COS Fact Sheet (print version)

What is the University of Pittsburgh Faculty Expertise Database?

The University of Pittsburgh Faculty Expertise database contains profiles of University of Pittsburgh faculty members and research associates from all disciplines. Each profile includes a first-person description of research interests and expertise as well as biographical information. COS maintains these profiles and makes them available on the web to member educational institutions as well as to member corporations and government agencies.

What is the COS?

COS is a network of research resources on the Web. The University of Pittsburgh is one of over 700 universities and research institutions throughout the world participating in COS. Currently COS has three major services:

Does COS provide any user training for its services?

For COS user training, see the presentations at http://www.cos.com/usertraining/

What are the major advantages of Pitt's participation in COS?

Members of the University of Pittsburgh community can readily identify persons with requisite research interests and expertise for potential collaborative or consulting relationships.

Universities, corporations and government agencies that are members of COS can identify University of Pittsburgh persons and programs for potential research funding and collaboration.

The University of Pittsburgh has its own faculty research interest and expertise database.

COS will send customized weekly Funding Alerts to each University of Pittsburgh faculty member who has a COS account if that faculty member requests Funding Alerts.

How can I as a member of the University of Pittsburgh community search the University of Pittsburgh Expertise database and the COS Funding Opportunities and Expertise databases?

Any member of the University community who has access to the Internet through the pitt.edu or upmc.edu domains and a World Wide Web (WWW) browser can search the databases.

The Uniform Resource Locator (URL) for the University of Pittsburgh Expertise database is: http://expertise.cos.com/cgi-bin/searchexp?code=197

The URL which provides links to all COS services is:

http://www.cos.com/

How can I have my profile entered into the University of Pittsburgh Expertise and the COS Expertise databases?

Go to the following website (http://registration.cos.com/cgi-bin/register) to create your COS account. After registering and selecting a username and password, you will automatically access your COS Workbench where you can complete the various sections under Manage Your Profile. It can take up to one week for the COS to process your profile and format it for inclusion in the Expertise databases.

If you have any questions about adding yourself to the Expertise databases, contact the University liaison*.

How can I update or change my profile?

After your original profile has been formally entered into the Expertise databases, you can update or change your profile as often as you wish to do so. Simply go to (http://login.cos.com/), and login to your COS Workbench with your username and password. Once you are in your COS Workbench you can update any section on the left side of the screen under Manage Your Profile. Generally, any changes you make to a profile that is already published (or publicly available) will be immediately reflected in the public database. If you make changes to an unpublished COS profile, it can take up to a week for that profile to be searchable in the public database.