EA Glossary

Term

Definition

Application

Digital solution 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 package solutions; internally managed and externally managed by a third party; subscription and perpetual paid licences as well as free or open source solutions. 

Applications are;

• UCD instantiation a vendor's software or cloud service product, often customised or configured to fit UCD requirements
• described using a unique name that is understood by the business users within UCD

Application are categorised according to their scale;

• University wide - a solution that is implemented for use across multiple units or schools
• Local - a solution that is implemented for use in one school or unit

And fall into one of four classes based on their purpose;

• Enabling Applications - Solutions supporting specific functions and activities enabling UCD’s business capabilities and processes
• Infrastructure Applications - Solutions that support technical operations and development processes
• Learning/Teaching Applications - Course/discipline-specific software packages, supporting teaching and learning, or taught research in particular academic domains or modules
• Research Applications - Solutions enabling specific functions and activities for conducting research

See What is an Application?

Application Architecture

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

Application Business Contact

Named UCD employee representative per Application

Primary business contact for IT Services for the purposes for maintaining UCD’s Application Portfolio, providing information about the application to include name, description,  data classification, business value, mappings to business capabilities.

See Application Ownership Roles & Responsibilities

Application Business Owner

Primary UCD business decision maker relating to the application, accountable for the system’s overall business value and risk management

Governs the application from a strategic business perspective, ensuring that IT investments and system capabilities align with business goals and compliance requirements. They have a strategic focus on defining vision and roadmap from a business perspective for the application

Ensures that a suitable Application Technical Owner is in place

Defined business requirements, including assessment of functional requirements 

See Application Ownership Roles & Responsibilities

Application Portfolio

Comprehensive inventory of all applications used in UCD, including description, hosting model, development types, ownership roles, and underpinning technologies. 

This information is being captured through engagements with units, institutes, and schools and colleges, and is ongoing work in progress.

See Application Portfolio Management

Application Portfolio Management

Structured approach to assessing and optimising the Application Portfolio, evaluating the Business Value and Technical Fit (how well each application meets business/functional and technical requirements) to inform and evidence rationalisation recommendations.

See Application Portfolio Management

Application Technical Contact

Named UCD employee representative per Application

Primary technical contact for IT Services for the purpose of providing information about the application such as underpinning technical components, authentication mechanism,  technical fit

See Application Ownership Roles & Responsibilities

Application Technical Owner

Primary UCD technical stakeholder and decision maker relating to the application, accountable for the system’s overall technical value and technical risk management

Governs the application from a strategic technical perspective, ensuring that IT investments and system capabilities align with technical objectives and technical compliance requirements. They have a strategic focus on defining vision and roadmap from a technical perspective for the application

See Application Ownership Roles & Responsibilities

As-Is State

See Architecture Roadmap

Baseline Architecture

See Architecture Roadmap

Business Architecture

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

See Higher Education Reference Models

Business Capability Model

(aka Business Reference 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.

See Higher Education Reference Models

Business Processes

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

Component

see Technical Components

See (opens in a new window)What is the difference between Applications and Technical Components?

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.

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.

See Enterprise Architecture Principles

Foundational Platforms

A specific class of application that provides a pre-integrated ecosystem of applications, or provide the capability to build new applications.

The platform itself and each application deployed on it must have an Application Business Owner which may all be different. 

The Application Technical Owner of the platform is the Application Technical Owner for every application deployed on the platform. 

This allows for effective business and technical decisions regarding the platform itself.

Examples of foundational platforms include - Google Workspace, Microsoft 365, InfoHub, Salesforce, and Brightspace.

Future State

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

See Architecture Roadmap

Gap Analysis

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

See Architecture Roadmap

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 Models

Higher Education Reference Model

A joint collaboration by EUNIS, UCISA, EDUCAUSE, and CAUDIT, has created the The Higher Education Reference Model (HERM) Business Capability Model.

This is the globally accepted Business Capability Model (BCM) for the Higher Education sector.

Examples of Business Capabilities within the HERM BCM include Curriculum Management, Student Recruitment, Student Assessment, Library Services, Human Resource Management, Financial Management, Research Management, Identity & Access Management, Business Intelligence & Reporting.

HERM have also created an Application Reference Model (ARM), Technical Reference Model (TRM), and Data Reference Model (DRM)

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

See Higher Education Reference Models

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

Learning/Teaching Applications

Course/discipline-specific software packages, supporting teaching and learning, or taught research in particular academic domains or modules

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.

Local Application

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

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.

See Non-Functional Requirements

Research Application

Solutions enabling specific functions and activities for conducting research.  These are in-scope of UCD's Enterprise Architecture.

Researcher-developed software

Solutions  developed by a researcher (or research team),  for the duration of the project, to address a specific ​research ​output/outcome.  These are out-of-scope of UCD's Enterprise Architecture.

Roadmap

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

See Architecture Roadmap

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.

Target Architecture

See Architecture Roadmap

Technical Component

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

Technical Components are

• are standard IT products implemented or configured to create applications used by the business

See What is an Application?

Technology Architecture

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

To-Be State

See Architecture Roadmap

 TOGAF

TOGAF is a popular guide for designing and managing IT systems. It is developed and maintained by The Open Group. It 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.