Information exchange

{{Short description|Transfer of information between entities}}

{{distinguish|knowledge sharing|data sharing|data exchange|knowledge exchange|}}

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{{Lead rewrite|date=April 2022}}

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.{{Cite web|url=https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/information-exchange|title=INFORMATION EXCHANGE {{!}} definition in the Cambridge English Dictionary|website=dictionary.cambridge.org|access-date=2019-04-22}} These are terms that can either refer to bidirectional information transfer in telecommunications and computer science or communication seen from a system-theoretic or information-theoretic point of view. As "information," in this context invariably refers to (electronic) data that encodes and represents{{Cite web |url=http://www.csi.ucd.ie/staff/jcarthy/home/Information.html |title=Information Representation |access-date=2015-06-29 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150430033819/http://www.csi.ucd.ie/Staff/jcarthy/home/Information.html |archive-date=2015-04-30 |url-status=dead }} the information at hand, a broader treatment can be found under data exchange.

Information exchange has a long history in information technology.{{Cite journal|last1=Young-Ybarra|first1=Candace|last2=Wiersema|first2=Margarethe|date=August 1999|title=Strategic Flexibility in Information Technology Alliances: The Influence of Transaction Cost Economics and Social Exchange Theory|journal=Organization Science|volume=10|issue=4|pages=439–459|doi=10.1287/orsc.10.4.439|issn=1047-7039|url=https://digitalcommons.chapman.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1003&context=business_articles|url-access=subscription}} 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.{{cite journal |last1=Hajli |first1=Nick |last2=Lin |first2=Xiaolin |title=Exploring the Security of Information Sharing on Social Networking Sites: The Role of Perceived Control of Information |journal=Journal of Business Ethics |volume=133 |pages=111–123 |doi=10.1007/s10551-014-2346-x |date=1 January 2016|s2cid=143957530 }} These information exchanges are implemented via dozens of open and proprietary protocols, 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.{{cite journal |last1=Lee |first1=Sai Leong |last2=Ainin |first2=Sulaiman |last3=Dezdar |first3=Shahin |last4=Mallasi |first4=Hisham |title=Electronic data interchange adoption from technological, organisational and environmental perspectives |journal=International Journal of Business Information Systems |volume=18 |issue=3 |pages=299–320 |doi=10.1504/IJBIS.2015.068166 |date=1 January 2015}}

Some controversy comes when discussing regulations regarding information exchange.{{Cite journal|title=Expert Roles and Information Exchange during Discussion: The Importance of Knowing Who Knows What|issue=3|pages=244–265|journal=Journal of Experimental Social Psychology|volume=31|doi=10.1006/jesp.1995.1012|date=May 1995|last1=Stasser|first1=Garold|last2=Stewart|first2=Dennis D.|last3=Wittenbaum|first3=Gwen M.}} Initiatives to standardize information sharing protocols include extensible markup language (XML), simple object access protocol (SOAP), and web services description language (WSDL).

From the point of view of a computer scientist, the four primary information sharing design patterns are sharing information one-to-one, one-to-many, many-to-many, and many-to-one. Technologies to meet all four of these design patterns are evolving and include blogs, wikis, 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).[http://www.niem.gov/ NIEM]{{Cite web|url=https://www.niem.gov/|title=NIEM {{!}} National Information Exchange Model|website=NIEM {{!}} National Information Exchange Model|access-date=2019-04-29}} 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, data harmonization, data stewardship policies and guidelines, standards for uniform data as they relate to privacy, security, and data quality.