SICoP Suggestions to the Intelligence Community Data Management Committee Brand Niemann, US EPA and SICoP Co-Chair, CIOC Best Practices Committee March 7, 2007, Meeting Northrop-Grumman Tech 1 Colshire Drive, McLean, VA

Overview 1. Action Item 060906001 2. OGC Recommendation & Endorsement 3. IC DMC Charter 4. TWPDES Information Briefing 5. Metadata Standards Status 6. Information Sharing Framework 7. Universal Core Scheme 8. Other

1. Action Item 060906001 Investigate the Federal CIO Strategic Plan as suggested by Dr. Brand Niemann/EPA/Secretariat/Best Practices Committee/Federal CIO Council: CIOC Strategic Plan FY 2007-2009. Pages 10-11 Re Goal 2: Information securely, rapidly, and reliably delivered to our stakeholders: Provide updates to the FEA Data Reference Model (DRM) and establish DRM implementation strategies, best practices, and success stories. The purpose of these activities is to contribute to the usability of the DRM by maintaining an effective process for modifying the DRM and sharing strategies for success. See http://www.cio.gov/documents/CIOCouncilStrategicPlan2007-2009.pdf

2. OGC Recommendation & Endorsement IC Policy Memorandum for IC Use of OGC Standards: Beginning FY09 the preferred IC standard for new GEOINT Domain Initiatives will be the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) Open GIS. Question: Was this coordinated with the Federal Geographic Data Committee, NIST, and government lawyers? Comment: Normally, the government does not show preference to one standards organization, but works across standards organizations to harmonize their multiple standards. For example, NIST leads the Sensor Standard Harmonization Working Group, that includes the OGC and other standards organizations, of which I am a participant in my SICoP role: See http://colab.cim3.net/file/work/SICoP/2007-02-27/SICoPSSHWG02272007.ppt

3. IC DMC Charter IC Policy DNI Management Architecture Management Board IC Data Management Committee Intelligence Community & Partners Connect the ‘mushroom cloud’ above to the broader community (e.g. see next slide).

3. IC DMC Charter Bryan Aucoin former co-chair SICoP Source: Pages 21-22, Federal Chief Information Officer Council Strategic Plan: FY 2007-2009, 28 pp. http://www.cio.gov/documents/CIOCouncilStrategicPlan2007-2009.pdf

4. TWPDES Information Briefing Summary: The Terrorist Watchlist Person Data Exchange Standard, foundation of the Terrorist Screening Database, is large, complex, and needs additional support for watchlisting and to be more flexible. Some History: SICoP participated in the August 9th, 2006 Terrorist Watchlist Person Data Exchange Standard Meeting and provided suggestions to do a pilot. SICoP included a Panel on National Information Sharing Standards at its 5th Semantic Interoperability for E-Government Conference, October 10-11, 2006: Panel Agenda: http://colab.cim3.net/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?FifthSemanticInteroperabilityforEGovernmentConference_2006_10_1011BreakoutSession#nid36JW Panel Notes: http://colab.cim3.net/file/work/SICoP/2006-10-10/NatilStandards_10_11_2006.doc Conference Proceedings: http://colab.cim3.net/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?FifthSemanticInteroperabilityforEGovernmentConference_2006_10_1011

4. TWPDES Information Briefing SICoP Continues to Work on the TWPDES Pilot Based on October 11, 2006, NISS Panel Recommendations: Conference Call with DHS and Adam Pease on the Person Ontology for DHS - Waiting for DHS Review Results. Launch of SICoP Semantic Wikis in Support of Communities of Practice Building Vocabularies and Ontologies for DRM 2.0, NIEM, NCOIC, CIA, etc. Ongoing Review of the Data Architecture Subcommittee, NIEM, Etc. Work: See for example: November 16, 2006, Leading-Edge Government, IT Management – Server Consolidation, Virtualization and Other Best Practices, Opening Presentation: Issues in the Architecture: SOA and Semantic Web with Specific Example: National Information Exchange Model (NIEM): http://colab.cim3.net/file/work/SICoP/2006-11-16/SICoPNIEM11162006.ppt

5. Metadata Standards Status Purpose (my words): Standardize the markup and vocabulary across IC content and products. Question: Is this being applied to the CIA’s use of Wikis? See Dr. Calvin Andrus, Presentation at February 28th, NIH Wiki Fair (see next slide): http://colab.cim3.net/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?NIHWikiFair_2007_02_28 Answer: No Note: The CIA is piloting the use of a SICoP Semantic Wiki (see Knoodl.com) that standardizes markup (XML, RDF. OWL) and harmonizes vocabulary.

New IC Emerges Through Links Source: Calvin Andrus, The Wiki and the Blog, NIH Wiki Fair, February 28, 2007, slide 36.

6. Information Sharing Framework Approach and Road Map: Data services, compliant with the FEA Services Reference Model, centered on a SOA enterprise bus, with collaboration. Comments: Google: SOA CoP Demo 3 Secure SOA, using Open Source SOA Infrastructure (ESB), the GIGLite Community, and Semantic Wikis. Launch of Federal Jump Start Kit at the NCOIC Plenary Meeting, SOA Demos and Testbeds Session, March 30th, Virginia Beach, VA.

7. Universal Core Scheme Premise: There is value in promoting agreements of syntax and semantics for common concepts. Universal core: The set of concepts that require no domain-expertise for understanding (i.e. set of things that everyone can understand) Common core: The set of concepts that have broad applicability across multiple communities, but not universal. Universal or Common Core Object: An implementable specification of syntax and semantics (such as an XML schema) for a specific concept that is recommended for use across the enterprise (i.e. something that developers will code against, and that program managers will put on contract).

7. Universal Core Scheme Comments: Pointed out why the Strike COI XML Schema is not a good common core at the January 11, 2007, DoD CoI Forum Meeting. An XML Schema does not implement semantics in an enterprise – an ontology does! The Intelligence Community has supported efforts (AQUAINT Program) that have provided better tools for a concept authority (WordNet), an upper ontology (OpenCYC), and extraction of ontologies from unstructured text (LCC Corp) that were featured at the February 6th SICoP Special Conference: Building DRM 3.0 and Web 3.0 for Managing Context Across Multiple Documents and Organizations: http://colab.cim3.net/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?SICoPSpecialConference_2007_02_06 See items (3) and (4) in next slide for NIEM and IC applications.

8. Other (1) March 6, 2007, Chief Architects Forum / ArchitecturePlus Special Seminar - Current Information Sharing Practices: http://colab.cim3.net/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?ArchitecturePlusSeminar_2007_3_06 (2) March 6, 2007, Intelligence chief establishes information-sharing panel: Need-to-know to need-to-share to responsibility-to-share. http://www.govexec.com/dailyfed/0307/030607tdpm1.htm (3) March 19, 2007, Best Practices Committee Meeting: Process for Best Practices Using Information Sharing as an Example: http://colab.cim3.net/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?BestPracticesCommittee_2007_03_19 (4) April 25, 2007, SICoP Special Conference 2: Building Knowledgebases: http://colab.cim3.net/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?SICoPSpecialConference2_2007_04_25