USING COS PIVOT

Funding Opportunities, Researcher Profiles, Personalized Funding Alerts
COS Pivot is an online database of over 400,000 individual funding opportunities and 3 million researcher profiles in the social sciences, humanities, fine arts, sciences, and engineering. Subscribers can choose to receive a weekly e-mail with a customized list of funding opportunities based on previously specified criteria.

Contact Kelly Pillsbury (pillsbury@research.ucsb.edu) for a training session, or use the Pivot support page for support guides, training webinars and FAQs,

CREATE YOUR ACCOUNT

Access the Pivot registration page at pivot.cos.com/register
Enter in the required information (you must use your UCSB email address)
Confirm your account by clicking the verification link sent to your email

Sign in with your email address (User ID) and password. You will be directed to the COS Pivot home page. Your Pivot home page is where you manage your saved funding opportunities and funding searches.

FACULTY PROFILES

Pivot creates faculty profiles automatically by mining the internet for publications and generates a funding search based upon this information:

If there is a “Claim profile” link at the top after logging in, your profile has not been claimed
Click the “Claim profile” link and select the profile that is yours by clicking “this is me.” If no results display, click “suggest a scholar”
You can see a funding search tailored to your profile in the right hand menu under “Funding Matches”. (note: claiming and updating your profiles ensures more relevant funding opportunities)

Detailed instructions can be found at the Creating and Updating Your Profile support page and guide.

CREATING SEARCHES

Pivot offers many search options to customize search results to your interests:

To search for funding and create funding alerts, click the “Funding” tab on the top menu.
For more detailed searches, click on the Advanced search link below the main search box.
Typically helpful search fields are Keywords, Applicant Type, and Funding Type. Click on each to see expanded options.
- Funding type is used to specify the type of grant (i.e. research, travel, fellowship, etc)
- Keywords utilizes the COS Pivot keywords, a large body of controlled vocabulary terms which succinctly describe the areas to which Funding Opportunities pertain. To search being typing in the search box to bring up a list of matches. To browse the full list click on the “browse” link to open up the keyword hierarchy list. (tip: start broad and then narrow it down).
- The Applicant Type search field lets you specify your qualifications to find results that apply to you (i.e. Academic Institution, PhD/MD/Other Professional)
Click search when ready.
Your search parameters are shown at the top. To change search parameters click “Refine Search” (hitting the back button will begin a new search).

Detailed instructions on advanced searching can be found at the Funding Advanced Search page and guide.

PERSONALIZED FUNDING ALERTS

In addition to tracking individual funding opportunities, Pivot allows you to save your search queries. Pivot can automatically provide weekly funding alerts that identify any newly added or updated opportunities that match your search.

To save the query for later use, choose “Save Query” on the results page of your search
Name, your search, check the box if you would like to receive a weekly email containing new or updated opportunities, and click “Save”
From the Pivot homepage select “Saved Searches” in the left-hand menu to view You can save as many searches as you like (you will only receive one digest email for all searches)
To edit queries or stop receiving email alerts, click on “Options” listed next to the individual search.

Detailed instructions on saving searches can be found at Saved Searches page and guide.

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