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COUPERIN - Unified Consortium of Academic and Research Institutions for Access to Digital Publications 

Consortium unifié des établissements universitaires et de recherche pour l’accès aux publications numériques

Mission

Couperin Manifesto for scientific information and publishing at the service of research, higher education and democracy:

Scientific and technical information and documentation, like other tools, are at the heart of the research and teaching process.

Higher education and research institutions have undertaken to join forces to promote a concerted and coordinated policy for the acquisition and dissemination of scientific and technical information.

Couperin recognises the positive and decisive role played by scientific publishers throughout history, but refuses the diktat of certain global groups with monopolistic aims.

Couperin is committed, together with other international information players, to promoting free and alternative scientific publishing.

Finally, Couperin participates in the elaboration of a national scheme for the preservation of data and resources with national and international operators.

Keywords for describing Couperin’s contribution to open science would be: advocacy, dissemination, lobbying, negotiating OS agreements, sharing and training.

Contribution to Open Science

Recognising the importance of Open Access

Goals and objectives

France has this objective: 100% open accessibility to the results of publicly-funded scientific research as soon as possible. France has now a voluntary open science policy and builds a true ecosystem where open science is practiced by default. It is eager to share its experience with other countries and to build trainings on this experience. The change in research assessment, where the open science good practices are taken into account, is for example, a stake issue to foster OS.
  • Member since
    2009
Contact Info
André Dazy
Coordinator of the services and forecasting studies
Contact
Services

The Services and Forecasting studies Department (DSP) was given a mandate by the Executive Board to monitor and provide expertise on technical issues related to the dissemination of electronic documentation. It aims to share experiences and projects in a field that is essential to the development of institutions.

Open on a voluntary basis to the staff of Couperin institutions, it leads several working groups and discussion lists and provides monitoring and expertise in the following areas:

  • open science within the open science working group (GTSO)
  • electronic books within the e-book working group (CeB)
  • electronic resource management systems
  • usage statistics
  • indicators for steering digital document policies with the Indicators working group (GTI)
  • researcher identifiers with the French ORCID communit

Areas of study

Open science

Since its creation, Couperin has supported open access to electronic publications, with the objective of making 100% of research results available in open access, through the promotion of open archives, collaboration with HAL, participation in the European OpenAIRE project, negotiation of agreements promoting green open access, etc. This support is particularly evident within the open science working group.

Couperin also carries out campaigns to support open science, notably for the DOAJ, SPARC Europe and through the SCOSS mechanism.

Electronic books within the e-book working group

The e-book working group (CeB) structures its work around two axes

  • the coordination of e-books negotiations, attached to the thematic sections, with their negotiators
  • monitoring platforms, content, business models, readers, electronic ink and paper, etc.

The CeB produces documents to help with the acquisition of e-books, educational or political documents on the place of e-books in the digital collections of Couperin network member institutions. In particular, it is following a federative project to create an electronic textbook in history. It wishes to be a privileged interlocutor of publishers on these subjects.

Usage statistics

Couperin monitors developments in the use of electronic documentation through regular statistical reports.

It also monitors these issues and is a member of COUNTER. It encourages publishers to ensure their compatibility with COUNTER.

The AnalogIST/ezPAARSE and MESURE projects (which will be progressively replaced by CC-Plus or a similar tool) developed by Couperin, in partnership with INIST-CNRS for the former, propose on the one hand to collect, process and analyse log files collected locally, and on the other hand to bring together on a single portal, the statistics provided by publishers

The Indicators Working Group is working to find the most appropriate indicators to develop a good understanding of usage mechanisms and to enable the instruction of development choices for digital documentary resources.

The "French Community ORCID" consortium

Couperin, in partnership with Abes, and under the auspices of the Ministry of Higher Education and Research, has federated a consortial registration of French members within the French ORCID community, which should facilitate the adoption of ORCID at the French level and coordinate the feedback of the needs expressed by its members to ORCID.