Advancing Government-wide Enterprise Architecture - A Meta-model Approach

Enterprise Architecture (EA) is regarded as one of the means to ensure information technology interoperability, standard and reuse within an organizational boundary. In the public sector, however, there rises another kind of issues on how to integrate agency EA practices into the whole of government view. The conception of Government-wide EA (GEA) is the results of this consideration, and how to implement GEA has become a major challenge among IT policy makers form many countries. The present article deals with the applied case of modeling EA in the public sector. More specifically the article focuses on the methods and applications of modeling information integration architecture at government-wide level. A meta-modeling approach is used to design GEA database and to communicate with agencies regarding how they should manage agency-level EA information. The article consists of brief history of the EA program of the Korean Government, introduction of the KGEA Meta-model and its evolutionary history, and current status with some major outcomes. Methodological and managerial implications are also discussed.