The International Aid Transparency Initiative (IATI)’s newly-established Communities of Practice (COPs) are open and freely accessible communities around areas of thematic interest to the IATI community – initially, these will be based formed under three broad headings -  Data Use, Data Publishing and Technical IATI issues. Within these, there are subgroups based on constituency, thematic interest, etc., if there is sufficient demand additional subgroups can be formed. With the help of the IATI Connect Manager who is a member of the IATI Secretariat, the membership of the COPs will decide on the design, future activities and key focus areas for each COP to ensure that it meets the needs of its members.

Each COP was co-created with members of the wider IATI Community. Read a detailed description of the initial goals, thematic scope and possible activities on the About-page of each COP: Data Use, Data Publishing, Technical Community. Explore IATI Connect's Communities of Pratice here.

For questions or suggestions on COPs or sub-groups, please contact connect@iatistandard.org.

COPs are open to anyone with an interest in aid transparency or development cooperation data. You do not need to be an IATI member or publisher to join a COP. Everyone is welcome!

Participating in an IATI COP allows you to share your expertise and exchange views with peers in the open data and transparency fields on the issues you care about most. Furthermore, you can expand your professional network with other data publishers and users, transparency advocates, open data experts and technical specialists. You may also help shape the future of IATI, for instance through participating in online consultations that will feed into changes to the IATI Standard, guidance products and tools, as well as other matters such as engagement opportunities or broader policy discussions.

COPs are informal communities with a focus on shared learning, experimentation and increased engagement amongst the IATI community. The focus areas and activities are determined by the COP membership itself. This is different from an IATI Working Group, which is a time-bound group, mandated by IATI’s Members’ Assembly or Governing Board. Working Groups are advisory in nature and they report to the Governing Board on specific tasks or objectives. See IATI’s Standard Operating Procedures for more information.

COPs are not an official part of the IATI governance process and are intended to be more informal in nature. However, COPs may wish to voluntarily draft or submit position papers, recommendations, etc. to IATI’s governing bodies, to be considered as an input to relevant processes or consultations.

While the COPs are not a part of the official IATI governance process, they are a crucial part of ensuring that IATI’s data and tools continually improve to meet the needs of end users. IATI will continue its principle of consulting with its community on key decisions through Secretariat-sponsored consultations on IATI Connect, and COP members will have the ability to contribute to these open discussions around improvements to IATI’s tools or guidance , and broader questions of open data, transparency, interoperability with other data standards and more.

IATI Connect is a user-friendly platform housing the IATI COPs and fostering engagement amongst the IATI community. Read through our helpful User Guide, learn how to set up your account, or check out how to ‘Get Started in 6 Easy Steps.’ You can also watch our brief instructional videos, found here.

You do not have to be a member of IATI to join a COP or IATI Connect. The COPs and platform are open and freely accessible to anyone and you can find all COPs here. By clicking on the community of your preference, you will be redirected to the homepage for that COP where you have the option to join.

IATI Connect is a multi-functional platform that allows users to engage with peers in a multitude of ways. The platform already contains spaces for all IATI COPs, e-discussions and consultations, relevant upcoming events and a Resource Library. The platform also offers additional features, such as the Connect Collaborate extension, that allows users to collaboratively and simultaneously work on a piece of content, while tracking changes and leaving comments. Learn more about the Connect Collaborate feature in our two-pager. The platform is freely accessible by anyone with internet access. It provides automatic translation into 100+ languages and is mobile-friendly even with low bandwidth. Check out how to ‘Get Started in 6 Easy Steps’ or read through our more in-depth User Guide.

You can already start sharing your thoughts or resources via IATI Connect. Post a ‘discussion’ to engage and encourage conversation within a specific COP, or share other relevant resources by posting a a piece of 'content’. Visibility settings can be easily changed to post content to the public, to the IATI Connect community or to a specific group. Find more information in our IATI Connect User Guide.

Once you’re logged in to IATI Connect, you can post a community-wide message in the comment box under the ‘Latest Activities’ block on the homepage.

The IATI Secretariat is organising quarterly IATI Connect ‘Crash Courses’, where you can learn more about the platform’s key features. Each ‘Crash Course’ session will be announced via the event page and through IATI’s social media channels.

The Discuss platform is now in ‘read-only’ mode. All content (live and archived) has been transferred from Discuss to IATI Connect and current users of Discuss were transitioned with as little change to their user experience as possible. All previous Discuss users received a pre-arranged profile on the new platform. Sub-categories previously found on Discuss are now listed as 'tags' on IATI Connect, which users can easily add to their new discussion posts. Find the Discuss Archive here.

When creating a new Topic or Discussion on IATI Connect, you can add thematic or content-specific tags to your post. This ensures that your content is easy to find, and will be clustered with similar posts. However, don't over-tag your content: 1 to 3 tags will typically suffice.

Note: When creating a new Discussion, please make sure to add the "Active Discussions" tag to your post, along with any other tags you choose.

View more information on content tagging in our helpful User Guide.

Yes! Suggestions for changes and enhancements across the Standard are welcomed from all stakeholders. The IATI Connect forum then allows for a public exchange to take place on the merits of each proposal. You can add a proposal to the Standard Management group by posting a new discussion in the group. While the platform may be new, the policy on Standard upgrades remains unchanged from that agreed by members previously, and can be found here.

All current community-wide consultations can be found on IATI Connect’s Consultations dashboard. Future consultations, and a timeline for engagement, will be listed in the Monthly Snapshot sent to all users on IATI Connect.

To avoid fragmentation or duplication on the platform, at this time only the IATI Connect Manager (a member of the IATI Secretariat) can create new groups within IATI Connect. However, anyone can propose the creation of a group by emailing the IATI Connect Manager at connect@iatistandard.org. In the meantime, community members can already post ‘content’ and ‘discussions’  in the current COP spaces. For more information on how to do this, please see the IATI Connect User Guide.

Feel free to email us at connect@iatistandard.org with any comments on how to improve IATI Connect. If you have specific feedback regarding the migration of the Discuss content, you may add any comments to this discussion thread.

The ‘Connect Collaborate’-extension allows users to collaboratively and simultaneously work on a piece of content as well as track changes and leave comments. You can learn more about the Connect Collaborate feature by reading our two-pager.