Finding Creative Commons licensed materials
Creative Commons Search: Send a CC search query to a number of sources
Currently only searches images, but will soon search different media.
Audio search is currently in Beta release.
Sources for Images
Always check the specifics of the licenses, and remember to reference your sources.
It can be difficult to locate the original source for any material online, and thus the actual Copyright status of the work. With images, a good way to check this, is to perform a "reverse image search" via a Web Search engine like Google. Simply select the image you wish to check, and look for either the earliest result, or a result with a reference to the original source.
Creative Commons Images
- Google Images: Add 'Creative Commons' to your search term(s); check for any specific license requirements
- Yahoo Images: Add 'Creative Commons' to your search term(s); check for any specific license requirements
Note: You can sort images by colour scheme
- Flickr: Add 'Creative Commons' to your search term(s); check for any specific license requirements
- Wikimedia: All the images are CC licensed
- Atlas of Living Australia: A collaborative, national project that aggregates biodiversity data, images, datasets, and more from multiple sources
- Encyclopaedia of Life: Over 2.9 million images depicting life on Earth
- The Wellcome Institute: A range of collections including biomedical science and ancient manuscripts
Copyright-friendly image collections
Not necessarily CC licensed but ok for educational use with no further permission required.
Public Domain image collections
No copyright restrictions.
- Pixabay: Public domain photos, vector graphics and short videos
Icons
- The Noun Project: Noun Project launched in 2011 to build a global visual language that unites the world - a language that allows quick and easy communication no matter who you are or where you are.
Music & Audio Collections
Please check the creative commons licensing before using any music or audio for your video essay and remember to reference.
Video & Image Collections
Please check the creative commons licensing before using any video or image for your video essay and remember to reference.
Open Educational Resources or OER
Open Educational Resources (OER) are teaching and learning materials which are licensed in ways that allow individuals and institutions to freely use and reuse, adapt and modify the materials for their own personal or educational use, without charge.
OERs can, and do include full courses, textbooks, streaming videos, exams, software, and any other materials or techniques supporting learning.
- OER Commons: Find and create OER
- Creative Commons-Finding OER: How to use specific searches, repositories, etc.
- Open University
- OpenStax Textbooks
- Merlot II: Multimedia OER