While I found all of the seminars at the #UMBCSocial social media summit to be highly valuable, the Will That Photo Get You Fined? class led by UMBC Communications Director Dinah Winnick really taught me a lot. This important topic is relevant to everyone that posts and shares media online.

For example, as a member of the marketing department at The Universities at Shady Grove (USG), the majority of promotional images that we use can be traced back to our team. Thus, it is important to make sure all of the images we use are correctly attributed. Here is what I learned from Dinah:

>> The Best Places to Get Your Photos:
1. Take your own or buy stock.
2. Use pictures provided by university photographers.
3. Search for photos from government websites.
4. Use photos with creative commons licensing.
5. Explore collections with unrestricted use.

>> How to Organize Photo Archives
This was an issue that I openly asked the class about. USG’s photo library is a lot for one person to manage, and we currently don’t have a tagging system in place. Here were the suggestions I received from representatives of various campuses throughout Maryland:

1. Maintain a private Flickr.com profile as well as a public one.
2. Photoshelter.com
3. Webdam.com

>> How to Protect Yourself and the Work of Others
1. Always include attribution, even if the photo is free. Here’s an example:

Creative commons image courtesy of Randie Hovatter.

2. For campus photo contests, permission is required to share user-generated imagery. An easy way to obtain permission is to provide a link to terms and conditions in the contest guidelines. Include a phrase such as: By submitting creative work, you agree with our [Terms and Conditions].

3. At large campus events which may be photographed or recorded on video, post a notice on the event program or provide a special sticker that people can place on their name tag to avoid being filmed.

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For coverage of other topics that I learned about at #UMBCSocial, follow these links:

>> Engaging Commuter Students with Social Media
>> College Facebook and Twitter #FTW