability.
From: David RR Webber
(XML) [mailto:david@drrw.info]
Sent: Tuesday, July 14, 2009 9:56
AM
To: Timothy Grapes
Cc:
emergency@lists.oasis-open.org; 'Lee Tincher'
Subject: RE: [emergency] EDXL HAVE
and NIEM 2.1 dictionary alignment?
Wow! Let's not
go there please. I'm not in that business at all here.
This is very simple
technical facilitation. There are a set of em: and gml: entities that are
currently in NIEM, and this is merely a technology refresh exercise to ensure
that those that are already in approved exchanges that are in production use -
that are missing - are now also included in the next release of NIEM dictionary
- to facilitate reuse and information alignment and ensure consistency for XML
tooling. When I get the domain schemas I expect to be no errors from
using those in <xsd:import> includes or building a wantlist.xml against
the NIEM dictionary.
Notice that NIEM is
currently reviewing - and I was one of those pressing for this - that future
NIEM dictionary move to a registry/repository model and allow domains to manage
their own content. Notice the TAG put out an initial rough draft for
comment and is currently producing an updated document on this. Clearly
there is much to resolve, planned and prepared before that can be seemlessly
adopted in lieu of a centralized model.
In the meantime -
there is much to be done socializing and helping people work toward engineering
better exchange schemas - both inside and outside NIEM and OASIS! I've
learned more in the past 6 months
in this regard than
the past two years - and we're making huge strides getting these lessons into
tooling
such as CAM and into formal preparation and use guides so that
people are not repeatedly wasting time
and effort on poor
design decisions that have significant downstream impacts.
I can point to several
OASIS schemas that contain much of concern that given a chance to do over - we
would not do it that way again!!!
--------
Original Message --------
Subject: RE: [emergency] EDXL HAVE and NIEM 2.1 dictionary alignment?
From: "Timothy Grapes" <tgrapes@evotecinc.com>
Date: Tue, July 14, 2009 9:06 am
To: "'David RR Webber (XML)'" <david@drrw.info>
Cc: <emergency@lists.oasis-open.org>, "'Lee Tincher'"
<ltincher@evotecinc.com>
Actually this could be
headed in the direction of a true interoperability issue. It appears that
you do not see the value of keeping HAVE and other EDXL standards (and perhaps
the many other standards out there) as separate, approved external
standards in the NIEM world. This is absolutely essential –
attempting to force all of EDXL and other standards into NIEM will only cause
difficulty for BOTH sets of efforts. There are many examples and
arguments that may be cited.
Using adapters for
NIEM to connect to the approved standard plus providing NIEM access to an
emergency management data dictionary makes sense and adds value, but attempting
to “integrate” EDXL into NIEM will get in the way of real usability in the long
run.
"When your work
speaks for itself, don't interrupt"
From: David RR Webber
(XML) [mailto:david@drrw.info]
Sent:
Monday, July 13, 2009 5:18 PM
To:
Timothy Grapes
Cc:
emergency@lists.oasis-open.org; 'Lee Tincher'
Subject:
RE: [emergency] EDXL HAVE and NIEM 2.1 dictionary alignment?
Good news however is
that I received a response from Donna Roy on the LinkedIn NIEm focus group -
saying that 2.1 should address gaps in domains - and that beta will be
available for review.
So I'm feeling more
relaxed about this - and look forward to reviewing when available.
Obviously I'll let our team here know as soon as I hear anything in that
regard.
-------- Original Message --------
Subject: RE: [emergency] EDXL HAVE and NIEM 2.1 dictionary alignment?
From: "Timothy Grapes" <tgrapes@evotecinc.com>
Date: Mon, July 13, 2009 7:23 am
To: "'David RR Webber (XML)'" <david@drrw.info>, "'Lee
Tincher'"
<ltincher@evotecinc.com>
Cc: <emergency@lists.oasis-open.org>
This is a much more
complicated issue than can be discussed via email. The issue has been
worked literally for years, and now again another effort to work with NIEM
without them enforcing rules that do not work for this domain and without
breaking EDXL standards. We need to let the governance and this “pilot”
that is being put forth to play out. That governance is through a
partnership between OIC and FEMA with the knowledge and cooperation of
OASIS and others that have tracked this issue for so long. It may now get
solved in 2.1 (or at least a path forward for governance and cooperation), but
we’ll see.
