Any instructor, staff member or student at UC Davis can tap into a wide range of valuable IT research done by Gartner Inc., a leading technology research and advisory group. Information and Educational Technology has renewed the contract allowing this access, and is starting a broad informational campaign to further highlight the service.

IET and the Office of Administration have collaborated to cover the cost of the contract as part of their commitment to invest in services and information that help faculty, staff and students learn from others and keep pace with developments in technology. This spring, when it renewed the Gartner contract for a year, it asked Jeff Barrett, technology liaison between IET and the OOA, to spread the word about Gartner and evaluate how people on campus employ the service.

Current users find the research valuable, Barrett said. Historically, individuals from OOA and IET have accounted for most of the use of Gartner resources; however, the searchable database includes thousands of articles covering more than two dozen major subject areas, from application development and enterprise architecture to process management and regulatory compliance.

Specific report titles include "Key Issues for Education 2008," "The Evolution of Mobile Music," "Cost Cutting Initiatives for Office Printing," and "Virtualization Changes Virtually Everything."

Customers can read the material online or download copies.

"The Gartner information has been useful to track trends," said Pam Davis, computer support manager in the School of Education. "When the school was formed, I read the Gartner information on technology spending. It helped me set and justify a technology budget. I've used their advice to justify a computer replacement policy."

Davis said she has alerted some graduate students in the school to the Gartner data. "It has some research information on te chnology used in education and other industries that I think they'd find useful."

To gain access to the Gartner research, request an account from Kathleen Beyer, executive assistant in the Office of the Vice Provost of IET, at kmbeyer@ucdavis.edu. Barrett said the campus plans to allow access through the MyUCDavis Web portal, so that anyone with a Kerberos password could see the material without having to go through someone else to create an account first.

Discussions with Gartner consultants are also available on a limited basis through the IET office; to learn more about that feature, or other aspects of the service, contact Barrett at jtbarrett@ucdavis.edu or (530) 754-5666.

Educause, a nonprofit, offers free materials that include publications, Web seminars, presentations, effective practices, discussion groups, conference materials, and a searchable library, on subjects ranging from cybersecurity and networking to the law and teaching. Read more here about Educause and other resources available to UC Davis faculty, staff and students. Send questions or comments to vpiet-info@ucdavis.edu.