Finding OERs using search services

There are a number of search services that allow you quickly and easily find a wide range of open educational resources and open licensed content.

Google

Google allows you to filter your search results in order to find Creative Commons licensed images.

To do this, go to Google Image search https://www.google.co.uk/imghp and enter your search term. Click the Tools option to bring up an additional menu bar that enables you to  filter your search results by size, colour, usage rights, type and time.

Google image search with 'Tools' button highlighted.

 

Select  ‘Usage rights’ to choose from a drop down menu with the following options:

  • Not filtered by license
  • Creative Commons licences
  • Commercial & other licences

 

Selecting “Creative Commons licences” will return all Creative Commons licensed images.

Google image search result with Usage Rights button highlighted.

Note: Before reusing content, check the licence details on the source page and check the exact terms of reuse. For example, the licence might require that you give credit to the image creator when you use the image or have additional requests that Google is unable to pick up in a general search.

Reverse Image Search

You can use the Google Chrome browser to search for the source of an image. Right click the image and select “Search Google for image”. This should help you to find the original source of an image and any associated licence information.  There are a number of additional search services that will allow you to search for the source of an image, including Tin Eye Reverse Image Search.

Openverse – The Creative Commons Search

Openverse is the successor to CC Search which was launched by Creative Commons in 2019, after its migration to WordPress in 2021. Openverse searches across more than 800 million Creative Commons licensed images and audio tracks from open APIs and the Common Crawl dataset, allowing you to search for open licensed and public domain images from a wide range of sources including Wikimedia Commons, Flickr, Smithsonian, Europeana, NASA, Rijksmuseum and more.

 

Landing page for the Openverse search engine

 

Searches can be filtered by use or licence types.

Openverse audio and image search resutls for Bridge

 

Click through to the media you’re interested in for information on where to download the file and how to give attribution. Openverse actually provides attribution and licence information in four different formats for you to copy and share.

Openverse page for an image with details on where to download the file and how to provide attribution.

 

 

Europeana

Europeana allows you to cross search thousands of European archives, libraries and museums to find cultural heritage content of all kinds.

Landing page for Europeana digital culture repository.

 

Europeana’s advanced search facility has a number of filters including “Can I use this?” which enables you to find public domain and open licensed content.

Europeana search results for Vincent Van Gogh.

 

You can also use Europeana to find open licensed content from the University of Edinburgh’s collections, by filtering by Institution.

Europeana search results for 'natural history' filtered by institution 'University of Edinburgh'.