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Tips on Using the Community of Science Database

The Community of Science database contains a wide variety of funding opportunities for all levels of study, organizational affiliation, and disciplines. (The name connotes "science" along the lines of the Latin "scientia" meaning knowledge, and thus the focus of the database extends beyond the hard sciences to all disciplines.) The database is accessible from the Graduate Student Grants Service homepage: http://www.umass.edu/gradschool/gsgs/

To access the database from the GSGS homepage, click on the "Funding" box. Next, click on "Community of Science", then "COS Funding Opportunities", followed by "Search the entire COS Funding Opportunities database".

At this point, you will be presented with a variety of options for how to search based upon your specific qualifications and interests. In the "All Fields" box, type your keyword or phrase. If you would like to search all fields using more than one keyword or phrase, it is usually best to join them with the word "or". This will result in a display of all database entries that contain at least one of the search terms you submitted. If you choose to join multiple search terms with the word "and", your results will be limited to only those database entries which contain both of the terms you submitted. For example, someone seeking funding for their interest in either communication or women's studies would do best to type the following in the "All Fields" box: communication or (women's and studies). However, to modify the search to only those opportunities which utilize the terms "communication" and "women's studies", one would type: communication and (women's and studies).

After filling in the "All Fields" box, you will probably want to limit the search in a few important ways. If you choose not to limit the search, the results that will be returned to you will vary widely in terms of level of study, type of project, citizenship restrictions, etc. With that knowledge, it is recommended (though not necessary) that you refine your search along at least two dimensions:

"Requirements": Though there are several options here, we recommend using the mouse to click on your level of study. By highlighting "Graduate Student", for example, you are restricting your search to only those programs containing your "All Fields" search terms which are applicable to graduate students.

"Citizenship": Use the up or down arrows on the right side of the "Citizenship" box to move through the list until you find your country of citizenship. Click on that country to highlight it.

At this point, you may restrict your search in any other ways you deem appropriate by toggling other categories (including "Tenable In", "Funding Type", and "Sponsor Type"). However, we would caution against restricting your search too much in the early stages, as your search might produce many fewer results than could actually be appropriate for you.

After entering both your search terms and your search restrictions, click on "Do the Search" to submit the search. In a moment, your result set will appear. To move through the programs in your set of results, click on the up and down arrows on the right edge of your screen. To get more information about a particular program title, click on its name to follow the link. To get back to your result set list, click on the Back icon on the top left of your screen.

To print or save your results, scroll to the top of the document you want to print. Then:

• If your computer is connected to a printer, simply click on the Print icon.
• If you want to mail your findings to your e-mail account, click on File, followed by Mail Document or Send Page. At "Mail To" prompt, type your e-mail address. Then click on Send. (If this results in an error message, that means you need to set your mail preferences first. To do this, click on Options, then click on Mail and News Preferences. At "Your E-mail" prompt, type your e-mail address, then click on OK. Then try sending the file again.)
• If you want to save your findings to disk, click on File, then click on Save As. At the "Filename" prompt, type a memorable name for the document, ending with the suffix ".doc". Then, toggle the "Drive" prompt to the name of your disk drive, usually a:\ or b:\. Then click on OK.
  

Other tips for making your COS search fruitful:

• For help in coming up with search terms, browse the Funding Opportunities Index.
• You can utilize the "Truncation/Wild Card" feature to generate more results from a particular search term: e.g., type hea* to search for "heat", "health", "healing", "healthcare", etc.
• With the exception of the hyphen, do not use punctuation marks; also, do not use the articles a, an, or the.