Advantages of XML and Global JXDM

Justice-specific extensible markup language (XML), known as the Global Justice XML Data Model (Global JXDM), is a widely adopted standard for representing text and data in a format that can be exchanged across platforms, languages, and applications, and can be used with a wide range of development tools and utilities. The following list highlights some of the advantages of XML technology and the Global JXDM:

Built to evolve : XML and Global JXDM is built to evolve and advance with emerging technologies.

Simplicity : Information coded in XML is easy to read and understand, plus it can be processed easily by computers. XML is similar enough to HyperText Markup Language (HTML) in its actual format so that those familiar with HTML can fairly easily pick up basic XML knowledge.

Standards-based : XML is an adopted standard fore representing text and data for the purpose of data exchange; Global JXDM is justice-specific and adopts several XML and data standards.

Requirements-based : Global JXDM is built from existing data models, dictionaries, processes, and document specifications.

Extensibility : New tags can be created as they are needed. Global JXDM enables local additions of data components.

Object-oriented : Global JXDM can be efficiently extended and reused (inheritance).

Expandable : Global JXDM domain includes courts, law enforcement, corrections, juvenile, and intelligence communities.

Model-based : Global JXDM generates consistent XML schema.

Multiple data types : XML documents can contain any possible data type from multimedia data, such as images, video, and sound, to even more active components.Mapping existing data : Mapping existing data structures like file systems or relational databases to XML is simple. XML supports multiple data formats and can cover all existing data structures.

Self-description : In traditional databases, data records require schemas set up by the database administrator.

XML documents can be stored without such definitions, because they contain metadata in the form of tags and attributes.

Machine-readable context : Tags, attributes, and element structure provide machine-readable context information that can be used to interpret the meaning of content, opening up new possibilities for highly efficient queries, intelligent data mining, analysis, etc.

This is a major advantage over HTML or plain text, where context information is difficult or impossible to evaluate.

Separates content from presentation : XML tags describe meaning not presentation. Whereas HTML specifies an appearance, or presentation, XML specifies the content's meaning. The look and feel of an XML document can be controlled by Extensible Stylesheet Language (XSL) style sheets, allowing the look of a document (or Web site) to be changed without touching the content of the document. Multiple views or presentations of the same content are easily rendered.

Facilitates data comparison and aggregation : The tree structure of XML documents allows documents to be compared and aggregated efficiently element by element.

One-server view : XML documents can consist of nested elements that are distributed over multiple remote servers.


XML is currently the most sophisticated format for distributed data.