Kuali Research Administration:
Statement of Philosophical Principles
9 May 07
The following statements of principle are provided to help guide Kuali Research
Administration (KRA) decisions:
1. KRA will be based on the existing Coeus1 design, functionality, and business
processes.
a. Conformance with Coeus provides the fundamental basis for controlling KRA
scope, referred to as the “Baseline Scope”.
b. The basic presumption of KRA is conformity with Coeus, including
preservation of any Coeus configurability beyond the MIT implementation
and configuration decisions.
c. The KRA project may make use of future Coeus functionality, to the extent
that it is compatible with the KRA Philosophical Principles and Reality
Triangle of Resources, Time, and Scope.
2. Functional committees or their members may advocate additions or changes to
Baseline Scope as “Enhancements”. To gain approval of an Enhancement and its
inclusion in the project plan, advocates must demonstrate:
a. substantial benefit over cost;
b. balance within the “Reality Triangle” for Kuali Projects of Resources, Time,
and Scope;
c. improving the ease of adoption and diffusion of KRA.
3. Enhancements should be approved by consensus of the KRA Functional Council,
with a vote if necessary. Council decisions can be reconsidered by the KRA Board,
based on review of the majority and minority positions on the issue.
4. The founding KRA partner institutions agree on the following general strategies, in
priority order, for ensuring the core KRA system meets the disparate institutional
requirements:
a. maximize the commonality of business practices wherever possible, using the
Coeus functionality and capability;
b. make the KRA software configurable enough to meet essential requirements
without the need for local code modifications;
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c. provide an Application Programming Interface (API) to address local
requirements that cannot be met by (a) or (b) above. This approach should be
avoided when possible, given the risks associated with future version changes.
5. All KRA teams work from the premise that the project is “driven” primarily by
schedule (time), and then by functional scope within the schedule. Technical
sophistication will be employed only in the service of the project.
6. Each KRA Phase will include the following periods:
a. Specification - the Functional Council and its module committees will
identify, elucidate, and document the functional specifications for each KRA
module and Enhancement;
b. Development - the development teams will code, refactor, and test the KRA
modules.
c. Quality Assurance (QA) - the development and functional teams will
complete a full QA period, typically three months, to implement, test,
document, and deploy the fully integrated modules for the release.
7. The functional and development teams will work with the goal of using as much
existing Kuali functionality and software as possible to avoid duplicated effort. In
particular, KRA will take full advantage of the Kuali Rice infrastructure suite of
common libraries, notification, workflow, and services bus.
8. Noting that it may not be possible to implement all of the essential and high priority
items identified by the Functional Council in Phase 2, the KRA system architecture
and code should anticipate and accommodate these remaining items in future releases
as easily and expeditiously as possible.
9. There will be a Baseline KRA System available for a public release at the conclusion
of Phase 1 by 31 March 2008.
1
Coeus: Research Administration application managed by MIT Office of Sponsored
Programs, currently in Release 4.2.1.
KRA Functional Council
Adopted 10 Jan 07
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Kuali Operating Assumptions and Principles
General Principles

We consider what is in the best interest of higher education as a whole

We want the flexibility for users to be able to implement KFS, KRA, or KRA
modules independently or as a system

Our value proposition needs to ensure there is a benefit to implementing the “whole”
that is greater than either KFS or KRA separately

We seek opportunities for collaboration

We identify and resolve strategic issues

Functionality requirements will be vetted with the right stakeholders

We recognize there is a continuum of institutions (see below)
Clear divide between
pre-award and post-award
Pre and post-award in same
organization  output to
financial system
Inclusion in KRA Principles?

KRA has to consider the COEUS consortium and future convergence

New systems initiatives competing for the same set of resources will not divert
resources from the Kuali Project development and implementation time frame
without approval of the Kuali Foundation Board. (Tim S)
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