Presentation Summary
This paper introduces a novel Service Reference Model (SRM) designed to turbocharge service delivery and management within higher education. Recognising the increasing importance of effective service provision to students, staff, and the wider community, this work addresses the gap within the Higher Education Reference Models (HERM) by providing a standardised framework for defining and structuring university services.
The SRM offers a hierarchical taxonomy of services, detailing service offerings, customer access channels, and key service features. It employs a "Jobs To Be Done" approach to ensure services are aligned with actual user needs and provides a clear linkage between services and the underlying business capabilities.
This paper will outline the SRM's architecture, its relationship to other HERM components (Business Capability Model, Data Reference Model, etc.), and its benefits for higher education institutions. These benefits include:
- Promoting Enterprise Service Management (ESM) adoption.
- Enabling service benchmarking and alignment across institutions.
- Facilitating service automation.
- Accelerating service design and improvement.
By providing a common language and structure for services, this SRM empowers universities to optimise service delivery, enhance the student experience, and drive institutional effectiveness.
Meet the Speakers
Galen White
Consulting Director, Higher Education, FromHereOn
Galen White is a digital strategist and change facilitator with over 30 years of global consulting experience in higher education and large-scale enterprises. In his role as Director Higher Education at FromHereOn, Galen has developed major transformation programs across Australia, the UK, Europe, and Asia—focusing on sector outcomes and helping institutions navigate complex challenges in digital strategy, service design, and AI planning.<br><br>Since 2010, Galen has contributed to higher education standards, most recently co-developing the Higher Education Service Portfolio Model (SPM)—an accelerator entrusted to CAUDIT and its global partners that helps universities fast-track digital and AI initiatives.<br><br>He has delivered strategic transformation and investment roadmaps for more than 35 large organizations and provides pro-bono advisory services to organisations focused on climate safety, energy transition, and ecosystem restoration, bringing a systems-thinking approach to both education and broader societal challenges.
Nigel Foxwell
Associate Director Strategy, Architecture, And Delivery, James Cook University
Nigel is the Associate Director of Strategy, Architecture, and Delivery at James Cook University, where he leads transformative initiatives at the intersection of technology and academia.<br><br>With a 25 year career in IT, Nigel is widely recognised for his leadership in digital strategy and enterprise architecture. Throughout his career, Nigel has spearheaded high-impact projects, transforming customer engagement, operations excellence, and strategic technology alignment, as well as leading cybersecurity programmes and performing senior leadership roles.<br><br>Nigel has dedicated more than a decade to specialising in Enterprise Architecture in higher education. As the co-chair of the CAUDIT Enterprise Architecture Community of Practice, and co-convenor of the CAUDIT HERM working group, he is at the centre of enabling strategy to execution through architecture. Nigel continues to focus on leadership and new ways of working to drive positive change and transformation in academic and digital landscape.
Greg Sawyer
Chief Executive Officer, CAUDIT
Greg Sawyer joined CAUDIT in January 2020 as Director, Cybersecurity Program and was appointed CAUDIT's Chief Executive Officer in April 2022. Greg was seconded as the Strategic Initiatives Development Manager in 2019 from the USYD. Greg has over 20 years’ experience in the Higher Education sector between the University of Sydney and UNSW.
