UCincinnati & SUNY Launch UCosmic Consortium; College Board Joins

New York – The State University of New York (SUNY) and the University of Cincinnati (UC) today announced that they have reached agreement to form a global institutional consortium to bring an open source version of UCosmic^® to institutions worldwide. The College Board and three universities have endorsed and joined the effort prior to the launch announcement.

UCosmic, originally developed at the University of Cincinnati, provides a means to comprehensively map global activities taking place across the university enterprise. Co-developers Mitch Leventhal and Dan Ludwig will continue to lead UCosmic development. Under the terms of the agreement, SUNY will take over management of the UCosmic Consortium, with Leventhal – now Vice Chancellor for Global Affairs at SUNY – serving also as Executive Director. Dan Ludwig, who at UC led technical development of the prototype, will serve as Chief Technical Officer on a full-time basis. UCosmic business operations will be based at the SUNY Global Center in midtown Manhattan.

The UCosmic Consortium will convert the system’s code to an open-source model, so that institutions anywhere can adopt the technology at minimal cost. The Consortium will provide member institutions with a platform to develop data standards needed for strategic planning, as well as a network for developers to share code and accelerate development of compliant modules. The Consortium will test new code created by the UCosmic development community and maintain open-source libraries. It will also sponsor annual conferences and various social networking resources designed to accelerate development and deployment.

“UCosmic represents a paradigm shift in how data is collected and shared as information,” says co-founder Mitch Leventhal, “it allows for visualization of relationships which can enhance research collaborations, teaching, learning, and university advancement. Furthermore, we have demonstrated that such systems can be developed without investments running into the hundreds of thousands of dollars through the collaborative effort of leading institutions around the world.”

“I am proud that the work that began when I was President of the University of Cincinnati will continue with the leadership of SUNY,” said SUNY Chancellor Nancy L. Zimpher. “UCosmic is a critical piece of infrastructure which will leverage SUNY’s global assets and its entrepreneurial potential, and will be a critical part of our strategy to unleash The Power of SUNY. I am especially pleased that the College Board will be an integral part of UCosmic’s development going forward.”

“From the moment Chancellor Zimpher approached me about being part of the UCosmic consortium, I knew this was an opportunity we couldn’t pass up,” said Gaston Caperton, President of the College Board. “It is the College Board’s mission is to connect as many students as possible to college access and success, and being a part of this effort from its foundation will provide our students and our member institutions with additional tools that are critical to achieving this goal at home and around the world.”

The UCosmic Consortium was initiated as a result of inquiries and discussions with scores of universities within the United States and abroad. The Consortium is a membership-based initiative. A 25% discount to founding institutional members willing to commit to a 3-year membership will be offered. Lehigh University (USA), Griffith University (Australia) and Manipal Education (India, Nepal, Malaysia, Dubai and Antigua) have already joined the consortium, making its membership global from day one. Details on fees, benefits and development timelines can be found at http://www.ucosmic.org.  

UCosmic was featured in the “Innovators in Internationalization” column of The Chronicle of Higher Education on September 7, 2009 (http://chronicle.com/article/U-of-Cincinnati-Tracks-Its/48303/).

About the State University of New York

The State University of New York is the largest comprehensive university system in the United States, educating more than 465,000 students in more than 7,500 degree and certificate programs on 64 campuses with more than 2.5 million alumni around the globe. To learn more about how SUNY creates opportunity, visit www.suny.edu.

About the University of Cincinnati

UC is a multi-campus university which ranks among the nation’s leading research universities, with 14 colleges, over 41,000 students, and an annual budget of $1.09 billion.

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