Enterprise Architecture adoption method for Higher Education Institutions

During the last few years Enterprise Architecture has received increasing attention among industry and academia. Enterprise Architecture (EA) can be defined as (i) a formal description of the current and future state(s) of an organisation, and (ii) a managed change between these states to meet organisation’s stakeholders’ goals and to create value to the organisation. By adopting EA, organisations may gain a number of benefits such as better decision making, increased revenues and cost reductions, and alignment of business and IT. To increase the performance of public sector operations, and to improve public services and their availability, the Finnish Parliament has ratified the Act on Information Management Governance in Public Administration in 2011. The Act mandates public sector organisations to start adopting EA by 2014, including Higher Education Institutions (HEIs). Despite the benefits of EA and the Act, EA adoption level and maturity in Finnish HEIs are low. This is partly caused by the fact that EA adoption has been found to be difficult. Thus there is a need for a solution to help organisations to adopt EA successfully. This thesis follows Design Science (DS) approach to improve traditional EA adoption method in order to increase the likelihood of successful adoption. First a model is developed to explain the change resistance during EA adoption. To find out problems associated with EA adoption, an EA-pilot conducted in 2010 among 12 Finnish HEIs was analysed using the model. It was found that most of the problems were caused by misunderstood EA concepts, attitudes, and lack of skills. The traditional EA adoption method does not pay attention to these. To overcome the limitations of the traditional EA adoption method, an improved EA Adoption Method (EAAM) is introduced. By following EAAM, organisations may increase the likelihood of successful EA adoption. EAAM helps in acquiring the mandate for EA adoption from top-management, which has been found to be crucial to success. It also helps in supporting individual and organisational learning, which has also found to be essential in successful adoption.

Campus Architecture and Student Culture in American Higher Education

Human-environment interaction theory, as it specifically relates to architectural determinism, has an indispensible impact on student culture on college campuses. Under the assumptions of architectural determinism, this thesis examines the relationship between architecture and student culture on 30 American college campuses. Specifically, this thesis looks at uniformity of architectural style and color and the prevalence of traditional styles of architecture in relation to the institutions' campus cultures. The results of the study found that a significant relationship exists between student culture and uniformity of building color, but not between student culture and uniformity of style or the prevalence of traditional styles on a given campus. The thesis concludes with a discussion of the findings, limitations of the study, and suggestions for further research.

VisibleZ: A Mainframe Architecture Emulator for Computing Education

This paper describes a PC-based mainframe computer emulator called VisibleZ and its use in teaching mainframe Computer Organization and Assembly Programming classes. VisibleZ models IBM’s z/Architecture and allows direct interpretation of mainframe assembly language object code in a graphical user interface environment that was developed in Java. The VisibleZ emulator acts as an interactive visualization tool to simulate enterprise computer architecture. The provided architectural components include main storage, CPU, registers, Program Status Word (PSW), and I/O Channels. Particular attention is given to providing visual clues to the user by color-coding screen components, machine instruction execution, and animation of the machine architecture components. Students interact with VisibleZ by executing machine instructions in a step-by-step mode, simultaneously observing the contents of memory, registers, and changes in the PSW during the fetch-decode-execute machine instruction cycle. The object-oriented design and implementation of VisibleZ allows students to develop their own instruction semantics by coding Java for existing specific z/Architecture machine instructions or design and implement new machine instructions. The use of VisibleZ in lectures, labs, and assignments is described in the paper and supported by a website that hosts an extensive collection of related materials. VisibleZ has been proven a useful tool in mainframe Assembly Language Programming and Computer Organization classes. Using VisibleZ, students develop a better understanding of mainframe concepts, components, and how the mainframe computer works. ACM Computing Classification System (1998): C.0, K.3.2.

