Accessibility statement

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This website is run by the University of Sunderland We want as many people as possible to be able to use this website. For example, that means you should be able to:

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 aren’t fully accessible: for example:

Technical information about this website’s accessibility

The University of Sunderland 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, due to the non-compliances listed below.

Issues with text

Some link text doesn’t make sense when read on its own (for example, ‘click here’). We use are using a quality assurance application to identify these links and inform content editors of the requirement to change these. There will be occasions, however, when these changes have not yet been made.

We plan to fix the existing links by September 2020. 

Issues with PDFs and other documents

Many of our older PDFs and Word documents don’t meet accessibility standards: for example, they may not be marked up so they’re accessible to a screen reader.

Some of our PDFs and Word documents are essential to providing our services. For example, we have PDFs with information on how users can access our services, and forms published as Word documents. By September 2020, we plan to either fix these or replace them with accessible HTML pages.

Any new PDFs or Word documents we publish will meet accessibility standards.

Issues with images

Some images don’t have appropriate alternative text. We are using a quality assurance application to identify these images and inform content editors of the requirement to change these. There will be occasions, however, when these changes have not yet been made. 

Issues with videos

Some of our older videos don't have accurate edited captions or transcripts. The regulations do not apply to recorded videos published before 23 September 2020. However, while these videos are not subject to the legislation, we have carried out an audit of all our videos and have begun a process of updating captions and adding full transcripts. Any new videos we publish will have edited captions and transcripts.

Our live video streams don't have captions. We don’t plan to add captions to live video streams because live video is exempt from meeting the accessibility regulations. However, we will add captions when we embed an edited version of the video streams on our website.

Issues with interactive tools and transactions

Some of our interactive forms are difficult to navigate using a keyboard. For example, because some form controls are missing a ‘label’ tag.

Some forms are built and hosted through third party software and ‘skinned’ to look like our website.

We have some issues with colour contrast on some of our layouts and our Virtual Tour we plan to fix the issue with colour contrast by September 2020.

We are aware of accessibility issues with a number of our third party tools and systems, including:

We are working with these third party suppliers to identify and correct accessibility issues as soon as possible.

How we tested this website

This website is tested weekly using the quality assurance tool tenon.io to identify accessibility issues. 

Other sites within our domain

The University of Sunderland's website consists of many related sub-sites. Accessibility statements for such sub-sites will be found locally for each of these.

Using 3rd party content or functionality on our website

We sometimes feature 3rd party content or functionality on our website. This may include:

  • survey tools to collect feedback from users
  • insight tools which tell us how people are using the website
  • applications for creating forms and storing data

Where we choose to feature 3rd party content or functionality on our website, we are responsible for ensuring it meets accessibility standards.

If we have paid for content to be created, or have a contractual relationship with the commissioner, we ensure accessibility guidelines are met as part of contractual obligations.

Where we are legally required to feature 3rd party content or functionality, we cannot reasonably accept responsibility for ensuring it meets accessibility standards. However, where it is within our control, we will make every reasonable effort to work towards meeting accessibility requirements.

3rd party platforms

We often create content which is hosted on 3rd party platforms. This includes:

  • content we create for social media, such as Facebook or Twitter
  • video which we host on YouTube 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.

For example, when we add video to one of our YouTube channels, we will ensure any subtitling, captions and audio-description are included as required. However, we are not responsible for the accessibility of the video player itself.

Links to other websites

We link to other websites that may offer benefit to our users. 

We are not responsible for the accessibility of these or any other websites we do not manage.