It is a University strategic priority that all staff and students must have access to equal opportunities to thrive and progress at Warwick, irrespective of background, disability, faith, gender, race and sexual orientation. Warwick is committed to developing accessible and inclusive approaches to ensure that everyone can participate in our community.
This statement applies to the Warwick website, hosted on warwick.ac.uk and includes the postgraduate applicant portal . *.warwick.ac.uk will be covered by their own accessibility statements. For example, our Virtual Learning Environment (Moodle) .
On this website, you should be able to:
change colours, contrast levels and fonts
zoom in up to 300% without the text spilling off the screen
navigate the website using just a keyboard, you can use links to skip over the navigation and get to content quicker
navigate the website using speech recognition software
listen to most of the website using a screen reader (including the most recent versions of JAWS, NVDA and VoiceOver)
view the website on a tablet or mobile device in either orientation
We aim to make the website text as simple as possible to understand. We have provided a checklist to our content authors with guidance on reading level and writing in plain English.
AbilityNet has advice on making your device easier to use if you have a disability.
We support our staff and students in their use of assistive software .
How accessible is this website?
We know some pages of this website aren't fully accessible:
some Adobe PDF documents, for example, Library purchased digital e-resources created before September 2018
live video streams don’t have captions and some videos may not have captions
some web pages include slideshows that are hard to navigate via keyboard alone, to get from slide to slide, we are working to replace these with an accessible slideshow - a new accessible slideshow is available but each page has to be manually migrated (approx 800 to remedy)
some web pages may have colour or contrast issues. We have given our content creators a checklist to follow, to avoid creating contrast issues in future, we have adjusted the Warwick brand to a smaller range of accessible navigation colours
Postgraduate students applying to Warwick via the Applicant Portal should be aware that you may find it difficult to use the Document upload buttons when navigating using the keyboard alone. We have identified a solution, and we are working to implement this for 23 September 2020. If you have difficulty completing the application process or are unable to upload supporting documents, please contact appquery@warwick.ac.uk. The team will upload supporting documents on your behalf.
Contact Us: How to request content in an accessible format
If you need information on this website in a different format like accessible PDF, large print, easy read, audio recording or braille, please contact us via email at webaccessibility at warwick dot ac dot uk .
NOTE: If you cannot view the map and travel info on our site, you can get verbal directions by calling the University Reception on 024 765 23523.
Feedback: Reporting accessibility problems with this site
If you find any problems not listed on this page or think we’re not meeting accessibility regulations, please email the accessibility team:
webaccessibility at warwick dot ac dot uk
If you are unhappy with the response you receive, you can make a formal complaint to Warwick using our Feedback and Complaints process.
The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) is responsible for enforcing the Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) (No. 2) Accessibility Regulations 2018 (the ‘accessibility regulations’). If you’re not happy with how we respond to your complaint, contact the Equality Advisory and Support Service (EASS) .
The University of Warwick is committed to making its website accessible, in accordance with the Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) (No. 2) Accessibility Regulations 2018.
Compliance status
This service is partially compliant with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines version 2.1 AA standard , due to the non-compliances and exemptions listed below.
We are working to meet the compliance as specified in The Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) (No. 2) Accessibility Regulations 2018 by the September 2020 deadline.
Meanwhile, the content listed below is non-accessible for the following reasons.
Content
We aim to improve the education of our content editors on web accessibility best practice. We have given our web content creators a checklist to follow to encourage best practice with formatting, page structure and readability. We've also provided author guidance for all types of document creation. We are working on further training packages.
Issues with images, video and audio
Images on some departmental or service page(s) may not have alternative text. We have added a feature to our content editor so that all images on editing will need to be given an alt tag or tick a box to say the image is for decorative purposes only. Over time this will improve the volume of images without appropriate alt text, we are starting with high-traffic web pages and working from there. WCAG criterion 1.1.1 Non-text Content
Although we strongly discourage the practice there may be some content created deep within our site which has images of text or poor contrast. WCAG criterions 1.4.5 Images of Text and 1.4.3 Minimum Contrast
We don’t plan to create a transcript, caption, audio description or sign language interpretation to pre-recorded audio and video published before 23 September 2020, if this was not done at the time of creation. As we believe this content to. be exempt under the PSBAR regulation. New pre-recorded audio and video after that date and live audio and video after 14 days will be appropriately created and we'd anticipate the older content is replaced or removed over time.
Issues with PDFs and other documents
Many of our older PDFs and Word documents don’t meet accessibility standards - for example, they may not have been written in a way that is accessible to a screen reader. Some of these PDFs and Word documents are essential to providing our services, we plan to either fix these or replace them with accessible HTML pages by September 2020.
The accessibility regulations don’t require us to fix PDFs or other documents published before 23 September 2018 if they’re not essential to providing our services.
Any new PDFs or Word documents we publish will meet accessibility standards.
