EA Glossary

Term

Definition

Application

Software that provides functionality to UCD’s community, typically accessed through a web browser, mobile device, or desktop, or that provides functionality or capabilities to other applications. 

Applications include on-premise hosted and cloud services; bespoke and commercial-off-the-shelf developed; internally and externally/third party managed; subscription and perpetual licenced; charged and free to use solutions. 

Application Architecture

The blueprint for the individual applications within the enterprise, detailing how they interact with each other and with business processes.

Application Business Owner

Primary UCD business stakeholder and decision maker relating to the application, with strategic focus on defining the vision and roadmap from a business perspective for the application.

Application Portfolio Management

Application Technical Owner

Primary UCD IT stakeholder and decision maker relating to the application, with strategic focus on defining vision and roadmap from a technical perspective for the application.

As-Is State

See Current State

Baseline Architecture

Business Architecture

The representation of the business structure, including the organisation’s processes, business capabilities, and organisational structure.

Business Capabilities

Represents what UCD does to achieve a specific business purpose or outcome.

Capabilities support the realisation of the organisation's strategies. 

UCD has aligned to the Higher Education Reference Model (HERM), as its reference model for describing Business Capabilities.

HERM’s Business Capabilities cover Learning and Teaching (such as Curriculum Management, Student Recruitment), Research (such as Research Funding, Research Delivery) and Enabling (such as Library Administration, Human Resource Management, Financial Management, Facilities and Estates Management). 

Business Capability Model

Provides a structured abstracted representation of Business Capabilities, their relationships and hierarchy, in a way that helps to simplify conversations between the Business and IT.

Business Capability Model (BCM) describes the complete set of Business Capabilities an organisation may require to execute its business model or fulfil its mission.

It is used to link the People, Processes, Information, Applications and other tangible resources that enable and support each capability.

Business Processes

Activities (tasks) undertaken to deliver a Business Services to achieve objective

Component Diagram

Diagram or schematic that depicts how the components of an application (or IT system) are formed and interconnected.

Current State

The organisations current state of business capabilities, business processes and applications.

Departmental Application

Software/application that is implemented for use in one school or unit.

Digital Governance

Policies, decision-making procedures, and management processes that work together to enable the effective planning and oversight of activities and resources related to Enterprise-enabled Applications

Digital Transformation

Integration of digital technologies into all business areas to deliver fundamentally changes in how we operate and delivery value to customers

EA Meta Model

Additional information that more richly describe the components within the Enterprise Architecture repository.

EA Tool

Software used to support enterprise architects and other business and IT stakeholders in the strategic planning, analysis, design, and execution

Enterprise Architecture

Enterprise Architecture (EA) is a holistic approach to designing and maintaining the digital estate that supports the organisation's business capabilities, activities, and processes.

EA provides a common language and approach to build holistic understanding of UCD's digital estate - the mix of capabilities, applications, technologies, and how they enable and support the UCD experience.

Within UCD we want to ensure the digital estate aligns with UCD's Strategy and Digital Roadmap to effectively deliver the University Experience.

It allows UCD (both the business and IT) to identity and understand the risks, gaps, and opportunities related to applications (and underpinning technologies)

Enterprise Architecture Principles

Are the guidelines to be applied in increase the consistency and quality of technology decision-making, . In UCD these principles will guide how we design and deploy applications, processes and services across the university.
They will provide guardrails to streamline and reduce the complexity of technology investment decisions and will help to inform procurement and solution delivery decisions.

Enterprise-Enabling Applications

Applications that meet one or more of the follow criteria ;
> deployed by units, schools, and campus companies to support or enable UCD’s core Business Capabilities and Activities, such as Teaching & Learning, Research & Innovation Management, Campus Experience Activities, and Enabling Services,
> are intended or likely to be seen by UCDs community as integral to the UCD experience (such as carrying UCD name and branding - which could impact UCD’s reputational standing),
> store & processes critical or highly sensitive University UCD data classified as confidential, critical or highly sensitive (high) (i.e. to be scoped around TBC data classifications).

