Website Resources
Starting out a new website?
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.
Faculty Websites
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.
Student Websites
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.
Research Project Websites
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.