ArchiMate Modeling Mistakes : A Comparative Analysis of Student Assignments and Prior Research on EA Modeling Mistakes

Enterprise Architecture is one of the core competencies of higher education IS programs and is widely regarded as one the most common ways to produce valuable and usable information for decision-makers regarding business-IT alignment. Prior research notes the limited perceived usefulness of EA visualizations, which are often characterized by their complexity, lack of focus, and inappropriate level of abstraction, which inhibits their effective use for decision-making. Despite this, research on teaching enterprise architecture modeling is scarce, and understanding the problems students face and the solutions to overcome these are lacking. This study reports findings from the analysis of roughly 300 student assignments, collected from an undergraduate course on EA. Our findings indicate that the mistakes made by the students are in line with the prior research, as the student's modeling errors aligned with limitations commonly associated with EA models, such as poor readability, unfit level of abstraction, and either lack of or excessive information in the model.