Using images in education

I was asked by a student where they could find pictures which are 'free' for them to add to their forum work. Our learning platform has a picture tab, which takes students to a paid website (STOCKi). The student wanted to know if there was somewhere they could find free images (graphics or photographs).

This was is a really interesting question. And as far as I am aware, for education purposes in New Zealand, we have a 'fair use' agreement. My interpretation of this is that, (a) as long as we cite an author/owner we can use items for illustrative purposes, providing (b) there is no commercial gain; i.e. we couldn't then publish a book afterwards using whatever it was without obtaining and paying for the proper permissions.

There are few levels of protection for image/models/graphics. Firstly there are royalty free images - which are still within copyright, but we don't have to pay a fee to use them for fair use. Then there are public domain images - which are now out of copyright, so may be used (but it is polite to ask if they will be published). And lastly creative commons images, which are those intentionally created free of copyright for public use. But, regardless, all images should be (a) cited, and (b) referenced if we use them in our academic work.

Come ideas for images we CAN use - and cite/reference - are as follows:

1. The images supplied within the Microsoft Office suite as the copyright has been negotiated by that company
2. Those images or graphics we have created ourselves, or gathered from our travels. I have used Google Photos for years, so can search for particular terms and find some of my own images... then label them as "author's own" when I use them. See, for example, the composite image accompanying this post where I searched for "road", also containing one Microsoft image
3. The copyright free images online at places such as https://www.123rf.com/free-images/ https://openverse.org/ https://unsplash.com/license (this site has a great explanation of what we are allowed to do with images) and https://archive.org/ and many other sites
4. Search an term in Wikipedia, then see if the accompanying images have a creative commons 4.0 licence (open access)
5. Do a Google search such as "winding road, creative commons", then filter for images (rather than "All") 
6. Go to Google maps, and find a section of winding road, and take a screenshot of the terrain view. 

Also, if we find an image in a book, online or otherwise where it is not explicit that it is creative commons or public domain (i.e. it is the property of an entity or person), we should ask permission to use it; regardless of whether the use is for profit or not. 

It is very easy to send a quick email to an academic or a website to ask - and, in my experience, they usually say yes :-)

Sam

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Education Copyright in New Zealand

Copyright Licensing New Zealand (CLNZ) has a great little video (2015b) which advises us to think of copyright as "a friendly neighbourly exchange. Meet Joe and this is his neighbour Bruce. Joe borrowed Bruce's lawnmower to cut his lawn. Another neighbour, Sarah, saw Joe mowing his lawn and asked to borrow the mower. 'Sure,' said Joe, and shared the mower with Sarah... without asking the owner, Bruce. Sarah baked a cake for Joe to say thank you". So... Joe gets the cake, while lawnmower-owner Bruce, responsible for purchasing and maintenance, gets nothing. Not fair.

CLNZ suggests that we may easily treat publications the same way. While authors are usually happy for us to enjoy work for our personal consumption, as soon as we copy or share without permission, we get into the 'not fair' category, and fall afoul of the law.

What we can use under the education 'fair use' copyright is:

• Up to 10% of a book or 1 chapter
• 1 article from a journal
• 5 articles from a single newspaper

These can be circulated in hard- or soft-copy for our specific educational purpose to a specific group. So we can't share any of the above via a public blog, but we can share through a passworded website. And we can't charge for the materials unless that charge goes back to the item owner.

If we were going to use someone's thesis, we would need to get permission from the writer. If we wanted to use two chapters from a book, we would need to get permission from the publisher.

It is a pain that we cannot put together books of materials from a range of publishers, but it becomes far too complex to negotiate with everyone involved: authors, agents, tertiary institutions, copyright lawyers and publishers...


Sam

References

• Copyright Licensing New Zealand (2015). A guide to the CLNZ Education Licence. Retrieved 22 January 2018 from https://www.copyright.co.nz/Downloads/Assets/2951/1/clnz-education-licence-guide.pdf
• Copyright Licensing New Zealand (2015). Education Licence Guide. Retrieved 22 January 2018 from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uHBZe2jZZdI
• Copyright Licensing New Zealand (2015). What is Copyright? Retrieved 22 January 2018 from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xr2K53Hl5Uw

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Creating blog images

I ran into a situation recently where I wanted to pin a friend's posts to my Pinterest page, but was unable to differentiate the pins... because my colleague doesn't use images in each post. Thus, when I pin them, each post looks exactly the same.

I am an image junkie. I can't remember which post is about what without that image cue. This is why I use Pinterest as my bookmarking system: I have much higher rates of recall if I use images.

Images, despite the web being pretty much open access, need to be our own creations, or must be borrowed from others with express permission. There are some rough exceptions to the permission aspect: if you were doing a supportive review of a product or service, you could probably use the logo or a product image to illustrate your review without worrying. A company is unlikely to pursue someone for copyright over free advertising.

It is easier to create an image than to get permission to use an image belonging to someone else.

Like all of us, my friend is VERY busy (and a prolific and very thoughtful blogger). I had let him know a while ago about my problem, and he had tried to solve it. However, he had not been able to find a good solution that suited his branding.

Today I said to him "Leave it to me. I will find you a simple and free solution".

My friend brands all his posts with his profile photo, and a blog header photo. So I thought that using his profile photo embedded as a picture in picture - PinP - within each blog's background image would probably work with his branding. The PinP image could equally be a logo, a banner, or a phrase box or call out symbol. This is our brand 'anchor' image.

So here is my solution, for all of us:

1. While we are out and about, take lots of close up photos of things that relate to our brand using our phones. I say phone, because we nearly always have our phones with us. Download our images to our computer, and use these as our background image.
2. Create whole page words or symbols in MS Word or PowerPoint and save as a jpg. Use these as our background image (like the copyright symbol above)
3. If we get stuck for illustrating images, then we can try word clouds using key words from each of our posts at http://www.imagechef.com/ic/word_mosaic/ or http://www.tagxedo.com/app.html. Again, send our images to our computer, and use these as our background image.
4. If we want to make a quote image, we go to Recite, at http://www.recitethis.com/#/
5. Download Gimp. Gimp is image manipulation freeware that allows us to create PinP graphics.
6. Watch Pocket Lenses (2015) video clip at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SnIGX8rHfP4 to see how to create those PinP images. Use our key brand anchor as the PinP image (like my example on this post)
7. Import our newly created image into our blog post. Align it somewhere near the left top corner (if that suits our branding), as images have the most eye-appeal in this position. Done!

I hope that helps all of us :-)

Sam

References:

• Gimp (n.d.). Downloads. Retrieved 16 June 2015 from http://www.gimp.org/downloads/ 
• ImageChef (n.d.). Make Word Mosaic. Retrieved 16 June 2015 from http://www.imagechef.com/ic/word_mosaic/
• Pocket Lenses (2015). How to make a picture in picture collage using GIMP. Retrieved 16 June 2015 from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SnIGX8rHfP4 
• Recite (n.d.). Turn A Quote into a Masterpiece. Retrieved 16 June 2015 from http://www.recitethis.com/#/
• Tagxedo (n.d.). Tagxedo - Creator. Retrieved 16 June 2015 from http://www.tagxedo.com/app.html  

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