Kuali celebrates growth and accomplishments at five year anniversary
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
September 1, 2009
BLOOMINGTON, Ind. -- Five years after its conception, Kuali has grown from a single project with four collaborative member organizations to four thriving projects, several successful implementations, and more than 35 members, including colleges, universities, businesses, and non-profit organizations.
Kuali was announced in 2004 to develop and sustain an open source financial accounting system built specifically for higher education, by higher education. Kuali envisaged a new type of collaboration and organizational model that would allow educational institutions to leverage their investment while retaining control over the direction of software development. Work on the financial system began mid 2005 after a grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and other universities joined.
Now, the Kuali Foundation Inc. (http://kuali.org), operates as an independent, not-for-profit organization that enables member institutions to coordinate their efforts. Kuali projects are self-governed and allow member organizations large and small to be active participants. Nine commercial firms are also members of the foundation and offer for-fee services to support implementation and maintenance of the freely available open source Kuali software.
The success of Kuali's first collaborative project, the Kuali Financial System, is underscored by the addition of new Kuali projects and recent large-scale implementations at Colorado State University (CSU) and San Joaquin Delta Community College.
According to CSU's Vice President for Information Technology and Interim Dean of Libraries Patrick Burns, "We were able to implement the state-of-the-art infrastructure for a fraction of the cost of our peers through a partnership with the Kuali Foundation."
"San Joaquin Delta's implementation proves that Kuali's innovative software development model is not just a boon for large universities, but an incredible cost-saving opportunity for small colleges as well," said Dr. Raśl Rodriguez, President of San Joaquin Delta Community College.
Kuali projects have expanded to include:
• Kuali Financial System, a full-fledged financial accounting system tailored to the needs of higher education
• Kuali Coeus for cradle-to-grave research and grant administration
• Kuali Student, a next-generation student information system
• Kuali Rice, a set of middleware infrastructure that handles common needs of all Kuali applications
Additional Kuali projects, currently in incubation, are expected to launch in the coming years.
More than 400 participants are expected to gather for the Kuali Days conference on November 17-18 in San Antonio, Texas (http://kuali.org/kd/). Individuals from non-member institutions and organizations are encouraged to attend. Kuali Days features separate tracks for each Kuali project, hands-on laboratories and social mixers, and is the best place to learn about Kuali projects and make connections within the Kuali community.
