Total Access for Research Administration (TARA)

TARA is USC’s “Total Access for Research Administration” system, supporting management of research awards, proposals, core laboratories, and regulatory protocols.

TARA is comprised of the following systems:

  • Kuali Coeus (KC)
  • disClose (conflict of interest disclosures)
  • iStar, including:
    • Institutional Review Board (IRB)
    • Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee (IACUC)
    • Radiation Safety

      • Biosafety

  • CORES (recharge centers)
  • Financial Projection System (FiPS)
  • Sophia (Intellectual Property Management)
  • Effort Certification
  • Business Intelligence (Cognos BI)
  • Kuali Financial System (KFS)

Features

TARA includes the following components:

  • Pre-award features: Proposal creation, routing, and submission
  • Post-award features: Award establishment and management
  • Links to the regulatory and compliance systems for human subjects, animal research, lab safety, and conflict of interest
  • Links to Business intelligence (Cognos) for reporting and tracking research activity
  • Links to CORES for recharge centers and Sophia for intellectual property
  • Leverages unit and award/proposal level security together with role level security

Eligibility

Research-focused USC faculty and staff are eligible to use all aspects of TARA; graduate students have access to the non-financial applications included in TARA.

Getting Started

Users log into the following TARA systems using their USC NetID username and password:

  • Kuali Coeus
  • diSClose
  • CORES
  • Financial Projection System (FiPS)
  • TARA Reports (Business Intelligence)
  • Sophia (Intellectual Property Management)

For access to the following compliance processes, users will need to obtain an iStar account:

  • Institutional Review Board (IRB)
  • Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee (IACUC)
  • Radiation Safety
  • Institutional Biosafety

Technical Requirements

USC supports TARA systems on the following browsers: Internet Explorer (Win) and Safari (Mac).

Support

If you would like to make a service-related request, search the knowledge base for self-service support, or report an issue with TARA, log into the ITS service portal at www.usc.edu/itsserviceportal.

Pricing

There is no charge to access TARA systems.

System Availability

Kuali Coeus is generally available every day from 4:00 am to 11:00 pm midnight. The typical windows for planned maintenance and upgrades are Wednesdays and Fridays from 8:00 to 11:00 pm. If the system is unavailable during regular operating hours, please consult the following resources for additional information:

  • Outage notifications and alerts are posted at the top of the ITS website.
  • Scheduled maintenance notices are posted in the left column of the ITS home page in the Scheduled Maintenance section. Scheduled maintenance notices are also available on a separate page.