| Kuali is a suite of Open Source products being | | | | documentation, project management, software |
| developed by the Kuali foundation schools and | | | | testing and quality assurance, conference planning, |
| several commercial affiliates. It can be compared to | | | | and educating and assisting members of the Kuali |
| similar products sold by Oracle/PeopleSoft and SAP. | | | | Partners program. |
| The Foundation coordinates the efforts of partners, | | | | Why is this important? Higher Education institutions |
| and manages and protects the Foundation's | | | | face reduced governmental funding and are looking |
| intellectual property. The Kuali Foundation manages a | | | | for many ways to reduce and/or avoid costs and |
| growing portfolio of enterprise software applications | | | | keep tuitions in check. |
| for colleges and universities, such as Kuali Financial | | | | This solution offers the promise of more functionality |
| System (KFS), Kuali Coeus (KC), and Kuali Student | | | | for schools living with legacy systems. Open |
| (KS). It is built upon an Open Source framework, | | | | technology enables institutions to grow and/or |
| some of which is being created. The core | | | | maintain talent. Open Source offers potentially |
| technological infrastructure is called Kuali Rice (KR) - | | | | reduced costs in difficult economic times. Some of |
| KFS, KC and KS use this framework, but each are | | | | the most innovative aspects of this solution is its |
| architected slightly differently. | | | | modularity - built on a SOA architecture, the |
| A lightweight Foundation staff coordinates the | | | | architecture provides better customization and |
| activities of Foundation members for critical software | | | | modularity among functional modules. |
| development and coordination activities such as | | | | This is the future of applications in Higher Education. |
| source code control, release engineering, packaging, | | | | |