About OER Development in Pressbooks
Integrating Multimedia
Adapted from Fanshawe OER Design Studio
Media refers to items other than text, such as photos, graphs, diagrams, and video or audio files. When developing your textbook, you may want to include additional graphical elements to help students connect with your content. However, it is essential that all media resources are either your own creative works, or that they carry an open license or are in the public domain. This way, they can be legally integrated into your OER without hassle or additional permissions required.
Media Considerations
When integrating media elements into your book, there are a few things to keep in mind:
- Images, tables, and figures should have a caption (e.g., Figure 1 + description).
- Captions should be numbered to allow for easy referencing within your text. Consider using the chapter or section of your book as the basis for your caption numbers. For example, for the first figure in Chapter 1, the caption for the first figure might be “Figure 1.1.”
- For graphs and figures, describe the image and its purpose in the text surrounding the image.
There are many places to find free and open images. However, some images may require us to give credit to the creator or may not allow us to use them for commercial purposes. If unsure about the rules, please contact us for additional support.
Open Image Collections are highlighted on our OER Library Guide. Some of these include:
- Unsplash: Offers a vast collection of high-quality, royalty-free images.
- Pexels: Offers a wide range of free stock photos and videos.
- Wikimedia Commons: A database of freely usable media files, including images.
- Flickr: Search for images using the “Creative Commons” licence to ensure you find content that can be reused and modified under an open-source licence.
When creating images and graphics, or sourcing existing images, it’s essential to consider the proper image resolution and formats. This way, we can ensure our OER images and graphics are visually appealing and optimized for their intended use.
- 72 to 150 DPI – Modern displays use higher pixel density more often, so greater than 72dpi is permissible.
- Minimum 600 pixels wide (icons excluded)
- Photos: PNG or JPEG – Exported as medium to high quality, depending on the photo and the resulting file size.
- Illustrations or other graphics: PNG – Transparent background depending on the graphic.
Video and Audio Files
Videos can provide an alternative delivery of content to students and end-users while providing opportunities to share different contexts and perspectives. Videos are available in the digital format of the book only.
When creating videos for your book, keep the following in mind:
- Record using university-provided resources for high-quality video and audio output. Studio 2B in the Library, the CELT Media Production Team or the Student Innovation Center’s Digital Media Studio may all be great fits for your needs.
- Review and correct any auto-generated captions to ensure that they accurately reflect the spoken or displayed information in the video; for podcasts, provide a plain text transcript to accompany the audio.
- YouTube: YouTube authors can license their videos for reuse. Use the filters available to locate Creative Commons-licensed videos. Be sure to use videos from creators you trust; you don’t want to link to something that may be missing a year from now!
- Vimeo: Vimeo, like YouTube, is a video-sharing site. Search filters allow users to find Creative Commons-licensed videos.
- TED: All TED content are covered by the Creative Commons license, Attribution-NonCommercial – NonDerivative (BY-NC-ND)
This content was adapted from “Media Resources” in the Fanshawe OER Development Guide. The content has been lightly adapted for tone with additional content relevant to the services available at Iowa State University. The Fanshawe Guide is available under a Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Its content was originally adapted from:
“Make a Plan” from Adaptation Guide by BCcampus is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, except where otherwise noted.
