Strategic Content Alliance
The Strategic Content Alliance mission statement
If the UK is to realise the full potential of the web and every citizen to realise their own potential - in the workplace, in their places of learning and in the home - the full range of digital content needs to be made available to all, quickly, easily and in a form appropriate to the users’ needs.
The Strategic Content Alliance is committed to improving the UK’s digital content holdings, ensuring a better return on public investment through co-ordinating resources and expertise so that good practice is advanced among those serving the British people.
We live in an age when the internet enables and stimulates unprecedented opportunities for creativity, ingenuity and innovation. Much of this innovation is to be found in the digital content originating from the UK public sector and not-for-profit organisations.
However, the development of digital content collections has been ad hoc and piecemeal. To overcome this fragmentation, there must be improved co-ordination to fill in the gaps in collections.
This will benefit research and learning as well as achieving the most value from public sector and not-for-profit funding. We also need to lever expertise, improve business intelligence, work smarter and provide the best experience possible to users of digital content at home and abroad.
The Strategic Content Alliance
The Strategic Content Alliance (the Alliance) is a unique collaboration funded by public sector organisations, all different, but all deeply involved in the creation, management and exploitation of digital content for the common good. These are:
JISC British Library BBC Museums, Libraries and Archives Council (MLA) Wellcome Trust As the Alliance's mission statement makes clear, the UK public and not-for-profit sector must maximise its financial and intellectual investment in digital content through a much more systematic approach to pooling and co-ordinating activity. This will drive the digital content innovation that provides the UK with real and meaningful benefits - whether economic, intellectual or cultural.
The initiative is supported by a number of significant affiliate organisations. These represent key public sector and not-for-profit organisations and provide contributions in kind through advocacy and the adoption of all Alliance outputs.
The content framework
See reports & tools produced by the SCA In its first phase of its work (March 2006 - March 2009), the Alliance nurtured the development of the Content Framework, a set of guidelines, principles, reports and case studies that enable key public sector organisations to co-ordinate their content activities. These tools help organisations to make the best use of the limited funds available in order fully realise the potential of this content for the benefit of the UK. The framework also considers the key political, technical, cultural and organisational barriers that currently inhibit closer co-ordination and investigates potential resolution or mitigating activities.
The second, current phase of work commenced in April 2009 and is planned to conclude in July 2011 (Phase 2).
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