Hi Larry
The University of Toledo just switched from COS to SPIN. I have had one complaint from a faculty member that local foundations were not in the database and he couldn't get the results he had with COS and it was harder to use. My personal experience is just the opposite. I get daily notices of FOAs and am able to eliminate those that are specific for regions of the country that are not appropriate for us in the Midwest. I was getting weekly e-mails of 100+ opportunities; now it is down to between four and 20 a day—much more manageable. Additionally, I am finding opportunities that I had never seen before (of course, that could be because I was simply getting too much garbage to be able to sort it properly).

SPIN is not as "pretty" as COS and it takes a bit of getting used to, but I don't think the learning curve is a steep one. I have not used IRIS in 25 years, so I am in no position to comment on that service. I do know that our bill from COS went up astronomically, but not fourfold ($10,000 to $18,000 for Pivot). I feel we are getting good bang for our bucks with Infoed.

Hope this helps, Elsa

Elsa Nadler
419.383.5302

-----Original Message-----
From: Research Administration List [mailto:xxxxxx@lists.healthresearch.org] On Behalf Of Lawrence Waxler
Sent: Thursday, April 19, 2012 8:44 AM
To: xxxxxx@lists.healthresearch.org
Subject: [RESADM-L] Grant Opportunities Search Tools

As many of you know, the Community of Science (COS) grant opportunities
search tool, which we currently use, is transitioning to Pivot. With
that transition would come a quadrupling of our annual fee to about
$7,000. As you might expect, despite a stated huge increase in
functionality, we are not able to justify the cost.

We also know that IRIS is moving to Cazoodle (great name) GrantForward
. And then there is SPIN.

So, do any of you out in grantland have any suggestions, observations,
likes and dislikes, advice, new plans of action….....

Larry

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Larry Waxler, Director
Office of Sponsored Programs
University of Southern Maine
15 Baxter Boulevard
P.O. Box 9300
Portland, ME  04104-9300
Telephone: 207-780-4413
Telefax: 207-780-4927

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 Instructions on how to use the RESADM-L Mailing List, including
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