Tools and Resources

You can upload a video to Youtube, either to your YouTube personal account that is linked to your NC State gmail account (YouTube is an available application under your NC State Google account) or for consideration for the  NC State YouTube channel. To submit a video to the NCSU youtube channel, follow the instructions that they have on their website.

If you post a video to your personal channel or the NC State channel, please send a message to CNR Communications so that they are aware of your video and can favorite it on the  College of Natural Resources YouTube channel.

Any video with spoken words is required to have a transcript that is uploaded for ADA compliance.  This is a federally mandated regulation with which we must comply.

Some companies that provide this service and that are often used include 3Play Media  and Automatic Sync. NC State has established a convenience contract for transcript and caption creation.  You can view the pricing and reference number by logging in with your Unity ID and viewing this Transcript and Captioning Providers page.    We recommend reviewing this page so that you can estimate the cost of transcription services.

If you are submitting your video to the NCSU YouTube channel, you will submit the transcript through this form. Refer to the OIT accessibility closed captioning guide for more information.

Wolfbytes

WolfBytes, a division of NC State OIT  offers a range of affordable video filming, production and editing services for the NC State campus community. Staff include members professionally certified in Apple Final Cut and Apple Motion.  You can review their services, formats, service cost and captioning information on the Wolfbytes page.

DELTA Video Production

DELTA’s video production team is available to help in all aspects of video production including but not limited to consultation and training, frequently produced videos, editing and video production technologies.  You can review their services, rates, and setup a consultation with them through their Video Production page.

You can use the College of Natural Resources PowerPoint template for your next presentation.

View and download the Powerpoint Template on our College Brand Asset page.

A Remote Desktop Connection allows you to access and control your office computer from any other computer, on or off campus. This is a function primarily for users of Windows PCs, although you can connect from a Mac to a Windows machine using the Remote Desktop Client for Mac.

To connect to your computer, you must first know the machine name. To find the machine name:

1. Log into your office computer.
2. Right-click the Start menu.
3. Click System.
4. Under Device specifications, Full Device name is the name of your computer
5. Your machine name may also be located on a sticker on your computer.

To connect, simply run the Remote Desktop Connection application on a Windows machine, or the Remote Desktop Client program on a Mac. Enter the machine name you copied during step #4 above, and log in with your Unity ID and password. You may need to add wolftech\ in front of your Unity ID.

To connect to your work machine from off-campus using Remote Desktop, you will first need to be using a secure VPN connection. The simplest way to establish a VPN connection is to visit here and follow the instructions on the page.

If you are a CNR graduate student and would like to request remote desktop access. Please submit a request using our Get Help form.

A great place to start is with the Get on The Web site created by OIT.  This helps you determine your initial needs and options for making a new site.

If you are planning on creating a new website for your research group or project, first contact the CNR Director of Communications. The Communication Office can help you focus your content and determine the best home for your site, as well as help to integrate it into other existing sites within the college and the university at large.

You can also contact the CNR IT staff for help with questions about the implementation and setup for your site. We can help you find resources and where to find information about existing systems and site policies.

For example, every NCSU site must:

• Meet federal guidelines set out by Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act
• Not use HTML tables for design elements or layout (tables must contain tabular data only)
• Validate to XHTML 1.0 Transitional
• Validate CSS to CSS 2.1
• Follow the University web guidelines
• Follow the University brand guidelines

NOTE: You can validate your site by going to the W3C Validator and entering your site URL

At NC State, most colleges are currently using WordPress for most website needs including college, research group, faculty pages, and blogs.

We have created a WordPress installation for faculty at our college, which uses the on-brand NC State theme. An example of what these sites look like can be seen here.  The address for your site will be https://faculty.cnr.ncsu.edu/firstnamelastname. If you would like assistance in having a site build here, please email cnr_help@ncsu.edu and mention faculty website in the subject of your email.

Options that NC State provides for building your own website is to use WordPress@ NC State or Google Sites.  The Get on The Web site created by OIT can help you get started with creating your own site, where there are more customizable options that you can setup when you make your site.

Options that NC State provides for websites it to use WordPress@ NC State or Google Sites.  The Get on The Web site created by OIT can help you get started with creating your own site with these resources.

For research projects, CNR IT is able to provide limited support to build websites that do not require any special functions or custom design. The sites that we build are created in a subdomain multi-site environment, and your site will have a url similar to http://research.cnr.ncsu.edu/sites/yoursitename.  The site will use the NC State on-brand theme and will look like this site or this site.  We help build the framework of the site, but all information needs to be entered and setup by you or someone else who works with you as an editor.

For sites that require custom logos, custom functions, a unique url we recommend contacting OIT Design, who can help build custom WordPress sites and charge for this work.  There also is hosting costs that cost about $300 a year.  You can read more about hosting and costs by reviewing the Get on The Web site created by OIT.

We recommend getting an estimate on any type of research site or blog prior to including this in a grant or project proposal.  Some sites require hosting and design costs, and these should be included in your planning and budget.

• WordPress Basics Web Guides (with images and directions)

If you are looking to gather data online in the form of a survey or questionnaire, there are several products available for use with varying levels of difficulty, complexity and control to suit your individual needs.

Google Forms is arguably the easiest survey software to get started with. It is very simplistic and requires no knowledge of HTML. You can create questions on the fly for simple surveys with either known or anonymous responses.

It is available from Google Drive (formerly Google Docs) here.

Information on making forms is available online from Google here.

There is a way to limit responses with Google Forms, and you can review the steps here.

One campus solution  for online survey products is the Qualtrics application.

Arguably the most advanced survey product available at NC State, Qualtrics is nevertheless fairly intuitive and easy to use. Full support documentation and training tutorials are available on the Qualtrics support site.

NOTE: Before using Qualtrics, you will need to register an account by an email address. You will need to use your NC State email address (i.e., unityID@ncsu.edu) in order to create your account.

A home-grown survey software out of CALS, SurveyBuilder has long been the campus solution to online forms.

It still hosts a robust feature set, anonymous polling, and easy-to-view results. The only downside is that it is arguably the least user-friendly of the three, and offers the fewest options for presentation of your form.

While not a campus-supported survey software, many instructors have made use of the Survey Monkey application, which offers free limited use up to a given number of questions and respondents.

Despite its usability, we recommend against the use of Survey Monkey for two reasons:

1. It cannot be used for any form where student replies are expected, as even anonymous student responses are protected under FERPA policy and cannot be sent to an unverified off-campus vendor.
2. Data retention policy at NC State does include the data collected via online forms, so you would be responsible for maintaining a copy of the original form and any results for a minimum of one year’s time.

Since most other free, off-campus survey software must abide by these same restrictions, we recommend whenever possible using one of the three campus-supported survey applications to build your online surveys.

If you have any trouble with any of the survey applications listed above, contact CNR IT for assistance.