|
UICDS™ keeps you better informed so you can make better decisions. UICDS is information sharing middleware for NIMS incident management that continuously receives and shares standardized data among many agencies during an incident. Your everyday application gets from UICDS exactly the data you need to use, visualize, process, improve, decide, and then share back through UICDS to keep everyone informed.
Because UICDS is middleware, there is no new user interface to learn, no cost to obtain it, and you retain complete control over your data. You get notified when an agency has provided new or updated incident data and you share your data with whom you want instantaneously and in the background without any disruption to your operation.
With UICDS you are better informed, your partners are better informed, and together you all make better response decisions.
|
|
Watch
UICDS The Movie
|
|
Get UICDS Free from the Department of Homeland Security
Apply to be a UICDS Pilot and get your own complete UICDS installation, including support, to improve your information sharing. Make your request now. |
Learn All About UICDS Interoperability Middleware in Just Two Minutes
Your time is valuable, so here it is in a nutshell.
UICDS is middleware to share information among applications used by all levels of government and critical infrastructure to manageincidents. UICDS has no end-user interface, so there is no training or new applications to buy.
You should care about UICDS if you manage emergencies or provide technologies to those who manage emergencies.
Click here for a two minute video introduction of UICDS from the UICDS.us website. |
Follow UICDS on LinkedIn
UICDS is now on LinkedIn, the premier business-related social networking site. The site is self-described as the "unofficial UICDS discussion group" among Technology Providers and End-Users. To join the discussion group,  |
| UICDS Contacts
General Information
uicds@dhs.gov
DHS S&T Program Manager Michael B. Smith Email Now DHS S&T Program Support Tomi` Finkle Email Now UICDS Project Manager Chip Mahoney Email Now UICDS Outreach Director James W. Morentz, Ph.D. Email Now |
|
UICDS™ is a Trademark of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security
|
|
|
|
UICDS Update
The Department of Homeland Security Information Sharing Technology Program
In this issue ... |
 |
The Holy Grail of emergency information management is a common operational picture (COP). The problem with this goal is that each organization has a specific mission that is, by definition, unique to its role in an emergency. Thus, a COP that truly is useful to an organization will be specific - and thus, more than likely, an "uncommon operating picture."
Introducing this discussion of UICDS will be Diane Vaughan, the GIS Manager for the California Emergency Management Agency. Diane has been engaged in balancing specific missions with geospatial visualization in her systems development. When she finished her first extended discussion on UICDS, Diane summed up the essence of UICDS when she called it "Common Operational Data."
What Diane immediately recognized was that when standardized data is shared among multiple applications, then a COP visualization can be easily and inexpensively derived to support any organizational mission. Jim Morentz, UICDS Outreach Director, will describe the concept of Common Operational Data further and how UICDS makes the development of a COP completely viewer neutral.
 | |
Through UICDS, applications exchange incident decision-support data and with no additional effort any COP can consume and visualize Common Operational Data from UICDS.
|
UICDS pilots across the country have been demonstrating this across federal, state, and local governments as well as private-sector critical infrastructure and non-governmental volunteer organizations. The key lesson learned from the pilots is that UICDS information sharing succeeds in providing "common operational data" for emergency management decision-making - no matter how the data is visualized, whether in a detailed, mission-specific application or a general geospatial COP.
The phrase "common operational data" (COD) represents the universe of relevant incident data from which is configured the perfect COP for a specific organization. UICDS achieves COD because it delivers, first and foremost, ubiquitous information exchange among incident management technologies. UICDS creates many-to-many, incident-specific, agreement-based information sharing. By delivering this agency-to-agency incident knowledge to improve tactical decisions, UICDS manages the content in an incident repository to enable construction a COP for strategic monitoring and decisions. The UICDS COD assures that a distinctive operational mission can be supported by a distinctive COP by providing the same critical incident data in different views to support operations.
This UICDS Tutorial and Biweekly Call will describe the role of common operational data and the ability of UICDS to provide COD to organizations in both the government and private sectors to improve operational decision-making.
To join the tutorial and our biweekly call:
Call 800-366-7242 and use code 735108 at noon ET.
