Koopiast

Koopiast is a neologism used in online and academic discussions to describe a person who champions cooperative approaches to knowledge creation and dissemination. The term appears to combine a root suggesting communal or cooperative activity with the agentive suffix -iast, signaling a practitioner or advocate. In practice, a koopiast advocates open collaboration, shared authorship, and licensing that favors public access over proprietary control.

Origins and usage of the term are informal. It emerged in mid-2010s discussions within open science, open culture, and indie publishing communities. As discussions about equity in information ecosystems grew, koopiast ideas were gradually adopted by groups exploring collective governance of projects, transparent funding, and non-exclusive licensing.

Characteristics commonly associated with koopiaists include a commitment to open licenses (such as Creative Commons or copyleft models), a preference for transparent governance and decision-making, and practices that favor co-authorship, collaborative editing, and community stewardship of content and data. Koopiaists often engage in co-created outputs, from open-access articles to shared software and educational resources, emphasizing social benefit and reciprocal knowledge exchange.

Variations of the term exist, including koopia to describe the philosophy and koopist to denote an adherent. The concept remains informal and field-specific, without formal institutions endorsing it widely. In discourse, koopiaists are framed as contributors to more participatory and equitable information ecosystems, while critics note vagueness in definition and potential conflicts over workload and leadership in collaborative projects.

See also: Open science, Open access, Copyleft, Cooperative movement, Collective intelligence.