Open Education News and Stuff – Post 9 | Emily Schudel, Instructional Designer

We are catching up – here is my Open Education News and Stuff from October 18.

Hi all!

So, this the second day of the Open Education conference (and I will be sending lots of goodies from the conference in the next emails). It’s been quite the amazing conference so far. Yesterday we heard student voices around advocating for Open Education, heard about strategies for institutions like ours with currently no formal support for OER initiatives, and so far, have met (and re-met) a lot of amazing people ranging from those who have worked in this field for year, to brand newbies. Over 1600 participants online this year! There is a lot to absorb, and I am taking lots of notes in hopes of sharing something more formally to everyone at Camosun in the near future.

However, for this open ed email, I would like to give you some links to sites (some taken from the current Camosun Open Libguide) where you can find open images, and other amazing things to supplement your own open work, and you teaching, and some news about upcoming conferences and webinars you might be interested in attending.

Open or Copyright Free Images

Note that only CC or Public Domain images can be adapted. For others, make sure to abide by any terms of use provided by the owner of the content. Also make sure to talk to your subject matter Librarian or to our Copyright Officer (Young Joo) to check on any images you want to include in your Open work.

Canadian Archives: If you have the fortitude and the patience to wade through their sometimes-confusing search engines and parameters to find Public Domain images
Creative Commons Content Directories: Lists websites providing images, music, video, and text that use Creative Commons licensing.
Flickr: Source of images and videos. (If doing a general search, make sure to select the Creative Commons option first)
Getty Open Content Program: The Getty makes available, without charge, all available digital images to which the Getty holds the rights or that are in the public domain to be used for any purpose. No permission is required. Open content images are identified with a “Download” link.
Google Advanced Image Search: Use the “Usage Rights” option to search for copyright-free materials.
National Science Foundation (US): Images credited to the National Science Foundation are in the public domain. All media in the gallery are intended for personal, educational and non-profit/non-commercial use only.
Openverse (NEW!!): Openly Licensed Images, Audio and More | Openverse (wordpress.org)
Pixabay: Look for images in the public domain or creative commons domain deed CC0. Exceptions: some sponsored images (ex. from Shutterstock) will appear at the top of any search result (usually marked with an x through the image) – these images are not free and have copyright restrictions.
Sheridan College’s list of CC and Public Domain images sites
Smithsonian Open Access: Download, share, and reuse millions of the Smithsonian’s images. Access nearly 3 million 2D and 3D digital items from our collections—with many more to come. This includes images and data from across the Smithsonian’s 19 museums, nine research centers, libraries, archives, and the National Zoo.
TinEye: A reverse image search made in Canada. Use to find where images appear online
Unsplash: As per their license: “All photos published on Unsplash can be used for free. You can use them for commercial and non-commercial purposes. You do not need to ask permission from or provide credit to the photographer or Unsplash, although it is appreciated when possible.”
Wikimedia Commons: Find images, video and audio. Content is generally public domain or creative commons licensed.

Image Accessibility

Whenever you use images in your work, whether it’s on a WordPress site, in D2L, or in a PowerPoint or WORD document you are sharing, make sure you are paying attention to image accessibility to ensure equitable access by anyone. Here are a couple of sites to help you with image accessibility.

Next week is Open Access week!

“Open Access Week 2022 is an opportunity to join together, take action, and raise awareness around how open can be a means for climate justice.” Find out more about events around the world at OpenAccessWeek.org

And that’s all for this email – I am off to more amazing presentations! Have a great week.

Emily