Kuali Foundation aggregator

Kuali Foundation Communications: Treasury Institute Publishes White Paper on Kuali Endowment Management

Tue, 31 Aug 2010 10:21:25 -0400

Posted:

Aug 31, 2010

The Treasury Institute has published a white paper on Kuali Endowment Management, a module of the Kuali Financial System that is slated for release in November of this year. You can download the white paper at http://www.treasuryinstitute.org/KEM%20Whitepaper.pdf, and learn more about Kuali Endowment Management at Kuali Days in November.

Kuali Foundation Communications: Kuali Days 2010 Update: Registration, Sponsorship Opportunities and More

Sun, 29 Aug 2010 10:57:29 -0400

Posted:

Aug 29, 2010

Kuali Days 2010

Manchester Grand Hyatt- San Diego, California

November 8-10

http://www.kuali.org/kd/kd2010

Conference Program in Process
The Call for Proposals has ended and the Conference Committee is in the process of reviewing over 100 contributions! The Track Chairs are excited about the contributions and have provided the following snapshots of the content you might expect to hear at the conference.

Kuali Coeus – Paul Sandoval, Track Chair
Looking to the Future - Kuali Coeus 2.0 contains Proposal/Budget with grants.gov system to system interface, Institute Proposal, Proposal Log and Award. This year the track will include discussion of the current/future modules and also give you in insight as to how implementing schools are configuring each module to meets its own needs.

Kuali Financial Systems, Theresa Todd, Track Chair
Live and in use – the Kuali Financial System has propelled from ‘Theory to Practice’. The KFS track this year has added new exciting topics to cover all levels of users. For those getting their feet wet, we still provide the pre-conference workshop KFS Basics, as well as demonstrations of different modules of the KFS system. Developers can attend the pre-conference workshop – KFS Hands-On Developer Introduction. For the more advanced user more exciting advanced topics are offered such as Security, Financial Reporting, KFS Year-end and Training Campus. Don’t miss the introduction of the new Kuali Endowment Module. And everyone is invited to join in on the many Birds of a Feather (BOF) topics where ideas and issues can be discussed with your peers.

Kuali Rice – Emily Deere, Track Chair
As the Track Coordinator of the Rice Track, I can say we’ve come a long way in a year with Rice! Our pre-conference workshops set the stage with details on Kuali Rice Installation & Configuration and integration with Kuali Identity Management (KIM). Both the new and familiar will benefit from our roadmap and business case sessions. In addition we’ve sessions focused on integration, KRAD, Lightweight UI clients and much more.

Implementation Track, John Hunter, Track Chair
The Implementation Track offers many opportunities for implementing schools to share information for a successful conversion to KFS. Sessions offered are from theory (implementation strategies and business process analysis) to practice (lessons learned, yearend and financial statements). Whether you are implementing Kuali Financials, Kuali Coeus or both, this track has it all!

Kuali Student, Matt Coombs, Track Chair
As the Track Coordinator of the Kuali Student Track, I am pleased to report steady and consistent progress as we have moved from theory to downloadable code! The conference presentations will give you all the details you will need on Kuali Student releases, implementation and integration with other Kuali components like Kuali Identity Management (KIM) and Kuali Enterprise Workflow (KEW), as well as third party systems such as Red Lantern and Sigma. Whether you are just curious and kicking the tires or are a serious Kuali Student investigator, you will be able to interact with the project leadership, participate in discussions regarding status and roadmap, and listen to implementers share their recent experiences with the newest releases. Come join us!

Other Track - Zach Naiman, Track Chair
The Other Topics track is loaded with exciting sessions, including sessions on the newer Kuali projects (Kuali Ready, Kuali OLE and Kuali People Management for the Enterprise), implementing Kuali outside the US, Kuali for government, decision support, procurement process, KFS-KC integration, capturing software requirements, building a good user interface, evolving collaboration infrastructure and more!

Be sure to check the Kuali Days Website for more information about the conference program including pre-conference workshops and general session speakers. The full conference program is scheduled to be online in mid-September.

Conference Sponsorships Available
The Kuali Days Conference Committee invites companies who want to engage with a growing community of universities, colleges, businesses, and other organizations that have partnered to build and sustain open source administrative software for higher education by higher education to participate in the conference through sponsorship opportunities.

Kuali Days 2010 Registration
Don’t miss out on this conference! Register early and save!