"When your work
speaks for itself, don't interrupt"
From: David RR Webber
(XML) [mailto:david@drrw.info]
Sent:
Sunday, July 12, 2009 8:44 PM
To: Lee
Tincher
Cc:
emergency@lists.oasis-open.org
Subject:
RE: [emergency] EDXL HAVE and NIEM 2.1 dictionary alignment?
I'm looking for one
piece of XML - no xslt band-aiding and most certainly NOT one standard for use
- and another for publication in the IEPD. The schema et al in the IEPD
should be identical to what is being used in actual production.
-------- Original Message --------
Subject: RE: [emergency] EDXL HAVE and NIEM 2.1 dictionary alignment?
From: "Lee Tincher" <ltincher@evotecinc.com>
Date: Sun, July 12, 2009 8:38 pm
To: "'David RR Webber (XML)'" <david@drrw.info>
Cc: <emergency@lists.oasis-open.org>
Uhmmm – isn’t that
exactly what I just said we are doing?
"I was wondering why that Frisbee was
getting bigger - then it hit me."
From: David RR Webber
(XML) [mailto:david@drrw.info]
Sent:
Sunday, July 12, 2009 4:12 PM
To: Lee
Tincher
Cc:
emergency@lists.oasis-open.org
Subject:
RE: [emergency] EDXL HAVE and NIEM 2.1 dictionary alignment?
IMHO - that makes zero
sense! Band-aiding like that is nasty...
Obviously best outcome
is to put the HAVE pieces in NIEM 2.1
Failing that - having
an extended dictionary that includes the new HAVE pieces - so we can generate
two wantlists.xml automatically. One that works with the SSGT - and one
that works locally - and will include the missing pieces as extensions.xsd into
the subset schema.
What we need poste
haste though is the exact list of missing parts. I have the
cross-reference dictionary between EDXL HAVE and current NIEM 2.0 - that should
work as pick list of things that need to be added.
-------- Original Message --------
Subject: RE: [emergency] EDXL HAVE and NIEM 2.1 dictionary alignment?
From: "Lee Tincher" <ltincher@evotecinc.com>
Date: Sun, July 12, 2009 10:28 am
To: "'David RR Webber (XML)'" <david@drrw.info>,
<emergency@lists.oasis-open.org>
They are not – we have
added in HAVE entities to the em domain and we also created an “adapter” to
point to the actual OASIS standard. This si being done so we can create a
mirror IEPD of HAVE that has a one-to-one match…the idea is to create an XSLT
that translates between the HAVE IEPD and the “real” standard that can be
carried in the digest of a SOAP message….
"I was wondering why that Frisbee was
getting bigger - then it hit me."
From: David RR Webber
(XML) [mailto:david@drrw.info]
Sent:
Sunday, July 12, 2009 12:46 AM
To:
emergency@lists.oasis-open.org
Subject:
[emergency] EDXL HAVE and NIEM 2.1 dictionary alignment?
Importance:
High
I've finally managed to crack the wantlist.xml processing against
the online GTRI SSGT and NIEM 2.0 dictionary working for the HospitalStatus
schema and using CAM compare to dictionary
tool to reverse engineer the wantlist from the schema.
http://niem.gtri.gatech.edu/niemtools/ssgt/SSGT-Generate.iepd#
I've attached the sample wantlist.xml if you want to try this
yourselves (click on the "Options" - far top right - and then
you will see a select file and load buttons).
Now - when reviewing this - you will notice a raft of gml elements
are missing (only a short list are there) - PLUS - there are many missing em:
items.
So the key questions is - are these all missing ones now added
into the new NIEM 2.1 dictionary release that is scheduled for September?
If not someone needs to contact GTRI very quickly this week - to
make sure these will be added.
And if we could get a beta test of the Access database of the new
NIEM 2.1 then would be best so we can crosscheck it all.
Thanks, DW
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