Service-Oriented Architectures: the way forward for FE and HE?

Education, like other sectors, has become heavily reliant on ICT systems
for the efficient running of all aspects of its operations. In common with
other sectors these systems have often developed in varying degrees of
isolation across differing parts of the campus and although many of these
systems were not originally designed to interact with each other there is
increasing interest in allowing them to be integrated to provide what are
known as 'enterprise-level systems' with complex
cross-dependencies.  

 In industry, the main way of achieving this level of integration is
increasingly through the uptake of Service-Oriented Architectures (SOA)—a
set of key principles rather than a specific technology. There is now a
buzz around SOA and a bandwagon has developed within the industry of
vendors, consultants and system integrators, but there is also considerable
confusion as to the true meaning of such an approach.

Jisc Technology and Standards Watch (Jisc TSW) would like to commission a
peer-reviewed report on Service-Oriented Architecture, its relevance to
HE/FE, and its likely future direction. Anyone interested in becoming
involved in the report should read the full open call, available from the
TechWatch website: the TechWatch
website.