LaGENIUS/LaSMARTS Instructions for New users

LaGENIUS / LaSMARTS Help (Instructions) to Create/Modify Profile

WE RECOMMEND YOU PRINT THESE INSTRUCTIONS FOR REFERENCE

The Categories required for LaGENIUS and LaSMARTS are listed on the Profile Summary page. This page is the key to all the SMARTS and GENIUS functions.

General

You must complete the GENERAL Category as completely as possible.
You will be asked a series of questions; these are your User Preferences:
The first two options may not be available, depending on your institution setup.
Indicate whether you want your profile information to be available to anyone around the world searching GENIUS, or restricted to your institution.
Indicate whether you want anyone who finds your profile in a GENIUS search to contact you directly, or to go through your administrator.
Indicate whether you would like to receive SMARTS output; the default is Yes, but if you do not wish to receive e-mailed funding opportunities for any reason, or while you are on vacation, please set to No.
Indicate whether you would like to receive your SMARTS output as:

1. A single e-mail per day, potentially containing multiple funding opportunity notices, or

2. One funding opportunity notice per e-mail (with the Title of each hit displaying as the subject of the e-mail), potentially giving you multiple Email messages per day.

Select the format for your SMARTS output: Full Program or Summary.

Keywords

Keywords serve two purposes: 1) categorizes your research interests for GENIUS searches 2) receive matching funding opportunities. We have provided a detailed description of how to select keywords under SMARTS categories below.

GENIUS Categories

There are 16 GENIUS categories.

Each table provides an Add button, clicking on which displays a screen where you can enter your data (up to three entries at a time after which you should click on Submit).
The information in the tables will be displayed in reverse date order; where there are no dates, the information will be displayed in the order entered. The second date field of a pair maybe left blank to indicate "To Present". The required format for the Date field is MM/DD/YYYY.
To edit an existing record, click on the first field on the left. To edit its free text field, click on the book icon

SMARTS Categories

SMARTS users should complete the General and Keyword categories at a minimum. If you do not want SMARTS, you should still complete the KeyWords category section.

Keywords Selection and Tips

Select the Keywords category to enter your areas of interest/expertise. You will make your selections from the Keyword Thesaurus, which is available as hierarchical subject listing or as an alphabetical listing. There are 4 levels to this hierarchy.

First, choose exact matches or hierarchical matches. (hierarchical gives you more hits but is less precise)

For example:

If your profile includes the Keyword "Biological Sciences", then by choosing exact matches you will receive ONLY those funding opportunities that actually contain the Keyword "Biological Sciences". If you choose hierarchical matches, you will receive all funding opportunity notices that contain Keywords that fall under that term in the INFOED Thesaurus, such as "Anatomy," "Biology, Cellular," "Botany," "Vision," "Electroreception," and many others. (If you will want some but not all of the Keywords that fall under a "parent" term, you should select Exact Matches and then individually select each of the Keywords that you want.)

Next, select your Keywords: There is more than one way of doing this.

Your best option is to drag the bar between the split screen up to uncover the local copy of the keyword thesaurus. Here you choose the hierarchical subject or alphabetical listing. A keyword can be cut and pasted to the InfoEd search engine, searched there and results saved. This approach may uncover additional keywords of interest.

You can type terms or truncated words directly into the InfoEd search engine using the "Search for Term" link next to the Save button on your screen. Any terms in the thesaurus that contain the EXACT text you enter for your search will be returned. You can then make selections off that list of Keywords for your profile. Note, even if only one term is displayed, you must select it (click on it to highlight it) before you click on Save Keywords.

Alternatively, you can click on one of the Keyword Category names under the "Add Specific Keywords" column. These categories show the general breakdown of the Keyword Thesaurus. When you click on one of the categories, you will see an alphabetic listing of the terms in that section. You may select as many Keywords in as many categories as desired. ("Control-Click" or "Command-Click" to make multiple selections from a list.) Click "Save Criteria" after making selections from each list. You can also select an entire category by checking the box in the "All" column next to the desired category name (not recommended).

Click on "Save Criteria."

To delete a Keyword previously selected, simply click on the Delete Terms button and check the boxes of the terms you wish to delete. Be sure to click Delete Checked Keywords when you are finished.

You should revise your keyword selections based on how satisfied you are with the hits you get.

In addition to Keywords, there are 4 additional categories that can be used to focus the SMARTS profile. Of these, the 2 most useful ones are Award Type and Geographical Restrictions. Applicant Type and Sponsor Type categories should be used with caution and only when applicable.

Award Type

You restrict your funding opportunities just to certain types of award.

Although this screen will initially show no boxes "checked," ALL Award Types will initially be included in your SMARTS hits. To restrict your hits to specific Award Types, check ALL boxes that apply.

Geographical Restrictions

Used to define your geographic area/region, so as not to receive matches that are restricted to other regions.

Although only the "No Restrictions" box " appears checked," ALL Geographical Restrictions will initially be included in your SMARTS hits.
Select all states/regions that apply (ALWAYS leave "No Restrictions" selected to ensure that you receive programs that are not geographically restricted); We advice selecting at least Louisiana, U.S. South and U.S. Southeast.

Sponsor Type

Used to define the types of organizations from which you are seeking/would accept funding. Usually one would accept the default ALL.

Applicant Type

Used to define the Individual Applicant Types (describing eligibility criteria) for which you would like to receive matches.

This screen will initially have ALL of the Individual Applicant Types selected (checked). If you choose to narrow the selections, Click to uncheck those that do not apply.

WARNING: Do not be too specific: If you leave selected only "woman" for example, you will receive only opportunities for which women are eligible and not those for which anyone can apply

Institution Custom Fields

These are defined and set up by your administrator.

Any custom fields for your institution, will appear following the above categories on the Profile Summary Page.

The remaining two options at the very bottom of the Profile Summary Page allow you to (1) access contact information for your institutional administrator for the GENIUS/SMARTS service, and (2) change your password, if desired.

After completing the desired Profile Categories, click on Full Profile View at the top of the Profile Summary Page to display all of the information you have entered/selected in your profile. Use your browser's Print function to create a copy of your profile. You can then use your browser's Back button to return to the Profile Summary Page, and then InfoEd's Back Arrow button to exit GENIUS/SMARTS.