How Accessible Our Websites Are

We believe that all our websites largely comply with accessibility legislation. For example, all of our websites are responsive, and can be zoomed in up to 200%. Most content on our websites is accessible by using a screen-reader or a keyboard to navigate.

However, all our websites have non-compliance issues, which we intend to resolve. Due to limited resources, this will be a gradual process, however, prioritising our most visited websites first. If, in the short-term, there is any information you are unable to access, please email us at webhelp@oii.ox.ac.uk to let us know, and we will adjust our priorities accordingly, or find another way to help you access the content.

What to Do If You Cannot Access Parts of Our Websites

If you need information on this website in a different format, such as an accessible PDF, or are unable to access any information, please contact:

• webhelp@oii.ox.ac.uk
• 01865 287210

We’ll consider your request and get back to you.

If you cannot view the map on our ‘Find Us‘ page, call us on 01865 287210, or email enquiries@oii.ox.ac.uk for directions.

Reporting accessibility problems with our websites

We’re always looking to improve the accessibility of our websites. If you find any problems not listed on this page or think we’re not meeting accessibility requirements, contact webhelp@oii.ox.ac.uk.

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 Our Websites’ Accessibility

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

Our websites are partially compliant with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines version 2.1 AA standard, due to the non-compliances listed below.

Non Accessible Content

The content listed below is non-accessible for the following reasons.

Non compliance with the accessibility regulations

We have 36 websites, all of which largely comply with the accessibility regulations, but all of which have different issues with compliance. Due to limited resources we intend to prioritise websites with the most traffic, auditing their compliance, and updating them gradually to make them more accessible.

The main and most common aspects of non-compliance are listed below:

Search facilities

• Many of our websites do not have a search facility at mobile size. This contravenes WCAG 2.1 success criterion 2.4.5, which states that there should be more than one way to locate any webpage. We intend to provide search facilities for all websites at mobile size. For example, in September 2019 we changed our main website to provide this functionality.

Keyboard navigability

• Our websites are largely navigable from a keyboard, but this could be much improved. For example, few of our websites have a bypass technique at the top of each page, contravening WCAG 2.1 success criterion 2.4.1. We intend to add this functionality into all our websites covered by the legislation.

Text and images

• A large number of webpages are not formatted correctly. For example, they  often have images without alt text, badly formatted links and lack proper headings. This contravenes WCAG 2.1 success criteria 1.1.1, 1.4.5, 2.4.4 and 2.4.6.
• We are training staff about these standards, so that all future contributions to the websites should comply with them. Our aim is to ensure that all pages within our sites’ menus, and all future posts should comply with these standards.

Forms

• Some forms do not have an autocomplete functionality, as specified in WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.3.5. We intend to add this functionality in for common fields such as email address, names and telephone numbers.

Code

• There are various problems with the html of websites that may prevent people from accessing the content. For example, interactive controls often lack Aria labels, which would make them easier to access for users with screen-readers. We intend to audit the code of each website and make sure it complies with the WCAG 2.1 standards.

Disproportionate burden

We believe the following items would be a disproportionate burden within the meaning of the accessibility regulations:

Text and images

• In content that existed before 2020, blogs, posts and press releases often have images without alt text, badly formatted links and lack proper headings. This contravenes WCAG 2.1 success criteria 1.1.1, 1.4.5, 2.4.4 and 2.4.6.
• Due to limited resources we are unable to make old content conform to these standards. However, we intend to make sure that all permanent pages on our websites conform to these standards (e.g., all pages listed in website menus), and that all future posts conform to them.

Audio and video

• We do not have the resources to provide audio description for pre-recorded combined video and audio. This contravenes WCAG 2.1 success criteria  1.2.3 and 1.2.5. However, most of our videos are hosted on YouTube which provides that facility automatically.
• We will give advice to speakers to imagine that a visually impaired person is within their audience, and to describe any visual content on slides, etc.
• We do not provide audio description for video-only content. This only appears on our departmental website’s carousel occasionally, and is purely decorative – showing scenes of Oxford, our staff and our students – and has no functional purpose.

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

PDFs and other documents

• Many of our older PDFs and Word documents do not meet accessibility standards. The accessibility regulations do not require us to fix PDFs or other documents published before 23 September 2018.
• We intend to ensure that PDFs published on our website since 23 September 2018 are in PDF/A format, and will train website contributors how to do this.
• If you find a recent PDF that is not in this format, please let us know at webhelp@oii.ox.ac.uk, and we will convert it or try to send it to you in another format.

Live video

• Live video streams do not have captions. This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.2.4 (captions – live).
• We do not plan to add captions to live video streams because live video is exempt from meeting the accessibility regulations.

Old websites

• Websites which are not updated or edited since 23 September 2019 are considered archives and are not covered by the legislation.

How We Tested Our Websites

Each website was tested during development. Any functionality added in since the initial publication is also tested. The OII will test key websites annually.

What We’re Doing to Improve Accessibility

The ways we’re intending to improve accessibility are listed above.