What is HERM?
The Higher Education Reference Models (HERM) provide standardised business, application and data architectures that communicate a generalised view of how higher education institutions are organised and the information they use. The HERM is now being used in more than a thousand universities around the world.
Curation of the HERM is coordinated by the HERM Working Group within the CAUDIT Enterprise Architecture Community of Practice, which operates in warm global collaboration with its colleagues in UCISA, EUNIS, EDUCAUSE, and other higher-education associations.
HERM and Essential
EAS have partnered with the HERM Working Group to make the HERM available freely and at no cost in both the commercial and open-source editions of the Essential EA tool, in alignment with the HERM being distributed freely under the Creative Commons 4.0 CC BY-NC-SA license. EA teams can now utilise the HERM models in Essential to visualise the landscape, highlight opportunities and provide a clear roadmap of delivery to address the challenges.
These resources can be used by institutions within higher education in a variety of ways, such as a starter kit to accelerate an institution’s digital transformation, business and data architecture, and provide a reference point from which to explore commonalities and differentiators for the institution, and a communication tool to engage colleagues, executives, and collaborators.
The Higher Education Reference Models help everybody using them to:
- Increase the value and efficiency of their architecture teams
- Describe a ‘whole of institution’ view to colleagues within their institution
- Facilitate the exchange of architectural knowledge and good practice in the sector
- Support interoperability and collaboration between member organisations
- Improve engagement with industry in major projects and initiatives
To find out more about the Higher Education Reference Models visit the CAUDIT website at https://caudit.edu.au/communities/caudit-higher-education-reference-models/ or the EDUCAUSE website at https://library.educause.edu/resources/2021/9/the-higher-education-reference-models.
Download the files here:
Already have Essential installed and want to apply the HERM updates, download the HERM installation files.
If you are new to Essential:
Download the HERM repository here.
Download a fully working Standalone version of Essential Open Source Standalone with HERM loaded here.
To arrange a demo of HERM in Essential or to get the HERM Launchpad contact us
HERM In Essential
HERM Business Capability Model with Recipe Card Overlay
HERM Application Reference Model
HERM Data Reference Model
Higher Education User Group
EAS are proud to co-host the Essential Higher Education User Group chaired by EAs from New York University and the University of Sydney. The aim of the group is to collaborate and explore various aspects of Enterprise Architecture (EA) in the context of higher education.
This interactive platform allows us to:
- Exchange thoughts on successful EA implementation
- Discuss strategies for enterprise architecture engagement within HE organisations
- Shape the product development of Essential.
Making HERM freely available in Essential was the outcome of one of our User Group sessions.
If you’re working in EA within higher education and want to be a part of our future sessions, contact us for more details. We vary meeting times to accommodate participants across different time zones across the globe.