Inaccessible PDF resources we are aware of are:
Pay climate - We've been checking these and the majority of them are partly accessible.The Funambulist - These PDFs have no tagging, headings, alt text, structure or reading order.
Issues with interactive tools and transactions
Older slideshows are currently hard to tab through, we are transitioning or web content to a new accessible slideshow, starting with high traffic pages. These slideshows tend to be used to decorate web pages rather than to provide important content. WCAG criterion 2.1.2 Keyboard trap
Our web site includes an interactive map supplied by a third party, this is unlikely to be accessible, we will review the interactive map and request accessibility changes when the next major revision of the map occurs. Alternative map formats are available.
Some of our interactive forms are difficult to navigate using a keyboard. For example, because some form controls are missing a ‘label’ tag, we have a fix for this issue awaiting deploy. We aim to fix any other issues as we discover them by September 2020. WCAG criterion 2.5.3 Label in Name
We make use of a free third party, open-source date picker within our calendar page template (Bootstrap 3 Datepicker). This date picker generates some empty table header markup. This may have a negative effect on some users of assistive technology when they use a calendar page on pages like this calendar , for example.
Postgraduate students applying to Warwick via the Applicant Portal should note an issue using the Document upload buttons. The document upload buttons do not work for users who are only using a keyboard, as at 30th March 2020. We have identified a solution, and we are working to implement this as soon as possible. In the meantime, users who are unable to upload documents should contact appquery at warwick dot ac dot uk for assistance.
At Warwick, we have marking management and student administration systems, called: Tabula, Moodle and MyWBS. These systems make use of Similarity Checking Services (to check the similarity of assignments with each other). The third-party service used centrally is Turnitin. Turnitin generates Similarity Reports on assignments submitted to Tabula, Moodle or MyWBS via the Feedback Studio Interface. For accessibility of the Feedback Studio interface, please see Turnitins PDF We note that Turnitin also provides a Text Only Report which may be easier to navigate.
We commissioned an audit with AbilityNet using manual and automated testing on selective aspects of the website. We are currently completing a programme of work on the site, to address issues raised in the Audit as at December 2020 we are half-way through that process. Our priority is to work through the Audit information we have already received and put in place practices to make new content accessible, as we believe this will fix more of the high priority areas.
PDFs and other documents
The accessibility regulations don’t require us to fix PDFs or other documents published before 23 September 2018 if they’re not essential to providing our services. Inaccessible PDF resources we are aware of are:
Geopolitics of energy - These PDFs have no tagging, headings, alt text/attributes, structure or reading order. As these were created before 23 September 2018 we don't plan to fix these.
Live and prerecorded audio and video
1.1.1 (non-text content)PSBAR regulation 2(b)(c). We would anticipate it gradually being replaced or removed over time as new web site content is added.
Warwick is a large university with over 27,000 students and nearly 7,000 members of staff. This website is large, reflecting the rich diversity of research and education undertaken here. The management of content is currently via a distributed model, with the web content being edited and maintained by a wide number of staff in distributed departments and services. This makes the task of testing the whole site, at once, difficult. Our testing strategy is as follows:
commissioned a Jisc accessibility snapshot that ran over some key areas of the website in March 2019 most of the issues identified have been addressed
We have commissioned AbilityNet to audited specific areas of the website, this includes high traffic web pages and standard page templates within our CMS.
We plan to run automated testing periodically over areas of the website.
We've made these changes to our systems to improve accessibility. Our roadmap is as follows:
Auditing
AbilityNet has carried out detailed audits using assistive technology on key pages and page templates on our website in Feb & March 2020. We have as at Dec 2020 resolved over half the issues raised.
a snapshot audit of key pages was done by Jisc in March 2019, we've acted on the recommendations raised
we are recording the automated accessibility scores generated by lighthouse reporting across the site
we are reviewing the web pages with the highest traffic on our website, which is about 1,000 pages. We are using a blend of automatic (Axe) and manual testing including speech reader use, keyboard navigation and magnification to find the most common barriers to users with accessibility needs.
we've added a lighthouse audit report to our web page content editor
Training
on this site, you will find a section on guidance to authors of content
we are in receipt of accessibility training webinars for our designers, editors and testers that we can share, these are being trimmed for easier use online for staff working from home during the Covid-19
we will be encouraging our content editors to reduce the high volume of web pages so that auditing activities can be more easily managed
we are advising developers on accessibility best practice and our developers are working through the issues raised in the audits
marketing has commenced a programme of training marketeers
Site change
we would like to more clearly divide internal-facing from public-facing web content to simplify our testing
we would like to provide easier archival or materials from the web site
we would like to have fewer web pages on the website so that it is more manageable
we would like editors of the website to be fully conversant with best practice
we are in the planning stages of a programme of web transformation to make our website inclusive by design
This statement was prepared on 13 September 2019. The GDS template , updated in April 2020, has been applied. See last revised date below.
