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The purpose of the Center for Enterprise Architecture is to gather intellectual resources across Penn State to address open and important research concerns and questions that span the design, functioning and governance of contemporary, information-driven enterprises. Research will include the underlying information technology architectures, data and application architecture and the complex, enterprise-level systems of systems that make use of these underlying architectures in a legislative and institutional marketplace. Through multi-disciplinary and inter-disciplinary research methods, this center looks to address large-scale applications such as healthcare informatics, large service-based and manufacturing firms, non-profit initiatives, federal and state government transformation, and the design of homeland security agencies. By focusing on this type of research, the Center of Enterprise Architecture looks to produce effective outcomes in terms of both theory and practice. Some of the specific goals of the center include:

Achieving efficiencies in operations across company and network activities
Leveraging aligned enterprise technology to drive innovations in products, services and business models
Competing in a networked, global world
Providing advice and support in undergraduate education, graduate education, professional continuing education, and research.

Due to the nature of these applications and required expertise, the center has developed strong links between researchers in institutes such as the College of Information Sciences and Technology, the College of Engineering, the Applied Research Lab, the Smeal College of Business, and other academic/research units. The Center of Enterprise Architecture will provide a focal point for integration through collaboration by focusing on the Organizational and Inter-Organizational level of analysis that has not been the focus of research endeavors in these domains elsewhere on campus.

The center bolsters current College of Information Sciences and Technology degree programs from BS to MS to PhD. Of special importance is supporting the College's on-going efforts in developing and delivering new curricula at the undergraduate and graduate levels. The Center is a focal point for the enhancement of the IST Enterprise Integration Option, which comprises approximately seventy percent of the IST undergraduate population. The Center supports the investigation and implementation of a new professional master's degree program related to enterprise architecture and related areas.

The focus of the Center for Enterprise Architecture is to direct attention and resources to the increasingly critical problem of co-designing the information technology infrastructure and business logic (see the Figure below). The term Enterprise Architecture (EA) describes not only the static notion of an architecture, as an arrangement of parts but also the more dynamic idea of architecting, as the purposeful creation and evolution of the business logic and IT infrastructure. EA, thus, promises to make available an expression of the enterprise, which acts as a collaboration force between enterprise planning, enterprise operations, enterprise structure, aspects of automation such as information systems and databases, and the enabling technological infrastructure. The practice of EA is, therefore, a critical input to defining a research agenda for Enterprise Architecture. It allows recognition of the scale and complexity of technology problems; it also ensures that the unique and situated nature of enterprise goals, functions and processes concerns is reflected in the research concerns.

Defining and tackling research problems in the domain of EA, therefore, requires an engaged scholarship model and active collaboration with the EA practitioners. The Center of EA insists upon industry cooperation for definition of research problems, and researcher-led research efforts that ensure generation as well as use of appropriate theories and research methods. Towards this end, The Center of EA will assemble, manage and lead the focus of Penn State resources to tackle both current and impending problems for realizing the EA vision. Rapid advances in enterprise modeling, data collection at various levels in the enterprise, and data aggregation and presentation technologies provide the opportunity for major improvements in intervening and improving the co-design of business logic and technology infrastructure as well as the various intermediate layers. Applications for the research results are clear in large and networked enterprises, government agencies including defense and homeland security, large and distributed not-for-profit enterprises, and manufacturing as well as service sector firms.

Press Releases

12/8/2011 - Alfabet makes million dollar donation to EA Center

12/8/2011 - Cameron is invited speaker at World CIO Forum

11/30/2011 - Wirpo conference charts the future of EA Center at Penn State

9/28/2011 - Federation of Enterprise Architecture Professional Organizations (FEAPO) signs charter

7/29/2011 - Pinnacle Business Group donates $3.2 million to Penn State Center for Enterprise Architecture

6/1/2011 - Armstrong Process Group donates 9 Million to the Center for Enterprise Architecture

5/6/2011 - Dr. Cameron was recently awarded the Career Achievement Award from The Network Professional Association

4/15/2011 - Architecture & Governance Magazine publishes article on the Center for Enterprise Architecture

Press Releases

Industry Association Partners