Kuali Days 2010 Hotel Reservations
The beautiful Manchester Grand Hyatt located on the San Diego Bay and next to Sea Port Village awaits your reservation. The cut off date for making sure you get the conference special rate of $169 is October 15, 2010.

Job Announcements: Kuali OLE Seeks Senior Architect and Data Architect

Fri, 20 Aug 2010 16:26:30 -0400

Posted:

Aug 20, 2010

The Kuali OLE project is hiring for two positions:

Senior Architect
Data Architect

Senior Architect

Job Description: Ensures successful design of the Kuali OLE services-oriented management system and the evolution of the architecture to meet the needs of the Kuali OLE partnership. The Kuali OLE system will be designed using best practices and existing software from the Kuali Rice middleware and Kuali Financial System software. Acts as a leader and a mentor to other Kuali OLE core technical staff as they begin their education/training in the Kuali Rice middleware, develops the framework for the Kuali OLE software, and works closely with the Kuali OLE Project Manager in outsourcing the primary coding of the Kuali OLE software with a contract vendor. Ensures that the applications follow the standards and functional design set by the Kuali OLE Functional Council and the Kuali OLE Board, that developments use the latest versions of Kuali infrastructure, that Kuali OLE takes advantage of relevant and emerging functionality, and that requirements for Kuali OLE are communicated to inform development of Kuali Rice and other Kuali software involved in the development of Kuali OLE.

Qualifications: Bachelor's degree and five years of professional programming experience working with enterprise applications, including at least one year of technical team leadership experience required. An equivalent combination of education and experience may be considered. Proficiency in Java and experience with one or more relational database such as Oracle, MS SQL Server, etc.; strong SQL/relational database/data modeling skills; and extensive systems analysis and design experience with enterprise systems is required. Experience with Java application design/design patterns; good oral and written communication skills; strong work ethic; ability to solve problems quickly; ability to motivate others; and excellent skills in leadership, problem-solving, decision-making, and communications needed. Experience with other Kuali Foundation software projects a plus.
https://jobs.iu.edu/joblisting/index.cfm?jlnum=1924&search=2

Data Architect

Job Description: Ensures the successful logical and physical design of the Kuali Open Library Environment (OLE) data architecture to meet the needs of the Kuali OLE user community. The Kuali OLE system will be designed using best practices and existing software from the Kuali Rice middleware and Kuali Financial System software. Acts as a consultant and guide to the Kuali OLE data model team as they gather and document data requirements. Converts those requirements into a well-documented, logical data model; conducts quality assurance for the data model in conjunction with the user community; and oversees the build/implementation of the physical data model. Works closely with the Kuali OLE Project Manager and the Kuali OLE Senior Technical Architect to ensure models are built according to schedule and that they meet the technical requirements and standards established by the Kuali OLE Functional Council and the Kuali OLE Board. Ensures that Kuali OLE takes advantage of relevant and emerging functionality, and that requirements for Kuali OLE are communicated to inform development of Kuali Rice and other Kuali software involved in the development of Kuali OLE.

Qualifications: REQUIRED: Bachelor’s degree and three years of professional data architecture experience with both normalized and denormalized models.

A combination of education and experience may be considered. Extensive experience with one or more relational database such as Oracle, MS SQL Server, etc. required. Strong SQL/relational database/data modeling skills and experience with metadata documentation tools and data design tools (ERwin/Designer) required. Good oral and written communication skills; strong work ethic; ability to solve problems quickly; ability to motivate others; and excellent skills in leadership, problem-solving, decision-making, and communication needed. Experience with other Kuali Foundation software projects a plus.
https://jobs.iu.edu/joblisting/index.cfm?jlnum=2314&search=2

Kuali Foundation Communications: Confluence Upgrade This Weekend

Wed, 18 Aug 2010 09:21:42 -0400

Posted:

Aug 18, 2010

Kuali will be updating our wiki to the most recent version of Confluence this Saturday night.

Although the new version of Confluence is not very different from our current version, we encourage everybody to have a look at the new version before we go live. You can log in to the new version using your Kuali Single-Sign-On credentials at http://wiki.kuali.org.

After this weekend, the URL of our Confluence will change from http://test.kuali.org/confluence to http://wiki.kuali.org

Note that you can see the Kuali Foundation's infrastructure calendar, which includes changes like these and our regular maintenance schedule, at the bottom of the KIS home page (http://kuali.org/kis)

If you have any questions or concerns, please contact the Kuali Foundation staff by writing to help@kuali.org.

