Extending ECF 4

["Graham, Gary" <GGraham@courts.az.gov>]

What is the proper or best way to extend ECF?

 

The ECF spec, in section 2.4.3 Case-Type and Court Extensions recommends ‘element substitution’ (as is used to substitute CivilCase for Case) for extending ECF.

 

Note this is a recommendation and does not appear to preclude other extension approaches. However, in section 1.6 Normative References, it lists [NIEM Techniques] Techniques for Building and Extending NIEM  http://www.niem.gov/topicindex.php?topic=techPDF, Georgia Tech Research Institute, August 2007.

 

This NIEM document prescribes several techniques for extending NIEM. Some techniques only apply to extending the NIEM vocabulary (e.g. creating new NIEM types or adding to existing types). These techniques would not apply to domain model extensions. For domain model extensions, the document describes several techniques, such as Augmentation or Metadata. The augmentation technique appears to have been used in ECF, such as in CivilCase – j:CaseAugmentation and ecf:CaseAugmentation.

 

Let’s say that a court needed to extend ECF by adding a couple of additional NIEM elements to what is already defined for ECF.

 

For example, let’s say a court wishes to add <nc:DocumenTitleText> and <nc:DocumentCategoryName> to FilingLeadDocument. How should this be done?

 

One approach would be to just add them in under FilingLeadDocument where they fit by sequence, such as:

 

<FilingLeadDocument>

                <nc:DocumentSequenceID>10</nc:DocumentSequenceID>

                <nc:DocumentTitletext>Title of Document</nc:DocumentTitleText>

                <nc:DocumentCategoryName>Motion</nc:DocumentCategoryName>

                <nc:DocumentStatus>Pending Review</nc:DocumentStatus>

</FilingLeadDocument>

 

Another approach would seem to be to use  ‘augmentation’, such as:

 

<FilingLeadDocument>

                <nc:DocumentSequenceID>10</nc:DocumentSequenceID>

                <nc:DocumentStatus>Pending Review</nc:DocumentStatus>

                <DocumentAugmentation>

                                <nc:DocumentTitletext>Title of Document</nc:DocumentTitleText>

                                <nc:DocumentCategoryName>Motion</nc:DocumentCategoryName>

                </DocumentAugmentation>

</FilingLeadDocument>

 

There may be other possibilities as well such as defining a new message type (e.g. CourtSpecific message?).

 

Which approach is recommended or required?  Is there any documentation or examples available for extending ECF 4.0?