Modelling a UK University in ArchiMate: One Model, Sixteen Views
A university's architecture reaches from an applicant choosing a course to a graduate receiving an award, and well beyond that into research, finance, estates and digital services. Each team needs to understand its own part of that picture. The difficult questions usually sit between them: how does an agreed assessment adjustment reach the exam team? Which applications support a research award? What has to change before a new student service can work?
Revelation's UK university reference model brings these connections together in 194 elements and 380 relationships, explored through 16 views. You can start with strategy, follow the student journey, inspect the applications behind it, or look at the technology they depend on. The elements are shared across views, so the Student records platform is the same element wherever it appears.
Open the Revelation EA tool and follow along with the university model.
Start with the student journey
Open Menu ▸ Browse reference models…, and under ArchiMate choose UK University — Enterprise Architecture. You'll also find it under Sector Models ▸ Education, labelled UK University — ArchiMate Enterprise Architecture. Both entries open the same model.
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Begin with the purpose
The model opens on 01 Strategy and outcomes. Follow the connections between institutional drivers, goals, principles and capabilities: inclusive student success, responsible research, and a sustainable and resilient institution. -
Follow admission into registration
In the Layout menu's Views list, choose 03 Recruitment, admissions and registration. UCAS and direct applications, offers, confirmation, Clearing and registration sit alongside the applications and records that support them. -
Look inside learning and assessment
Switch to 04 Learning, assessment and awards. Teaching, laboratory learning and placements connect to coursework, examinations and practical assessment, then to progression, reassessment and graduation. Programme teams, Registry and assessment boards each have a place in that picture. -
Explore what changes the arrangements
Choose 05 Inclusive assessment and additional consideration. This brings support decisions, assessment delivery, case management and academic decisions together, making it easier to discuss who needs which information and when.
Each view gives you a smaller set of connections to work through. Use it to ask a specific question, then move to another view when the conversation reaches the next team's responsibilities.
Assessment has more than one route
A single box labelled “assessment” leaves a lot unexplained. Coursework deadlines, timed examinations, practical assessments, laboratory activities and placements have different delivery arrangements. The inclusive-assessment view makes these explicit and shows how support and circumstance decisions reach them.
| Part of the model | What it captures | A useful question to ask |
|---|---|---|
| Reasonable adjustments | Agreed support plans and the instructions needed by teaching and assessment teams. | How does an agreed arrangement reach the people delivering an exam, practical or placement? |
| Additional consideration / EC casework | Unexpected circumstances and authorised outcomes, such as extensions or deferrals. | Where is the decision recorded, and which assessment arrangements need to change? |
| Boards, reassessment and appeals | Progression and award decisions, further assessment opportunities, and review routes. | How do authorised circumstance decisions reach a board, and how is a subsequent appeal handled? |
The model keeps support plans and additional-consideration case records distinct, with connections to the case management platform, learning environment and assessment platform. That gives teams a starting point for discussing how relevant instructions travel while sensitive case information stays with the people who need it.
Read the connections as architecture: these relationships describe responsibilities, dependencies and information flows. Detailed timings, gateway decisions and exception handling belong in the process model. Here, circumstance decisions are recorded separately from marking and board decisions, with the institution's own regulations determining the permitted outcomes.
The rest of the university is connected too
The student journey is one way into the model. The other views let different teams explore the same institution from their own starting point:
- Organisation and student support: views 02 and 06 cover accountability, advice, wellbeing, engagement, accommodation and careers.
- Research and institutional operations: views 07 and 08 cover proposals, ethics, awards, outputs and impact, alongside finance, people, estates, quality and reporting.
- Applications, information and services: views 09, 10 and 13 connect application cooperation, data governance, privacy and resilience with the digital services that support university work.
- Technology and the campus: view 11 brings hosting, networks, recovery and research computing together with teaching spaces, laboratories and equipment.
- Change and external partners: views 12 and 14 show an illustrative transformation portfolio and the university's connections to admissions, funding, sector data and other partners.
- Inventory and overview: view 15 presents the 21 application components in a grid. All elements opens the whole model when you need to explore across the scoped views.
For example, start with a research process in view 07, examine its application services, then use view 11 to explore research computing. Or begin with a proposed student-service change in view 12 and use the application and data views to examine its dependencies.
Shared definitions, with the layout taken care of
The model has 15 scoped views and one whole-model view. An element can appear in several of them, but its name, type, owner and description come from one shared definition. Rename an application and that name follows it into every view where it appears. Each view chooses the part of the architecture needed for its conversation.
You can also begin modelling before deciding where every box belongs. None of the reference model's views has saved positions or dimensions: Revelation gives the ArchiMate elements their default size and places them automatically using the selected layout. The scoped diagrams use Drag & Drop; the application inventory uses Grid.
No coordinates required: an element without saved geometry still appears in its view. Revelation uses the default dimensions and calculates a position, so adding a definition to a view is enough to get started. You can then arrange the diagram for the discussion you want to have.
The application inventory deliberately shows the components without connectors. Use 09 Application cooperation and integration when you want to examine their connections.
Making it your university
Start with a view that answers a question your team already has. Check the element descriptions and owners, rename the organisational units, and replace the logical application names with those used locally. Then review the relationships with the people who deliver the service.
Use Layout ▸ Save as a new view… to keep a view for a particular workshop or audience. A Registry discussion might concentrate on assessment decisions and student records; a digital-services discussion might follow the same processes into integrations and identity. Both can work with the same underlying definitions.
A starting point for local modelling: this is a fictional university based in England. Its governance, external bodies, support arrangements and change portfolio are illustrative. Adapt them for your institution and UK nation, including the terminology and academic regulations your teams actually use.
The implementation and migration view gives you example gaps, work packages, deliverables and baseline and target states to adapt. Add your own priorities and dependencies before turning it into an institutional change plan.
Try it
Open the university model and choose one question: how does an assessment adjustment reach the right team, what supports the research lifecycle, or which applications would a proposed change affect? Follow the connections across the views and use what you find to shape your own model.
The model is available from Menu ▸ Browse reference models… under ArchiMate and Sector Models ▸ Education.