The Digital Information Enterprise: A Visualization Framework at the Ohio State University

The complex, dynamic, and decentralized nature of the digital information landscape of universities makes identifying authoritative data sets and owners, understanding data flow patterns and connection points, and ascertaining information gaps and disconnects challenging from an enterprise-wide perspective. Not unlike other institutions, stewardship of information systems-of-record at the Ohio State University is highly distributed, often evolving as disconnected entities. The patchwork and oft-proprietary technologies of campus legacy information systems limit data sharing and cross talk. To position our institution for continued success with IT initiatives, we developed a methodology and framework to visualize dynamic, contextualized maps of the university's distributed digital information enterprise.