Research Tools and Services Discovery

Accessibility means making sure your content is available to as many people as possible. When you make your PDFs accessible, it means adding tags, bookmarks, alt text, and other information that makes the files readable and navigable to users who are visually or mobility impaired. Using the latest versions of Adobe Acrobat DC, Microsoft Word, and Adobe InDesign, it's now much easier to create valid, accessible PDFs. In this course—completely revised for 2018—Chad Chelius shows how to take an existing PDF file and remediate it for users of assistive software. He then introduces two workflows for creating accessible PDFs from scratch—one in Word and one in InDesign—with some special considerations for Excel and PowerPoint. Along the way, he offers techniques, tips, and tricks to make accessibility easy to incorporate in every document you publish.

Screen capture is a cost-effective and efficient way to create on-demand training. You can record videos to keep employees up to date on the latest software and systems, or educate students on complex topics. In this course, Oliver Schinkten walks through all the steps to prepare, record, edit, and deploy custom screen-capture training. He covers instructional design—planning and scripting your training—as well as the technical details of recording and editing the videos. He also shows how to upload the final videos to a learning management systems, online platforms like YouTube and Vimeo, or even to a LinkedIn Learning account. To follow along, you can download a free trial version of Camtasia or use any other screen capture software, such as SnagIt, Screenflick, ScreenFlow, and Screencast-O-Matic.

To succeed as a nonprofit, you need to share your story. Video is one of the most effective ways to communicate your mission—to clients, donors, and future volunteers. But what if you don't have a lot of resources, or the money to hire a video team? This course is designed to help non-video people make short, professional-looking videos from scratch. It features a real nonprofit, Chicago CRED, which connects people at risk of gun violence to jobs, counselling, and housing. Watch as employees from CRED team up with instructor Ashley Kennedy to make a short, impactful video that spreads their message of hope. Along the way, you can learn all of the fundamentals of video production: from planning and scheduling, to filming and lighting, to editing and delivering the final video. All you need to follow along is smartphone and a limited amount of production equipment. By the end, you'll be able to plan a video project with an eye for success, shoot the best possible videos using very basic gear, and edit those videos with intention and finesse using free editing software.

Create more visually interesting and dynamic websites. Learn how to build animated effects and 3D objects using CSS transforms and transitions. Follow along with author Patrick Carey as he shows how to transition between properties such as color, background, opacity, and positioning, and adjust the timing and duration of transitions. Patrick explains how to perform 2D transformations, such as scaling, skewing, and rotating, as well as transformations in 3D. He shows how to transform objects along the X-, Y-, and Z-axis; use perspective; and create 3D objects such as animated cubes. Interactive demo pages are included with the exercise files, so you can practice what you've learned after each video.

Mindset is a choice. People with a growth mindset—who choose to believe that talent and ability can grow—experience better performance, focus, and success. You have the power to change your mindset. The key is learning how to make the shift. This course shows you how. Executive coach Gemma Leigh Roberts introduces real-life examples of individuals and organizations who have successfully adopted a growth mindset, as well as the latest research from the fields of performance psychology. She boils down the lessons into practical advice you can apply to reach your own potential. Plus, get tips to stay motivated and help you navigate change successfully.

CySA+ is a highly desirable, intermediate certification that shows you know how to prevent, detect, and combat a multitude of modern cybersecurity threats. CySA+ Cert Prep: 3 prepares students for domain three, Cyber Incident Response, which constitutes 23% of the questions on the exam. Follow along with instructor Mike Chapple and learn about classifying threats and assessing the impact of cybersecurity incidents. The course also covers the importance of communication during a cybersecurity incident response effort, analyzing the symptoms of an incident in progress, the use of forensic tools, and the incident recovery and post-recovery processes. Completing this course, along with the other six courses in the series, will help you prepare to become a CompTIA Cybersecurity Analyst and ensure that your organization is properly insulated from risk.

Want more CySA+ test prep tips? Visit certmike.com to join Mike's free study group.

Cloud computing brings unlimited scalability and elasticity to data science applications. Expertise in the major platforms, such as Google Cloud Platform (GCP), is essential to the IT professional. This course—one of a series by veteran cloud engineering specialist and data scientists Kumaran Ponnambalam—shows how to use the latest technologies in GCP to build a big data pipeline that ingests, transports, and transforms data entirely in the cloud. Learn how to set up data processing jobs using Apache Beam and Cloud Dataflow. Discover how to leverage Cloud Pub/Sub for stream ingestion and real-time messaging. Finally, find out how to process the stream events in Cloud Dataflow. The course uses an end-to-end use case that shows how to apply the knowledge and best practices from the course in a practical data science workflow.

