Search engine increases employees' access

Employees at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory can now use the lab’s search engine to find some useful resources: each other.Lab employees, information technology personnel and experts on various subject matters can all be located with a few key words. “[We’re] making the data more contextual and personal,” Scott Studham, the lab’s chief information officer, said at the Gartner InFocus Day gathering today.The search engine allows users to find lab employees by area of expertise. Users can then send e-mail messages, call through voice over internet protocol, use instant messaging or conduct a video chat with those employees.Studham said that after he consolidated the lab’s IT systems into a single platform, he sought to move to a single Web application for all lab data.That data includes all personal files, so instead of storing files on their computers,  lab employees upload their documents to a registered account on the lab’s database. This allows them to securely access their files on any Web-connected computer or cell phone.Studham said he no longer bring a laptop PC or a USB stick with him to meetings because he can log into his account at any Internet-connected computer and find his presentations and documents by accessing his account.