As far as I know, you create them while in an active ticket - any active ticket.
Does this Knowledge Base article help?
@MArchuleta 473789d eosd Thank you for submitting your question to our community! 
Shortcuts cannot be made outside of a ticket, but you can create them within any ticket! Here is an idea to check out as well about adding a shortcuts tab on the Left Nav:
@MArchuleta 473789d eosd I also noticed the second part of you question regarding adding resources to a common type of ticket. My recommendation would be to create a Knowledge Base article with those resources. Once created, any KB article is automatically created as a shortcut which can be applied within any ticket.
Here are a few iiQ KB articles that talk about KB articles
:
and how to present it prior to ticket submission:
Hope these help as well!
Fun new fact @MArchuleta 473789d eosd we just had a new enhancement where you can add variable data points in text snippets and shortcuts. Check out the details here 