Cloud computing brings unlimited scalability and elasticity to data science applications. Expertise in the major platforms, such as Google Cloud Platform (GCP), is essential to the IT professional. This course—one of a series by veteran cloud engineering specialist and data scientists Kumaran Ponnambalam—shows how to design and build data warehouses using GCP. Explore the different types of storage options available in GCP for files, relational data, documents, and big data, including Cloud SQL, Cloud Bigtable, and Cloud BigQuery. Then learn how to use one solution, BigQuery, to perform data storage and query operations, and review advanced use cases, such as working with partition tables and external data sources. Finally, learn best practices for table design, storage and query optimization, and monitoring of data warehouses in BigQuery.

Innovation is the key to any company's success. It sets you apart from the competition and feeds the pipeline for future growth. Learn how to incorporate innovation and creativity into your workplace, in this course with leadership coach Gemma Leigh Roberts. Gemma identifies the psychological tricks and best practices to help high-performing teams reach their innovative potential. Follow along and discover how to create a space for innovation to thrive, nurture new ideas, learn from challenges, and build room for experimentation and play. Using these tips, you can build high-performing teams that challenge the status quo and lead in a competitive market.

Yesterday big data was all the rage; today we have intelligent machines and processes to leverage that data wisely. Learn how modern data intelligence helps designers provide a more personal and human design experience. Randall Elliott, associate director of design technology at frog, shows how to use data in creative problem-solving: to generate ideas, create better designs, and connect with users in meaningful ways. He tackles data generated by computers as well as that gathered through interviews and other hands-on means. He shows how to collect, analyze, and visualize the information to help solve your customer's challenges, leveraging intelligent tools and agile processes such as rapid prototyping.

Whether you're a recent college grad or a seasoned professional, your resume is the most important career document in your job-search arsenal. Resumes are particularly crucial for creatives, as they're a place where professionals can showcase their design prowess to hiring managers. In this course, Ina Saltz provides you with a fresh perspective on how to present yourself through a visually strong, content-rich resume. She takes a comprehensive and critical look at how to create your career story, explaining what you must know and do to make a recruiter's first impression of you memorable and actionable. Ina goes beyond the basic resume and includes presentation options for creatives, including how to keep a cohesive look and approach. Along the way, she shares best practices and explains how to avoid common resume errors.

Site reliability engineering (SRE) is an emerging paradigm in DevOps. The biggest names in tech—companies like Google, Netflix, Microsoft, and LinkedIn—all use SRE. In fact, industry wide, "site reliability engineer" is replacing "DevOps engineer" in job posts. Simply put, SRE is software engineering applied to operations—for the cloud native era. This course introduces the basics of site reliability engineering, including how SRE fits into DevOps and how it can be integrated into your unique business environment. Instructors Ernest Mueller and James Wickett cover the major areas of expertise, including release engineering, change management, incident management and retrospectives, self-service automation, troubleshooting, performance, and deliberate adversity. Learn how to define reliability through SLAs and SLOs, handle crisis, design distributed systems, and scale your systems and your team. Plus, explore time and project management strategies that bring humanity back to the SRE's job.

Continuous integration and continuous deployment (CI/CD) allow developers to work more collaboratively and catch bugs earlier in the development lifecycle. Docker—a leading software container platform—can greatly simplify continuous deployment by allowing for safer, more reliable deployment and testing environments. In this course, join Arthur Ulfeldt as he explains how to use Docker to build deployment systems. Arthur steps through how to build your CI/CD toolbox, including how to build a minimal Jenkins installation and build Docker images for CI. He also covers essential continuous deployment and integration concepts; shows how to build a simple example of continuous deployment with Docker; discusses integration testing; and more.

Learn how to work smarter in Microsoft Dynamics 365. In this advanced course, instructor Gini von Courter dives into using reports, charts, and dashboards to influence business workflows and share the data story inside Dynamics. Gini steps through how to create, modify, manage, and share reports. She also discusses how to create and modify charts and dashboards, use a system template, create Excel templates for Dynamics, and more.

Quality assurance is one of the most important steps in ebook creation, but also one of the most overlooked. This course was designed to teach anyone—regardless of their technical skills—how to effectively test and validate EPUB, Kindle, and other ebook files on different devices. Learn the inner workings of ebook file formats, which technologies affect how an ebook displays on different devices, and the differences between fixed layout and reflowable ebooks. Instructor Joshua Tallent also discusses unique retailer specifications and device limitations, how to load ebooks on different devices for testing, and essential details on performing automated and manual quality assurance testing.

Most editors can capably fix the spelling, grammar, punctuation, and typos in a piece of writing. It takes a different skill set to turn dry, disorganized prose into writing that is beautifully organized and bursting with life and energy. In this course, instructor Shani Raja acquaints you with a powerful technique—deep editing—that can help you transform nearly any piece of nonfiction writing into magnificent, sparkling prose. The deep editing technique forces you to consider every aspect of a document, ensuring that quality gets embedded into each pore of the writing. Discover how to fine-tune the content, structure, style, and presentation of a document so that the final product shines.

