In 2009 Northwestern University (NU) reorganized its research cores programs, appointing new directors for each of its two campuses. A subsequent survey of the tools used to place orders and track activity in our 50+ core facilities revealed a mix of in-house applications, Excel spreadsheets, E-mail and sticky notes. None of the existing systems was suitable for the enterprise.
After considering commercial options and in-house capabilities, NU decided to partner with a Chicago-based development firm, TXI (formerly Table XI) to create a system that could scale to serve the entire university. The overriding goals were to create a system that was:
- Intuitive for the users
- Removed administrative burden from the core directors
- Provided institutional reporting to allow high-level program management
The system we built, dubbed NUcore, was deployed in 2010. The system was not compulsory. Our proposition to the core directors was that they should enroll in NUcore when it met their needs. Over the ensuing decade features were developed in direct response to the needs of the cores. NU achieved full enrollment in 2018 and NUcore is now used by every core facility at the university (currently ~70). In fiscal year 2023 NUcore processed over 186,000 transactions totaling $32 million for ~4600 active users.
An early decision was to make NUcore an open-source project, with the code freely available. Dartmouth took advantage of this opportunity and deployed “RaDar” in 2016. UMass-Amherst followed with “CORUM” In 2020 and Oregon State deployed “RELMS” in 2022. Beginning with a symposium of active users in 2019, the schools using the NUcore code joined together as a voluntary consortium to provide a community of knowledge and to coordinate development of large features that would be too expensive for any one institution to take on. The software is also under active development within each school and all features that are not specific to a school are released into the open-source branch for the code.
Neither participation in the consortium nor use of our primary development partner are required to use the NUcore code base. Several universities with the technical capability have deployed the code on their own. However, we welcome new members and we invite you to reach out if you’re interested in joining the consortium.