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Public Domain Media & Content: Attributing Public Domain Works

How to Properly Attribute Public Domain & Creative Commons Content

The Open Washington website, an Open Educational Resources (OER) network, publishes a helpful web form wizard tool that helps you build out attributions for Creative Commons and public domain content that you use. Plug in elements like the title and author/creator of the work, a link to the work, and then choose from a list of license types. The wizard dynamically generates a text-based attribution statement that you can copy and paste into a paper, slide deck, video, image, etc. It also generates an HTML markup version that you can embed into a website, blog, LibGuide, etc. These attribution statements adhere to the attribution terms specified by Creative Commons licenses. Although public domain works do not require attribution, it is always a good, ethical, and scholarly practice to attribute all sources.

Go Use the Open Attribution Builder Tool

The Open Attribution Builder web wizard tool.