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Accessibility Statement for the Essex Research Repository and the Essex Data Repository

This accessibility statement applies to the Essex Research Repository (http://repository.essex.ac.uk/) and The Essex Data Repository (http://researchdata.essex.ac.uk/) websites.

These websites are run by the University of Essex. We want as many people as possible to be able to use these websites. For example, that means you should be able to:

  • Use the website at up to 500% zoom
  • Use the website in both landscape and portrait orientation
  • Navigate the website with speech recognition
  • Navigate the website with just a keyboard
  • Access content on the website using a screen reader

We’ve also made the website text as simple as possible to understand where possible.

AbilityNet has advice on making your device easier to use if you have a disability.

How accessible this website is

We know some parts of this website are not fully accessible:

  • some PDF documents are not fully accessible to screen reader software
  • some of our online forms are difficult to navigate using just a keyboard

Feedback and contact information

If you need information on this website in a different format like accessible PDF, large print, easy read or audio recording email us at repository@essex.ac.uk

We’ll consider your request and get back to you within 3 working days.

Reporting accessibility problems with this website

We’re always looking to improve the accessibility of these websites. If you find any problems not listed on this page or think we’re not meeting accessibility requirements, contact: reors@essex.ac.uk with the specific issues you are having and the Research Systems team will respond to your report.

Enforcement procedure

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).

Technical information about this website’s accessibility

The University of Essex is committed to making its websites accessible, in accordance with the Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) (No. 2) Accessibility Regulations 2018).

Compliance status

This website is partially compliant with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines version 2.1 AA standard, due to the following non-compliances and exemptions listed below.

Non-accessible content

Non-compliance with the accessibility regulations

There are currently no issues that are not addressed under Disproportionate Burden

Disproportionate burden

The webpages are missing a definition of the natural language. This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 3.1.1 Language of Page.

Some of our interactive forms are difficult to navigate using a keyboard. For example, because some form controls are missing a ‘label’ tag. This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 3.3.2 Labels or Instructions. The forms are part of the the third party software (ePrints) platform that runs the repository and ‘skinned’ to look like our website

We’ve assessed the cost of fixing the issues with navigation and accessing information and with interactive tools and transactions. We believe that doing so now would be a disproportionate burden within the meaning of the accessibility regulations. To fix the issue we would need to change or undertake a major upgrade to our 3rd party software platform supplier (ePrints) and undertake a major upgrade project to a related integrated 3rd party system (the Research Information System). We will make another assessment when the repository platforms are due to for review likely to be in 2021.

Content that’s not within the scope of the accessibility regulations

PDFs and other documents

Some of our PDFs and Word documents are essential to providing our services. For example, we have PDFs with information on how users can access our services. By September 2020, we plan to either fix these or replace them with accessible HTML pages.

The accessibility regulations do not require us to fix PDFs or other documents published before 23 September 2018 if they’re not essential to providing our services. For example, we do not plan to fix previously deposited full texts of deposits.

The repository is an archival systems and full text of documents may be deposited a number of users, including author self-deposit, deposit by authorised staff in departments and deposits by repository staff. They may come from a number of sources including 3rd party Gold Open Access published PDFs, 3rd party AAMs derived from publisher submission systems , PDFs created by authors and PDFs downloaded externally from 3rd party repositories, bibliographic services, preprint servers or personal websites. As such some of the archived documents in PDF or other formats may not be accessible.

We recommend the use of the SensusAccess, a self-service, alternate media solution for educational institutions. This will allow you to change files, URLs, and text, into easier to read/listen to formats

Any new PDFs or Word documents we publish and which are not sourced from 3rd parties will meet accessibility standards

What we’re doing to improve accessibility

The Repository and Research Systems teams are committed to ensuring that web content is as accessible as possible for as many people as possible.

We will work to keep the repository based on an up-to-date repository platform and work with the 3rd party supplier of the platform to improve accessibility in the future.

Our main priority from a content stand point is to ensure that accessibility points within our control our met, such as context based links

For the time being, we will be prioritising content that fall under the Non-compliance with the accessibility regulations part of the statement, followed by Content that's not within the scope of the accessibility regulations

If you find content within either of these headings, we will prioritise where possible and try to get content that works for you.

University of Essex Accessibility Statement

Preparation of this accessibility statement

This statement was prepared on 18 August 2020. It was last reviewed on 20 October 2020. This website was last tested on 20 October 2020. The test was carried out by Phineas Wenlock of the University of Essex Research Systems Team

We used this approach for testing the sites:

  • Reviewed key pages and functions of the Repository sites and tested those using Siteimprove accessibility tools
  • Reviewed a sample of deposited articles and tested them using the Tingtun PDF Accessibility checker.