Rationale

Rationale for using ReCAP Middleware database vs. ILS Transfer

Cross loading MARC records representing holdings of other ReCAP institutions into each ILS was considered as a design alternative. This option would have introduced significant costs and support burdens for partners. In some cases current ILS systems capacity or license thresholds would be exceeded. All three partners are planning to replace their current ILS systems in near future. This option would have incremented the data migration effort from existing ILS to the new ILS.

Loading ReCAP bibliographic and item records in middleware database provides a centralized repository for shared collection without impacting the ILS systems at partner institutions. Middleware database is needed to store the entire item and bib records of all there partner’s private and shared collections. Also it is needed to record all the incoming requests from patrons and to maintain the transactions. Hence .middleware database is required irrespective of the decision to synchronize bibliographic and item records. This option comes at a marginal increase to the implementation and ongoing maintenance costs.

Hence the approach of loading shared bibliographic and item records to ReCAP middleware database is recommended over cross loading MARC records to partner ILS.

Rationale for using Kuali RICE vs. other commercial/open source frameworks

Major components required to support the architecture includes Service Bus, Rules Engine, Workflow Engine, Authentication and Authorization and User Interface/Experience framework.

While several open source projects such as JBoss, Spring, and JQuery presented compelling components, these components have to be integrated by the project team to provide a seamless platform for ReCAP middleware.

Kuali RICE framework presents the benefits of open source such as no license costs and vendor dependencies. The framework leverages several industry standard frameworks such as Spring, JQuery, etc. and provides an enterprise grade end-to-end integrated framework well suited for ReCAP middleware development.

Rice is built on a Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) providing common enterprise workflow functionality, customizable and configurable user interfaces with a clean and universal look and feel, and general notification features to allow for a consolidated list of work "action items." Additionally, there are a set of services in Rice that provide identity and access management capabilities and can be used to abstract away from underlying institution-specific identity services. All of this adds up to a re-usable development framework that encourages a simplified approach to developing true business functionality as modular applications.

Kuali Service Bus (KSB) provides service management and routing functionalities. Workflow and Messaging domain is taken care by Kuali Enterprise Workflow (KEW) and Kuali Enterprise Notification (KEN). Kuali Identity Management (KIM) provides services for authentication and authorization management. Also it has Kuali Rules Management (KRM) for business rule development and execution as well as information delivery and analysis.

Kuali foundations commitment to provide and support enterprise scale framework for the higher education and academic library community makes Kuali RICE a compelling choice for this project.