Research Guides: Open Images: Citations and Attribution

Citation and Attribution for Images

The important thing to remember about using Creative Commons Licenced materials is that you do need to attribute the creator.
Attribution is similar to citation. In attribution you need to mention the author, the source, link to the image and cite the kind of Creative Commons licence the material was released under.
Academic citation styles should also be used in addition to attribution for academic and assignment projects, when defined as part of course requirements.
To help you with making Creative Commons attribution, there is a handy tool called the Open Attribution Builder.

Here is a photo. Following it are some examples of how people might attribute it.

It is ideal because it indicates:

Title: "Creative Commons 10th Birthday Celebration San Francisco"

Author: "tvol" - linked to his profile page

Source: "Creative Commons 10th Birthday Celebration San Francisco" - with a link to the original Flickr page

License: "CC BY 2.0" - with a link to the license deed

Photo by tvol / CC BY

This is pretty good because:

Title: Title is not noted (it should be) but at least the source is linked.

Author: "tvol"

Source: "Photo" - linked to original Flickr page

License: "CC BY" - linked to license deed

Photo: Creative Commons

Because:

Title: Title is not noted.

Author: Creative Commons is not the author of this photo.

Source: No link to original photo.

License: There is no mention of the license, much less a link to the license. "Creative Commons" is an organization.

If you modify a CC licensed work, you must indicate how it has been modified.

Good because:

Title, Author, Source, and License are all noted
Type of modification is indicated: "Desaturated from original"