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.