27 Resources: Captions and Attributions
When BCcampus Open Education began working with open textbook authors, we soon recognized that devising a standard method of captioning each non-text item in a book was critical. At the same, we were teaching authors the importance of recording the information needed to create a well-structured attribution statement for each open resource they borrowed. It didn’t take long to realize that we could use — and shape — a caption’s layout to help identify its resource in an attribution statement. In other words, the caption’s label could be part of the attribution statement. This chapter describes suggested formats for captions and attribution statements, and how the two can be used together so that the resources in a textbook are clearly marked and legally attributed.
Chapter Table of Contents
- Who gets attribution for an image?
- Should items in the public domain be attributed?
- Attribution statements
- Open-copyright licence, no changes
- Open-copyright licence, changes made
- Public domain: designated, no changes
- Public domain: designated, changes made
- Public domain: expired copyright, no changes
- Public domain: expired copyright, changes made
- No known copyright restrictions
- Government websites and publications
- Source statement
- Attribution-statement tools
Captions
A caption is text that accompanies a figure, table, or other non-text resource within a work such as an open textbook. At BCcampus, we decided that the caption for each item should only contain the resource type label and number, and a description of the resource. If an item requires an attribution statements, it is placed elsewhere — typically in an “Attributions” list at the end of the chapter.
Separating the attribution statement and caption kept the caption clearn and uncluttered. However, it also introduced a problem: how do we connect an item to its attribution statement? First, we determined that each resource type needed to be identified with a label. We selected “Table” for tables, and “Figure” for all images and pictures. That label is combined with a numbering system that incorporates the chapter number the item is found in and the item’s places in that chapter in relation to other items with the same label. For example, if a photograph is the third of four figures in Chapter 5, it would be labelled as “Figure 5.3.” This resource type and number appears in the caption, and it is used to identify the attribution statement.
Note that the sequence number of a resource label is resource specific. For example, if an item is marked as “Table 6.2,” this means it’s the second table in Chapter 6, not the second non-text resource. As such, you can have a Table 6.2 and a Figure 6.2 in the same chapter.
The content of a caption is written by the author to convey the significance of the resource and its relationship to text. Referencing the resource in the text body contributes to this connection. Authors are discouraged from using the