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<\/a>Images can add so much to a presentation or a Canvas site, to illustrate a point, supplement your words or grab viewers\u2019 attention. But where can you find good images that don\u2019t breach copyright?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Too many people just use a Google search to find an image and think that if it\u2019s on the internet it\u2019s okay to use – it\u2019s not. Most images you will find using internet image searches are copyrighted. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
It is possible to modify a Google or Flickr search to show just the images that have Creative Commons licences<\/a> but there are other options. There are many sites that bring together images that are free to use, either using their own licences or CC0 (Creative Commons No Rights Reserved)<\/a>. Often these images will be mixed with some paid-for images to tempt you, but you can search just for the free images.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The image at the top of this post is from Unsplash for education <\/a>which is one of our favourites, alongside Pixabay<\/a> and Pexels<\/a> (now both owned by Canva, the graphic design platform). Between them they have millions of images so you are likely to find something that communicates what you want. <\/p>\n\n\n\n You may also want to look at these sites which have a mixture of images including some CC0 images:<\/p>\n\n\n\n There are also many more specialized sites that curate collections of images around particular topics or themes or from particular sources.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Rawpixel public domain<\/a> contains images of \u2018antique books and chromolithographic plates\u2019 alongside photos which might be particularly useful for arts and humanities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Art museums and libraries are also great sources, with lots of great quality, free to use images if you search for CC0 or \u2018public domain\u2019. For example, you might want to look at:<\/p>\n\n\n\n If you are looking for clipart and logos without any background you might like PurePNG<\/a> or Clip Safari<\/a>. The Noun Project has some public domain icons amongst many CC-licensed ones, including a recent collection Redefining women icons<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Abstract concepts can be harder to find images for than concrete objects, but often the process of finding an image that represents what you want to say helps in thinking about it, so asking students to find a free or CC-licensed image that represents a particular concept could be a useful activity. In the process, students can learn about searching for free-to-use images and how to reference them when required.<\/p>\n\n\n\n One platform which can be useful for not only finding images, but also showing how a CC-licensed image should be referenced is Photos for Class<\/a> which searches Flickr, Pixabay and Pexels for Creative Commons images then embeds the citation into the image as in the example below. As the name implies these are images intended for schools, so a filter is applied to surface only age appropriate images for K-12 which may mean that you won\u2019t always find what you want, but it\u2019s a good way to show how a Creative Commons licensed image should be referenced (unless it\u2019s CC0).<\/p>\n\n\n\n Don\u2019t forget that whatever images you use, it is essential to add alt-text for accessibility<\/a>.The Digital Accessibility toolkit<\/a> on the Technology Enhanced Learning web pages has lots of guidance on making all your digital materials accessible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n You can find out more about copyright in teaching materials from the library<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If you have a favourite source for free-to-use images please do share it in the comments.<\/p>\nSome of our favourite sites<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Specialised image collections<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
<\/a>Students using images<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
<\/a><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\nFurther considerations and resources<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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