Google Safe Search and Usage Rights

There are two search features that Google offers that I would like to introduce. These features are found in the Google Image Search. We all know that Google is the primary website that our students go to conduct just about all Internet searches. Google Image search is their #1 location for images.  Unfortunately, many of our students do not know the copyright and usage rights associated with images that are found online. We have also found that the images available through Google Image Search are not always appropriate for a school setting or the eyes of a child.

Google has included two search setting located in their advanced image search that can help address these issues.  If you visit http://www.google.com and click on Images on the top left of the screen, you will be directed to Google Image Search. Once there you will see a link titled advanced image search located to the right of the search bar. Clicking on this link will direct you to the advanced search menu.

Within the advanced search menu you will see two settings that are of interest to this topic.

Click on the Image to Enlarge

1. SAFE SEARCH - Students can select to use Strict Search Filtering.  By enabling this setting you are filtering out images that are deemed innapropriate.

2. Usage Rights - The default setting for usage rights is to not filter by license. This  means that all of the images that are returned by a search may be subject to copyright. If you would like to limit the search to images that are free to use (not protected by copyright), you can select"Labeled for Reuse". This will return only images that are allowed to be used.

3. Once you select these settings you can type your search terms in any of the find results boxes.

It is important that students are aware of these settings. They must be educated on the fact that it is against copyright laws to publish images on the Internet that are copyright protected. Digital Stories and Digital Posters are published online. Students working on these projects must use images with the proper usage rights.

For more information about images, videos and text that are free to use visit http://www.creativecommons.org

Enjoy!