Development Approach
Community-Source Development
The community source development process is a collaborative approach to product development, involving a committed group solving a common problem. In this case, the committed group is made up of universities, open source projects, and commercial affiliates, all contributing to the development of an integrated student service system.
There are many benefits to this approach:
- Shared resources means more efficient development – this is a huge benefit over a single university building a system in-house.
- Institutions share ideas and create innovative solutions, leveraging their user experiences.
- Contributing institutions have direct input into functions and features – unlike off-the-shelf software that must be taken as is with little or no customization.
Open Source vs Community Source
Read about the difference between community-source and open-source development
Distinct from open-source development that solicits input from anyone, community-source development limits participation to a group of committed contributors.
Development Approach
A project of this complexity requires a structured approach to development and project management. Our development approach features:
- Well defined phases of approximately 4-6 months each over the 5+ year project duration
- Clearly defined deliverables with sign off
- Tangible technical assets
- Regular QA reviews and checkpoints
- Review plans for the subsequent phase
- Dedicated Project Team with members from across the Founder and Partner Institutions.
- Community-source development
Implementation + Sustainment
Find out how our approach supports implementation and sustainment