Strategic Content Alliance (SCA)

The task for the Strategic Content Alliance (SCA) is to build a common information environment where users of publicly funded e-content can gain best value from the investment that has been made by reducing the barriers that currently inhibit access, use and re-use of online content.

Their vision emerges by facing the rapid growth and development of electronic content that offers enormous and ever-growing possibilities for all citizens in the UK. But for this country to realise the full potential of the web, the full range of online content needs to be made available to all, quickly, easily and in a form appropriate to individuals’ needs. To this end, they have a blog that has gained a growing reputation among people who are engaged with their agenda.

Their work is given value because public sector initiatives so far have been largely fragmented. Coordination has not taken place on any significant scale between initiatives to share expertise, identify suitable content and avoid duplication of effort.

The SCA is looking to assess and document the political, technical, cultural and organisational barriers that currently inhibit closer coordination and recommend how these should best be addressed. They seek to analyse and model the potential for real convergence between the infrastructure and services provided by the sponsoring organisations to support enhanced engagement with online resources, while synthesising these findings into the content framework of standards and good practices that will include an action plan for future coordination.

The SCA was initially a 3-year initiative funded as part of JISC’s Capital Programme.  It began in March 2006, concluded its first phase of work in March 2009, and will conclude its second phase of activity in July 2011. It has its own Working Group within JISC.