Filtered Affiliate Feeds: Apples, Oranges, and Open Source

Thu, 12 Aug 2010 12:17:28 -0400

Comparing open source vs. proprietary software is like comparing apples and oranges. It’s a comparison that just doesn’t make sense for anything other than the basic comparison of licensing rights.

There are great variations among open source options, and among proprietary options. Yet many conversations about open source software tend to use very broad generalizations and treat each of these (open or proprietary) as a distinct thing. I’m involved in a lot of conversations about adopting open source software and I’m always struck by the black & white view of proprietary vs. open.

At the highest level organizations and even governments are adopting an ideological disposition that favors “open” vs. “closed.” In the education community there is often an affinity toward openness because of the alignment with core values and the mission of the academy. This is a good and healthy way to set strategy.

When it comes to making a decision about a particular need though, many people and organizations are looking for a pragmatic approach to making decisions about their options. Even those who have an established strategy that considers open source need to make specific decisions about the options for a particular need. This is where the simple open source vs. proprietary discussion breaks down. The general distinctions between open source and proprietary provide almost no useful information to inform a choice between X open source product, and Y proprietary product. In fact, most often, the choice isn’t really between X and Y, it’s between W, X, Y, and Z, where the other options represent the new choices afforded by open licensing.

Colleges, universities, K-12 schools and districts, have more choice today than ever when it comes to enterprise software. Despite a great deal of consolidation in the proprietary software vendor space, the emergence of community-developed, open licensed software, and SaaS services have more than filled the competitive void. I work in the Kuali and Sakai communities that together produce some of the most mission-critical enterprise systems for schools: eLearning Platform, Financials, Research, Student, Business Continuity, and more.

Some of the most important questions an institution can ask when considering the various options aren’t those that appear in an RFP with a feature matrix. They are introspective questions about institutional culture and capabilities–where the institution is today, and where it would like to be. And also, of course, what are the goals for the new system?

I spend a lot of time talking to people considering open source “alternatives” to the proprietary eLearning and ERP systems. I’ve recently begun to use a tool in those conversations that helps facilitate the conversation. If I’m near a whiteboard I’ll use that, otherwise the iPad makes a good mobile whiteboard alternative. Here’s a snapshot from a recent conversation:

This simple visual has been a very effective way of elaborating the choices for these software needs and comparing them on two dimensions. The two I’ve focused on have been cost and control. I typically talk about 5 different sourcing options:

Licensed proprietary software
“Home grown” software developed at the institution
“DIY” (do-it-yourself) open source software (OSS)
Commercial OSS
Software as a Service (SaaS) OSS

Among the various choices it’s fairly easy to paint a picture of the options relative to cost and control tradeoffs. These aren’t the only dimensions to consider, but they are two that should be central to the decision. I should also note that control can directly relate to risk, strategic fit, and institutional capabilities (both current and desired future). One of the other reasons I’ve often focused on cost / control is because one of the most often cited reasons for looking at open source eLearning or ERP options is greater control.

You might be looking at the diagram, thinking… “He’s nuts. That green dot should be lower (or higher) or further to the right.” Good thinking. There isn’t one right way to paint this picture. It’s a conversational tool that needs to be adapted to fit the specific situation you’re talking about. I believe that there’s some “rough general truth” to the relative positions I’ve indicated, but the real usefulness is in the conversation & thinking that this tool facilitates, not where I’ve placed the data points.

As a starting point I’ll use this to understand current institutional culture and capabilities. How are systems generally sourced today? In some cases economics or new institutional leadership are driving a cultural change. The diagram can be a useful tool to understand how the various options support that desired change. It’s also interesting to note that the culture around things like eLearning or Research might be very different than the culture around Financials.

One of the most interesting conversations is about the various open source options. Ok, this is probably most interesting because it’s where I’ve focused for the past 8 years or so. Most people assume that to consider open source they have to hire software engineers and generally have to support it differently than the proprietary system they are replacing (the “DIY OSS” option). By the way most research and media coverage makes the same assumption. The visual helps to clarify that option relative to other options. There are good reasons an institution might move from proprietary or home grown to DIY OSS. There may be a strong institutional culture driving it. Often though, institutions believe that to leverage something like the Sakai eLearning platform they have to move to DIY OSS. And if that’s not a match to the institutional culture, or they don’t have the resources and don’t want to build the necessary capacity, the analysis stops. Most institutions, in fact, adopt open source software in the very same way they adopt proprietary software. But the options aren’t widely understood.

