Search

 

Kuali Open Source Software

Saving Money for Higher Education

Faced with the expensive prospect of updating its financial information system, Indiana University took an innovative path—choosing to partner with other institutions to meet a challenge they all faced. Together they created a system designed specifically for higher education that will cost significantly less for Indiana University to implement than commercial systems. The project has become a model for other projects in the open source field.

“Most commercial financial software doesn’t meet the needs of higher education,” says Kathleen McNeely, IU associate vice president and executive director of Financial Management Services. “To purchase, convert, and implement a typical vendor-created system to meet Indiana University’s needs would have cost an estimated $20 million. By partnering with other institutions to develop a system for higher education, we have a much more flexible and efficient system—for less than $5 million.”

The savings go way beyond Indiana University. The initial partner institutions—Indiana University, the University of Arizona, the University of Hawaii, Michigan State University, San Joaquin Delta Community College, and Cornell University—made the key decision to apply community source initiatives to the complex and costly function of institutional administration. (Community source software is developed by the users specifically for their purposes and is generally available free to the community.)

With a planning grant funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation in 2004, the group assessed higher education’s readiness for a community source financial system that could be applied to colleges and universities of all sizes, including both public and private institutions. Indiana University received an additional grant from the Mellon Foundation to help fund software development of a financial system. Using an open source approach, partner institutions contributed significant funds and staff time to the project, which was named the Kuali Financial System (KFS).

IU’s Model System

When the partners looked for model systems as they began work, they found one close to home: Indiana University’s Financial Information System (FIS). While many universities are still pushing paper, IU has had a fully implemented electronic workflow system since 1994. McNeely explains that IU’s financial management system—and Kuali, as an extension of that system—features three major benefits—internal controls, which are critical in accounting; electronic authorization through workflow; and electronic documents that utilize the chart of accounts and automatically apply business rules. A major advantage of the system is that it can be upgraded periodically without disruption to ongoing business processes.

The Kuali consortium has expanded, with the University of California, the University of Southern California, the University of Maryland, and Colorado State University joining the original partners, and interest in Kuali among higher education institutions continues to grow. The Kuali Foundation offers a two-day conference called Kuali Days twice a year, attracting hundreds of participants. Kuali has had two releases so far, one in October 2006 and a second in November 2007, with a third planned for fall 2008. All software and material are available under the Educational Community License and can be adopted by colleges and universities without licensing fees.

Collaboration Is the Key

McNeely says a key to the success of IU’s financial management system and its evolution into Kuali has been the strong collaboration between IU’s financial people and University Information Technology Services (UITS): “It’s been a great collaboration between our departments with many positive outcomes.” McNeely is the functional lead for the Kuali Financial System, and Jim Thomas of UITS is the project director. Barry Walsh, IU associate vice president for enterprise software, led the development of the enterprise workflow engine now known as Kuali Enterprise Workflow, and initiated the open source FIS, subsequently named Kuali Financial System. Brad Wheeler, vice president for information technology and chief information officer for IU, co-founded the original Kuali Project and now chairs the Kuali Foundation, Inc. Board of Directors.

“The financial model upon which the Kuali project is based provides a powerful argument for the use of open source software as an alternative to commercial software for administrative systems,” says McNeely. “The collaboration and organization of the project also highlight the synergies that can be created on the administrative side of higher education. The resource commitment by IU and other partner schools has been large, but the result is control of our own destiny, significantly decreased implementation costs due to developed skills and knowledge of staff working on the project, and a specialized software system developed for and by higher education. At the same time, we are able to avoid spending resources on administrative systems when those resources are best spent on the academic mission.”

Read more about the Kuali Financial System.

• Browse All Initiatives
  • Healthcare Cost Containment
  • Kuali Open Source Software
  • Sustainable Procurement

Copyright © 2009 The Trustees of Indiana University | Copyright Complaints