Accessibility statement

Scope and ownership

Birmingham City University is committed to making its website accessible, in accordance with the Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) (No. 2) Accessibility Regulations 2018. This accessibility statement covers the pages that sit on the emargin.bcu.ac.uk website.

Using the website

We strive to create a website that can be used by as many people as possible. We understand the importance of creating content with accessibility in mind.

This means you should be able to do the following:

  • Adjust the zoom of the website without loss of functionality.
  • Navigate most of the website using just a keyboard, and when tabbing through content your current location will be indicated by a clear visual change.
  • Be presented with text alternatives to colours and icons.
  • Control the embedded media player (YouTube) to play videos and access the associated captions.
  • Change the way the interactive annotation system accepts user input and displays coloured highlights. These settings can be changed in your user account.
  • Generate printer friendly versions of annotated texts with multiple formatting options.

How accessible is our website

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

  • It may not be possible to navigate the interactive annotation system using the keyboard.
  • Some colours have low contrast (but text alternatives are available).
  • Skip to content links are missing.
  • Autocomplete is not included on forms containing user data.
  • Some page titles are not fully descriptive of the page’s content.
  • Not all error messages include suggestions to remedy the error.
  • The language of the site is not specified and the language of user generated content is not known.
  • Horizontal scrolling maybe required in small sized windows.

What to do if you can’t access parts of the website

If you are unable to access content on our website, we will try to provide alternative formats to mitigate this. We are unable to provide content in every available format but we will aim to try and make our content as accessible as possible based on your needs. We review our available formats on an annual basis.

Requesting an alternative format

If you require information in an alternative format, please contact rdues@bcu.ac.uk providing the following details:

  • The content required
  • The issues you are experiencing and what changes you require to the format

Your email will be acknowledged within three working days and we will provide a timescale for resolution.

Alternative formats available:

  • Written content provided as Word or PDF document.

Please note, we are currently unable to provide content in the following formats:

  • Videos with British Sign Language (BSL)
  • Videos with audio description
  • Large print documents
  • Braille

Reporting accessibility problems

While we review and audit our pages there may be issues that we are not aware of. If you find a page that contains accessibility issues that we have not listed above, please let us know and we will look into this.

If you find a page that isn’t accessible, please contact rdues@bcu.ac.uk, providing the following details:

  • The URL of the page
  • The issues you are experiencing

Your email will be acknowledged within three working days and we will provide a timescale for resolution if possible.

If you are unhappy with the response you have received from the University about your accessibility-related issue, you can make a complaint to the University by emailing accessibility@bcu.ac.uk providing the following details: 

  • Website address
  • Details of initial contact with the university including who you contacted and the information you provided
  • Reason for escalation

Your email will be acknowledged within 1 week and we will provide details of the next steps and how the complaint will be dealt with within 3 weeks.

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

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

Non-accessible content

The content listed below is non-accessible for the following reason:

  • 1.3.5 Identify Input Purpose: Autocomplete is not included on forms containing user data.
  • 1.4.3 Contrast: The highlights used in the annotation system include low contrast colours.
  • 1.4.10 Reflow: Horizontal scrolling maybe required in small sized windows.
  • 2.1.1 Keyboard: The interactive texts and annotation popups are not fully navigable using the keyboard.
  • 2.4.1 Bypass Blocks: Skip to content links are missing.
  • 2.4.2 Page Titled: Some page titles are not fully descriptive of the page’s content.
  • 3.1.1 Language of Page: The language of the site is not specified and the language of user generated content is not known and may not be identifiable programmatically.
  • 3.3.3 Error Suggestion: Not all error messages include suggestions to remedy the error.

Disproportionate burden

There are some areas of the website that we are currently unable to resolve without significant changes to the overall platform and infrastructure that we have in place. This includes the following:

  • The interactive annotation system was developed as part of a funded research project between 2010-2012. Subsequent changes to this system will be limited in scope.

Non-compliance with accessibility regulations

Birmingham City University have a commitment to provide accessible web content. To ensure that we are making our existing content accessible and that all new content works for as many users as possible we have a roadmap in place that will allow us to continually improve our website. We are working towards the following changes:

  • Skip to content links to be added.
  • Autocomplete functionality to be added for input involving user data.
  • Generation of page titles to be updated.
  • Error messages to be reviewed and suggestions added.

Content not within the scope of the regulations

As some of our web pages house historical, legacy content we will not be updating all of our pages as they are out of scope of the regulation. However, if you would like to receive some of this content in an alternative format you can.

Preparation of this accessibility statement

This statement was prepared on 23/09/2020. It was last reviewed on 05/07/2023. The accessibility of the site is reviewed through a self-evaluation approach.

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