All guides: Images in Canvas: Images and your course

About this guide

Discover how the Library may assist in ensuring the images you use in your teaching are copyright compliant.

This guides covers:

finding licensed and open-web images to be used in your teaching and learning
ensuring copyright compliance of images used in your teaching and learning
instructions on how to register images with the eReserve service
referencing images used in your Canvas course

Further information about using resources in your Canvas course can be found on the library guide: Library resources in Canvas.

Questions?

General teaching enquiries may be sent to the Library Teaching Support team.

Finding images

The Library provides several resources to aid in finding images that you can use in your Canvas course, these include:

Image Databases
Find high-quality images from reputable sources covering architecture, art, fashion, health and medical, media, advertising, science, and engineering. Please note, this is a selected list of KEY resources.

Please check the SHOW LICENSE button on the LibrarySearch record to display the licence terms for each database. Make sure you verify that you can use the images for your intended purpose, e.g. teaching.

Digital Collections Repository
Explore the collections of images on offer, including; Catalyst, Laboratory Medicine slides, New Academic Street, past exam papers, special collections, student works, open educational resources and much more!
eReserve Graphics
This collection includes images that are communicated under the Statutory Licence pursuant to s113P(1) of the Copyright Act 1968 for the educational purposes of the University.
Adobe Stock images
1) Select 'Sign in' in the top menu.
2) Enter your RMIT email address and select 'Continue'.
3) If it asks you to select an account, select 'Company or School Account'.
4) This will take you to the familiar RMIT Apps Portal where you can log in as usual. If you're already logged in, then it might skip this step.

After that, you should be taken to the stock photos site where you can browse for photos which have an Education licence.

Staff members have access to an Education license on this platform. Look for images with the blue 'Licensed' tick before downloading a high-res, un-watermarked image to your computer.

Images should be attributed as (© Author Name - stock.adobe.com)

Images - Creative Commons, Open Domain and Public Domain

Creative Commons

Cut Out Mix
Equal, diverse and inclusive renderings of figures for architectural drawings. CC BY 4.0 CC BY 4.0 licence. Attribution required.
Wikimedia Commons
Includes Creative Commons and CC0 Stock images. Attribution is required to use CC images. CC BY 4.0 licence. Attribution required.
CSIRO Science image
All images are free to use under a CC BY 3.0 licence
LibreStock
Stock images on various topics can be filtered by tag. Most images are free to use under CC0. Be careful to identify images with licenses other than CC0 and abide by the terms of use.

CCO Open Domain - No copyright restrictions

Open Doodles
You can copy, edit, remix, share, or redraw these images for any purpose without restriction under copyright (CC0). Attribution is not required but recommended for academic best practice
Open Peeps
You can copy, edit, remix, share, or redraw these images for any purpose without restriction under copyright (CC0). Attribution is not required but recommended for academic best practice.
Rawpixel
Artworks from international museums. Filter for Public Domain CC0. Attribution is not required but recommended for academic best practice.
Freepixels
Stock photos categorised by concept, objects, architecture and nature. Videos and images released under CC0 licence.
Negative Space
Stock photos. Filter by category or search via free text.
StockSnap
Stock photos. Filter by category or search via free text.

Public domain

Getty Museum Collection
88,000 downloadable artworks available to edit and repurpose for free under Creative Commons zero (CC0). Note that there is some content subject to usage conditions due to copyright and restrictions. Search by Artist name, type of art or keyword, filter by Show only: Open Content
Rijksmuseum- Rijksstudio
Almost all artworks are in the Public Domain and can be used freely. Check the Object data for each artwork to verify Public Domain. Attribution is not required but recommended for academic best practice.
State Library Victoria's Digital Image Pool
Copyright free images where duration of copyright has expired. Non culturally sensitive images.
Cleveland Museum of Art
Share, remix, and reuse images of more than 30,000 public-domain artworks from the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.
Metropolitan Museum of Art
Explore more than 406,000 hi-res images of public-domain works from the The Met collection, all of which can be downloaded, shared, and remixed without restriction. Note that some artworks are under copyright or other restrictions.
Smithsonian Open Access
You can download, share, and reuse millions of the Smithsonian’s images and other content under Creative Commons Zero (CC0) with no restrictions. Note that there is some content subject to usage conditions due to copyright and restrictions.
Public Domain Image Archive
The Public Domain Image Archive (PDIA) — brought to you by The Public Domain Review (PDR) — is a curated collection of more than 10,000 out-of-copyright historical images, free for all to explore and reuse.

Images - free licences

Stock images. No attribution is required but it is recommended for academic best practice.

UnSplash
Pexels
Pixabay
Designerpics
Gratisography
Life of Pix
Morguefile
Stock images. Attribution required for non altered images (Suggested credit byline: Photo by at Morguefile.com)

Related guides

Library resources in Canvas
Information on linking and embedding Library resources in your Canvas course and ensuring copyright compliance.
Open Educational Resources (OERs)
Find and evaluate OER materials such as ebooks, images, video, case studies, simulations and more. Understand copyright and Creative Commons (CC) licences.
Reading Lists in Canvas
Information supporting the use of the Reading List app in Canvas, including how to create a Reading List, add resources, and rollover a list.

Teaching and Research guides

Images in Canvas