GNP IT Resources

GNP IT Help Desk (http://helpdesk.shc.wisc.edu): The GNP IT Help Desk, located in room M376 on the third-floor mezzanine level, provides a full-range of support to students, faculty, and staff in the L&S Departments of Geography and Planning & Landscape Architecture, plus UW-Madison’s Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies. GNP IT is staffed by three full-time staff members (and student workers when available). Support is generally available M-F 8:00am-4:30pm. If someone is not available in the Help Desk office, you can also check staff offices in Science Hall M380 and M379. Any requests for assistance should be addressed in person or via email at gnp-helpdesk@wisc.edu. You can also call the Help Desk at 608-262-8111.

M376 Geography Lab: This lab has a plethora of GIS software for student use, including ArcGIS, Python, Adobe Creative Suite, OSGeo (GDAL and OGR bindings), and much more. Much of this software is not available anywhere else on campus. There are two laser printers, a color and a black and white, that can be utilized for student work.

Cartography Lab (http://www.geography.wisc.edu/cartography/): The Geography Cartography Lab, room 250, provides basic and advanced cartography assistance, graphic design services, large-format printing, and much more. Stop by and check it out or email Tanya Buckingham (tbuckingham@wisc.edu) for more information on the services provided.

Robinson Map Library (http://maplib.geography.wisc.edu/): The Robinson Map Library, located on the third floor of Science Hall, has a large collection of print and online maps available for just about any need, including the largest collection of print historic aerial photographs of Wisconsin. You can access Wisconsin GIS data online as well. The Robinson Map Library has 6 Science Hall Network computers available, three of which have 11x17 scanners attached to them for scanning images into a variety of digital formats. The Robinson Map Library also has a large-format scanner available for scanning high-resolution images of larger print maps. You can contact them at 608-262-1471 or email Jaime, the Robinson Map Librarian, at jmartindale@wisc.edu.

Grad server (http://grad.geography.wisc.edu): This server, setup especially for UW Geography Grad students, has space available for hosting personal websites, portfolios, and Masters/PhD projects. The server contains several open-source software packages designed to accommodate most GIS applications, including Python, Node, Git, OpenStreetMap (OSM), PostgreSQL, and more. There is no quota on space on the server but if a student needs more than 300 GB he or she should contact GNP IT for assistance. Contact GNP IT at gnp-helpdesk@wisc.edu for assistance with setting up an account and hosting any projects on this server.

PostgreSQL Server: We also have a stand-alone PostgreSQL server for projects that require a massive amount of data stored in a database. This server can stand alone and interface with an Amazon Web Service-based application or integrate with an application hosted on the Grad server. Contact GNP IT at gnp-helpdesk@wisc.edu for a consultation on using this server for your application or project.

Science Hall VPN: Science Hall VPN is being deprecated, and we recommend using WiscVPN. More information about WiscVPN is available later in this page.
GNP IT provides a VPN connection option to access files on various servers specific to on the Science Hall Network from anywhere in the world. You will need an SHC account to access the SHC VPN - please contact GNP IT at gnp-helpdesk@wisc.edu if you need assistance with this.

Campus Resources

DoIT Help Desk (https://it.wisc.edu/help/): The DoIT Help Desk is the official support channel for email, NetID, and other campus-wide services. While the GNP IT Help Desk can provide a great range of support we do not have access to many of the tools that the DoIT Help Desk has, so from time to time the DoIT Help Desk will need to provide assistance. The DoIT Help Desk can be reached in a multitude of ways. Visit their website for all available contact methods, their extensive and comprehensive Knowledgebase articles, and online training for popular software packages.

WiscVPN (https://it.wisc.edu/services/wiscvpn/): WiscVPN allows for access to institutional resources that are restricted outside of the UW Madison network, such as library databases, servers and shared network drives, network printers, etc. WiscVPN also provides a layer of protection on unsecured wi-fi connections.

Microsoft 365 (https://email.wisc.edu/): Microsoft 365 provides access to your campus email and the Office suite of software for free during your tenure as a student at UW Madison. Microsoft 365 also provides access to OneDrive cloud storage. More information, including support documentation, is available at https://kb.wisc.edu/microsoft365/.

Center for High Throughput Computing (http://chtc.cs.wisc.edu): From their website: "The Center for High Throughput Computing (CHTC) offers a variety of large-scale computing resources and services for UW-affiliated researchers and their collaborators, including classically-defined high-throughput computing (HTC) and high-performance computing (HPC) resources. CHTC services and hardware are funded by the National Institute of Health (NIH), the Department of Energy (DOE), the National Science Foundation (NSF), and various grants from the University itself.

CHTC resources are provided to all UW-Madison researchers, free of charge. Even external collaborators with an on-campus sponsor may be given access to resources."

For more information, please use their contact information available at http://chtc.cs.wisc.edu/get-help.shtml.

DoIT Equipment Checkout (https://it.wisc.edu/services/equipment-checkout/): DoIT loans equipment, including iPads, still and video cameras, laptops, and audio recorders for no cost. There are miltuple locations across campus that students, faculty, and staff can utilize for checking out equipment.

Box (https://it.wisc.edu/services/box/): Box is an online dropbox for storing academic and personal files. It is web-based and mobile-friendly so it can be easily accessed from anywhere you have an Internet connection. There is a 50GB storage quota for Box, and it is not currently recommended for long-term storage or as a backup repository.

Lynda.com (https://it.wisc.edu/services/online-training-lynda-com/): Lynda.com is an online training service provided free of charge to faculty, researchers, students, and staff.

goUW (http://go.wisc.edu): goUW is a URL-shortening service for the UW Madison campus that allows people to replace long, unwieldy URLs with simple links. Questions and support requests for this service should be directed to the DoIT Help Desk - 608-264-4357.

University Book Store Tech Center (https://www.uwbookstore.com/Tech): The University Book Store Tech Center provides hardware and accessories for purchase, often at a discounted price. They also have associates available who can help with your tech needs, questions, or to place an order. They are also able to provide Apple service and support through Graphite, an Apple premium service provider.

UW-Madison Information Services Software (https://it.wisc.edu/services/software/): Software is available for students, faculty, and staff at highly-discounted rates, including Windows 10 for free! Purchased software is non-refundable so be sure to contact them prior to placing any purchases by calling 800-590-9787 or by using the form at http://wiscsoftware.wisc.edu/wisc/customerservice.asp?institution=1022.