The Kuali Foundation Announces Kuali Days 2013

BLOOMINGTON, Ind., Aug. 14, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- Kuali Days, the annual conference put on by the Kuali Foundation for the higher education community, will take place in sunny San Diego this year, Nov. 18 to 21. The annual event, which is now in its ninth year, will bring together nearly one thousand evaluators, adopters, users, and developers of the Kuali platform to learn, discuss, and connect on ways to reduce cost, streamline business processes, and improve administration through the use of Kuali community built, open source software solutions.

The Kuali community provides enterprise resource planning (ERP) software for higher education, making it available free of license fees to all of higher ed. This model reduces the cost of administrative systems and collectively saves higher education hundreds of millions in ERP costs. Thousands of users at colleges and universities large and small currently use Kuali administrative software. Kuali offers eight major software systems for financial management, research / grants administration, student services, human resources / payroll, library management, business continuity, middleware / workflow, and enterprise mobility.

"There are so many compelling stories about how Kuali has helped colleges and universities save money and better serve their mission of teaching, research, and service," said Sarah Christen, current chair of the Kuali Days event and director of community applications at Cornell. "Kuali Days is a great opportunity for the higher ed community to see what others are doing with the platform and learn from those examples."

At Kuali Days, campus professionals will learn from peer stories, share ideas, and stay informed of upcoming Kuali innovations. In addition to learning and professional development, Kuali Days offers networking opportunities for stakeholders to trade best practices. As traditional ERP models continue to cost institutions millions, the non-profit Kuali community is committed to providing sustainable, license free, open source solutions that allow schools to keep their money for their mission.

"In this decade, many colleges and universities will need to upgrade, replace, or substantially enhance their core systems. Trustees and senior leaders know that the 100s of millions of dollars spent on big systems takes away from innovation in online education, scholarships, and the essential core mission of the academy," said Brad Wheeler, chair of the Kuali Foundation Board of Directors and vice president for IT at Indiana University. "The money is simply not there to repeat the expensive paths of prior decades."

Members of the Kuali Foundation are demonstrating new, highly effective paths to dramatically cut the costs of administrative services and achieve better business processes through multi-university sharing and scale.

The conference will include a Newcomer's Session for first-time attendees as well as workshops for users interested in each component of the Kuali suite. In addition to sessions on specific Kuali modules and adopter stories, planned lectures include:

• What Would You Do With $83M Dollars?
• Building the Case for Kuali
• Current State & Potential Shifts as the Kuali Community Continues to Mature
• Kuali for Midsize and Small Institutions
• Kuali in the Cloud

"As a Kuali Commercial Affiliate, we're heavily involved in Kuali Days and see it as an important opportunity for higher ed professionals to bring the benefits of community developed, open source Kuali ERP software back to their campuses," said Chris Coppola, CEO of rSmart, a longtime Kuali Foundation partner. "Kuali Days is a great way for colleges and universities of all sizes to learn about Kuali software and about how other institutions leverage Kuali to keep their money for their mission."

About The Kuali Foundation
The Kuali Foundation offers open source administrative software built by higher education, for higher education. Seventy member organizations from around the world build Kuali software including 8 major software systems for financial management, research / grants administration, student services, human resources / payroll, library management, business continuity, middleware / workflow, and enterprise mobility. The Kuali community is committed to providing sustainable, license free, open source software that helps schools keep their money for their mission by significantly reducing administrative costs. Thousands of users at dozens of colleges and universities, large and small, currently use Kuali administrative software.

For more information or to register for Kuali Days, please visit, www.kuali.org/kd/2013.

For more information on The Kuali Foundation, please visit www.kuali.org.

Media Contact:
Mike Allmendinger
Director of Communications
Kuali Foundation
[email protected]

SOURCE Kuali Foundation