A bot spooler architecture to integrate virtual worlds with e-learning management systems for corporate training

Joining efforts of academic and corporate teams, we developed an integration architecture - MULTIS - that enables corporate e-learning managers to use a Learning Management System (LMS) for management of educational activities in virtual worlds. This architecture was then implemented for the Formare LMS. In this paper we present this architecture and concretizations of its implementation for the Second Life Grid/OpenSimulator virtual world platforms. Current systems are focused on activities managed by individual trainers, rather than groups of trainers and large numbers of trainees: they focus on providing the LMS with information about educational activities taking place in a virtual world and/or being able to access within the virtual world some of the information stored in the LMS, and disregard the streamlining of activity setup and data collection in multi-trainer contexts, among other administrative issues. This architecture aims to overcome the limitations of existing systems for organizational management of corporate e-learning activities.

Utilization of remote experimentation in mobile devices for education

In this paper the authors intend to demonstrate the utilization of remote experimentation (RE) using mobile computational devices in the Science areas of the elementary school, with the purpose to develop practices that will help in the assimilation process of the subjects taught in classroom seeking to interlink them with the daily students? activities. Allying mobility with RE we intend to minimize the space-temporal barrier giving more availability and speed in the information access. The implemented architecture utilizes technologies and freely distributed softwares with open code resources besides remote experiments developed in the Laboratory of Remote Experimentation (RExLab) of Federal University of Santa Catarina (UFSC), in Brazil, through the physical computation platform of the ?open hardware of construction of our own. The utilization of open code computational tools and the integration of hardware to the 3D virtual worlds, accessible through mobile devices, give to the project an innovative face with a high potential for reproducibility and reusability.

Using remote lab networks to provide support to public secondary school education level

The advantages of networking are widely known in many areas (from business to personal ones). One particular area where networks have also proved their benefits is education. Taking the secondary school education level into account, some successful cases can be found in literature. In this paper we describe a particular remote lab network supporting physical experiments accessible to students of institutions geographically separated. The network architecture and application examples of using some of the available remote experiments are illustrated in detail.

Work-in-progress on a thin IEEE1451.0 - architecture to implement reconfigurable Weblab infrastructures

Institutions have been creating their own specific weblab infrastructures. Usually, they use distinct software and hardware architectures comprehending instruments and modules (I&M) able to be parameterized but difficult to be shared. These aspects are impairing their widespread in education, since collaboration between institutions, in developing and sharing resources, is still low. To handle both aspects, this paper proposes the adoption of the IEEE1451.0 Std. with FPGA technology for creating reconfigurable weblab infrastructures. It is suggested the adoption of an IEEE1451.0 infrastructure with compatible instruments, described in Hardware Description Languages (HDL), to be reconfigured in FPGA-based boards. Besides an overview of the IEEE1451.0 Std., this paper presents a solution currently under development which seeks to enable the reconfiguration and the remote control of weblab infrastructures using a set of IEEE1451.0 HTTP commands.

Enterprise architecture – the foundation for a strategy

This artcle describes work done with enterprise architecture of the National Digital Library. The National Digital Library is an initiative of the Finnish Ministry of Education and Culture. Its purpose is to promote the availability of the digital information resources of archives, libraries and museums, and to develope the long-term preservation of digital cultural heritage materials. Enterprise architectures are a tool for strategic management and planning. An enterprise architecture also functions as an aid at a more practical level. It shows, for example, what kind of changes and improvements may be made in one system without overlap or conflict with other systems.

Architecture et mission pédagogique : regards sur le campus de l'Université de Montréal et de l'école des HEC à l'ère d'une société de la connaissance

Toutes les photos présentes dans ce mémoire (sauf indication contraire) ont été réalisées par Dan Antonat (c).

Non-University Higher Education and the Relationship of Its Graduates and the World of Work: Colombia

