Data Dictionary
When criminal justice agencies share data, they transmit Information Exchange Packages (IEPs) to each other. An IEP is a set of data that is transmitted between agencies for a specific purpose. For example, if a police department wanted the local prosecutor to charge an individual for a crime, the IEP sent from the police department would contain a very specific set of data (victim name, date and time of the offense, etc.) as well as any associated artifacts (dashcam video, 911 audio transcript).
Complications arise, however, from the fact that the justice community does not utilize a standard, common vocabulary when describing and recording events. Differences in terminologies can make it difficult or impossible for shared data to be interpreted and utilized. For example, if the police department in the above scenario utilizes the term "Supervision Official" to describe the officer in charge of an arrest, while the prosecutor typically uses it to describe an officer supervising a suspect, the transmitted IEP will result in confusion.
The Global Justice XML Data Dictionary (Global JXDD or GJXDD) provides a solution to this problem by defining the common vocabulary utilized in the GJXDM. The GJXDD breaks down the information that is exchanged between agencies into individual data components and gives them unique names and definitions. These data components in turn serve as the “building blocks” of data exchanges.
Because the GJXDD defines a massive number of data components, smaller data dictionaries must be created for individual IEPs. These data dictionaries only contain the concepts and definitions relevant to their corresponding data transfers.
Read more about this topic: GJXDM
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