Employee experience is a new concept in HR. It goes beyond traditional benefits, compensation, and performance. Now HR must actively work with all facets of the organization—incorporating the company's culture, tools, and environment—to create a great place to work. This course helps HR leaders and managers understand what employee experience is, why it's important, and how you can design a program that will set your company apart and help you win the war for talent. Learn how to keep employees engaged and support them throughout the employee life cycle—from first contact to offboarding. HR exec and talent consultant Pat Wadors also shows where to find the data you need to measure your progress and evolve your process. Experience matters; use these tips to build a more productive, positive workplace that helps you compete for—and keep—great talent.

Discover how to work with Entity Framework Core, the popular tool for object-relational mapping (ORM). In this course—the second installment in the Entity Framework Core Essential Training series—learn about persisting data back to the data store, different DbContext options, and how to configure the DbContext. Instructor Phil Japikse covers tracking EntityState, sharing a transaction between two different DbContexts, navigating the batching process, and working with detached entities. He also goes into connection resiliency, how the OnConfiguring method works, how to create a custom execution strategy, and more.

If you're comfortable with FileMaker basics, you're ready for the next step. Learn tips, tricks, and advanced techniques for FileMaker 17—the latest version of the FileMaker platform used all around the world. FileMaker expert Cris Ippolite reveals solutions to maximize your efficiency and make your FileMaker apps more dynamic and sophisticated. Explore advanced techniques using scripts, calculations, reports, and layouts. In addition, you can explore important security tips and learn the publishing options offered by FileMaker Server, including FileMaker WebDirect. Cris also shows you how to connect to other databases and exchange data with APIs using JSON code.

Creating a career plan is vital. Wherever you're going, you'll arrive faster—and encounter less stress along the way—if you have a plan in place. In this concise course, instructor Aimee Bateman steps through how to create an effective career plan that brings you one step closer to your dream job. Learn how to design and implement your career plan, create a personal development plan (PDP), set achievable goals, and connect with a mentor.

GarageBand is the most accessible, affordable, and easy-to-learn recording software around. It comes free on every new Mac, and its simple interface means you spend less time learning the software and more time making music. This course gives you a head start. Instructor Garrick Chow shows how to create your first project using the prerecorded loops, virtual Drummer, and software instruments built into GarageBand. These features allow you to create an entire song without knowing how to play a single instrument. But if you want to record a live performance, GarageBand has you covered. Garrick also shows how to record real instruments in GarageBand, and how to use the Amp Designer to craft your own unique guitar sounds. Then learn how to arrange, edit, and mix your projects using the Arrangement track and the built-in effects. Last but not least, Garrick shows how to export your song from GarageBand and share it with the world.

Google Tag Manager is a hot technology that allows marketers to use one container for all their web code tags. This, in turn, frees marketers from their dependency on IT or web development departments—when they want to add or alter a snippet of analytics or tracking code, they can do it themselves by adding it to the existing tag container. This course shows marketers how to effectively leverage Google Tag Manager. Discover how to best work with accounts and containers, leverage the Google Analytics built-in tags, work with control versions and user access, create custom variables, fire Google Analytics events using triggers, and more. Plus, discover crucial time-saving best practices.

To get what you want, you need to ask. Dialog is what opens doors. If you're at the place in your career where you need to have a truthful conversation about what comes next, this is the course for you. Personal branding expert Lida Citroën helps you prepare to have an honest career conversation with your boss. She helps you navigate common career conversation topics such as asking for a promotion, requesting additional training, or confessing a potential career-ending mistake. Learn how to request, prepare for, and lead the conversation, and keep the meeting focused and professional-even if your request is denied.

For basic IT issues, most users prefer to help themselves. If you are interested in troubleshooting your own computer issues, this weekly series is the answer. The tips are equally useful to end users, small businesses that perform their own IT, and enterprise IT help desks that want to reduce Level 1 service tickets. Instructor Dan Gookin focuses on the Windows PC, covering topics related to hardware, networking, security, and the operating system itself. No pre-existing knowledge is required.

Using multiple cloud providers has become the norm for organizations, as multicloud environments can improve security and operational efficiency while reducing costs. In this course, Microsoft MVP Brien Posey demonstrates how to enable communication between Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Microsoft Azure. He covers virtual private clouds, gateway servers, connectivity, and more. Find out how to install the Microsoft Routing and Remote Access Service (RRAS) on an Amazon EC2 virtual machine to communicate with Azure. Then, discover how to implement virtual and local network gateways in Azure to receive and send resources between AWS. Plus, learn how to connect an Azure virtual machine to a cloud-hosted Microsoft Active Directory.