In a recent issue of Computing Business, Diagonal Consulting’s Melvin James set out the benefits of service-oriented architectures (SOAs).

While the potential positives of such technologies for chief information officers in the private sector are well-formed, we should also ask whether they can be realised in higher and further education.

Thankfully, this issue is being addressed by global communities taking part in the e-Framework initiative, including the Joint Information Systems Committee (Jisc) in the UK, the Department for Education, Science and Training in Australia, and the Ministry of Education in New Zealand.

Partners in the initiative – all national bodies that fund information and communication technology (ICT) development for education and research – found that they were asking the same question: as an SOA is developed for the needs of a single organisation, how can it best be supported at a sector-wide level?

The solution is through the funding of programmes, but more specifically the provision of an open knowledge base of information about services and open standards that can be used by any college or university looking to develop its own SOA.

As Melvin pointed out, at its core, SOA is about developing reusable services that can be brought together to support business processes. But how do we determine those specific processes and services?

We know from project assessment specialist Standish Group’s Chaos Report that the single most important factor in successful software projects is engaging users.

Such commitment is not easy at the organisation level, and it becomes even harder at the sector level.

But when it comes to the higher education and further education sectors, Jisc has a unique advantage in having equal access to the user community and to the sector’s own internal IT developer community.

In its programmes, Jisc therefore has the opportunity to bring both sides to gether to develop solutions.

By tapping into the communities of expertise in different domains – such as education, research, libraries, administration and IT services – Jisc is encouraging groups to identify areas where there are significant problems and opportunities.

The next step is to model current processes and to support development practices. Such work will enable education communities to work with developers, consequently enhancing human workflows and supporting ICT systems and processes.

Information entities that are common within a domain, as well as generic functions across domains – such as security, information management, workflow and collaboration – can then be identified and factored out as services.

Creating such abilities in the sector is a unique innovation, although it builds on domain engineering efforts at the Software Engineering Institute at Carnegie Mellon University in the early 1990s, where engineers attempted to build component-based application families.

While specific SOA programmes are being carried out at a national level, developing the knowledge base web site is the international e-Framework initiative’s major collaborative activity.

The web site, www.e-framework.org, consists of three main sections: information about services and links to related open specifications and standards; how such services can be integrated to support particular processes; and guidance and techniques for developing and using open standards and services.

Although in its early stages of development and seen as a work in progress, the site enables partners to share findings from their programmes, co-ordinate activities, and work to promote common standards.

The factoring of services and their grouping into types is likely to require several versions, with new specifications and new ways of using SOAs emerging in time. The intention is that it should become a resource for institutions and developers.

But how does industry engage with the e-Framework, beyond using the knowledge base web site? The short answer is by working with the programmes of various partners, and by engaging with communities of expertise and their concerns.

Working together to create systems through practice, processes and software goes well beyond traditional survey and focus group techniques.

Jisc and its e-Framework partners are planning an industry workshop in late January 2007 in London to emphasise the importance of collaboration between industry and education.

Bill Olivier is director of systems and technology at the Joint Information Systems Committee (Jisc).