Business models aside, one of the greatest advantages of the Internet is its ability to unite individuals with similar interests into a single community. The community can then provide its members with a vast amount of tools, data, information and the like to help them with work or play. One such site, Community of Science takes full advantage of the community aspects of the Internet and bills itself as the leading Internet site for the global R&D community.
Community of Science (COS) claims to have 460,000 individual members who us COS’ Web-based products and services to promote their work, find funding, access experts, consult, and collaborate with colleagues. The members also use COS as a means to stay current on research activities, news and publications, track funded research; and purchase supplies and services.
The site is so vast that you could easily be overwhelmed. To avoid this and to make the site easy to maneuver through, COS developed the virtual workbench -- a customized Web "work space" based on your specific details that you provide to COS. The workbench and the other features of the site are highlighted below.
Funding and research tools
COS enables you to quickly and easily find funding for your research. Via one click, you can search more than 20,500 grants and awards. This represents more than $33 billion. This section is updated daily and you can also receive weekly email alerts customized to your specific area of research.
There is also a tool to help you promote your research. The COS Funded Research enables you to research and track information on funding and award histories at leading research facilities around the world. This comprehensive database features data from National Institutes of Health (NIH), National Science Foundation (NSF), United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR), and Medical Research Council, UK (MRC). You can search these databases by keyword, geography, institutional recipient, award amount, date, agency, investigator, departments, and more. This section also enables you to showcase your research and expertise among researchers and scholars from university, corporate, government and non-profit institutions in more than 125 countries.
You can also use COS to access experts. You can search and communicate with over 460,000 researchers at more than 1300 institutions around the world. You can discover who's doing what -- current research activity, funding received, recent publications, new grants, patent filings, positions and more.
You can also use COS to locate and buy equipment and supplies, participate in lab auctions, find and post a job, book a trip, and track your investments.
The Virtual Workbench
The Workbench is your customized Web site for access to all products and services. The Workbench is a free service. Signing up for the workbench is pretty fast and easy – but the more time you spend customizing your workbench the more effective it will be.
The workbench enables you to communicate, collaborate, find funding, find job opportunities, keep current with research worldwide and purchase materials and supplies.
The Workbench platform provides access to all of the tools mentioned above, plus a lot more including:
- Listing in COS Expertise - Include your curriculum vitae in COS Expertise, the most comprehensive network of over 460,000 researchers worldwide enabling you to promote yourself and your work.
- Career Center - Find a job, post a job, and locate companies
- Science news - Keep up to date with science news, updated hourly from Reuters
- Discussion Forums - Read and post messages on topics that interest you
- COS Bookstore - Search for and order the books you need from more than 100,000 titles.
- Travel Center - Plan a trip, compare prices, and find flight discounts
- Buyers Guides - Search the BioResearch, Drug Discovery, and Laboratory Network Buyers Guides to find products you need
- Online CV - Generate a curriculum vitae using COS Quick Form for Online CV. This tool creates a personalized CV using information from your COS Expertise profile
- Lab Auctions - Buy or sell lab equipment
- Investment Tracker - Follow your stocks on a daily basis
- Meetings and Conferences - Keep track of upcoming conferences and calls for papers
COS provides scientists and researchers with valuable tools that they need to compete both in and out of academia. Every scientist and researcher should take the time to become a member – and to fully utilize all of the services available.
Published by Israel's Business Arena February 20, 2001.