How to find and use images
legally
A picture is worth a thousand words
What is the value of images?
“The adage ‘A picture is worth a thousand words’ refers to the idea that complex stories can be described with just a
single still image, or that an image may be more influential than a substantial amount of text. It also aptly characterizes the
goals of visualization where large amounts of data must be absorbed quickly” (Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_picture_is_worth_a_thousand_words)
You should ensure that you can legally use images, photos and cartoons that you find on the internet. This applies both to
face-to-face classroom presentations, and particularly to the electronic use of such visual materials in WebLearn. It is a
good idea to search for material that is licensed under a Creative Commons licence, which is very often ‘attibution only’.
For example, the creator of the above cartoon says (http://spikedmath.com/info.html):
“Spiked Math is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-Share Alike license. What this
means is that you have permission to reprint the occasional comic in your blogs, presentations, papers, newsletters
(pretty much anything non-commercial). All I ask is that you attribute the comic to SpikedMath.com (note that this
is already done for you directly in each image ;-)”
Creative Commons licences
There are six Creative Commons licences (see http://creativecommons.org/about/licences) that are combinations of these
four basic conditions:
Attribution
by
Share Alike
sa
Non-Commercial
nc
No Derivative Works
nd
Six Licenses: All current CC licenses require, at least, that you attribute the work to the original author(s).
Attribution
cc by
Attribution
Share Alike
cc by-sa
Attribution
No Derivatives
cc by-nd
Attribution
Non-Commercial
cc by-nc
Attribution
Non-Commercial
Share Alike
cc by-nc-sa
Attribution
Non-Commercial
No Derivatives
cc by-nc-nd
DOC-62 6 November 2013
This ‘How to’ guide is licensed under http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
How do I find free images to enhance my teaching materials?
Flickr can be used to find photographs with a Creative Commons licence that can be used to enhance Power Point
presentations and WebLearn sites.
1. Use Flickr’s Advanced Search page which has an option to find only photos with a Creative Commons (CC) licence –
such a licence will allow use within WebLearn for teaching and learning purposes, and not for commercial gain.
2. You can also search Flickr for videos and screenshots.
3. Remember to credit the source of the item - attribution to the source is always required.
4. Download a copy of the photo or image and save in the Resources tool in your WebLearn site. As attribution is
generally required it may be a good idea to save the URL of the photo on the “Edit Details” page of the uploaded
photo, so that you don’t have to search for this at a later stage.
5. Flickr Advanced Search: http://www.flickr.com/search/advanced/
Flickr’s Creative Commons page: http://www.flickr.com/creativecommons/
Photo:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/steren/2732488224
There are many more sites where free images can be found. To name a few:
Creative Commons – it has a search page where you can choose a site to find free-to-use images
Everystockphoto – searches across several image collections, including some that are free-to-use
Flickr – The Commons – a large number of free-to-use images submitted to Flickr by institutions around the world
FreeFoto.com – claims to be the largest collection of free photographs on the Internet
FreeImages.co.uk – Free-to-use images for both commercial and personal use under an attribution license,
including Flickr’s Creative Commons images
ImageAfter – an image collection for commercial or non-commercial use
MorgueFile – high-resolution images are free to use without attribution
OpenClipArt – a free clipart gallery
OpenPhoto – Creative Commons-licensed images
PicFindr – searches across various free-to-use image sites simultaneously
Stock.xchng – around 400,000 free images submitted by a large community of users
University of Exeter Digital Collections – an open access repository of images and multimedia
VADS – a selection of visual art collections comprising over 100,000 images freely available and copyright cleared
for use in learning, teaching and research in the UK
Veezzle – a new search engine which finds free stock photos from a number of websites
Xpert – contains metadata and resources for almost 120,000 learning objects, including images from over 8,000
providers.
Wikimedia Commons images – a large collection of free-to-use images
For more information, see this blog post: http://blogs.it.ox.ac.uk/fawei/2013/10/28/how-to-find-free-to-use-imagesfor-educational-purposes/.
DOC-62 6 November 2013
This ‘How to’ guide is licensed under http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
Why consider using images in teaching and learning?
Research highlights various advantages in including visual images in learning materials:
1. Students who have a visual (spatial) learning style, learn better from the use of images, colours and diagrams in
organising information and communicating with others.
2. Visualization contributes to long term retention of information.
3. Images contribute to the aesthetic layout and attractiveness of learning materials, websites and presentations.
The University of Oxford Picture Library
A project is underway to launch a central University picture library. The project has three aims:
To make images available for use across the External Affairs Directorate
To make it easier to share and find images across the collegiate University
To provide access to these collections to the wider public and commercial image users.
Contact: anne.brunner-ellis@admin.ox.ac.uk or sara.gibson@devoff.ox.ac.uk
Useful websites
The following websites provide useful information about visualization and learning:
1. Visual Literacy: An e-learning tutorial on visualization: http://www.visual-literacy.org/
2. Fourteen case studies that emphasize visual thinking: http://www.brandonhall.com/publications/visualization/visualization.shtml
3. The visual (spatial) learning style: http://www.learning-styles-online.com/style/visual-spatial/
Sites providing good quality images at a (reasonable) fee
Sometimes it is worth setting up an account with a website that sells photos and images. The advantages are that you then
have the right to use the images under given conditions, various sizes are usually available for download, and the quality is
generally very good. It is usually free to create an account, and these sites do offer some free images among their licensed
collections: www.iStockphoto.com; www.shutterstock.com; www.dreamstime.com
 Warnings
1. Royalty-free does not mean free! It means that having bought the image under certain conditions, you do not need to
pay a royalty fee every time you use it.
2. Searching for images on Google brings up many suppliers, whose images are not necessarily free of charge.
DOC-62 6 November 2013
This ‘How to’ guide is licensed under http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/