Web Collaboration: www.saic.com/customer/datax/
Conference Reference: 601203
Attendee PIN: 1143
|
|
 UICDS Tutorial on Apple® iPad® and iPhone® Mobile Apps Now Available on UICDS Collaboration Portal at UICDS.us
Our last UICDS Tutorial and Biweekly Call featured the UICDS Example Code for Apple® iPhone® and iPad®. This was part of our continuing series of tutorials on how to use example code produced, first, for web application developers and, now, for mobile apps developers. Example code is developed by the UICDS Team for developers to download and make their own in their own applications. We began with a release of example code for Android® phones in August and in September turned to the iPhone and iPad.
 | |
The UICDS iPad App bring EOC knowledge to your fingertips.
|
The iPad and iPhone mobile apps are derived from the same example code which is available for download by registered UICDS Technology Providers. The example code, as seen in the illustrations, provides the following capabilities:
- The base display is a map centered on your current location showing Incidents and Alerts
- Display list of Incidents and Alerts independently
- Display text description (contained in a UICDS Work Product) of any Incident or Alert
- Highlight an Incident or Alert shown on the map and see brief summary information in a pop-up box
- Display selected Incidents or Alerts on a map from the list
- Display polygon graphics associated with a CAP Alert on the map
- Display Open Geospatial Consortium standard Web Mapping Service map overlays associated with an Incident on the map
On the call we also provided more information on downloading the example code, which you can do if you have signed the Software User Agreement and received your access credentials for UICDS iPad and iPhone App Example Code Download.
Watch your UICDS Update for the upcoming availability of the UICDS Mobile App for iPhone and iPad on the Apple Apps Store.
If you missed the live presentation, you can tune into the UICDS Collaboration Portal at any time to hear this informative discussion. Go to www.UICDS.us and click on Login - Technology Providers for the whole set of UICDS Tutorial recordings or View this UICDS Tutorial now.
|
|
|
Looking Ahead to the October 27th UICDS Tutorial: In Search of a Resource Typing Schema
Aaron Lieb, one of the long-time participants in UICDS, posed this question to the UICDS community a few weeks ago: Where do we get a resource typing schema?
On our call on October 27th, Aaron will be discussing why the development community is in need of a resource typing schema. And how to get it.
This is not the NIMS Resource Typing that is an on-going effort supported by DHS. That represents the content of resource names and types. Rather, Aaron will be talking about the need for a schema into which this content is placed in a computer format.
OASIS® and EDXL Examples
The examples coming from OASIS for using the Emergency Data Exchange Language-Resource Messaging (EDXL-RM) TypeStructure and TypeInformation element have largely had place holder information such as the type structure: urn:x-hazard:vocab:resourceTypes - which seems to be something used for the purpose of an example. The documentation from OASIS explains that the community of interest (COI) that wishes to share Resource information needs to come up with an agreed upon schema, which application interfaces on all sides of an information sharing exchange will be able to understand like an IPAWS COG, UICDS Core, or other message routers, etc.
Future Requirements
Aaron suggests that the UICDS community is one place that can participate in the ongoing discussion regarding resource typing schemas. Ultimately there will be an official stamp of approval through NIEM, OASIS, FEMA, or others, but until then, the UICDS community can contribute to the discussion.
Aaron has put together a schema that follows all the available recommended structures. He will discuss the schema and listen to ideas on how to take it (or anything else) forward to the appropriate bodies.
So join us on the UICDS Biweekly Call and Tutorial on October 27 to hear, learn, and contribute.
|
|
UICDS Mobile App for Android Example Code Available for Download by Technology Providers
Just as we have provided lots of example code for web application developers to download and make their own, we now release the example code for Android phones.
Among the features included in this first release of UICDS Mobile Apps for Android are:
- Display list of Incidents
- Display list of Alerts
- Display text description (contained in a UICDS Work Product) of any Incident or Alert
- Display all Incidents or Alerts on a map
- Highlight an Incident or Alert shown on the map and see brief summary information in a pop-up box
- Display selected Incidents or Alerts on a map
- Display polygon graphics associated with a CAP Alert on the map
- Display Open Geospatial Consortium standard Web Mapping Service map overlays associated with an Incident on the map
Use your access credentials to download the Android Example Code.
|
|
|
Tomcat™ Security Patch Now Available for UICDS
A security vulnerability was identified in Tomcat, the web server used in a UICDS installation. Tomcat released version 7.0.19 to improve security. In order to accommodate this Tomcat update, UICDS has released a patch that is now available for download. All the details are in the accompanying "Readme" file that downloads with the patch.
Use your UICDS access credentials to download the Tomcat security patch.
|
|
Become a UICDS Pilot - Yours from DHS
Tired of watching and want to get involved? Are you a government agency that knows you shoud share information better? Critical infrastructure owner/operator in need of coordination with governments? Technology provider who wants to better serve emergency management and response organizations?
|
|
Use the UICDS Development Kit To Win Contracts that Require UICDS Compliance
Recently, the State of California and the State of West Virginia both issued requests for proposals that called for UICDS compliance as a condition of the contract. Feeling left behind?
Now there is a guide to what it means to "comply" with UICDS. Get the new UICDS Compliance Overview report to see the details. And you can see and listen to the UICDS Compliance Tutorial about compliance with UICDS v 1.1 on the UICDS Collaboration Portal. If this is you ... and you don't want to be excluded from future bids ... just answer a few questions to get the UICDS Development Kit and example code to build your UICDS Adapter today. Get started by clicking here. |
|
