FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Higher Education Open Source Financial System Project Launches

Kuali Project Will Offer Customization to Institutions

Bloomington, IN, August 30, 2004 ----- Indiana University, the University of Hawaii, the National Association of College and University Business Officers (NACUBO), and the r-smart group announced today the formation of the “Kuali Project” to create a new community source financial information system for colleges and universities.  The system will include a comprehensive suite of functionality to serve the financial systems needs of all Carnegie Class institutions.

Like the Sakai Project, the Open Source Portfolio Initiative (OSPI), Chandler/Westwood and a growing list of others, the Kuali Project will pool institutional investments and other resources to develop the software using open source practices.  It will be available to all under a no-fee, open-open license that does not restrict its further development or commercial involvement.

The Kuali Project developed from the insights of a planning grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to NACUBO.  The planning grant assessed higher education’s readiness for an open source financial system project and its applicability across various sized colleges and universities. 

James E. Morley, Jr., president and CEO of NACUBO, said, “NACUBO is delighted to be engaged from the beginning in defining the Kuali Project FIS software.  We look forward to being an active partner as the software development moves forward.”

The Kuali Project partners will contribute staff and services worth more than $2.5 million during the two year development timeframe.  These contributed resources will be coordinated into a single team working under the direction of a board of governance.  College and university partners that wish to be a part of the initial design and development phase are invited to consider joining the Kuali Project.  The Open Knowledge Initiative (OKI) and the uPortal (JA-SIG) consortium round out the consulting partners for the project.  Partners will be implementing some parts or all of the software at their institutions.

“The Kuali Project represents a logical next step for application software in higher education.  The community source model for leveraging university investments while retaining control of destiny makes perfect sense for developing a financial system,” said Brad Wheeler, IU associate vice president and dean of information technology.
 
“The University of Hawaii is pleased to be able to work with our colleagues at NACUBO and IU as founding partners in creating this system.  UH sees clear advantages in investing in ourselves and our own ability to meet our institutional requirements in a cost-effective manner through collaboration,” proclaimed David Lassner, CIO, University of Hawaii.

“Kuali offers a unique opportunity to build on our proven experience with financial systems that meet the needs of colleges and universities.  Such partnering can address many of the concerns that fiscal officers in higher education have about the life-cycle costs of acquiring, maintaining and operating these kinds of systems,” mentioned Barry Walsh, managing director, financial management services, Indiana University.

The Software

The Kuali Project will create software that address such functional elements as a flexible chart of accounts, general ledger, general accounting, accounts receivable, capital asset management, pre- and post-award administration, purchasing, accounts payable, cash receipting and disbursement, travel requisition and reimbursement, auxiliary accounting, Web-based e-commerce, and budget construction and administration.  The design will be an enhancement of the proven functionality of Indiana University’s Financial Information System.  A critical element of the system is the XML-based EDEN© workflow for routing and approval of financial transactions.  Extensive data warehousing and decision support tools will be an integral part of the system with full compliance for FASB and GASB reporting. 

An important element of the Kuali Project software will be its modular architecture. Institutions need implement only those functional elements that meet their needs.  This modularity and a highly flexible chart of accounts will enable the software to be scaled to meet the needs of complex multi-campus research-intensive institutions as well as small private, liberal arts institutions, or community colleges.

Users will access the software via an enhanced version of the popular uPortal system now in wide use by higher education and businesses.  Colleges and universities will have the ability to choose the system components they wish to make available to their campuses and offer additional types of university services via the portal.

The open source nature of the project will give information technology professionals across the nation the ability to engage in continuous improvement and innovation for application software, such as that witnessed for Linux and Apache.  This will enable them to give fiscal officers and all members of their university communities web-based tools to conveniently execute their college and university responsibilities.  And it will provide program managers and administrators with ready access to current information for analysis and decision-making.

Kuali Project: http://kuali.org
Indiana University: http://www.indiana.edu
University of Hawaii: http://www.hawaii.edu
NACUBO:  http://www.nacubo.org
r-smart group: http://www.rsmart.edu

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Editors: A feature article in the August 2004 issue of Business Officer magazine is dedicated to open source software issues. The article is available at http://www.nacubo.org/x4291.xml.