If you are involved in sourcing a replacement system, or a new capability for your institution. You have lots of options. Consider them all. You may find that’s it’s a useful exercise to compare the characteristics of each that are important to your institution. This should be a very strategic discussion that starts by determining the characteristics that are important to your institution: cost, risk, capabilities, control of future capabilities, alignment of values, future potential, opportunities for staff development, opportunities to align with peer institutions, etc. From there it’s a much simpler comparison exercise to understand how each option supports your goals.

Tagged: education, kuali, open source, sakai, software

Job Announcements: Kuali Student Seeks Test Engineer, Senior Developer, User Experience Designer

Tue, 10 Aug 2010 13:12:06 -0400

Posted:

Aug 10, 2010

Kuali Student is currently seeking to fill the below positions. Please send cover letter and resume via e-mail to ks.jobs@kuali.org

Testing Engineer
Senior Developer/Lead
User Experience (UX) Designer

Depending on the circumstances of the successful applicants, these positions could be established in a number of ways, including:

an employment agreement between the applicant and a KS Partner institution
as a personal consultancy directly to the Kuali Foundation
other arrangements will be considered

Testing Engineer
The ideal candidate should have excellent communication skills, a passion for testing in an open source community, the ability to automate test cases using open source tools, scripting and/or coding languages, and a devotion to tracking down the cause of hard to find bugs.
The Kuali Student Testing Engineer has the following responsibilities:

Designs, builds and implements test frameworks and reusable test components
Works with the QA manager to develop test plans for non-functional testing
Writes and executes reusable test cases at the white and grey box levels using open source tools, scripting and/or coding languages
Automates repetitive and low level test cases
Records and communicates test results
Files defects using a defect tracking system (JIRA)
Works with development to help pinpoint root causes
Manages and maintains one or more libraries of automated tests

The incumbent should have the following skill set:

5 -7 years experience testing web service solutions
Computer Science degree or equivalent experience
Experience reviewing, writing and applying an object oriented programming language (JAVA) towards testing
Experience applying a scripting language to automate test cases (Ruby, Javascript, Perl)
Experience automating web browser testing (Selenium, Watir)
Comfortable building and navigating source code with little help
Experience with MySQL and/or Oracle
Knowledge of web service architectures
Knowledge of industry standards including SOAP, XML, WSDL

Senior Developer/Lead
The Kuali Student Development Lead has the following responsibilities:

Works closely with Business Analysts and Subject Matter Experts to ensure a clear understanding of the business requirements
Develops plans and supervises work of Developers
Provides technical leadership and mentors developers to develop their skills
Works with Developers to resolve technical issues and problems that occur within the team
Ensure Developers write unit and component tests
Ensure Developers commit code so that it may be part of continuous integration
Performs quick-turnaround for code that breaks builds/tests done in continuous integration
Ensures code analysis takes place
Performs regular code reviews
Ensures code documentation
Works with Developers and Testers to resolve issues
Designs, Codes, and Tests software
Prepares program documentation
May be required to present to the Higher Education Community at Kuali Days and other North American Higher Ed conferences

The incumbent should have the following skill set:

Supervisory skills and prior experience managing a team
Excellent analytical and problem solving skills
Excellent communication and facilitation skills
Able to express technical issues in language a SME or Business Analyst will understand
Deep technical skills
At least 5 years Java experience (Sun Java certification an asset)
Familiarity with Spring IOC and AOP
Familiarity with ORM concepts and JPA in particular (preferably the hibernate implementation)
Advantageous if they have worked with Eclipse and SVN
Knowledge of XML, XSD, WSDL, SOAP

User Experience (UX) Designer
Under direction from the User Experience Architect, the Kuali Student UX Designer has the following specialist responsibilities in addition to the Business Analyst responsibilities:

Conduct user research
Design and develop UX deliverables (personas, principles, guidelines, UX design patterns, wireframes, etc.)
Contribute to interim artifacts such as user data analysis, function maps, etc.
Apply internationalization standards and accessibility standards to all aspects of Kuali Student
Apply UX design patterns uniformly across all development nodes and within partner projects
Design, develop and conduct usability testing
Contribute to documentation, especially in cases where there is no Kuali Student-supplied user interface
Collaborate with and makes presentations to other teams and groups as necessary

