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1st Annual UCosmic® Conference – October 31, 2013
UCosmic® Consortium
Mitch Leventhal, PhDExecutive Director
1st Annual UCosmic® Conference
October 31, 2013
The UCosmic® ConsortiumInternational Standards & Open Source ToolsFor Higher education
Originally focused on tracking and management of international activities, but extensible to all institutional activities, from local community engagement to global collaborations.
The Challenge: Global Strategy requires Global Data
The Problem: Data is widely disbursed across multiple systems, controlled by different units, which do not inter-operate.
Other vital data is not being collected at all.
And… the
No money for complex software development
1st Annual UCosmic® Conference
October 31, 2013
UCosmic® approaches the problem by creating a mashup
Characteristics of the UCosmic® mashup:
Combination
Visualization
Aggregation
A mashup is a web application that that uses content from more than one source to create a single new service displayed in a single graphical interface.
1st Annual UCosmic® Conference
October 31, 2013
UCosmic® seeks to associate as much data as possible related to the human relationships, collaborations, research and mobility linkages in order to paint a detailed picture for any geographic area, partner or faculty member.
Where data is not being collected, UCosmic® creates web-based frames for its collection.
1st Annual UCosmic® Conference
October 31, 2013
UCosmic® Data Sources (representative list)
• Student Information Systems
• Alumni & Foundation Databases
• International Student & Scholar Systems
• Faculty Activity Reports
• Human Resource Systems
• Student Clubs & Activity Databases• Corporate Engagement Databases
• Sponsored Research Databases
• Co-op & Internship Databases
• International Programs Database
• Communications & PR Systems
And even public domain sources, such as LinkedIn
1st Annual UCosmic® Conference
October 31, 2013
Data quality and integrity
And always… some data is imperfect, inaccurately reported or poorly proofed.
Some data are accurate and maintained in real time.
Some data may be maintained by individual faculty, students or volunteers.
Other data are updated once annually.
But this does not bother us… even imperfect data has value and can contribute significantly to the strategic gestalt.
1st Annual UCosmic® Conference
October 31, 2013
Our Philosophical Approach – Think like an economist (be comfortable with estimation), and not like an accountant (looking for precision)!
When combined, these varied data provide a more complete picture of global activity than could every be accomplished without the UCosmic® mashup.
Using an artistic metaphor, UCosmic® provides a highly refined pointillist painting, not a photograph.
1st Annual UCosmic® Conference
October 31, 2013
UCosmic® operates as a consortium, to collaboratively build flexible, low cost, modular, cloud-based, open-source solutions.
UCosmic® received its initial funding from the University of Cincinnati and the State University of New York.
Funding now derives primarily from the many consortium members, who pay a modest annual fee (usually $5,000), and a generous grant from Santander Bank.
1st Annual UCosmic® Conference
October 31, 2013
1st Annual UCosmic® Conference
October 31, 2013
For more information visit www.ucosmic.org
To obtain a demo account, contact Dan Ludwig, UCosmic® CTO at [email protected]
The UCosmic® ConsortiumInternational Standards & Open Source ToolsFor Higher education
1st Annual UCosmic® Conference
October 31, 2013
