COAPI Report on Recent Activities and Ongoing Projects, July 2021 – June 2022

COAPI Report on Recent Activities and Ongoing Projects, July 2020 – June 2021

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 123 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:

Current active working groups are:

COAPI Advocacy

COAPI has produced or signed onto several statements on matters related to the advancement of open access in the North American context. In 2021-2022, the Steering Committee surveyed previous advocacy actions and affirmed its advocacy policy in the Process & Procedures. Statements produced are listed in the activities section below; a full list is also available on the COAPI website.

COAPI Activities, 2021-2022

  • Added new members, bringing our total to 127 member institutions as of June 2022, and celebrated the adoption of several new OA policies.
  • Monthly COAPI Steering Committee meetings (7-member leadership group).
  • Monthly reports from the COAPI liaison to the SPARC OA Working Group.
  • Updated the COAPI Process & Procedures to affirm COAPI’s advocacy policy and roles in the Steering Committee to maintain communications channels.
  • Engaged in discussions with SPARC and Open Research Funders Group on areas of collaboration.
  • Working with the SPARC team, updated the COAPI website to use a dynamically-generated member list, resulting in significant reduction of the time and effort in maintaining the list.
  • Hosted a series of COAPI Community Calls to facilitate more discussion and engagement both within and beyond the COAPI membership:

Prepared by Robin N Sinn, Steering Committee Chair for 2020-2021 and Alainna Wrigley, Vice Chair for 2020-2021

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