Kuali Insider
The Bliss of Global e-Docs
Before being introduced to the Kuali Financial System, I'd never worked on a financial application that provided a global change feature. When I saw global e-docs in KFS for the first time and realized what a time saver they are, I felt like saying, "Where have you been all my life?" This functionality remains one of the things I like best about the KFS, so if you're unfamiliar with global e-docs, I'm happy to have this chance to introduce you.
Environment Management Support Specialist, The University of Arizona
The Environment Management Support Specialist is a member of the Mosaic Environment Management Team. This team is part of the Infrastructure component of the Mosaic Project. The position will work with the application support and development teams to create and upgrade the production and development environments, manage the orderly migration of software and data between these environments, tune and troubleshoot when requested, and apply upgrades and application patches as needed. In addition, the Specialist will provide technical support and assist other application support resources to install new PeopleSoft, Kuali, and EPM environments and refresh non-production environments.
Outstanding UA benefits include health, dental, vision, and life insurance; paid vacation, sick leave and holidays; UA/ASU/NAU tuition reduction for employee and qualified family members; access to campus cultural and recreational activities; retirement, and more.
For more information, or if you are interested in applying for this position, please see this page: www.uacareertrack.com/applicants/Central?quickFind=196834
Turning on the ClearCacheJob in the 3.0 Kuali Financial System
One of the batch jobs that was used often during development was the ClearCacheJob. However, just prior to 3.0 release it was removed from the default list of jobs. For some schools, it's still a nice job to have around.
Please note that this batch job is not perfect. Even though it would seem from the name that it should clear all the caches, in reality it does not and what it does clear out is sometimes inconsistent. So use it carefully and if all else fails, restart the application server.
To turn the ClearCacheJob back on, in your spring-sys.xml file make the following changes (either add the values to the lists, or even better, add this code directly to your own version of spring-sys.xml so you don't change any core code):
IU awarded $2.38 million grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to develop library software
BLOOMINGTON, Ind. -- A $2.38 million grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to Indiana University will be used to develop software created specifically for the management of print and electronic collections for academic and research libraries around the world.
IU will lead the Kuali OLE (Open Library Environment) project, a partnership of research libraries dedicated to managing increasingly digital resources and collections. Together, these libraries will develop "community source" software that will be made available to libraries worldwide.Kuali OLE (pronounced Oh-LAY) partners include Indiana University; Florida Consortium (University of Florida representing Florida International University, Florida State University, New College of Florida, Rollins College, University of Central Florida, University of Miami, University of South Florida and the Florida Center for Library Automation); Lehigh University; Triangle Research Libraries Network (represented by Duke University and North Carolina State University); University of Chicago; University of Maryland; University of Michigan; and the University of Pennsylvania.
Large academic research libraries such as these manage and provide access to millions of items, using software to track interrelated transactions that range from ordering and paying for items to loaning materials to library patrons.
As the nature of library collections expands to include more digital materials -- including leased electronic journals and digitized photograph collections -- libraries are increasingly interested in developing management software for these resources, said Interim Ruth Lilly Dean of University Libraries Carolyn Walters.
"Libraries now create, lease and share digital materials, but the systems in place for cataloging and tracking these items are based on print collections," said Walters. "With this project, we benefit from working together with a community of academic libraries that want to change the way that information is managed in the scholarly environment."
"Research libraries are in dire need of systems that can support the management of research collections for the next-generation scholar," said Robert H. McDonald, executive director for the project and IU's associate dean for library technologies. "This approach demonstrates the best of open-source software development, directed partnership resource needs, and a market of commercial support providers to truly align with the needs of research libraries within the higher education environment."
More than 200 libraries, educational institutions, professional organizations and businesses laid the groundwork for the Kuali OLE project by participating in the original OLE project, a design phase that was supported by an earlier grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and led by Duke University.Kuali OLE project researchers will now work to create a next-generation library system that breaks away from print-based workflows and reflects the changing nature of library materials and new approaches to scholarly work.
