NEWPORT BEACH, Calif. – The Kuali Foundation has announced five educational institutions have joined its community as investing partners. In addition to the five new investors, two new Member organizations and two new Commercial Affiliates have also joined the Kuali Foundation. The announcement was made at the seventh Kuali Days conference held in southern California, November 18-19, 2008.

The University of Washington has become a major new investing partner in the Kuali Student System and in Kuali Rice. Iowa State University has become a new investing partner in both Kuali Coeus and Kuali Rice. The University of California, San Diego has joined the Kuali Foundation as an investing partner in Kuali Rice. Carnegie Mellon University – already involved with the Kuali Student System—is now an investing partner in Kuali Student. The University of California Berkeley—already a founding partner in Kuali Student—has also become an investing partner in Kuali Coeus.

In addition, two educational institutions have become members of the Kuali community: the Naval Postgraduate School and the Research Foundation of the City University of New York.

Two new Commercial Affiliates have also joined the Kuali Foundation: Sciquest and VivanTech. Sciquest brings expertise in e-procurement and will develop functionality that enables users to seamlessly integrate their procurement processes with Kuali Financial System (KFS). VivanTech brings expertise in developing custom financial information systems and has been assisting Kuali partners in their implementation planning and assessment for KFS migration projects. Recently, VivanTech developed Java code to implement a field definition and data mapping tool for KFS. The Kuali Foundation welcomes these two new Commercial Affiliates.

"I am thrilled that the University of Washington has seized this unique opportunity to join Kuali Student as a Founding Partner," said Todd Mildon, university registrar at the University of Washington. "We believe that Kuali presents us with a deeply compelling strategy for transforming the way we help students plan and pursue their course of learning at UW. Equally important, we believe that the community-source development approach will similarly transform the way UW envisions, creates, and constantly improves its vital core systems."

Iowa State's Dr. Ted Okiishi, interim vice president for research and economic development said, "I can think of no better way to create software systems for university administration than by leveraging the skills, knowledge, and experience of leading universities. The collaborative efforts of the Kuali partners to implement best practices in university administration using state-of-the-art information technology will greatly benefit the entire higher education community."

"Key for Carnegie Mellon is the fact that the Kuali Student System is being developed by a partnership of schools devoted to new, more flexible designs for both business processes and technology," said Joel M. Smith, vice provost and CIO of Carnegie Mellon University. "It's a good example of why collaborative effort by and for higher education will make a difference in enterprise systems." Dr. Christine M. Cermak, vice president of information resources and CIO at the Naval Postgraduate School, said, "Kuali offers great promise for a new world of administrative computing – one in which universities define requirements and work together to develop efficient and effective solutions."

"We are pleased to join the Kuali Foundation as a commercial affiliate and help members extend the benefits of their Kuali Financial System with SciQuest e-procurement solutions," said Jeff Martini, SciQuest's senior vice President of worldwide sales. "E-procurement represents the single greatest opportunity for colleges and universities to radically streamline processes and reduce spending, without cutting the budget. SciQuest's ability to integrate with KFS, along with other ERP systems, enables organizations to quickly realize the enormous savings, increased efficiencies and improved services that e-procurement can deliver."

Randy Ozden, CEO of VivanTech, said, "VivanTech's expertise aligns perfectly with our customers' needs. We are supporting and growing with the Kuali community in the form of strategic planning, project management and Java development, which we deliver through our widespread resources, on-campus, off-campus, and offshore. Kuali presents a fantastic opportunity for the higher education community around the world and we are excited to continue building partnerships."

The November 2008 Kuali Days VII conference continued the tradition of a comprehensive, multi-track Kuali conference. It included tracks for financial systems, research administration systems, student systems, and Kuali Rice, the technical infrastructure and middleware component of Kuali. More than 520 university and business representatives from 85 organizations, representing 24 US states and 7 countries attended the conference. Diana Oblinger, the CEO of EDUCAUSE was the keynote speaker. Dr. Oblinger spoke about openness and collaboration as fundamental values of higher education, and the importance of unfettered intellectual exchange using technologies, applications, and approaches that foster sharing and open access to knowledge and resources.

"In just four years, colleges and universities have unlocked the value of our ability to develop enterprise-scale administrative systems together," said Brad Wheeler, chairman of the Kuali Foundation Board and Indiana University CIO. "This participative approach for software-producing and software-consuming institutions will reduce the cost of expensive administrative systems and improve their fit for higher education. This was the largest Kuali gathering yet as over 80 institutions came to assess the Kuali path or to refine their implementation planning."