Overview
This page describes some of the context relating to current developments around ICT in the Voluntary and Community Sector in the UK, and the reasons for organising Open Source advocacy activities, starting with the September 15 2004 event - which was built on by the
SocialSource 2005 event that took place on 9 November 2005.
ICT in the Voluntary & Community Sector
Information & Communications Technology has traditionally been a low priority in Voluntary and Community Sector organisations' systems development. However, ICT has become ever-more important in the functioning of any organisation, both in terms of office productivity, and increasingly, in service delivery.
VCS organisations still face a range of challenges in developing more structured approaches towards ICT, such as:
- strategic planning & use of ICT
- encouraging funders to appreciate Total Cost of Ownership (TCO)
- general management of ICT as a resource by those who may not be ICT specialist.
Naturally, it is inaccurate to generalise too far, and larger organisations will tend to have more robust systems and larger budgets compared to the multitude of micro-organisations that often exist at a local level.
Numerous pieces of research have been carried out into VCS organisations' requirements and their use of ICT - the
Community Development Exchange currently has links to many of the most extensive in its
resources library.
Current ICT advancement initiatives
There are currently a variety of activities taking place in order to advance the ICT agenda in the UK VCS, which have developed ad-hoc, or in response to initiatives such as the government's VCS infrastructure review (see the
Home Office's site for more details).
Some of the best known VCS related ICT activities include those being coordinated by the national
ICT Hub:
Open Source Initiatives
At the same time as more mainstream initiatives such as the above have been in development, numerous groups and individuals with ICT skills have developed Open Source solutions for their organisations. Whilst also providing sound technical solutions, Open Source adoption is felt to have a good cultural match with the sector, in terms of its ethos on sharing and advance through collaboration. Those involved or opting for Open Source solutions have often approached issues with this more "open" viewpoint to start with, rather than an explicitly "techie" one.
In order to promote the agenda surrounding Open Source, several of this event's organisers were instrumental in setting up the
Social Software initiative in the UK in order to gather interested stakeholders together. Along with several other volunteers with an interest in VCS ICT, it was judged a suitable time to follow those activities with an event designed to showcase projects and organisations using Open Source, in a spirit of sharing and learning (resulting in
SocialSource 2004.
The
SocialSource 2005 again seemed to be a success, so the organisers may now look towards more structured projects for future work, perhaps linking with or learning from more established movements in the US (e.g.
NOSI), or other advocacy projects, such as
OpenAdvantage in the UK.
NOTE:
Whilst many participants may share an interest in the wider issues relating to "Openness" in general - e.g. "Open Society", this event will be focused on Open Source as a potential benefit to Voluntary & Community Sector technology, although there is almost certainly going to be discussion around some of the non-technology issues on the day.
