COAPI Report on Recent Activities and Ongoing Projects, July 2017- June 2019

COAPI Report on Recent Activities and Ongoing Projects, July 2017- June 2019

The Coalition of Open Access Policy Institutions (COAPI) was formed in 2011 to bring together representatives from North American universities with established, faculty-led open access policies and those in the process of developing such policies. In addition to supporting its 109 member institutions in the development and implementation of campus OA policies, COAPI also advocates for a more open scholarly communication system at local, national, and international levels.

COAPI Membership

Membership in COAPI is divided into Full and Affiliate Member tiers. Full Members have adopted an OA policy at the institutional or departmental level, whereas Affiliate Members are either interested in or actively working toward the adoption of a policy. There are no fees associated with COAPI membership: instead, prospective members are asked to agree to a set of principles that guide COAPI’s education and advocacy efforts. A list of current COAPI members is available here: https://sparcopen.org/coapi/members/

COAPI Meetings & Working Groups

In addition to maintaining an active mailing list, COAPI also convenes regular virtual and in-person meetings for COAPI members to share information, identify common needs and priorities, and get answers to questions related to all aspects of OA policy initiatives, from policy development and promotion to policy implementation and assessment. COAPI also convenes working groups to focus on specific projects from time to time. Projects completed by past working groups include:

COAPI Advocacy

COAPI has produced several statements on matters related to the advancement of open access in the North American context. A full list is available here: https://sparcopen.org/coapi/activities/

COAPI Activities, 2017-2019

  • Surpassed the 100-member milestone, with 109 member institutions as of June 2019
    • Also created documentation and workflows for onboarding new members
  • Successful and ongoing engagement with SPARC, including conversations about effective collaboration with Nick Shockey
  • Monthly COAPI Steering Committee meetings (8-member leadership group)
  • Monthly reports from the SPARC liaison to the SPARC OA Working Group (Jere Odell for 2017-), following Ada Emmett
  • COAPI Steering Committee chair representing COAPI on the SPARC International OA Week Advisory Committee (Laura Bowering Mullen 2017-2018, Devin Soper 2018-2019)
  • Added new resources to the COAPI Toolkit, including a bibliography of relevant studies and publications
  • Completed various updates to the COAPI website, including redesigning and creating new content for the “About” and “Resources” pages
  • Migrated legacy steering committee documentation from Dropbox to Google Drive
  • Introduced annual virtual meetings to supplement biennial in-person meetings (see agendas from April 2018 and April 2019)
  • Organized panel presentation and biennial in-person meeting at ALA Annual 2018 in New Orleans
    • Decided to hold biennial meeting at a library conference because the biennial SPARC meeting (our previous venue) was discontinued
    • Created COAPI Backgrounder and swag items (stickers, buttons) to give away at events
    • Panel presentation: “The Care and Feeding of an Open Access Policy: Adoption, Implementation, and Assessment,” with Anne Langley, Jamie Wittenberg, and Jere Odell
    • In-person meeting agenda
  • Updated COAPI Process and Procedure Document, notably to remove the Community Member category, which was unused and redundant relative to the Affiliate Member category
  • Launched series of COAPI Community Calls to facilitate more discussion and engagement both within and beyond the COAPI membership
    • Aug. 14, 2018 – Outreach Strategies
    • Oct. 16, 2018 – Copyright & Rights-retention Policies
    • Dec. 18, 2018 – COAPI Toolkit
    • Feb. 18, 2019 – Implementation Models
    • June 12, 2019 – Policy Assessment
  • Launched new COAPI Twitter account, @coapioa, thus far used to advertise Community Calls and tweet out conversation during the events (using the hashtag #coapicomm)
  • Published blog post for Open Access Week 2017, 2018
  • Formed three new COAPI working groups:
    • Community Call WG
    • Copyright WG
    • Small College & University WG
  • Updated and consolidated existing COAPI membership lists
  • Signed letters of support for federal bills and regulations, including
    • H.R. 6501, The Well-Informed, Scientific, and Efficient (WISE) Government Act
    • S. 1701, the Fair Access to Science and Technology Research (FASTR) Act
    • H.R. 3427, the Fair Access to Science and Technology Research (FASTR) Act
    • AB 2192, the extension and expansion of the California Taxpayer Access to Publicly Funded Research Act

Prepared by Laura Bowering Mullen and Devin Soper, Steering Committee Chairs for 2017-2018 and 2018-2019

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