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XBRL Seminar:The New Data Reference Model

Brand Niemann (US EPA), Chair,Semantic Interoperability Community of Practice (SICoP)Best Practices Committee (BPC), Federal CIO Council

International Consortium on Government Financial Management, Brookings Institution, Washington, DC

February 1, 2006

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The New Data Reference Model 2.0

Source: Expanding E-Government, Improved Service Delivery for the American People Using Information Technology, December 2005, pages 2-3.http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budintegration/expanding_egov_2005.pdf

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Overview

• I am going to use an Information Model to explain a new Information Model – the Data Reference Model 2.0:– Context: Why I was invited to speak.– Description: A “real world example” of why we

need the new Government Information Model.– Sharing: What I want to share with you about

the using the DRM in a pilot.

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Context• Owen Ambur, Co-Chair of the Federal XML Community

of Practice (CoP), was asked to participate to “assure that XBRL meets all of the DRM and E-Gov Mandates.”– He is not here due to a death in the family.

• I Chair the Semantic Interoperability CoP that uses more powerful forms of XML (RDF and OWL) and pilots them:– E.g. Digital Harbor’s “Investigative Case Management for Anti-

Money Laundering” at the our upcoming 4th Semantic Interoperability for E-Government Conference, February 9-10th.

• I lead the DRM 2.0 Implementation Through Iteration and Testing Team.– Mills Davis, SICoP White Paper 2 Lead (who is here today) and I

are in discussions with Allyson Ugartes and the FDIC (Jon Wisnieski) about a DRM 2.0 Pilot with XBRL!

– See my recent interview with Government Computer News:• http://appserv.gcn.com/forum/qna_forum/37914-2.html

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Description• Does someone have four quarters for a U.S. dollar so I

can feed my parking meter?– Hopefully a semantically clear data request message.

• Thank you, and these quarters are like your XBRL documents – they don’t really do anything unless they are reused in an information management system.

• I put the quarters (interoperable data) in the parking meter and it sends a message to the dial to display 60 minutes more time.

• The Meter Person sees my meter and hopefully sends a message to their brain, ‘can’t write a parking ticket here, yet, but I will back in 65 minutes and if that same car is here I will write a ticket!’.

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Description(continued)

• And if I get a parking ticket, that paper document is not very interoperable data – I have to re-key the ticket number and my credit card number into a Web site and pay the ticket online or generate even more paperwork by going to traffic court.

• But all of this is changing: There will be one meter per block where you register your parking space and credit card numbers, and if the meter person sees a violation, then your credit card will be debited for the fine as well!

• SO THE QUESTION IS: Can I do everything I and others need to do with these XBRL documents going forward (can you spell agility)?

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Sharing

• Domain –specific XML Vocabularies like XBRL are part of Data Architecture which in turn is part of Enterprise Architecture which is turn is usually done with Service Oriented Architecture so I suggest you think about:– XBRL Ontologies (taxonomies with stronger

semantics and agility) and Services; and– A DRM 2.0 Pilot which Mills Davis, et al. are

scoping out as we speak.

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Sharing(continued)

• DRM 2.0 Essentials:– Three Types of Data Integrated:

• Unstructured, Semi-structured, and Structured

– Structured and Searchable by Taxonomy Nodes:• View Data Assets Categorized by Taxonomy (Topics)

– Data Access and Exchange Web Services in Interoperable Formats:

• View Part or All of Data Tables (e.g. screen scrape in XML to Excel) and Retrieve XML File with Metadata Embedded.

• This Data Architecture Provides the Three S’s: Structure, Searchability, and Semantics.

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Sharing• XBRL Pilot Considerations Excerpts:

– Scope:• Select a clear business need and provide a compelling user

experience (e.g. dashboard).– Performance:

• Demonstrate fast time-to-solution XBRL/DRM based approach within 30 days at low risk.

– Conditions:• Appropriate agreement between all parties to the pilot ensuring

cooperation and commitment of resources.– Participants:

• Treasury, FDIC, XBRL-US, SICoP, System Integrator, Composite Application Platform Provider, etc.

– Next Steps:• Develop a preliminary statement of work.

Source: Mills Davis Email, February 2, 2006, mdavis@project10x.com.

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Q & A

• Contact Information:– Brand Niemann– U.S. Environmental Protection Agency– MC: 2833M, Washington, DC 20460– niemann.brand@epa.gov– 202-564-9491

• Web Sites and Wiki Pages:– http://web-services.gov/– http://colab.cim3.net/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?SICoP– http://colab.cim3.net/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?

DRMImplementationThroughIterationandTestingPilotProjects