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Ensuring your digital learning environment is accessible to all users necessitates a reciprocal process that necessitates an ongoing commitment.
This toolkit will outline the role of the accessibility statement in this process. It also offers a series of guides on the development and publication of accessibility statements in higher/ further education along with draft templates to get you started.
Please explore the links below to find specific information you are looking for on this page.
Getting Started
Before creating your web accessibility statement your organisation needs to make a clear commitment to embrace accessibility into the future.
Once you have established your goals in relation to accessibility you need to ascertain where issues exist in your current systems.
With this knowledge you can begin to develop an evolving infrastructure to promote accessibility with your statement as a central tool.
The EU Directive clearly mandates the need to prepare and REGULARLY update a detailed, comprehensive and clear accessibility statement.
Planning Your Statement
Explore the link boxes below to help guide you on your development.
In order to gain an insight into where accessibility issues are occurring on your platforms it will be necessary to hire a specialised accessibility expert.
This organisation must complete a full audit of your systems to test for WCAG 2.1 AA compliance
Full Audit vs Representative Audit
For most front-end (FE) and higher education (HE) websites, it is not financially feasible to conduct a full audit of every page.
This may necessitate working with auditors to identify appropriate samples eg high traffic pages, "gateway pages" that have to be accessed in order to get to other key areas and pages representing different types of design or interaction.
Your accessibility statement must be developed and published as part of a broader suite of policies and procedures to ensure that new, modified, current and existing systems as well as content are accessible for all users. This will include:
Designating a web accessibility coordinator
The provision of training
Publication of an accessibility statement
Establishing a method to report accessibility issues
A long term plan to monitor ongoing compliance.
Your digital environment is composed of multiple platforms including:
Website
VLE
Library website
Module pages
It is likely that these varied platforms and tools will be at different stages in relation to their accessibility compliance.
It will therefore be necessary to draft individual accessibility statements for each element of your platform in order to:
Provide users with the necessary detail to anticipate accessibility issues.
Allow users and the organisation to track progress effectively.
Facilitates seamless updates as responsibility rests with specific platform owners and content creators.
Once your accessibility statement and policies are in place, it is crucial to actively monitor and address feedback from users regarding accessibility issues. This can be done through designated channels for reporting accessibility concerns and regularly reviewing and addressing these concerns. By actively engaging with users and taking prompt action, you can ensure ongoing improvement and inclusivity in your digital learning environment.
Accessibility is an evolving process, and it is important to regularly review and update your accessibility statement and policies to reflect any changes in technology, guidelines, or user needs. This ongoing review process will help you stay up to date with best practices and continue to enhance the accessibility of your platforms and content.
What about 3rd party applications?
The Regulations place the legal obligation of compliance on the public sector body.
3rd party content that is neither funded nor developed by, nor under the control of the public sector concerned is exempt from the Regulations. But if you’ve made decisions about it, for example by commissioning or specifying it, the content will come within the scope of the Regulations.
Buying or licensing a third-party product could be considered to be funding the product and this would oblige you to meet the accessibility requirements for those materials – from e-books and e-journals to HR systems – by working with the supplier as necessary to achieve compliance.
Alternatively, you might need to source an equivalent accessible alternative but if none is available, you would need to explain this in the accessibility statement and justify it under ‘disproportionate burden’. In this case it would be good practice to provide workarounds while urging the publisher to make their product accessible in the procurement process.
Even if content is not caught by the new accessibility regulations you have a duty to make reasonable accommodations [subject to disproportionate burden test] under the Equality Legislation and the IHREC Act section 42 public sector equality and human right duty. Accordingly, you should engage with third-party suppliers to ensure accessibility standards.