OLE became an official project of the Kuali Foundation in November. Kuali is a community of universities, colleges, businesses and other organizations that have partnered to build and sustain community-source software for higher education. This affiliation gives Kuali OLE tremendous expertise in developing and sustaining community-based software.
"The Mellon Foundation has a distinguished history of supporting transformative projects for education and cultural preservation," said Brad Wheeler, Kuali Foundation board chair and vice president for information technology at IU. "We are grateful for their support of this open, extensible and deeply collaborative work among the OLE investing libraries. The libraries' choice to anchor the project in the Kuali Foundation will ensure its quality, openness and sustainability for years to come."
"The Kuali OLE collaboration comes at the perfect time," said Deborah Jakubs, Rita DiGiallonardo Holloway University Librarian and vice provost for library affairs at Duke University. "If libraries are to provide excellent support for scholarship and teaching well into the future, we must develop a new model that reflects the true needs of our organizations and facilitates our work in a constantly changing environment. This partnership capitalizes on the experience, the commitment and the energy of a key group of institutions to build that model for the future of research library operations. We are grateful to The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation for recognizing the promise of the OLE project, and to Kuali for offering us this opportunity to align our goals with theirs.
"Jakubs and Wheeler were recently elected co-chairs of the Kuali OLE Board of Directors at its initial board meeting in Washington, D.C., on December 16, 2009.
An accomplished team of librarians select, manage and grow Indiana University's research collections, which include more than 6.6 million books and materials in more than 350 languages. The materials support every academic discipline on campus, with an emphasis in the humanities and social sciences. Collections also include journals, maps, films and sound recordings. Users can access more than 692 databases, 60,315 electronic journals, and 816,255 electronic books, as well as locally developed digital content.
Kuali Foundation Board Comments on Changes at the Mellon Foundation
As many of you have read, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation has merged its Research in Information Technology (RIT) program into the Scholarly Communications program (to be renamed) led by program officer Don Waters. This change at the Mellon Foundation has prompted some questions and considerable misinformation regarding its effect on Kuali Projects. Thus, the Foundation Board wishes to convey the following points:
- Higher Education would have been considerably slower in learning how to pool our resources, synchronize our needs, and develop enterprise-grade software without the timely investments of the Mellon Foundation during the RIT program’s ten years. The Mellon brand and seed capital – always a minor investor relative to the scale of institutional investments – was catalytic in creating the Community Source model of institutional investment and commercial support. For this, the many participants in Kuali projects are deeply grateful to the Mellon Foundation and the work of Ira Fuchs, Chris Mackie, Don Waters, and others over the years.
- Every Kuali project was chartered to be fully self-sustaining without reliance on further investment from any foundation. That remains true today.
- By example, the Kuali Financial System finished its 2005 Mellon grant in 2008. KFS Release 3 was completed by member investments, and KFS is now operating under its sustaining charter and investing members. Kuali Rice has always and only been member funded.
- All existing Mellon grants to the development stages of Kuali Student, Kuali Coeus, and Kuali Open Library Environment will continue without change in cooperation with the expanded portfolio of Don Waters. Don funded the 2005 Licensing and Policy Summit that architected the licensing and contributor agreements now used by many community source projects including Kuali.
- Consistent with the Mellon Foundation’s priorities and recent grants, we anticipate that there will be other IT-related opportunities that focus on the core issues of research, education, and scholarly communications in the future.
Foundations strategically target their investments to areas where their role can be transformative rather than create needs for unending support. We believe that creating/proving the Community Source model – and Kuali projects in particular – exemplify how the decade of Mellon RIT investment achieved its transformative goal. From these lessons, higher education is able to incubate new projects and sustain its existing ones through our own means as that was always a wise requirement from the beginning.
The Kuali Foundation Board of Directors
Kuali Welcomes New Quality Assurance Director
Kuali is excited to welcome Jessica Coltrin as the new Kuali Quality Assurance Director. Jessica started in this new role yesterday, January 4th, 2010. In this position, Jessica will be working with the entire Kuali community on expanding and honing our QA activities. As Kuali matures and begins to embrace code contributions from a variety of members and non-members, it is critical that we ensure protection of the Kuali brand. This “quality” for our brand takes on many perspectives including the code itself, performance, accessibility, licensing, documentation, version control, etc.
