The U.S. Department of Homeland Security and the National Counterterrorism Center, in partnership with two members of the U.S. Intelligence Community, released the “Data Exchange Toolkit.”
The kit, developed following a pilot program amongst the agencies, provides comprehensive templates, guidelines and documentation for data exchange. The pilot found that many of processes and approaches significantly improved the agencies’ information sharing capabilities by increasing collaboration and improving working relationships between producers and consumers.
The toolkit features a four-phase approach to information exchange:
1.Define Scope and Identify Candidates: The first step of an information sharing improvement project is to define the scope and participants. This phase helps develop a project charter, evaluate candidates, select final participants, and develop partner agreements.
2.Identify Issues and Solutions: This phase helps assess the current state of information exchanges, identify the existing challenges, and facilitate discussions that help identify solutions.
3. Plan and Implement Solutions: This phase recommends several National Information Exchange Model (NIEM) tools and templates to standardize exchanges.
4.Evaluate the Improvement: The final phase evaluates the improved data exchange to measure the impact of the improvement initiative.
