Commons:Files from studies

Many studies are licensed under CCBY. Files – mainly images – from these studies can be uploaded to Commons. Not all studies' files are useful but some may some of the most useful informative images on Commons, often used widely across Wikipedias.

How to upload

There is currently no tool available for uploading these files – a Study2Commons tool has been suggested here. Technical development around Commons-related things is rather minimal so it is unlikely to be implemented any time soon.

This means the best way to upload such images is the following:

1. Check if the images are useful and are accurate (for example do not upload images from retracted studies)
2. Check briefly if the files already are in Commons by searching it
3. Make sure the images are not biorender images which is sometimes the case – these can't be uploaded so exclude these (ctrl+f search for biorender in the study)
4. Open all the images (at full resolution) in new tabs
5. Download them all (right click and save)
6. Optional: check supplementary data of the study if there are any other valuable media files to also include
7. Use the UploadWizard and select all of the files from your Downloads folder to upload them at once (hold the shift key and click on first and last file)
8. In the authors field, paste the names of the authors of the study prefixed with Authors of the study: (since it's not clear who of those made the images or is involved with the images)
9. Link the study in the source field
10. Click next and enter the date the study was published for the first file
11. Also enter a category like 2023-02 study about subject described very shortly
    • the date format is YYYY-MM which allows sorted displaying of these categories
    • categories enable users to easily find the other images of the study (note that categories are still hidden on mobile against the community's wish which makes this way harder on mobile)
    • there can also be an infobox on the category page with structured data on the study if there is any on Wikidata (there usually isn't even for the most notable studies except if you create the Wikidata item manually)
12. The UploadWizard requires something be added to the caption, one can for example write "From the study title of study" since the description is usually too long
13. One you have entered things that are the same for all files of the category click on "Copy information to other uploads" and select the things that should be copied (e.g. Caption, Date of creation, Categories and then press "Copy selection to other uploads"
14. Now go through the files and from your still open tabs of the images copy the title and paste it, copy the file's description and paste it inside quotes " "
15. Do this for all the files – if the file title is not descriptive (see Commons:File naming) or not descriptive or simple-to-understand enough, modify it and if the description is missing, check the place in the study where the file is included as usually there somewhere there is the contextual info that would be good to include in the file description
16. Upload the files, then create the 2023-02 study about subject described very shortly category and add the relevant categories to this category (the subject the study is about where people would find these files useful); if the study is quite notable also add it to e.g. Category:2023 in science); if you can think of further relevant categories come back and add them later too
17. If you face any difficulties, just simply ask on the talk page here and you will get help
18. It is best to also embed files in Wikipedia and possibly in Wikidata items yourself as only very few people rarely check Commons categories, or view user uploads, or search Commons for such files even if they'd be very useful for an article which lacks images. It's far more likely to be found if it's used in at least one Wikipedia, especially English Wikipedia.

How to find

Ways to find relevant studies include:

• Some Wikipedia articles have an indicator for whether the study is CCBY, it shows some open lock icon next to the reference and you can look for it in References sections and open the study/ies to check whether it's a compatible CCBY
• When you come across a study, make it a habit to check if it's CCBY
• OpenAlex can filter studies for CCBY – see this example (replace the search string and add further filters)

Examples

Examples (more can be found in categories like Category:2022 in science):

• 
  Cascading global climate failure
• 
  Experimental set-up to detect "language" of fungi derived from their electrical spiking activity
• 
  First all-sky Galileo Observatory for UAP on the roof of the Harvard College Observatory (Cambridge, MA)
• 
  Global number of deaths (A) and years of potential life lost (B), by pathogen and infectious syndrome, 2019
• 
  Per capita annual meat consumption by region
• 
  The growth of all tracked objects in space over time (space debris and satellites)
• 
  Witchcraft beliefs around the world in the present
• 
  Planetary Boundaries 2024
• 
  Tree map of emission responsibility allotments in 2009 by selected country and industry
• 
  The BioRock Experimental Unit of the space station biomining experiment that demonstrated rare earth element extraction in microgravity and Mars gravity
• 
  Nanowires
• 
  Candidatus Prometheoarchaeum syntrophicum SEM

Notes

• There also are categories for the different journals: Category:Media from scholarly journals – however, many or most of these do not include most of the files that belong into them because there is no bot/script that adds the category depending on what journal the URL in the source field points to. The category itself is thus somewhat misleading (the files in them are not all files from a given journal) and not really useful.

See also

• Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Directory/Science
• Category:Non-photographic media from Wiki Science Competition by year