The Open Source Councils Alliance (OSCA)
What is OSCA?
OSCA is an alliance of UK Local Councils that wish to assess, evaluate and plan implementations of Open Source solutions at Enterprise level. Through this assessment process they will form strong development communities and share the expertise, ideas and practical solutions needed for the successful implementation of Open Source 
solutions. OSCA members will have different motivations for pursuing licence free ICT solutions but each implementation plan will have, central within its assessment, a focus on lowering the cost of ICT in schools.
Outputs
The primary output of each OSCA activity will be the production of a generic implementation plan that enables any member to fully assess what to do; how much can be saved and who is able to assist implementation. This will provide OSCA members with:
- Evidence based justification to commence Open Source projects.
- A sharing of implementation risk through other OSCA members implementing these identified solutions.
- Identification of expertise and detail of capacity needed to implement enterprise wide solutions across OSCA membership.
Long term development of the OSCA community
The large scale implementation of Open Source products is just the first stage of OSCA. The strength of these Open Source products lie in the ability for them to be adapted and evolved further as changes take place in the needs of learners and from the demands of legislative changes.
The OCSA community will also:
- Form sustainable development communities around core Open Source products.
- Direct and guide commercial providers towards future needs and developments of core public sector applications to assist commercial sector capacity building.
- Further grow the principle of collaboration and shared risk to expand the use of core products including international partnerships.
- The review of, and proactive encouragement of the use of, appropriate international open standards for public sector products.
