Like all industries, the court space is no stranger to organizations marked by confusing acronyms that most people don’t recognize or are even sure how to pronounce. Because so many readers found nuggets (or should we say “cookies”) of wisdom from our “C is for CJIS” deconstruction, we thought we would spell out another version of letter soup that, while not widely understood, is vital to the health and integrity of justice and court collaboration.
“I JIS” Don’t Get It
But did you get that? Our dry humor, that is.
Anyways, back to the letter of the day.
Founded as the Integrated Justice Information Systems Institute, the heartbeat of IJIS lives to assist state, local and federal courts and overall public-sector communities in leveraging secure, standards-based information sharing technologies. IJIS work is important in that they partner stakeholders in the justice community with technology partners to promote workable solutions that enhance public safety. Especially in the context of courts, ascending appeal cases to upper courts, sharing cross-jurisdictional information or working with other justice organizations, user confidence in a secure, compliant and efficient case and document management system is key to safer and overall healthier justice communities.
With law enforcement, prosecutors, attorneys, court personnel from several courts and other parties simultaneously working on the same case, there is no room for the antiquated paper-based process of file sharing. Thanks to the experience-based standards and thought leadership of IJIS committees, information interoperability between all necessary parties is possible and trusted.
Can You Provide an Example?
Can Superman fly?
A significant part of IJIS work is establishing exchanges of reporting information, such as for sex offenders, crime statistics and FBI national data exchange. When this touches courts, it’s critical that courts be able to not only provide access to data but also reporting on a timely basis.
This is one of the reasons why courts and prosecutors are digitally transforming using OnBase by Hyland, as ImageSoft delivers it. This enterprise content management system is like a DMS on (legal) steroids. It enables standards-based exchange of documents and metadata, including the NIEM (National Information Exchange Model) standard as new state and federal agencies require access. But access to documents and metadata is not enough. Key information in a criminal case, such as a crime pattern, often does not exist in a case management system. This is the reason why text-searching capabilities of imaged documents is so important for active and forensic investigations.
Comparable to your annoyingly-talented friend who excels at everything, OnBase equips courts with all the functionality needed for a completely electronic case flow. With cloud-based storage, full-text, meta-data searches, color-coded files and highly configurable reporting dashboards, OnBase allows your court to achieve and honor an unparalleled level of transparency and efficiency that publics notice and respect.
In addition to real-time access to documents and metadata, the reporting tools available makes it far easier for courts to generate detailed summary reports by a user that, in the past, may have required a custom development effort. As courts and/or prosecution offices continue to leverage the electronic workflow function for managing processes, the more integrable their data becomes.
In addition to users quickly generating reports, a mouse click also allows them to break it down by judge or disposition along with the underlying data. Such flexibility and real-time data sharing are critical to law enforcement and public safety.Further recommendations from IJIS and other standards have enabled cloud-based applications and storage that facilitates even greater flexibility for data exchange. Due to industry standards and the vast expertise of cloud service providers, the security of these hosted solutions often exceed what courts can leverage with tight resources. One such application is CaseShare by ImageSoft, which enables a lower court to electronically prepare and deliver transcripts and case files to appellate or supreme courts. As a case management neutral application, there are numerous functionalities, such as image to text conversion, bookmarking and table of content generation, that all occur in the cloud and eliminate the need for a court to maintain a complex stack of hardware and software.
While that’s only and nothing but the truth, we also have this Circuit Court case study as testimony.
I Still Have Questions
We won’t make you take it up with the judge. For more information on court solutions that can support IJIS initiatives, simply contact your ImageSoft representative or fill out this quick form.
We Want to Hear From You!
Is your court mindful about following IJIS guidelines? If not previously, will you recommend it is?
Respond in the comments section below or on our Court Solutions LinkedIn page. We read and respond – promise!