Students and Citizens:Enterprise Architectures for

Education and Government Keith Hazelton

Information Technology (IT) and the Enterprise Mission

• A fundamental truth for contemporary {universities, state governments} is that urgent demands for change arrive in a nearly continuous stream.

• It is also true that IT plays only a supporting role to the real work of the {university, state government}.

• Taken together these two fundamental truths imply that IT management must maximize responsiveness to mission-related needs in the face of constrained resources.

• How do we do that?

Operating model as a strategic, enterprise level choice

• Enterprise Architecture As Strategy, Jeanne W. Ross, Peter Weill, David Robertson

• Architecture should align with and support chosen operating model

Operating Models

Diversified Operating Model

Operating Models

Operating Models

Operating Models

Operating Models

Operating Models

Operating models

• Replicated: Web content management systems

• Unified: Web SSO, undergrad. admissions, parking, engineering paydata

– Does not necessarily imply centralization(!)

• Coordinated: data warehouse, enterprise directory, course roster information service

• Diversified: siloed processes, data

• Senior business and IT leaders must be involved in making the choice

Coordinated Operating Model: A fit for Education and Government?

• Shared “customers”• Operationally unique “business units”

or functions• Business unit control over business

process design• Consensus processes for designing IT

infrastructure services• IT application decisions made in

business units

Mature coordination model

• Provides integrated services

• Integration via sharing key data across units

• Presents a common face to customer

• Allows integration of any number of processes…

• Without forcing standardization

MetLife’s Coordination-oriented Enterprise Architecture

• Insurance and other financial services to millions

• Integrated view of customer

– Extract customer information from individual products

– Make it centrally available

– Integration hub at the center of their Enterprise Architecture diagram

MetLife Core Ent. Arch. Diagram

Data Customer types

Business processes

Technology

Translation to Education and Government

• “Customer”– Education: Student– Government: Citizen

Principle: Common information model for shared objects

• CRIS Team (Course Roster Information Service)

• Thirty some business processes that need information on courses and course rosters

• Goal: Come up with an information service that meets the needs of a wide variety of processes

• Example of the Coordinated operational model: wide adoption of shared information models

Examples in Government

• Existing inter-service coordination:• Insurance Agent Search

– Optionally followed by payment of license renewal fee

• Other candidates for inter-agency information coordination– Someone planning a move, looking at schools,

affordable housing, employment…– Personalized Wisconsin.gov portal: Links to

ongoing state agency applications, requests, etc.– Others?

Enterprise Architecture as Strategy

• Emphasis on shared data emerges as strategic

• One element of Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) is data canonicalization

• Shared data on {students, citizens} needs priority attention

• Services to allow any number of business processes to access this shared data

• Critical guidance on where to start with an SOA initiative

Q & A

• hazelton@doit.wisc.edu