A new standard in HE enterprise architecture?

It’s a truth that for the most part Student Record Systems (SRS) have traditionally been designed from the inside out, to meet the perceived ‘special’ needs of the university, then continually added to piecemeal as the institution grows organically, rather than in a planned and structured approach. But this has huge ramifications especially on a key part of what makes a UK institution in today’s world successful — great student experiences.

Students, like all customers, expect slick experiential processes. Whenever they engage with administrative functions across their institution, they anticipate a seamless experience that includes fundamentals like standardised processes. the need to provide a set of information only once etc. The most effective way to achieve this is through a simplified standardised operating model underpinned, in a university, by an effective supportive SRS.

As an enterprise architect, one of my main focus areas is supporting UK higher education institutions in driving their SRS from a business perspective rather than technology-first. Yes, technology is absolutely vital, but implementing software systems shouldn’t be treated in a vacuum. It’s the business requirements of an institution, driven by customer needs, that should govern how an SRS functions, with the technology directly supporting and enabling those processes. When designing a home you don’t start with the wiring and plumbing it begins with form and function!

As a technology partner, at Ellucian our focus is on helping our customers deliver business solutions, and that means defining and creating reference architectures that work across the global HE sector, aligning business and technology.

My colleague Matt Searles recently posted a blog about the UK higher education market’s need for a new approach to implementing a SRS. One that reduces the cost, complexity, risk and time to value of a new SRS. I wanted to go into a little more detail in one of those areas — risk.

Mitigating risk with a templated approach

Implementing a new SRS is often seen as a huge endeavour — bringing with it resource burdens, missed opportunities and the need for later customisations, all in a sector that, on the whole, is considered risk adverse. But it needn’t. Enterprise Architecture (EA) is still mostly seen as technology focused, but its more than that — it’s about ensuring compliance (standards) and reducing risk.

Standards, big and small, have been at the heart of industry and business growth for decades. For many it started with the need to standardise the multitude of rail track gauges across the UK in the early 1800’s that prevented the effective movement of goods. Some were driven by global events such as the global financial crash of the 1930’s which gave rise to accounting standards. To the present day where the development of the web is governed by the standards laid down by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C).

Standards define specifications in which we can operate, or to our earlier point drive a structured plan. Increasingly, this is how business functions are developing as the need to provide great customer experience along with data driven engagement is much easier through commonality of delivery.

The introduction of internal business standards and/or principles, underpin this approach and have another key benefit — the opportunity to leverage IT investments quicker through templated implementations.

This is because you can cut through red tape faster with a defined programme of activity proven to bring value. Customisation brings greater risks and, for the most part, should only be introduced where a real tangible return is identified. While institutions will need to adapt certain elements of their SRS, there are benefits to following a structured architecture that is designed specifically for UK institutions. Ellucian has taken widely adopted standards like the UCISA UK HE Capability model and built out associated artefacts to support our customer base.

This approach essentially removes the complexity of basic admin functions while giving the flexibility to pivot easily and update the SRS seamlessly, because it’s backed by a simpler integration network. And that’s the beauty of standardisation — a common platform with an EA approach aligned with the processes critical to UK institutions.

Time to value

A standardised, capability led approach to SRS implementation doesn’t only mitigate risk, it improves the overall experience on the student side as well as enabling institutions to leverage data and gather insight far more quickly than the normal timeframe. As we all know, the standard length of time it takes to physically go through an SRS implementation programme can take 2-4 years. With Ellucian’s approach, UK higher education institutions can switch on a new SRS in 12 months (from start to finish).

Not only does this mean the faculty, staff and students can quickly engage with the new system, helping to improve retention, user engagement etc, it also drives immediate value on the business side. Because the system is built around standard business processes, its far easier to leverage data and improve insight-driven decision making.

Aligning the Student Record System with a capabilities model, in a consistent way, enables UK higher education institutions to mitigate risk in implementation and deployment, all while ensuring business outcomes remain integral to the process. At Ellucian, we’re more than just feature and function — we want to help our UK customers achieve their business goals by leveraging the best of our solutions in as little time as possible.