The non-university sector has been part of the Colombian higher education system for more than 50-years. Despite its long years of existence, it has never occupied such an important role within the education system as the one it is having today. Therefore, the aim of this work is to analyze the development of the non-university sector in the framework of the country’s social, educational and economic demands. Likewise, its actual situation and certain aspects of the relationship between its graduates and the world of work, i.e., graduates’ employment characteristics, the relationship of higher education studies and their work, as well as their early career success, are examined. In order to generate the required information, a graduate survey was carried out in Atlántico (Colombia). The target population was graduates from higher education institutions registered in Atlántico who were awarded a technical, technological or professional degree in 2008 from any of the following knowledge areas: Fine Arts, Health Science, Economy-Administration-Accountancy and similar, and Engineering-Architecture-Urban planning and similar. Besides, interviews with academic and administrative staff from non-university institutions were carried out, and higher education related documents were analyzed. As a whole, the findings suggest that the non-university sector is expanding and may help to achieve some of the goals, for which it is widely promoted i.e., access expansion for under-represented groups, enhancement of the higher education system, and the provision of programs pertinent to the needs of the market. Nevertheless, some aspects require further consideration, e.g., the sector’s consolidation within the system and its quality. As for the relationship between non-university higher education and the world of work, it was found to be close; particularly in those aspects related to the use of knowledge and skills in the work, and the relationship between graduates’ studies and their work. Additionally, the analysis of the graduates’ in their early career stages exposes the significant role that the socioeconomic stratum plays in their working life, particularly in their wages. This indicates that apart from education, other factors like the graduates’ economic or social capital may have an impact on their future work perspectives

Built environment education and research in West Africa

Built environment programmes in West African universities; and research contributions from West Africa in six leading international journals and proceedings of the WABER conference are explored. At least 20 universities in the region offer degree programmes in Architecture (86% out of 23 universities); Building (57%); Civil Engineering (67%); Estate Management (52%); Quantity Surveying (52%); Surveying and Geoinformatics (55%); Urban and Regional Planning (67%). The lecturer-student ratio on programmes is around 1:25 compared to the 1:10 benchmark for excellence. Academics who teach on the programmes are clearly research active with some having published papers in leading international journals. There is, however, plenty of scope for improvement particularly at the highest international level. Out of more than 5000 papers published in six leading international peer-reviewed journals since each of them was established, only 23 of the papers have come from West Africa. The 23 papers are published by 28 academics based in 13 universities. Although some academics may publish their work in the plethora of journals that have proliferated in recent years, new generation researchers are encouraged to publish in more established journals. The analyses of 187 publications in the WABER conference proceedings revealed 18 research-active universities. Factors like quality of teaching, research and lecturer-student ratio, etc count in the ranking of universities. The findings lay bare some of the areas that should be addressed to improve the landscape of higher education in West Africa.

Building a Learning Architecture : e-Learning and e-Services

With the rapid advancement of the webtechnology, more and more educationalresources, including software applications forteaching/learning methods, are available acrossthe web, which enables learners to access thelearning materials and use various ways oflearning at any time and any place. Moreover,various web-based teaching/learning approacheshave been developed during the last decade toenhance the capability of both educators andlearners. Particularly, researchers from bothcomputer science and education are workingtogether, collaboratively focusing ondevelopment of pedagogically enablingtechnologies which are believed to improve theinfrastructure of education systems andprocesses, including curriculum developmentmodels, teaching/learning methods, managementof educational resources, systematic organizationof communication and dissemination ofknowledge and skills required by and adapted tousers. Despite of its fast development, however,there are still great gaps between learningintentions, organization of supporting resources,management of educational structures,knowledge points to be learned and interknowledgepoint relationships such as prerequisites,assessment of learning outcomes, andtechnical and pedagogic approaches. Moreconcretely, the issues have been widelyaddressed in literature include a) availability andusefulness of resources, b) smooth integration ofvarious resources and their presentation, c)learners’ requirements and supposed learningoutcomes, d) automation of learning process interms of its schedule and interaction, and e)customization of the resources and agilemanagement of the learning services for deliveryas well as necessary human interferences.Considering these problems and bearing in mindthe advanced web technology of which weshould make full use, in this report we willaddress the following two aspects of systematicarchitecture of learning/teaching systems: 1)learning objects – a semantic description andorganization of learning resources using the webservice models and methods, and 2) learningservices discovery and learning goals match foreducational coordination and learning serviceplanning.

Universal Design in Higher Education

While colleges and universities increasingly draw upon the concept of Universal Design to create an ideal learning environment, it can be challenging to apply the concept practically in the classroom. This project explores innovative ways to incorporate Universal Design into campus architecture, classroom technology and curriculum development. Further, this brief describes different approaches used by universities to garner faculty interest and offer effective training in Universal Design.