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SharePoint Accessibility Statement

Accessibility statement for SharePoint Online at the University of Edinburgh

Website accessibility statement in line with Public Sector Body (Websites and Mobile Applications) (No. 2) Accessibility Regulations 2018

This accessibility statement applies to the collection of SharePoint sites used by the University of Edinburgh. SharePoint is a third party piece of software which we use and host content on. SharePoint is supplied by Microsoft and they have published information on the accessibility of SharePoint

The collection of SharePoint Online sites is administered by the SharePoint Solutions Service team within the University, but each site is managed and maintained by separate site owners who take responsibility for the accessibility of their own sites. SharePoint Online at the University is accessed by logging into Office 365 using a University Login.

We want as many people as possible to be able to use SharePoint. For example, that means you should be able to:

  • using your browser settings to change colours, contrast levels and fonts
  • zoom in up to 200% without the text spilling off the screen
  • navigate most of the website using just a keyboard
  • listen to most of the website using a screen reader (including the most recent versions of Job Access with Speech (JAWS), NonVisual Desktop Access (NVDA) and VoiceOver). Microsoft have produced specific guidance on using SharePoint with a screen reader Advice on using a Screen Reader with SharePoint
  • use SharePoint even if JavaScript is turned off

We’ve also made the website text as simple as possible to understand. However, some of our content is technical, and we use technical terms where there is no easier wording we could use without changing what the text means.

Customising the website

AbilityNet has advice on making your device easier to use if you have a disability. This is an external site with suggestions to make your computer more accessible:

AbilityNet - My Computer My Way

With a few simple steps you can customise the appearance of our website using your browser settings to make it easier to read and navigate:

Additional information on how to customise our website appearance

If you are a member of University staff or a student, you can use the free SensusAccess accessible document conversion service:

Information on SensusAccess

How accessible this website is

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

  • the text will not reflow in a single column when you change the size of the browser window
  • you cannot modify the line height or spacing of text
  • most older PDF documents are not fully accessible to screen reader software
  • live video streams do not have captions
  • some of our online forms are difficult to navigate using just a keyboard
  • you cannot skip to the main content when using a screen reader

Feedback and contact information

If you need information on this website in a different format, including accessible PDF, large print, audio recording or braille please contact the Information Services Helpline

We’ll consider your request and get back to you in 5 working days.

Reporting accessibility problems with this website

We are always looking to improve the accessibility of this website. If you find any problems not listed on this page, or think we’re not meeting accessibility requirements, please contact:

We’ll consider your request and get back to you in 5 working days.

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 please contact the Equality Advisory and Support Service (EASS) directly:

Contact details for the Equality Advisory and Support Service (EASS)

The government has produced information on how to report accessibility issues:

Reporting an accessibility problem on a public sector website

Contacting us by phone using British Sign Language

British Sign Language service

contactSCOTLAND-BSL runs a service for British Sign Language users and all of Scotland’s public bodies using video relay. This enables sign language users to contact public bodies and vice versa. The service operates 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

contactSCOTLAND-BSL service details

Technical information about this website’s accessibility

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

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

The full guidelines are available at:

Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1 AA standard

Non accessible content

The content listed below is non-accessible for the following reasons. We know some parts of SharePoint Online at the University aren’t fully accessible, and the complexity and volume of content available presents difficulties in identifying all accessibility issues. Users may experience issues depending on the area they are accessing. For example:

Noncompliance with the accessibility regulations

The following items to not comply with the WCAG 2.1 AA success criteria:

  • Not all non-text content presented to users has alternative text
  • Captions are not provided for all prerecorded audio content in synchronized media, except when the media is a media alternative for text and is clearly labelled as such.
  • Audio description is not provided for all prerecorded video content in synchronized media.
  • The way the content is presented affects its meaning, and a correct reading sequence is not programmatically determined.

  • There may not be sufficient colour contrast between font and background colours, especially where the text size is very small

  • Information is conveyed as an image of text rather than as text itself, making it not compatible with screen readers and other assistive technology
  • Visual information to identify user interface components, such as keyboard focus, do not always have a sufficient contrast ratio
  • It is not possible to change the line and height spacing
  • Link text does not always have a clear meaning

  • It is not always clear to tell where you have navigated to when you are using a keyboard

Disproportionate burden

We are not currently claiming that any accessibility problems would be a disproportionate burden to fix.

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

PDFs

Many of our older PDFs are not fully accessible, for example, and they may not be easy to view using a screen reader. 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. Any new PDFs we publish will meet accessibility[GV1] [OZ2]  standards.

Live video

We do not plan to add captions to live video streams because live video is exempt from meeting the accessibility regulations.An example of this would be if we ran live webinars.

What we’re doing to improve accessibility

We will continue to address the accessibility issues highlighted, alongside working to deliver a solution or suitable workaround. Unless specified otherwise, a complete solution or significant improvement will be in place for those items within our control by January 2021 e.g. 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, and forms published as Word documents. By June 2021we plan to either fix these or replace them with accessible HTML pages.

While we are in the process of resolving these accessibility issues, or where we are unable too, we will ensure reasonable adjustments are in place to make sure no user is disadvantaged. As changes are made, we will continue to review accessibility and retest the accessibility of this website. We intend to do further manual testing across the University SharePoint estate and update this statement accordingly.

As mentioned above, while the collection of SharePoint Online sites at the University is administered by the SharePoint Solutions Service team, each site is managed and maintained by separate site owners.

The SharePoint Solutions Service team follows guidance from Microsoft on how to make SharePoint online accessible to all. We are committed to improving accessibility for our SharePoint online community. Activities include:

•  Accessibility & inclusion being actively discussed throughout the University, SharePoint Solutions Service, and Information Services Group

•  All site owners have access to free online training as well as a tool that scans all pages on the site and reports on accessibility to allow users to identify errors.

Preparation of this accessibility statement

This statement was prepared on 22nd July 2020. It was last reviewed on 04th September  2020

A selection of our SharePoint Sites was last tested in July 2020. To involved manual tested by the University of Edinburgh’s Disability Information Officer primarily using the Internet Explorer browser (11.0.9600.19236) alongside Mozilla Firefox and Microsoft Edge for comparative purposes. Internet Explorer was chosen due to it being the most commonly used browser by disabled people, alongside its accessibility features and compatibility with assistive technology, as shown in a UK government survey: the Government Assistive Technology Browser Survey. Testing was done on a random sample of pages.

We tested:

  • Spellcheck functionality
  • Scaling using different resolutions
  • Options to customise the interface (magnification, font, background colour et. cetera)
  • Keyboard navigation
  • Data validation
  • Warning of links opening in a new tab or window
  • Information conveyed in colour or sound only
  • Flashing or scrolling text
  • Operability if JavaScript is disabled
  • Use with screen reading software (eg. JAWS)
  • Assistive Software (TextHelp Read and Write, ZoomText)
  • Tooltips and text alternatives for any non-text content
  • Time limits

We intend to do further manual testing across the University SharePoint estate and update this statement accordingly.

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