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Adding Icons and Images

This article discusses the importance of utilizing visual markers and icons within Carmen course pages. It also provides helpful tips and resources for locating and adding icons and images to Carmen Pages.

Standard Icons

When designing pages in Carmen, balancing text with images and other multimedia can go a long way towards supporting the overall student learning experience. The incorporation of relevant images and graphics, in particular, impacts the affective dimension of learning where pleasing visual designs have the ability to stimulate emotions such as happiness, appreciation and curiosity or generat

Within the EHE Carmen Course Template, a number of standard icons have been added to the template course Files. These icons include items such as a video icon, book icon, list icon, presentation icon, etc. After importing the EHE template into their own courses, instructors will have access to use these icons in their own Carmen pages and assignments, helping to enhance their overall visual design and the student user experience

This is a series of small scarlet colored icons representing different learning tasks.

Academic Integrity Icons

The Carmen template course Files also contain a series of Academic Integrity icons to help design consistent communication and increase clarity around course expectations and what resources are or are not permitted to be used to complete certain tasks. These icons should accompany text descriptions similar to those listed below.

Important Note: the text descriptions listed correspond to the icons displayed from left to right. The icons should always be accompanied by similar text descriptions and never used on their own. Refer to the assignment pages in the EHE Carmen course template for an example of how these icons and descriptions might be used in practice.

  • Getting help is permitted.
  • Getting help is not permitted.
  • Open book/notes are permitted.
  • Open book/notes are not permitted.
  • Collaborating or completing work with others is permitted.
  • Collaborating or completing work with others is not permitted.
  • Copying or reusing work is permitted.
  • Copying or reusing work is not permitted.
  • Use of generative artificial intelligence for the assignment is permitted.
  • Use of generative artificial intelligence for the assignment is not permitted.
This is a series of academic integrity icons illustrating what resources may or may not be permitted.

Adding Icons to Carmen Pages and Assignments

After importing the EHE Carmen Course template into your own Carmen course, you you can add or swap out icons as needed. To add icons to a Carmen Page or assignment, follow these steps:

  1. Navigate to the location (page, assignment, discussion, etc.) in Carmen where you would like to use the icons and click Edit to enter into Editing mode.
  2. In the toolbar of the Rich Content Editor (RCE), click the image icon and then select “Course Images” . You’ll see a slider window open in the right side of your screen.
  3. Locate the icon you wish to use and click on the icon to insert it onto the page. Tip: You can use the search feature and type “icon” to easily filter your view to icon image files only.
  4. Once the icon has been inserted, click on the icon and then click “Image Options“.
  5. Check the box next to “Decorative Image” to mark the icon as decorative, as the icon is meant as a visual cue and does not add any specific meaning to the page itself.
  6. Click the red “Done” button to preserve your settings.

If you are looking to incorporate additional images within your course materials, here are a few recommended sources:

  • For Ohio State-specific photos and graphics, visit University Marketing’s Digital Assets Management (DAM) System. You may be prompted to login with your OSU credentials to access this site.
  • For non-university images, graphics, and icons that are free to use in your courses without attribution, a good royalty-free database is Adobe Express, which is available to OSU faculty, staff, and students. If your unit or department has access to the Adobe Creative Cloud suite, you can also access Adobe Stock, which incorporates a much larger library than the one included in Adobe Express.

Additional Tips

A few things to consider when uploading or creating additional visual assets:

  • Be cautious of file size to avoid any potential access issues related to internet speed and to minimize your course storage. As a general rule, try to keep images below 1.5 MB. If you have a file larger than 1.5 MB, consider uploading it to Adobe Express or PowerPoint and redownloading/saving the file as a jpeg instead of a png file.
  • Adjust your file size appropriately:
    • Landscape Images: 600px x 400px or 300px x 200px
    • Portrait Images: 400px x 600px or 200px x 300px
    • Horizontal Banners: 1200px x 350px is recommended (in the image options in Carmen set the “Dimension Type” to percentage = 100% if you want the banner to go across the entirety of the page)
    • Icons: 64px x 64px
  • Add Alt Text: 
    • For images that add additional meaning or context to a page (i.e. any image that is not purely decorative) hover over the image within your Carmen course, select “Image Options” and type a brief description in the Alt Text box.
    • For images that do not add additional meaning or context and are purely decorative, select the “Decorative Image” box.