NOTE: This documentation is for the pilot project Catalog of Open Infrastructure Services, released January 2022. This documentation is no longer being updated, but is preserved to accompany that pilot project. We are looking forward to releasing a new version of this tool in early 2024. Sign up for our newsletter to learn about the latest work.

The Catalog of Open Infrastructure Services (COIs) is a step towards addressing the information asymmetries that exist in understanding and assessing open infrastructure projects. This effort is designed to model a means of standardizing information about core open infrastructure services for decision makers and members of the community.

What's included

The catalog currently includes the following 10 open infrastructure services (links to Wayback Machine captures):

These 10 services were selected based on a range of service-specific criteria such as the type of service provided, the organizational status of the service provider, and the availability and accessibility of funding information. Other factors considered were the diversity of scholarly practices represented or the demonstration of the intention and ability to create change towards our vision of an equitable, just, and accessible infrastructure for all. We have previously documented this selection process including key criteria in more detail in this blog post.

For a full copy of the current COIs data in CSV format, please follow this download link.

Documentation

The initial prototype of COIs was developed as part of the Costs of Open Infrastructure research project. For more information on COI's data sources, a list of frequently asked questions, and additional discussion, please read the COIs documentation.

Documentation | Informational sessions recap | Initial feedback and learnings

Roadmap

As we explore expanding COIs, our intention is to refine the value proposition for funders, providers, and other key stakeholders in order to design more efficient processes to gather, verify, and display information while keeping existing information up-to-date and expanding the information available to better serve the needs of those using COIs.

To this end, we ran an interest survey between May and June 2022 for open infrastructure service providers who are interested in being added to the next release of COIs – more details in this blog post.

Next steps | Q&A sessions recap

Between August and September 2022, we also interviewed 12 representatives from philanthropic funders, academic institutions, and research networks to understand how funding decisions are made and identify the opportunities for COIs to be integrated into that process, to help make some steps easier and/or more transparent.

In the coming months, we’ll be mapping out a longer-term development and maintenance strategy for COIs. Our aim is to develop COIs from an initial prototype to an integrated service that is more representative of the current open infrastructure landscape, provides actionable information that informs and empowers funders and institutions on where to direct resources and is valued as a robust, reliable, dynamic offering. We're grateful for the support from the Mellon Foundation for this next phase of work.

Acknowledgements

COIs was developed as a collaboration with open infrastructure project leaders, design support from Allison McCartney, and with input from institutional leaders, funders, and experts in non-profit effectiveness and assessment.

We also are especially grateful for the colleagues involved with (and their research) the Mapping the Scholarly Communication Landscape 2019 Census and bibliographic scan, the Scholarly Communication Technology Catalogue (SComCAT), the list of Open Access Publishing Tools from the Radical Open Access Collective, the Values & Principles Framework and Assessment Checklist from the Next Generation Library Publishing Project, the Principles of Open Scholarly Infrastructure, and the 400+ Tools and Innovations in Scholarly Communication compiled by Jeroen Bosman and Bianca Kramer of Utrecht University Library. These resources have been foundational inspirations and supports for our investigations.

Our sincere thanks to all who shared their time, resources, and expertise with us.

Posted by Invest In Open Infrastructure