Jessica brings a sound background in systems development and QA oversight and has worked in various roles in all phases of the software development life cycle. She has experience with educational institutions and software development companies, having worked at both detail systems development, testing, and management. She comes to us from The University of Arizona, so she will fit well with the new and evolving Kuali team which also includes Zach and Farooq at The U of A. Not only does Jessica have a sound technical background, but she also brings excellent organizational and communication skills.
Jessica's new Kuali email ID is jessica@kuali.org and she will be in touch with many of you to start on this endeavor. Please join us in welcoming Jessica to our Kuali community!
Webinar: Why Use Kuali Rice: The Business Case
Where: <a href='http://www.edu1world.org/submitform/Innovativ-Kuali-Rice/'>Webinar</a>
Event Status: confirmed
Event Description: http://www.edu1world.org/submitform/Innovativ-Kuali-Rice/
Coeus User Conference 2010
Where: <a href='http://www.acteva.com/booking.cfm?bevaID=190594&CFID=19341849&CFTOKEN=60169287'>San Antonio, TX</a>`
Event Status: confirmed
Event Description: http://www.acteva.com/booking.cfm?bevaID=190594&CFID=19341849&CFTOKEN=60169287
Kuali Milestone Video
One of the many highliights of Kuali Days VIII was the Kuali Milestone Video presented during the Wednesday morning General Session. I'm happy to announce that this video has been uploaded to You Tube and is featured on the kuali.org homepage. View it on your smart phone, or in High Definition on your computer. Come check it out at http://kuali.org, or see it directly on You Tube where you can comment on it as well: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=okI9J10KGiA
Two Options for evaluating Kuali Rice
Innovativ Consulting Partners, a leading open source consultant and service provider for online solutions, has announced new trial alternatives for institutions interested in evaluating Kuali Rice, yet do not have the technological infrastructure to initially install it.
Innovativ is offering two alternatives to the institution:
1. A fully-functional virtual image of Kuali Rice 1.0.1 which can be downloaded and installed at the institution – with no need for install/configuration; and
2. A cloud-based environment of a fully-functional configuration of Kuali Rice 1.0.1
“These alternatives provide the institution that would like to evaluate Kuali Rice without re-deploying or making a hardware investment. – Tony DiSanza – Managing Director, Innovativ Consulting Partners.
We would ask you to submit a request for download and one of our team will arrange the download with you.
Kuali: There is More to Open Source Software than Being Open Source
Kuali Days VIII kicked off this morning in San Antonio with a keynote by Daniel Greenstein - Vice Provost of Academic Planning and Programs with University of California Office of the President. Daniel shared some interesting observations about the current state of Higher Education as well as both the benefits and challenges of the Kuali community developed software solutions for Higher Education. Most interesting was his comments regarding the greatest value of the Kuali Open Source not being that it is Open Source. I am paraphrasing here. So one must ask the question. What is the real value and business benefit of the Kuali Open Source software. Many of the founding member institutions will argue it provides a lower cost alternative to commercially distributed solutions from Oracle, SunGard, Datatel, etc. Others argue it provides greater flexibility and integration of the education enterprise. So do academic institutions really want to be in the business of developing administrative software? Can the cost of the migration be justified at an institutional level to achieve the desired outcomes?
These are some of the challenges facing many leaders of higher education institutions. The answers to these questions will vary based on the organizational maturity in both administrative business processes as well as IT operations. rSmart a Sun partner for certified Kuali distributions on the Sun Open Source technology stack has developed a program to help organizations navigate this assessment process with their Kuali Proof of Concept program. Sun and rSmart have partnered to deploy, test, and tune the Kuali software on Sun GlassFish Suite, MySQL, and the Solaris Operating System. Not only does this solution provide higher education with all the benefits and flexibility of open source, it provides them with a commercially supported Kuali distribution. This reduces the software developer requirements and application support personnel among the universities and further reduces their Kuali development and support costs.
