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Finding open access research and creative commons media: Finding creative commons media

This guide covers how to find open access research on the internet and how to locate and use creative commons licenced media.

Finding creative commons media online

Using Creative Commons materials

When you use material created by others, whether for teaching, publication or personal use (copying), you need to consider copyright. Creative Commons licensed resources are licensed for various types of re-use. These are usually free to use, sometimes with some restrictions such as crediting the creator (attribution).

Free resources (public domain)

These sites contain media which have been licensed under the CC0 licence or placed in the public domain. You may use these resources free of charge and with no restrictions. Some use custom licences rather than CC0 (see guidance)

Please use the tabbed resource guides below to find where you can locate public domain media for use in research and teaching.

 

Where to look for public domain media

Creative Commons resources (free with some restrictions)

The resources below contain media licensed under one of the other Creative Commons licences. This means they are subject to the terms and conditions of the licence (such as non-commercial use).

You may use these resources free of charge, with attribution (and sometimes other restrictions).

Where to look for creative commons licenced media

For more resources go to:

See also:

Fonts can be a simple way to create a unique look for your posters, blog or PDFs. To preserve non-standard fonts, you may need to save your presentations, posters etc as PDFs.

Editing and searching tools

You can use software to edit Creative Commons or open access resources or check if an image is under a CC licence using a reverse image search. Here are a few resources we think might help.

Download and use editing and searching tools

Contacts

Open Access Helpdesk
openaccess@bodleian.ox.ac.uk

Research Data helpline
researchdata@ox.ac.uk

ORA Team
ora@bodleian.ox.ac.uk

Symplectic Elements team
symplectic@admin.ox.ac.uk