Information exchange or information sharing means that people or other entities pass information from one to another. This could be done electronically or through certain systems. These are terms that can either refer to bidirectional ''
information transfer
In telecommunications, information transfer is the process of moving messages containing user information from a source to a sink via a communication channel. In this sense, information transfer is equivalent to data transmission which highlights ...
'' in
telecommunication
Telecommunication is the transmission of information by various types of technologies over wire, radio, optical, or other electromagnetic systems. It has its origin in the desire of humans for communication over a distance greater than that fe ...
s and
computer science
Computer science is the study of computation, automation, and information. Computer science spans theoretical disciplines (such as algorithms, theory of computation, information theory, and automation) to Applied science, practical discipli ...
or ''
communication
Communication (from la, communicare, meaning "to share" or "to be in relation with") is usually defined as the transmission of information. The term may also refer to the message communicated through such transmissions or the field of inqui ...
'' seen from a
system-theoretic or
information-theoretic
Information theory is the scientific study of the quantification, storage, and communication of information. The field was originally established by the works of Harry Nyquist and Ralph Hartley, in the 1920s, and Claude Shannon in the 1940s. T ...
point of view. As, "information," in this context invariably refers to (
electronic
Electronic may refer to:
*Electronics, the science of how to control electric energy in semiconductor
* ''Electronics'' (magazine), a defunct American trade journal
*Electronic storage, the storage of data using an electronic device
*Electronic co ...
)
data
In the pursuit of knowledge, data (; ) is a collection of discrete Value_(semiotics), values that convey information, describing quantity, qualitative property, quality, fact, statistics, other basic units of meaning, or simply sequences of sy ...
that encodes and represents the information at hand, a broader treatment can be found under
data exchange
Data exchange is the process of taking data structured under a ''source'' schema and transforming it into a ''target'' schema, so that the target data is an accurate representation of the source data.A. Doan, A. Halevy, and Z. Ives.Principles of da ...
.
Information exchange has a long history in
information technology
Information technology (IT) is the use of computers to create, process, store, retrieve, and exchange all kinds of Data (computing), data . and information. IT forms part of information and communications technology (ICT). An information te ...
. Traditional information sharing referred to one-to-one exchanges of data between a sender and receiver. Online information sharing gives useful data to businesses for future strategies based on online sharing. These information exchanges are implemented via dozens of open and proprietary
protocols
Protocol may refer to:
Sociology and politics
* Protocol (politics), a formal agreement between nation states
* Protocol (diplomacy), the etiquette of diplomacy and affairs of state
* Etiquette, a code of personal behavior
Science and technology ...
, message, and file formats. Electronic data interchange (
EDI) is a successful implementation of commercial data exchanges that began in the late 1970s and remains in use today.
Some controversy comes when discussing regulations regarding information exchange. Initiatives to standardize information sharing protocols include extensible markup language (
XML
Extensible Markup Language (XML) is a markup language and file format for storing, transmitting, and reconstructing arbitrary data. It defines a set of rules for encoding documents in a format that is both human-readable and machine-readable ...
), simple object access protocol (
SOAP
Soap is a salt of a fatty acid used in a variety of cleansing and lubricating products. In a domestic setting, soaps are surfactants usually used for washing, bathing, and other types of housekeeping. In industrial settings, soaps are use ...
), and web services description language (
WSDL
The Web Services Description Language (WSDL ) is an XML-based interface description language that is used for describing the functionality offered by a web service. The acronym is also used for any specific WSDL description of a web service (also ...
).
From the point of view of a computer scientist, the four primary information sharing
design pattern
A design pattern is the re-usable form of a solution to a design problem. The idea was introduced by the architect Christopher Alexander and has been adapted for various other disciplines, particularly software engineering. The "Gang of Four" boo ...
s are sharing information
one-to-one,
one-to-many,
many-to-many
Many-to-many communication occurs when information is shared between groups. Members of a group receive information from multiple senders.
Wikis are a type of many-to-many communication, where multiple editors collaborate to create content that ...
, and
many-to-one
In systems analysis, a one-to-many relationship is a type of cardinality that refers to the relationship between two entities (see also entity–relationship model) A and B in which an element of A may be linked to many elements of B, but a mem ...
. Technologies to meet all four of these design patterns are evolving and include
blog
A blog (a truncation of "weblog") is a discussion or informational website published on the World Wide Web consisting of discrete, often informal diary-style text entries (posts). Posts are typically displayed in reverse chronological order s ...
s,
wiki
A wiki ( ) is an online hypertext publication collaboratively edited and managed by its own audience, using a web browser. A typical wiki contains multiple pages for the subjects or scope of the project, and could be either open to the pu ...
s,
really simple syndication,
tagging, and
chat.
