Accessibility Statement

Accessibility statement for iash.ed.ac.uk

This website is run by The Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities at the University of Edinburgh. We want as many people as possible to be able to use this website. For example, that means you should be able to:

• change colours, contrast levels and fonts
• zoom in up to 300% without the text spilling off the screen
• navigate most of the website using just a keyboard
• navigate most of the website using speech recognition software
• listen to most of the website using a screen reader (including the most recent versions of JAWS, NVDA and VoiceOver)

We’ve also made the website text as simple as possible to understand.

AbilityNet has advice on making your device easier to use if you have a disability.

How accessible this website is

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

• The carousel on the home page contains images that display text. These images link to pages containing information. This carousel can be skipped if desired. The links used for this carousel are duplicated at the bottom of the page, so that those using screen readers can access the content without using the carousel.
• Older videos do not have captions included, however closed captioning can be turned on using YouTube settings, although this may be inaccurate at times. All new videos published on the website from September 2019 will have captions. Transcripts for videos are not available to read on this website, but you can request a transcript by emailing iash@ed.ac.uk.

What to do if you cannot access parts of this website

If you need information on this website in a different format like accessible PDF, large print, easy read, audio recording or braille:

• email: iash@ed.ac.uk
• call: +44 (0)131 650 4671

We’ll consider your request and get back to you in 28 days.

Reporting accessibility problems with this website

We’re 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, contact: iash@ed.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).

Contacting us by phone or visiting us in person

If you contact us before your visit, we can arrange a British Sign Language (BSL) interpreter. Our office is not fitted with an induction loop.

British Sign Language service

Contact Scotland 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.
Contact Scotland BSL service details

You can contact us at the following address:
The Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities
The University of Edinburgh
Hope Park Square
Edinburgh
EH8 9NW
T: +44 (0)131 650 4671

Technical information about this website’s accessibility

The University of Edinburgh is committed to making its websites 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 version 2.1 AA standard, due to the non-compliances listed below.

Non accessible content

Non compliance with the accessibility regulations

• Videos on the IASH Timeline do not have title attributes to describe that the frame contains a video. This fails WCAG 4.1.2 (name, role value).
• Some elements of the embedded Twitter widget have insufficient colour contrast. These colours cannot be changed and are part of the Twitter widget design. This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.4.3 (contrast (minimum)). 

Navigation and accessing information

• Placeholder images used for links on the Events page do not have discernible link text. This is a Drupal 7 default. This fails WCAG 2.4.4 Link purpose (In Context).

Interactive tools and transactions

• On the Events page the start date and end date fields have the same ID. This is a Drupal 7 default. This fails WCAG 4.1.1 Parsing.

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 - for example, they may not be structured so they are accessible to a screen reader. This does not meet WCAG 2.1 success criterion 4.1.2 (name, role value).

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. For example, we do not plan to fix our 2017 – 2018 Annual Report.
Any new PDFs or Word documents we publish will meet accessibility standards.

How we tested this website

This website was last tested on 22 October 2019. The test was carried out by the Digital Innovation Team for the College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences at the University of Edinburgh.

We used an automated on-page accessibility tool to test a small selection of pages that would test the range of templates used on the site. We tested:

• the home page www.iash.ed.ac.uk
• a top level page www.iash.ed.ac.uk/fellowship-programmes
• a sub-section page www.iash.ed.ac.uk/early-career-researchers
• the Events page www.iash.ed.ac.uk/events
• the News page www.iash.ed.ac.uk/news

What we’re doing to improve accessibility

We have a process of continual improvement for assessing and fixing issues, including accessibility. This statement was prepared on 28 October 2019. It was last updated on 30 October 2019.