Scope & Ownership

University of the West of Scotland (the "University", "us", "our" or "we") is committed to making our web presence as accessible as possible and we endeavour to make our website compliant with The Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) (No. 2) Accessibility Regulations 2018 and Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.1 (WCAG2.1).

The website referred to in this statement is our UWS Programme Specification & Module Database (PSMD) website ("the website", "our website", "this website", "the site", "the platform"). We run a number of other publically available websites but these will have their own accessibility statements.

Where appropriate, we provide some hints and links in the sections below. Suggestions are offered in good faith for user convenience; but please note that plugins and software are used at your own risk. We are not responsible for any issues arising from the use of tools or plugins over which we have no influence or control. Although plugin suggestions are for Chrome, similar (and sometimes the same) plugins exist for other browsers.

Using the Website

PSMD is a bespoke (non-propriatory) online platform which contains both programme and module descriptors for all of UWS's credit-rated academic offerings. We want as many people as possible to be able to use this website for finding out more about the academic content of their courses and modules prior to enrolling at UWS and throughout their academic studies at UWS.

Some aspects of the website that we are aware of cause accessibility issues including:

  • Structural issues: In the programme and module specification webpages themselves, some heading levels are ommitted and page content are marked up within tables.
  • Magnification and reflow: In the the programme and module specification webpages themselves, some of the links and text overlaps and becomes illegible when magnification takes place and font size is increased.
  • Colour / colour contrast: The orange menu bar fails colour contrast guidelines and only colour is used to convey hyperlinks.

More details are provided in the Technical Information About this Website’s Accessibility section below.

Feedback & Contact Information

Reporting accessibility problems with this website

You can contact us if you have digital accessibility feedback, issues, questions, or comments relating to our website.

If you are reporting an accessibility issue, please let us know exactly (in as much detail as you can) what issues you are experiencing as this will help us help you. You can contact us if you:

  • have positive feedback on the accessibility considerations made
  • are experiencing issues with accessing information or using the website
  • find an accessibility problem not listed in this statement
  • need information on this website in a different format like accessible PDF or MS Word (please note that we cannot, at present, supply content in every format but will do our best to accommodate your needs)

Contact us by email

  • E-mail: web@uws.ac.uk
  • We aim to respond to your email in 21 working days

Contact us by post or visiting us in person

  • Postal address: Digital Marketing Team, Marketing & Student Recruitment, University of the West of Scotland, High Street, Paisley, PA1 2BE
  • We would normally aim to respond to your mail in 21 working days upon receipt. However, due to the global pandemic and the necessary remote working procedures that are now in place within the University, we are unable to respond by mail and are not working on campus. We recommend using email for contacting us for the foreseeable future

 

Enforcement procedure

We aim to meet the needs of all our website users as best we can. 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 are not satisfied with our response and would like to make a complaint, please check our complaints procedure. 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

University of the West of Scotland is committed to making this website 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 2.1 (WCAG2.1) - AA standard, due to the non-compliances listed below.

Non-accessible content

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

Structure

On the ‘Staff Login’ webpage, the page heading is missing. This fails success criteria 1.3.1 (Info and Relationships), 1.3.2 (Meaningful Sequence), 2.4.2 (Page Titled), 2.4.6 (Headings and Labels), and 2.4.10 (Section Headings).
Programme and module specification webpages use tables for presentation but they haven’t been marked as presentational and table headers are not marked up as such.

Skip links

No skip link is included on the ‘Staff Login’ webpages. Offering a skip link to move keyboard users straight to the content would be beneficial. This fails success criteria 2.4.1 (Bypass Blocks).

Inline Hyperlinks & Broken Links

Pages currently include hyperlinks which are identified by colour only; these can be difficult to see for people with colour vision difficulties. This fails success criteria 1.4.1 (Use of Colour). Whilst we’re working on with our partner to rectify issues, you might find a tool like A+ FontSize Changer Lite helpful – it can automatically underline all hyperlinks on a page.

Form errors

On the Staff Login webpage:

  • If the input fields on the log-in form are left blank and the ‘Log-in’ button is clicked, there is no indication to a Screen Reader that an input error has occurred. This fails success criteria 3.3.1 (Error Identification) and 3.3.3 (Error Suggestion).
  • Form input fields are incorrectly marked up as a table. This fails success criteria 1.3.1 (Info & Relationships).

Alternative text

The university logo image does not have appropriate alternative text. This fails success criteria 1.1.1 (Non-text Content).

Layout and appearance

Reflowing at 400% causes some menu items not to be fully visible. This fails success criteria 1.4.10 (Reflow). Some links and text overlap becomes illegible when the font size is increased. This fails success criteria 1.3.4 (Orientation) and 1.4.4 (Resize Text).

Colour

Colour contrast is not sufficient on the top menu navigation. This fails success criteria 1.4.3: Contrast (Minimum). You may also wish to use browser plugins like HighContrast or ScreenShader to change the default background colours.

Language

The website does not have the language set on each page. This fails success criteria 3.1.1 (Language of Page) Language of page has not been set. For all pages on the website, the language of the page should be interpreted as British English (en-GB).

None.

None

Preparation of this accessibility statement

We have undertaken a manual digital accessibility assessments of the website. In addition, we undertake regular automated digital accessibility assessments of the website.

This statement was prepared on 23 September 2020. It was last reviewed on 23 September 2020. The website was last manually tested in August 2020 and undergoes automatic testing every 5 days. The manual test was carried out by AbilityNet Ltd.

See details of assessments undertaken below:

The manual digital accessibility assessment of the website was undertaken on the 27 August 2020. It was carried out by AbilityNet Ltd and consisted of 3 pages using 10 accessibility tests.

Pages tested:

The website is also assessed using a sector-leading, automated website governance platform to identify website errors, warnings - Siteimprove.

Using the Siteimprove platform, an automated digital accessibility review of the website is undertaken every 5 days.

Last Updated

This statement was prepared on 02 October 2020. We update this statement at least annually and will next review it in April 2021.

What we’re doing to improve accessibility

We are committed to ensuring that our website is accessible to all. This requires regular and ongoing website accessibility monitoring and improvement activities. To assist in these activities, we have engaged a sector-leading web governance platform - Siteimprove.

We are also committed to ensuring that digital accessibility is embedded in the digital creation and development process and this entails a programme of staff training in a variety of areas of digital accessibility from understanding WCAG 2.1 through to creating accessible documents with Adobe InDesign depending upon roles.

Last updated: 02/10/2020