One example of United States government's attempt to implement one of these design patterns (one to one) is the
National Information Exchange Model
NIEM ( ) originated as an XML-based information exchange framework from the United States. NIEM also supports NIEM JSON exchanges. NIEM is currently developinthe NIEM Metamodel and Common Model Formatwhich can be expressed in any data serializatio ...
(NIEM). One-to-one exchange models fall short of supporting all of the required design patterns needed to fully implement data exploitation technology.
Advanced information sharing platforms provide
controlled vocabularies
Control may refer to:
Basic meanings Economics and business
* Control (management), an element of management
* Control, an element of management accounting
* Comptroller (or controller), a senior financial officer in an organization
* Controlling ...
,
data harmonization,
data steward A data steward is an oversight or data governance role within an organization, and is responsible for ensuring the quality and fitness for purpose of the organization's data assets, including the metadata for those data assets. A data steward may s ...
ship policies and guidelines, standards for uniform data as they relate to
privacy,
security" \n\n\nsecurity.txt is a proposed standard for websites' security information that is meant to allow security researchers to easily report security vulnerabilities. The standard prescribes a text file called \"security.txt\" in the well known locat ...
, and
data quality
Data quality refers to the state of qualitative or quantitative pieces of information. There are many definitions of data quality, but data is generally considered high quality if it is "fit for tsintended uses in operations, decision making a ...
.
Information Sharing, Intelligence Reform, and Terrorism Prevention Act
The term information sharing gained popularity as a result of the
9/11 Commission Hearings and its
report
A report is a document that presents information in an organized format for a specific audience and purpose. Although summaries of reports may be delivered orally, complete reports are almost always in the form of written documents. Usage
In ...
of the
United States government
The federal government of the United States (U.S. federal government or U.S. government) is the national government of the United States, a federal republic located primarily in North America, composed of 50 states, a city within a feder ...
's lack of response to information known about the planned
terrorist
Terrorism, in its broadest sense, is the use of criminal violence to provoke a state of terror or fear, mostly with the intention to achieve political or religious aims. The term is used in this regard primarily to refer to intentional violen ...
attack on the
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
World Trade Center
World Trade Centers are sites recognized by the World Trade Centers Association.
World Trade Center may refer to:
Buildings
* List of World Trade Centers
* World Trade Center (2001–present), a building complex that includes five skyscrapers, a ...
prior to the event. The resulting commission report led to the enactment of several executive orders by
President Bush that mandated agencies to implement policies to "share information" across organizational boundaries. In addition, an Information Sharing Environment Program Manager (PM-ISE) was appointed, tasked to implement the provisions of the
Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act
The Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004 (IRTPA) is a 235-page Act of Congress, signed by President George W. Bush, that broadly affects United States federal terrorism laws. The act comprises several separate titles with var ...
of 2004. In making recommendation toward the creation of an "Information Sharing Environment" the 9/11 Commission based itself on the findings and recommendations made by the
Markle Task Force on National Security in the Information Age.
See also
*
Channel (communications)
A communication channel refers either to a physical transmission medium such as a wire, or to a logical connection over a multiplexed medium such as a radio channel in telecommunications and computer networking. A channel is used for informa ...
*
Communications protocol
A communication protocol is a system of rules that allows two or more entities of a communications system to transmit information via any kind of variation of a physical quantity. The protocol defines the rules, syntax, semantics and synchr ...
*
Sexual recombination
Genetic recombination (also known as genetic reshuffling) is the exchange of genetic material between different organisms which leads to production of offspring with combinations of traits that differ from those found in either parent. In eukaryo ...
enables cross-pollination in bio
*
Data mapping
In computing and data management, data mapping is the process of creating data element mappings between two distinct data models. Data mapping is used as a first step for a wide variety of data integration tasks, including:
* Data transforma ...
*
Electronic data interchange
*
Fusion center
*
Information Exchange Gateway
*
Knowledge sharing
Knowledge sharing is an activity through which knowledge (namely, information, skills, or expertise) is exchanged among people, friends, peers, families, communities (for example, Wikipedia), or within or between organizations. It bridges the ind ...
*
Semi-structured data Semi-structured data is a form of structured data that does not obey the tabular structure of data models associated with relational databases or other forms of data tables, but nonetheless contains tags or other markers to separate semantic elem ...
*
Data interchange standards
*
Health information exchange
Health information exchange (HIE) is the mobilization of health care information electronically across organizations within a region, community or hospital system. Participants in data exchange are called in the aggregate Health Information Netw ...
*
Cyberinfrastructure United States federal research funders use the term cyberinfrastructure to describe research environments that support advanced data acquisition, data storage, data management, data integration, data mining, data visualization and other computing a ...
References
{{wiktionary
Information theory
Sharing