Enterprise architecture, lofty as it sounds, simply refers to how the guts of an entity works. As its name implies, education enterprise architecture plays the structure, function, and purpose of an educational institution against its reality. Purpose: do the school stated values serve its mission statement? Function: is the interplay of teacher, student, parent and administrator resulting in a student body that is growing in preparation for becoming fulfilled, global citizens? Structure: is there a clearly defined and respected power structure? For example, if a parent has a problem with how a teacher grades, or does not grade homework, do they speak with the principal BEFORE the teacher, and the principal fails to redirect them? Do the building spaces adequately serve the needs of the student body? For example, if you are at a Title I school receiving funds for free breakfast and lunch programs, do you have kitchen facilities that can get food services delivered well in a timely enough manner to resume classes on schedule?
“For an EA approach to be considered to be complete, … six core elements … must be present and work synergistically together.” (Bernard, 2012, Kindle Locations 560-561). Formally, they are: governance, methodology, framework, artifacts, standards, and best practices. In an indirect way, enterprise architecture has recently become relevant in my school with the arrival of a new superintendent. At a beginning-of-the-year professional development session, he wanted to know if and how a program being taught to teachers affected instructional decisions. Was using the technology impactful when it came to learning? Without being asked, he volunteered that with budget decisions to make, he needed to gather as much good information as possible. In that light, without formalizing his approach, the superintendent was taking a holistic view of the school. In an effort to make sure that prior decisions made by the IT department served the interest of the educational enterprise, he was communicating with important, related, and intersecting subsets of the school. It may be that he may more rigorously examine how this and other decisions fit in with the overall architecture of the school, but until then, that’s where we are. The concept of educational enterprise architecture has given me a greater appreciation for paying attention to how all the moving parts in a school affect one another.
Resources: Bernard, Scott A. (2012-08-13). An Introduction to Enterprise Architecture: Third Edition. AuthorHouse. Kindle Edition.