Objectives and scope

The OSCA Foundation has the following objectives:

• investigate how collaborative activities as well as their coordination can be improved through semantic technologies such as ontologies, metadata annotations and semantic web protocols, ultimately facilitating the integration of desktop and collaborative applications and the Web.
• promote common standards and specifications in computer semantics and collaboration
• encourage cooperation in the industry through the promotion and development of standards in computer semantics
• bring together organisations and individuals aiming to enable and ensure interoperability between desktops and collaborative environments
• build and maintain a professional community for developing standards and putting them into practice
• prepare and support standardisation processes in semantic and collaborative areas
• be a meeting point and discussion forum
• support the advancement of semantic technologies in the field of collaboration and desktops
• identify necessary recommendations for the core services and ontologies and initiate standardisation activities
• gain common consent to semantic standards recommended by OSCAF in terms of substantial market share
• approach large market players in the field of computer semantics and collaboration
• raise funds
• initiate publically funded research projects
• perform outreach activities such as press releases and the organisation of events
• persistence of European NEPOMUK and ECOSPACE project results