The Strategic Content Alliance is a three year initiative funded as part of JISC’s Capital programmes. It began in March 2006 and will conclude its current phase of work in March 2009. Its aim 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 e-content.
JISC is taking forward this work in collaboration with a set of key organisations across the public sector, these are: The British Library; The BBC; British Education Communications and Technologies Agency (BECTa); EPSRC ; The Museums, Libraries and Archives Council (MLA) and The NHS National Library for Health (NLH).
The first phase of this work has taken place under the banner of the Common Information Environment. The Strategic Content Alliance aims to take this work into the next stage and look at how this vision can be realised through providing a set of principles and guidelines for best practice. This e-Content Framework will enable key public sector organisations to collaborate and co-ordinate their e-content activities so they make best use of the limited funds available to fully realise the potential of this e-content for the benefit of the UK. The framework will also reference the key barriers currently inhibiting closer co-ordination and develop an action plan to address these.
Public sector e content initiatives have so far been largely fragmented. Co-ordination has not taken place on any significant scale between initiatives to share expertise, identify suitable content and avoid duplication of effort. The uncoordinated nature of the activities to date is resulting in a patchy network of e-content with different management and business models, with no comprehensive gap analysis or tools to support previous, current or planned activity.The rapid growth and development of electronic content offers enormous and ever-growing possibilities for all citizens in the UK. But for this country to realize the full potential of the Web, and for each citizen to realize their own potential - in the workplace, in their places of learning, and in the home - the full range of online content needs to be made available to all, quickly, easily and in a form appropriate to individuals’ needs.