Both University-Wide and Departmental Applications are seen collectively as forming UCD’s Enterprise Architecture.

Foundational Platforms

Foundational Platforms provides the common underlying technical components that other Applications are built and run on.

Examples of foundational platforms include Infohub and Salesforce Education.

Future State

The organisations desired future state of business capabilities, business processes, and applications.

Gap Analysis

Process of comparing the current state to the desired future state, to identify the gaps or differences

Governance

The framework of policies, roles, responsibilities, and processes that ensure the effective and efficient use of applications in achieving an organisation’s goals.

The purpose is to provide structure and accountability in decision-making processes.

HERM

see Higher Education Reference Model

Higher Education Reference Model

Joint collaboration by EUNIS, UCISA, EDUCAUSE, and CAUDIT, and is the globally recognised Business Capability Model within High Education Institutions.

The Higher Education Reference Model (HERM) Business Capability Model is the globally accepted Business Capability Model (BCM) for the Higher Education sector.

UCD is using the HERM models to describe UCDs Enterprise Architecture, to illustrate how applications support the business, so that dependencies, opportunities, gaps, and risks are understood.

Examples of HERM business capabilities include Curriculum Management, Student Recruitment, Student Assessment, Library Services, Human Resource Management, Financial Management, Research Management, Identity & Access Management, Business Intelligence & Reporting."

Information Architecture

A subset of enterprise architecture focused on the structure and management of information within the organisation. Core components include Data models, information flow, data governance policies.

IT Architecture

Composite of the hardware, software, networks and services needed to operate and manage the enterprises IT environment

IT System

Group of applications.

IT System Portfolio

Published list of IT Systems that are IT owner by IT Services, around which service performance and availability are measured

Local Research Applications

Applications deployed by researchers and research groups, to support individual active/compute research projects., rather than supporting or enabling teaching & learning, research services, and/or administrative activities.

Local Research Applications are not considered part of UCD’s Enterprise Architecture. However we capture all Applications, including Research, within the EA tool to ensure we have a complete inventory of solutions in use in UCD

Meta Data

Non-Functional Requirements

A library set of Technical Standards provided for projects led by IT Services, that are used in procurements to ensure that applications and technical components being purchased or developed, align to the Enterprise Architecture and adhere to the Enterprise Architecture Principles.

Roadmap

Strategic Plan that defines the goals and milestones need to reach it. Typically applied to Capabilities and Projects.

Safe List

List of the applications in use in UCD that are permitted for users to use to enable business capabilities and activities, to deliver business services and processes

Shadow IT

Unknown, unsanctioned, and/or unmanaged applications and technical components.

Specialised Teaching and Research Applications

Software for specific academic disciplines or fields of study such as data analysis, computation, simulation, and visualisation. 

Examples include SPSS, MATLAB, RStudio, SAS, AutoCAD, NVivo, LaTeX.  Such specialist teaching applications are integral to providing students with hands-on experience of industry standard software packages and are critical to preparing them for careers in their respective fields.

Target Architecture

Technical Components

The hardware, software, and/or service products/technologies, that are used to create an application. Technical components are named using vendors standard “product” name and have a defined lifecycle.

Technology Architecture

All the technical components in used to build the Enterprise-enabled Applications.

To-Be State

See Future State

 TOGAF

TOGAF is a popular guide for designing and managing IT systems. It is developed and maintained by The Open Group and is used by over 120,000 architects globally. TOGAF is designed to help organisations plan their IT infrastructure, make strategic decisions, and implement technology smoothly.

UCD are aligned to the core concepts of TOGAF.

UCD Wholly Owned Subsidiary Companies

Companies that UCD owns outright, has control over. These form part of UCD Enterprise, and IT Governance Policies apply.

University Data

Refers to any information collected, stored, or generated by a UCD. This data can encompass a wide range of information, including but not limited to personal data, sensitive personal data (or special categories of personal data) and confidential business data and information as defined in the UCD Data Classification Policy (TBC).

University-Wide Applications

Software/application that are implemented for use across multiple units or schools.