So, what is Enterprise Architecture (EA) and why are we
bringing it to the University? Let me
set aside formal definitions and detailed explanations - after all, there is
plenty of background information on the web, which you can read should you
wish. Instead, let’s keep this informal
and look at what it can do for our university.
Essentially, the goal of EA is to link all IT and
administrative services together to provide a joined-up, easy-to-use suite of
services. Times have changed from when students
dealt with IT systems separately - logging in to the back-office finance system
for one task, the timetabling system for another, teaching systems during the
day, and so forth. Instead, people do
everything online, using smartphones or laptops or desktops. We rarely think about the ”IT” systems
underpinning these services, we just do the processes online without really
thinking about the IT. Enterprise
Architecture is about making the “business processes”, the data, the
applications and the underlying technology all line up to provide this modern,
integrated service.
We need to design processes to prioritise the user’s point
of view, rather than the administration staff
(including IT staff). We may need
to change the way we do things, and we need to align the underlying IT so that
we can make these changes as easy as possible.
We also need agreed data models and data definitions, so
that anyone accessing data via any of our systems see the same information and
understand the information presented to them.
We need management information (MI) so that the University makes
decisions based on accurate and timely information.
Enterprise Architecture provides a range of techniques to
aid all this. An EA practice brings
people together to achieve shared understanding and common goals. It creates templates so that we can define
standards, processes and data models using common approaches. It produces reusable data schemas and APIs so
that IT systems can integrate with each other more simply, and so that projects
don’t replicate similar work.
This gives me plenty of scope for future blogs posts. I can write about particular techniques and
what they can do for us. I can give
examples of the work we do as we do it. I
can discuss some of the challengers we face as an institution. First of all, I’ll be writing about enterprise
architecture experiences from other universities, which may give us some
guidance of what can be achieved in our sector.
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