Here at UTS, we have just celebrated Open Education Week 2025. Open Education is a movement and tool for social justice that aims to make education more inclusive and accessible.
If you were introduced to Open Educational Practices (OEP) during this year’s events, or perhaps have heard of OEP but have never used them before and would like to get started, we have some inspiration for you!
Open access images
A good starting point for experimenting with OEP is using open access images in your learning and teaching materials. Open access is not the same as publicly available. Using creative works, including images, is restricted by copyright, so look for images that artists have explicitly labelled as free to use or open access.
Using open access images is a great way to support artists and cultivate more inclusive and ethical learning design practices. Back in March, we shared some suggestions for sources of images, many of which are open access. Try to avoid the AI-generated visuals that have proliferated on some websites; artificial intelligence exploits creative works, and using AI images can lead to more generic or even ‘culturally-flattened’ design.
Instead, choose images by named creators and ensure you credit the artist when you use their work – see the art in this blog post for examples of attribution. Stock image repositories might even include a license that outlines how you can use their images (for example, the Unsplash License). Where possible, you should provide:
- a link back to the original source
- the name of the creator and a link to their profile
- the license under which the image is shared
When you use visuals in learning and teaching materials, don’t forget to add meaningful alt text to make sure everyone can access them.
The Greats art vault
The Greats is a toolbox of beautiful activist artwork covering a range of social justice topics, including LGBTQIA+ rights, freedom and democracy, climate change and migration, to name a few.
Most of The Greats artwork is shared under a Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial ShareAlike License (CC BY-NC-SA). This means you are free to share and adapt the images, with these conditions:
- Source – include a link back to the source of the original image
- Attribution – you must give appropriate credit to the artist (i.e. include their name and a link to their artist profile)
- NonCommercial – the images cannot be used for commercial purposes
- ShareAlike – if you create a new artwork by adapting or reusing one with this license, you must share the new work with the same license
- License – link to the Creative Commons License type
For more information and support:
- read our explainer on Creative Commons NonCommercial and ShareAlike licenses
- book a copyright consultation with UTS Library
Blog post feature image: The Future Is Open by Preeti Singh for Creative Commons is licensed CC BY-SA.