COAR community groups offer a forum for members to exchange information and experiences and work on topics of common interest. If you are from a COAR member institution and want to join one of these groups, please contact the COAR office: office@coar-repositories.org
Controlled Vocabularies Editorial Board
This group aims to develop and maintain controlled vocabularies for repositories to enhance the interoperability across repositories and with other related systems such as harvesters, CRIS systems, data repositories and publishers.
Next Generation Repositories Expert Group
This group aims to work towards the implementation of NGR technologies, helps with profiling use cases, and continues to monitor the environment for new technologies.
We are currently not accepting new members of this group.
National aggregators
There is a growing number of national repository networks around the world. These networks aggregate metadata from repositories and other data sources and provide a number of services including tracking open access content, discovery of national research outputs, standardized usage statistics, and more. This group focuses on the exchange of information and experience across national networks.
Repository Assessment Working Group
In order to expand and strengthen the current infrastructure for research data management, we need to ensure that repositories are using best practice and are interoperable with repositories internationally. While there are other existing certification schema for repositories, they are not always relevant for institutional repositories or the requirements set a very high bar and many repositories will not be able to comply with them in the near or medium-term future. The aim of this group will be to assess the current frameworks for relevance in various communities and regions, and if needed, develop a set of benchmarks/good practices for repositories that can be used as an assessment tool.
ASAPbio/COAR Working Group on Preprints in Generalist Repositories
As open scholarship practices grow, dedicated preprint servers are springing up in many disciplines. However, researchers are also depositing preprints in other platforms, including institutional and generalist repositories. These destinations can be familiar to researchers and well-integrated into the scholarly communications infrastructure, but many do not presently offer the same preprint-related features found in purpose-built servers. The aim of this working group is to develop good practice recommendations for the management of preprints in repositories in generalist and institutional repositories.
Asia OA
Asia OA is a special forum hosted by COAR in which members of the Asian open access community can share information, meet each other and build relationships. It has a mailing list and organizes meetings to facilitate greater exchange beyond national boundaries. It celebrates Asian cultural diversity and unique way of doing things. The aim is to support information sharing through a mailing list and organize regular in-person meetings in Asian countries.
Former Groups
Former community groups which are no longer active can be found here