Colorado State University Joins Kuali Foundation to Secure Latest in Business Operations Technology

Colorado State University has joined the Kuali Foundation as an investing partner in the Kuali Financial and Research Administration Systems. The Kuali Foundation is a non-profit organization responsible for sustaining and evolving a comprehensive suite of administrative software that meets the needs of all Carnegie Class institutions.

"After more than a year of detailed investigation, Colorado State University concluded that the Kuali software will uniquely meet our needs for financial and research management," said Pat Burns, vice president for Information Technology.

The synergies inherent in Kuali Financial System and Kuali Research Administration offer functional and operational advantages not otherwise available, Burns said. Additionally, the selection of Kuali will allow Colorado State University to evolve to a state-of-the-art architecture that will make it easier to exchange detailed information with other administrative systems.

CSU joins 20 other university investing partners including Cornell University; Carnegie Mellon University; Massachusetts Institute of Technology; University of California-Berkeley, Davis, Irvine and Santa Barbara; Michigan State University; Florida State University; and Indiana University. Commercial affiliates include Exeter, Huron Consulting, IBM, Integral, rSmart and Syntel Inc.

"Colorado State University is very excited to be a member of Kuali Foundation Partners and is eager to begin contributing to and benefiting from the Kuali community," Burns said.

"Colorado State was vigilant in their assessment of the Kuali systems and community. We are confident that they will be valuable partners in the Kuali community," said Brad Wheeler, chairman of the Kuali Foundation and vice president for Information Technology at Indiana University.

Kuali began in 2004 as a cooperative effort among seven partners and a grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to develop an open-source, community-owned financial system. Success with joint development of Kuali Financial System has led to three other pooled investment projects with coordination by the independent, not-for-profit Kuali Foundation Inc. The software of Kuali projects is available under the Educational Community License to anyone for any use or modification without fee.

Partners such as CSU have influence on the future of the organization and its projects. Colleges, universities and companies become members of the foundation with membership dues pay for shared services such as quality assurance work, packaging, documentation and other work to coordinate the timely enhancement and release of quality software and other services valuable to the members.

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