Picture of small jelly fish in ocean

Open Access research that better understands changing marine ecologies...

Strathprints makes available scholarly Open Access content by researchers in the Department of Mathematics & Statistics.

Mathematics & Statistics hosts the Marine Population Modelling group which is engaged in research into topics surrounding marine resource modelling and ecology. Recent work has included important developments in the population modelling of marine species.

Explore the Open Access research of Mathematics & Statistics. Or explore all of Strathclyde's Open Access research...

Strathprints

Accessibility statement for Strathprints - University of Strathclyde

Skip to content...

Strathprints accessibility overview

Strathprints (hereafter referred to as 'website') is run by the University of Strathclyde. 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 have also made the text in the website as simple as possible to understand and have implemented additional accessibility features where possible.

How accessible this website is

We intend to continue our efforts to improve the accessibility and will implement updates to the website as they become possible. We are nevertheless aware that there is content served by this website which is not accessible:

  • The website makes available many PDF documents which are not fully accessible to screen reader software and demonstrate other accessibility issues.

What to do if you can't access parts of website

If you need information from this website in a different format, please contact our Open Access mailbox. We will consider your request and will aim to get back to you within 7 working days.

Reporting accessibility problems with website

We are always looking to improve the accessibility of website. If you find any problems that are not listed on this page, or think we are not meeting accessibility requirements, please contact our Open Access mailbox with details of the problem and we will investigate.

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 are 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 Strathclyde is committed to making its online services accessible, in accordance with the Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) (No. 2) Accessibility Regulations 2018.

This website, Strathprints, is partially compliant with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines version 2.1 AA standard, due to the non-compliances listed below.

Non-accessible content

While the HTML pages of the website demonstrate high levels of accessibility (e.g. Strathprints main pages, single views, lists, content elements, etc.), we are aware that the file content that the website makes available is not fully accessible:

Issues with PDF content

As the website is an open access research repository, the principal content made available to users are research outputs such as articles, papers, posters and reports, many of which are PDF documents. Many PDF documents, especially older ones, are not fully accessible to screen reader software and do not contain other common accessibility features. In particular:

  • many documents, especially older ones, do not conform to the PDF/A archiving format.
  • many lack bookmarks or document titles, therefore failing to meet WCAG 2.1 success criteria 2.4.5 and 2.4.2.
  • many discuss scientific or scholarly concepts which may be abbreviated with no mechanism for discovering the meaning of the abbreviations, or unusual words arising from scholarly discourse without definitions. These issues each fail WCAG 2.1 criteria 3.1.4 and 3.1.1 respectively.
  • there may be some documents that fail to specify their human language, thereby failing WCAG 2.1 success criterion 3.1.1.
  • many documents may not reflow satisfactorily. This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.4.10.

Since early 2021 we have been taking additional steps in our repository deposit workflows in order to improve the accessibility of most documents made available via Strathprints. More recent deposits may therefore display better accessibility. This includes, where possible, improved support for bookmarks, document titles, PDF/A support, etc. Addressing the capacity for some documents to reflow correctly remains problematic and we continue to explore solutions.

Issues with the website more generally

Areas of the website which are not document-based demonstrate good levels of accessibility. However, the following issues have been identified and are in the process of being addressed:

  • Headings on some of our pages do not appear in a logical order. This does not meet WCAG 2.1 success criterion 2.4.10.
  • Some of the forms and interactive search pages on our website are not appropriately labelled or do not have labels. This does not meet WCAG 2.1 success criterion 3.3.2.
  • Interactive elements of the website (such as search) do not utilise status messages to update screen readers of a change in state. This does not meet WCAG 2.1 success criterion 3.2.2.

How we test our website

An accessibility audit was conducted on our website by the repository manager of Strathprints in September 2019. This consisted of a manual audit using a browser and various assistive technologies on a sample set of pages that were broadly representative of the website as a whole. This included the website homepage, interactive functionality, and search pages.

Henceforth all new website functionality will be audited for its conformance to WCAG 2.1 accessibility standards. When we design or develop new features WCAG conformance will constitute a standard testing procedure.

What we are doing to make our website more accessible

We will continue to review the accessibility of our website using automated tools and manual testing procedures where necessary.

We will be updating this statement to reflect our progress on rectifying the failures discovered and will provide an outline of any forthcoming resolutions where possible.

This statement was prepared on 30/09/2019.

It was last updated on 16/08/2021.