The Application of Zachman Framework in Architecting a Collaborative Digital Library

Abstract

This paper illustrates the possibility of using an Enterprise Architecture as an instrument for requirements analysis and evaluation in digital library development. The collaborative digital library has been conceived to support secondary school students information needs in conducting school-based projects. The researchers examine the needs of digital library stakeholders and how a collaborative digital library might be designed to meet these needs. Zachman Framework for Enterprise Architecture was used as the approach to investigate the user requirements and define the digital library organisation, resources, processes, technology and information flows. In applying Zachman Framework and to holistically control the study, the case study approach and multiple data collection techniques were adopted. Information obtained from these data gathering techniques helps to populate the requirements of the top three layers (18 cells) in Zachman Framework to ascertain the design details of the digital library’s scope, business and system model. The framework abstracts the characteristics and features of the digital library based on six dimensons, Motivation, Data, People, Process, Place and Time, and explains their structures and processes from the perspectives of the planner, owner and designer of the digital library. This paper provides the detailed mapping between the first three layers of the Zachman cells and the dimensions utilized in formulating the requirements and design of the collaborative digital library. It consists of the various elements that a digital library should provide for as delineated in several frameworks being conceptualized and described in digital library research since 1995 for the design, development, and evaluation of digital libraries. Instead of listing the elements as requirements, the researchers embed the requirement process and development in an architectural framework, thus presenting it more systematically taking into account the six digital library dimensions mentioned earlier