Accessibility Statement

Accessibility Statement

This website runs on Oxford Mosaic, the University of Oxford’s web platform. Information regarding the accessibility features common to platform sites can be found in the Oxford Mosaic Accessibility Statement. Where applicable, further information on the content or features specific to this site is given below.

 

Accessibility Statement for the Economics Department Website (www.economics.ox.ac.uk)

The University of Oxford is committed to providing an accessible web presence that gives members of the public and members of the University community full access to University information, courses and activities offered publicly through the web. Our Equality Policy outlines our commitment to a culture which ‘maintains a working, learning and social environment in which the rights and dignity of all its staff and students are respected’.

This accessibility statement applies to University of Oxford, the Economics Department Website – www.economics.ox.ac.uk

Our aims

In order to ensure that all of our visitors can use our website, these pages aim to meet Level-AA standard of WCAG 2.1. This includes elements such as:

  • Alt text for all images and providing non-visual alternatives where appropriate
  • All essential audio-visual information is captioned, described as necessary or provided in alternative formats
  • Content can be navigated with just a keyboard or speech recognition tools
  • The website can be used with a screen reader
  • Content is structured, ordered and labelled appropriately

Guidance is available for editors and moderators of this site to help them maintain accessibility standards.

Making changes to your device or system

AbilityNet has advice on making your devices easier to use if you have a disability. In addition, major operating systems produce the following guidance:

How accessible this website is

We are aware that some parts of our website are not fully accessible. These include:

  • Some form controls have a title but do not have a label
  • Some form labels are not correctly associated with a form control
  • Older PDF documents are not fully accessible to screen reader software

We are working to address areas where our accessibility needs improvement. Please see our ‘Known issues’ page for more details.

Feedback and Contact Information

If you need information on this website in a different format, please contact the Economics Department’s Communications Team at communications@economics.ox.ac.uk

We will consider your request and get back to you within 14 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 communications@economics.ox.ac.uk

Other accessibility resources

If you’d like more information about accessibility and resources for students, staff and visitors in Oxford more generally, please visit our Equality and Diversity pages. 

If you’re looking for information on building accessibility, please try the Access Guide or the University’s interactive map.

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 this website’s accessibility

The Economics Department, University of Oxford is committed to making its website 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.

What we’re doing to improve accessibility

We want our website to offer the best experience possible for all of our users. In addition to our plan to fix known issues, we continue to work on website content and structure. We are working with our suppliers to fix issues and think about future developments. We are also updating the ways in which we provide training and best practice to those working on our website.

Preparation of this accessibility statement

This statement was prepared on 10 December 2020. It was last reviewed on 10 December 2020.

This website was last tested 10 December 2020. The tests were carried out internally, using a quality assurance tool across all pages as well as a manual check of a substantial and carefully chosen sample of pages and content types. We continue to review the site on a monthly basis to check new content.

Accessibility Known Issues

Non-compliance with the accessibility regulations

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

Issue with navigation, structure, links and keyboard operability

Navigation:

  • Not all forms have labels indicating the purpose of the field that they relate to, and not all forms labels are correctly associated with a form control, which can result in people with reading difficulties having problems understanding the purpose of the content and users of screen readers being unable to easily navigate the form.
  • Not all links are clearly labelled, these are being updated.

We are working with our developers to implement fixes for these navigation issues over the coming months.

Video Content

  • Transcripts of video content are available and we’re working to ensure all videos on our site are captioned.

Issues with Content Management System (CMS)

This will be done as part of an accessibility upgrade of the Mosaic platform.

Disproportionate burden

We do not consider any of the accessibility issues to be a disproportionate burden and aim to make the site fully compliant by September 2021.

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

Third-party content

Our site includes third party content and functionality. This may direct you to a related service, link to another site or supporting documentation. We are not responsible for the accessibility of third-party content or to other sites we link to.

This includes:

  • YouTube videos
  • Sound Cloud audio files
  • Google maps

We will provide an accessible alternative to any third-party content that isn’t compliant. 

Third party platforms

We often create content which is hosted on third party platforms. This includes:

  • content we create for social media
  • video which we host on YouTube, SoundCloud or Vimeo
  • data we supply to national databases 

We are responsible for ensuring the content we supply meets accessibility requirements; however, we are not responsible for the accessibility of the platform itself.

What we’re doing to improve accessibility

We want to provide the best possible experience for all our website visitors. To achieve this we will: 

  • Fix known issues
  • Check all new features in the Mosaic platform, which is used to create this website, for accessibility before they are made available
  • Check all new content for accessibility 
  • Train all content editors on accessibility
  • Carry out periodic accessibility checks

Preparation of this accessibility statement

This statement was prepared on 10 December 2020. It was last reviewed on 10 December 2020.

This website was last tested in December 2020. The test was carried out by the Connected Communications Services Communications team using a carefully chosen sample of pages and content types. The CMS has been audited for accessibility by the suppliers and the Economics Department.

The pages were checked manually using a combination of the following methods:

  • Checked against WCAG 2.1 guidelines, with a focus on the items in the Gov.uk’s WCAG 2.1 Primer Checklist.  
  • Viewed without style sheets 
  • Viewed on a small screen 
  • Checked using the WebAim’s Web Accessibility Evaluation Tool