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Getting started

Congratulations you have found the CoRA User guide. This manual is intended to help you get the most out of your CoRA application in your day-to-day use.

This guide answers the “why, where, and how” questions that most users have when learning to use the CoRA platform. You’ll find lots of step-by-step instructions, screenshots, and examples. You’ll get an overview of the modules & resources that are available to you as you work on your Forensic Anthropology projects in CoRA. Finally, you’ll learn the concepts of the CoRA platform with it powerful configuration features, and establish best practices for project standards and requirements.

Tip

CoRA can be used for inventorying assemblages of single or commingled human remains

Commingled human remains are often encountered in archaeological and forensic contexts. A bone by bone inventory is an important step in segregating commingled remains into individuals and determining the minimum number of individuals present. In order to achieve individual identification a controlled and consistent specimen-level inventory procedure must be followed.

The Commingled Remains Analytics (CoRA)1 web application, database and APIs are a powerful community resource for inventorying assemblages of single or commingled human remains, while providing a framework of analytic methods, visualization techniques and tools to assist in the segregation and identification process.

(CoRA)1 is a powerful web application ecosystem with an open, flexible, scalable, plug-n-play architecture and framework.

Installation

If you are wondering what you need to install to start using CoRA for your forensic anthropology project, the answer is NOTHING Yes I know its hard to believe, but its true CoRA is built and deployed as a Software as a Service (Saas) model. Why? you ask, because we believe that you should focus on what you are good at and leave the mundane technical software and hardware stuff to us.

How do I get started

To get started with CoRA you can reach out to the author Dr. Sachin Pawaskar on this personal email sachinpawaskar@msn.com or his university email spawaskar@unomaha.edu with information about who you are? what is the project that you want to use CoRA for? who are you affiliated with? to start off with. Dr. Pawaskar with get back to you to get started the process of using CoRA for your project.

Organizations, Users and Projects

To keep your data secure and organized, the CoRA application is structured around the concept of organizations, users and projects. So, What does this mean for you? Well, it means your organization data is secured and no one from another organization can access your data, Only users within your organization can access your data. Data is typically organized by projects and only those users within your organization who have access to the project are allowed to access your project specific data.

CoRA was designed to be used by both organizations and single users. Organizations can be government organizations, non-profits, universities or any entity that deals with the identification of missing persons, or segregation of human remains. Single users could be any single individual who wants to use CoRA for their own project, a use case might be for university students of forensic anthropology for their Dissertation, Thesis, Independent Study or Graduate Project work.

Sample Graduate Student Thesis

Madeline Grace Kelly used CoRA for her graduate thesis work at Syracuse University. Her research work is titled Analysis and Quantification of Commingled Human Skeletal Remains in Syracuse University. Here is her graduate thesis work and her thesis presentation. You can reach out to Madeline to hear more about her experience with CoRA.

Who might benefit from the use of CoRA?

CoRA was designed to be used by both government agencies, universities and single users such as students.

  1. Organizations can be government organizations, both federal and local governments or law enforcement.
  2. Non-profits organizations whose mission is to seek social justice for those missing.
  3. Universities who have any medical exemplars of human remains for teaching purposes.
  4. Students or Individual users who wants to use CoRA for their own project, a use case might be for university students of forensic anthropology for their Dissertation, Thesis, Independent Study or Graduate Project Work.
  5. Any entity that deals with the identification of missing persons, or segregation of human remains.

Reach out over email

You can reach out to to the author Dr. Sachin Pawaskar on his personal email sachinpawaskar@msn.com or his university spawaskar@unomaha.edu.

Initial Setup Template

Once we establish the usage of CoRA for your organization or project, you will have to provide some initial setup information related to the organization, project and its users by filling out the following cora new organization projects and users template

Fill out an issue template

On Github

  1. In 2016, CoRA started out as a simple specimen inventory system for Forensic Anthropologists. It was first showcased at the AAFS 70th Annual Conference in Seattle, WA in February 2018, but over the course of several years, it's now much more than that – with the many built-in modules such as specimens, dnas, dental, isotopes, missing persons, dashboards, reports, search, analytics, visualizations, administration, projects, user settings, and countless customization abilities. CoRA is now one of the simplest and most powerful frameworks for managing a single individual remains project or a complex commingled remains project. ↩↩

Last update: 2025-12-14
Created: 2024-10-31