The ALLIANCE ALISS programme 2021 review

ALISS - A Local Information System for Scotland.

ALISS started 2021 with Chris Mackie joining the team as Programme Manager. Katherine Long followed in March, as User Researcher.

The early part of the year was spent finalising strategic objectives for the ALISS Programme for the next three years. These are:

• More data: Increase the amount of information that people can access through ALISS or that is hosted by ALISS.
• Better data: Improve the quality of data hosted on ALISS, its maintenance, and the experience of data providers.
• Better experience: Improve the experiences of people accessing information through ALISS or hosted by ALISS.
• More users: Increase the number of people who access ALISS or information hosted by ALISS.

Work towards these objectives is detailed below:

More data

The ALISS team engaged with a host of organisations across Scotland, including a number of umbrella bodies. Work with Scotland’s Cancer Coalition ensured that all members of the Coalition were correctly listed on ALISS. An exciting partnership with Glasgow Alliance to End Homelessness saw ALISS data used to power the Get Help Glasgow directory.

Thanks to the evolving partnership with the ALLIANCE’s Discover Digital programme, ALISS now includes details of digital health and care tools, apps, and websites, developed by the third sector.

Working with colleagues in the ALLIANCE’s Scotland Reducing Gambling Harms Programme, and addressing a previous lack of information on available support and services, a collective mapping process took place to ensure that appropriate resources were listed on ALISS.

Better data

A common concern for systems like ALISS is the quality of the data held. This challenge has only been exacerbated during the COVID-19 pandemic. The team has addressed this by sending out periodic communication to all claimed organisations and ALISS editors encouraging them to update information. This has been complemented by training new ALISS editors, further engagement with the third sector, as well as technical developments which will prompt users to update their information.

Better experience

The team are keen to improve the accessibility of the ALISS system. In line with the ethos of the programme, this will be driven by user research and engagement with the third sector. Following the publication of an initial report on user insights, user research has progressed, and seeks to involve individuals with lived experience of sensory loss and dementia. This shared insight will highlight how digital health and social care services can become more inclusive for those with added digital accessibility requirements.

A major programme of technical development has been undertaken, with the aim to rewrite and migrate ALISS to a new hosting platform, providing enhanced performance and interoperability, as well as improved accessibility and a new back-end admin panel.

More users

In terms of increasing the usage of ALISS and its data, the team produced a communications strategy, which included approaches to social media. This saw a marked increase in activity on ALISS and engagement on Twitter from the ALISS programme account.

Engagement thematic priorities have also been established, and the team launched a series of accompanying videos during Co-production Week 2021 as follows:

• Our world
• Our connections
• Our rights
• Our health

Get involved in ALISS by keeping an eye on our web pages or Twitter.

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