The Office of Justice Program's (OJP) Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA) in the U.S. Department of Justice is sponsoring a project to develop information exchange standards between computer aided dispatching (CAD) systems, law enforcement records management systems (RMS) and related external supporting systems. The project is a collaborative effort between multiple organizations that have direct interest in establishing open standards for these exchanges.

BJA, in partnership with OJP's National Institute of Justice (NIJ), sponsored the development of the Functional Standards Specifications for Computer Aided Dispatch (CAD) and law enforcement records management (RMS) through the Law Enforcement Information Technology Standards Council (LEITSC). BJA and NIJ provided project funding as part of the broad mission to encourage improved information sharing and interoperability among law enforcement information systems. OJP has been leading the way toward the development of open standards for information exchange through its sponsorship of the U.S. Department of Justice's (DOJ) Global Justice XML Data Model (GJXDM).

Law enforcement practitioners expressed a need for technical standards to use as a basis for defining information exchanges, and OJP was eager to respond to help meet this critical need of the field. With guidance and funding from BJA, the IJIS Institute is supporting the project effort to define Information Exchange Package Documentations (IEPDs) for the exchange of information between CAD and police records management systems (RMS). This project will provided the much-needed common basis for information exchange between CAD systems from different suppliers; from CAD to RMS; and for exchanges with external systems that interact with CAD and RMS, such as external alerting systems including alarms.

The project is a collaborative effort involving the IJIS Institute , the Association of Public Safety Communications Officers (APCO), LEITSC, and the Central Station Alarm Association (CSAA).

The partnering organizations all serve on a steering committee that provides guidance and input to the process of developing the IEPDs. The committee has established working groups to create the exchange definitions based on priorities established by the user communities of LEITSC and APCO. The IJIS Institute currently provides a facilitator and project manager, and will recruit consultants who will do the technical work of creating the draft IEPDs to ensure their conformance to DOJ's GJXDM.

The IJIS Institute supported LEITSC in the drafting of the original functional specifications that were adopted by the member organizations of LEITSC. As a part of this project, LEITSC produced a definition of the key information exchanges that are important for CAD and RMS. Starting with this list, the practitioner community is in the process of establishing the priorities for the development of technical specifications. In addition, the project is using the earlier work completed in the requirements phase of APCO Project 36, which was an attempt to develop standards for CAD to CAD information exchanges.

Further, earlier collaboration between APCO and CSAA resulted in the definition of similar exchanges between alarm systems and CAD. This work will be folded into the current project to incorporate information exchanges that are related to remote sending and emergency notification systems.

The project is using a well-developed and tested methodology proven to be useful in preparing IEPDs in support of DOJ's GJXDM-based implementation efforts. Prior working groups have created IEPDs for basic law enforcement, prosecutor, and court information exchanges.

The steering committee intends to have draft IEPDs available by late summer 2006 at which point organizations will vet these proposals through their individual committees and membership in order to set final definitions of the basis for information sharing. The final guidelines or standards that emerge will be publicly available for practitioners and industry service providers on OJP's IT web site, www.it.ojp.gov, and those of participating organizations.