Accessibility on Open Course Materials
The University of Edinburgh has listed accessibility guidance and policies which all websites, including this one, should follow. The underlying technologies have been chosen to offer accessible options and course content has been produced under guidance. Specific details follow here.
This accessibility statement applies to the webpages on OpenCourse.Inf website: https://opencourse.inf.ed.ac.uk/
This website is run by the School of Informatics 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 200% without the text spilling off the screen (not including computer code, which sometimes requires horizontal scrolling at any zoom level)
- use the website without encountering any flashing, scrolling or moving text
- navigate most of the website using just a keyboard
- navigate most of the website using speech recognition software (Dragon)
- listen to most of the website using a screen reader (including the most recent versions of JAWS, NVDA and VoiceOver)
- use the website without encountering any time limits.
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. This is an external website to a UK charity dedicated to providing free online resources so that the power of digital technology should be available to everyone, regardless of ability or age
How accessible this website is
We know some parts of this website are not fully accessible:
- PDF documents are not always fully accessible to screen reader software. Alternative formats may be available on request.
- This website was built for specialist study of course materials generated within informatics; some documents may assume a level of technical background not immediately accessible to a general audience.
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, then please contact the ILTS team within the School of Informatics, University of Edinburgh. Contact details are listed here on their website.
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).
The government has produced information on how to report accessibility issues: reporting an accessibility problem on a public sector website.
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.
Compliance status
This website is partially compliant with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) version 2.1 AA standard, due to ‘the exemptions’ or ‘the non-compliances and exemptions’ listed below.
Non-accessible content
The content listed below is non-accessible for the following reasons.
Non-compliance with the accessibility regulations
Most of our PDFs don't meet accessibility standards due to the following WCAG 2.1 success criteria:
This site has been produced using Drupal, a highly extensible general-purpose content management system. Drupal has its own accessibility statement which does not necessarily apply to this site, but themes and modules have been chosen with accessibility in mind and the upstream software is tested for use with a wide variety of assistive technologies and should be navigable in plain text. The site requires captioned, device-responsive images including use of MathJax software for mathematical formulae which should produce meaningful descriptions at all times.
We are however aware of limitations in these themes and technologies, such as limited visual customisability and basic keyboard navigation, and will work to address this. The site is designed to permit substantial style changes without impairing content so for the moment we would recommend altering browser settings to enforce colour, size or stylesheet choices to override any theme limitations.
The site was designed with the WCAG in mind, but at launch has not been fully evaluated against it. An evaluation, which involves auditing with both WCAG-EM and Lighthouse and will result in theme changes, is ongoing.
Contact Us
The site was launched in 2023 and is undergoing continual development, and we acknowledge that mistakes and omissions are possible. We aim to proactively review (and, where possible, improve) accessibility on the site.
If you have any difficulty accessing or using the site, please contact the Informatics Learning Technology Service who will be able to assist or make modifications.