COAPI Report on Recent Activities and Ongoing Projects, July 2019 – June 2020

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 118 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 is also available on Twitter, @coapioa, advertising Community Calls and tweeting out conversation during the events (using the hashtag #coapicomm).

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:

• Public COAPI Toolkit of Open Access Policy Resources: https://osf.io/vhw6d/
• Measuring Open Access Policy Compliance [online survey]: https://goo.gl/forms/Ybc91AeMnwvNXoQj1
• Open Access Policies: An Introduction from COAPI (2015): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UcXpF8bU714

Current active working groups are:

• Community Call Working Group (Chair, Devin Soper)
• Copyright Working Group (Chair, Perry Collins)
• Small Colleges & Teaching-First Universities Working Group (Chair, Erica Pye)

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, 2019-2020

• Added new members, bringing our total to 118 member institutions as of June 24, 2020, and celebrated the adoption of several new OA policies.
• Monthly COAPI Steering Committee meetings (8-member leadership group)
• Monthly reports from the SPARC liaison to the SPARC OA Working Group (Jere Odell continuing since 2017)
• Added new resources to the COAPI Toolkit, including a glossary of open access terms
• Maintained and added to the COAPI website, including adding a list of past steering committee members and chairs, as well as information about past and present working groups.
• Hosted a series of COAPI Community Calls to facilitate more discussion and engagement both within and beyond the COAPI membership:
  • Sept. 24, 2019 – Intersection of Big Deal negotiations and OA Policy initiatives
  • Nov 20, 2019 – Effective Use of SPARC’s Author Addendum (jointly organized with the Copyright Working Group)
  • Jan. 22, 2020 – The future of IRs and Green Open Access
  • Apr. 7, 2020 – Advancing Green Open Access
  • June 10, 2020 (rescheduled to July 22 in support of #ShutDownSTEM) – Open Discussion
• Contributed advocacy statements and responses in support of a proposed zero-embargo policy for federally funded research:
  • COAPI Signs Joint Thank You Letter to the White House – June 5, 2020
  • COAPI response to 2020 RFI – Public Access to Scholarly Information – April 22, 2020
  • COAPI Letter to the White House in Support of Zero-Embargo OA Policy – January 17, 2020
  • COAPI Signs Joint Statement to the White House – January 8, 2020

Prepared by Anali Maughan Perry, Steering Committee Chair for 2019-2020