This article adapted is from Pitt Information Technology’s blog. For additional information on tech resources, visit technology.pitt.edu.

Add to your resume with free Lynda Online Learning courses

Is it time to explore your creative side? Why not give songwriting, photography, or designing a comic book a try? Perhaps you simply want to get more out of Microsoft Excel, or maybe you just realized that it’s time you learned how to manage your finances. 

Lynda Online Learning can teach you these skills and more. Accessible at no cost with your Pitt username, the online platform offers hundreds of on-demand courses taught by experts on topics ranging from business, to technology, to creative skills. Each time you complete a course, you earn a certificate. You can take the course at your own pace, and whether you’re an early riser or a night owl, Lynda is available anytime.

Some of the most popular topics on Lynda Online Learning include Excel and Tableau. 

Excel can help you organize a table for your research study or start a monthly budget. It is a baseline requirement for nearly 80 percent of middle-skill job openings. “Excel 2013 Essential Training” is the No. 1 viewed course on Lynda. 

Over 300,000 data scientists use Tableau 10 — a popular analytics and visualization tool. With it, you can sort, compare and analyze data from multiple sources. Start with “Tableau 10 Essential Training.”

You can enter Lynda Online Learning through My Pitt, or directly via lynda.com. If you enter directly through the Lynda website, click the Sign In button located in the top right corner in order to access all the courses. You can then log in through Pitt Passport. 

Cloud Collaboration: You've Got Options

Are you tired of emailing back and forth when editing documents? Do you wish you could work on documents with others, online, in real time? Wouldn’t it be nice to never have to worry about running out of storage space on your devices? If you answered yes to any of these questions, Cloud Storage (Box and OneDrive) may be perfect for your needs. Available at no cost through Pitt Information Technology, these options allow you to manage your documents, notes, media and more — in one space.

Whether you’re a professor wanting to share documents with your class, or a staff member looking to access files when working from home, both OneDrive and Box let you share files between people, devices and locations with a simple drag-and-drop interface. You can even set permissions to restrict individual’s access to edit/delete files or view only.

Box vs. OneDrive

While both services are great options, they each have some unique benefits. Below is a comparison to help you choose which is right for you.

Both OneDrive for Business and Box enable you to mark files for offline use, so even when you aren’t connected, you can continue working on your files. Your changes will then sync the next time you connect to the internet.

There are three options for accessing Box. Simply log into the My Pitt website. From the top right corner, click the Box login button. To access Box from a mobile device or tablet, download the app or go to pitt.box.com through a web browser.

To enter OneDrive, log into portal.office.com with your Pitt email address and password. Locate and click the OneDrive app.

For more information on Cloud Storage (Box and OneDrive), visit pi.tt/cloud.