Kennesaw State University Simplifies its Research Lifecycle with Cayuse

Challenge

Administrators at Kennesaw State University are familiar with continuous growth. Founded in 1963 as a two-year college, KSU achieved four-year status by 1976, then University designation by 1996. The past few decades in particular saw significant efforts to expand research capacity, with KSU obtaining R2 classification in 2018.

With this upward trend in research expansion continuing for the foreseeable future, leadership saw an opportunity to modernize the research team’s scattered management processes and systems. 

According to Dr. Kristine Nowak, Director of Research Compliance at KSU, “We had a mishmash of some things were computerized, some things were manual, some things were semi-computerized. We were handling everything with PDFs and version control was really cumbersome.” This resulted in slowdowns across the research lifecycle and increased the chances of errors appearing during handoffs. 

There were also issues with the compliance department’s existing IRB software, IRB+, from the difficulty of extracting data to problems keeping data entry consistent. “You had to sort of search all the possible phrasings,” Dr. Nowak said, in case entries differed slightly, “so it was clunky in that way.”

Solution

The university ultimately began its modernization process with the implementation of Cayuse Sponsored Projects to handle full-lifecycle sponsored research, Proposals (S2S) for proposal management, and Human Ethics for IRB protocol management. 

In addition to the immediate benefits of a more integrated and user-friendly management system, administrators and staff were particularly pleased with the ease of Cayuse’s implementation process. “I thought it was fantastic because everything was on a schedule and we knew exactly what to expect,” Dr. Nowak noted, adding “I’ve gone through [Cayuse’s] implementation two or three times now and it’s always been seamless.”  

The painless implementation process and quality of Cayuse’s solutions helped convince the university to expand its Cayuse Research Suite. “After we finished our first implementation, we were able to get the funding to implement more of the compliance suite,” Dr. Nowak recalled, referring to the subsequent adoption of Cayuse Outside Interests, Animal Oversight, and Hazard Safety to manage COI disclosures, IACUC, and IBC protocols, respectively. 

Results

The transition to the full Cayuse Research Suite resulted in improvements across the research lifecycle along several metrics. For one, having an interconnected set of management solutions with full accessibility and transparency through a single sign-on. Cayuse has “been a lot more user-friendly in terms of having other individuals hand off tasks,” according to Dr. Nowak. “If someone’s out, someone else can pick up.”

This user-friendliness, increased transparency, and easier task tracking have enabled time and resource savings across departments. “From the sponsored programs side, it’s been able to help scale again staffing in terms of the number of grant proposals that can be handled, and moving them through the process has been a little more streamlined,” Dr. Nowak said. 

As for her own department, Cayuse’s compliance and reporting solutions have made it easier for administrators to handle protocols and follow up with users. “I’ve been following our metrics since we’ve implemented and our time to decision has gone down,” she noted. While IRB reviewer assignments previously took up to five days, this same metric has declined to a single day on average with Cayuse. 

Despite experiencing staff turnover following the pandemic similar to other research institutions worldwide, the Cayuse Research Suite has helped the university maintain research growth without increasing the burden on staff or administrators. “Being able to have an integrated solution like Cayuse has really helped us not have to expand our staff maybe as much as we would have otherwise,” Dr. Nowak commented, highlighting that just having consistent SSO access to the platform helped to maintain consistency and workflows during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Cayuse’s dedicated support team has also kept users and administrators at KSU happy with the Cayuse experience. “I really appreciate the effort that goes into not just the product but also maintaining that relationship with the customer,” Dr. Nowak said, adding that she appreciates Cayuse’s practice of implementing user suggestions. “I’m continually impressed by the ability or willingness of Cayuse to take suggestions from customers and implement them and the speed that happens.”

When asked about plans for future expansions with Cayuse, Dr. Nowak indicated that the university has plans to eventually add Cayuse’s Fund Manager solution for financial management and Inventions for tech transfer and IP management. “I’ve just been really happy,” she concluded, optimistic about the university’s future with Cayuse.