Job Announcements: Indiana University Seeks Chief Process Experience Architect

Tue, 10 Aug 2010 10:21:42 -0400

Posted:

Aug 10, 2010

The Chief Process Experience Architect serves as the chief process architect to enhance the user experience and process efficiency of IT for IU campuses. The position will lead a team that uses empirical, anthropological, and other evidence-based approaches to understand the human elements of system use and potential for improving process effectiveness. Initially, work will be targeted towards student systems to ensure that development adequately addresses students' needs; future efforts will focus on additional information systems and will use research and analysis to enhance human/computer interaction through the design and development of subsequent systems. In order to accomplish these goals successfully, individual must be able to assess the objectives of a high-level, diverse audience and use various forms of communication at both an executive and technical level to advise accordingly. Must be able to effectively document and communicate insights to an experienced development team. Ultimately, this position will be responsible for the successful creation, modification, and implementation of the interface to Indiana University's most utilized information systems.

Qualifications: Bachelor’s degree and five years demonstrated leadership in human/computer interaction initiatives and projects with emphasis on process re-engineering required. Excellent interpersonal, written, and oral communication skills essential. Track record in successfully leading high-level process redesign on large-scale projects required. Demonstrated ability to successfully interact with and guide high-level executives from different organizations towards desired outcomes required. Master's in Information Systems or Human/Computer Interaction preferred. Experience within higher education highly desirable.

If interested, please apply online at https://jobs.iu.edu/. Refer to job number #2073.

Indiana University is an Affirmative Action/Equal Employment institution.

Job Announcements: Kuali Rice Seeks Project Manager, Business Analyst, Configuration Manager, and Developers

Wed, 04 Aug 2010 22:32:41 -0400

Posted:

Aug 04, 2010

Kuali Rice is currently seeking to fill 4-5 positions on the development team for the Kuali Rice enterprise class middleware suite which serves as the foundation of the Kuali family of products.

Project Manager: Provides leadership for the planning, software development, implementation, maintenance, and documentation of all aspects of the Kuali Rice software project. Read full job description.
Business Analyst: Creates and maintains the strategic partnership between the business needs of the Kuali community and technology delivery in an agile development environment. Read full job description.
1-2 Developers: Participates in analysis and design of features and improvements, develops code for the Kuali Rice project according to standards and best practices. Read full job description.
Configuration Manager: Responsible for project infrastructure to support development, deployment, and release of Kuali Rice software including version control, bug tracking, documentation, databases, integration environments, test environments, and release processes. Read full job description.

an agreement to second the employee to the Kuali Foundation, if the candidate wishes to remain with his or her institution
as a personal consultancy directly to the Kuali Foundation
other arrangements will be considered

Please send cover letter and resume via e-mail to rice.jobs@kuali.org.

Kuali.org News: Kuali Days 2010 Update

Tue, 13 Jul 2010 18:47:26 -0400

Posted:

Jul 13, 2010

Kuali Days 2010 is approaching and we need your proposals for conference sessions! If you have been thinking about submitting something, now is the time. More information on session tracks, format, and what to include is available at http://kuali.org/kd2010/cfp. The deadline has been extended to August 2, 2010 and we look forward to reading your proposal!

The conference committee is excited to announce that the General Session speaker will be Paul Courant, University Librarian and Dean of Libraries at the University of Michigan with a wealth of experience in many areas of higher education. Courant has authored half a dozen books, and over seventy papers covering a broad range of topics in economics and public policy, including tax policy, state and local economic development, gender differences in pay, housing, radon and public health, relationships between economic growth and environmental policy, and university budgeting systems. More recently, he is studying the economics of universities, the economics of libraries and archives, and the changes in the system of scholarly communication that derive from new information technologies. Read more at http://paulcourant.net/about/.

We look forward to seeing you at Kuali Days 2010: From Theory to Practice!
Additional information: http://kuali.org/kd

KC FAQ: Does Kuali Coeus have functionality for effort reporting?

Tue, 13 Jul 2010 15:21:55 -0400

No. The Kuali Financial System (KFS), however, does include Effort Certification in its Labor Ledger. Effort Certification was introduced with KFS Release 3.0. See http://www.kuali.org/kfs for additional details.

Kuali Coeus calculates salary - both sponsor requests and cost sharing - from percent effort listed in the proposal budget. This information is not integrated with the KFS effort certification module.