page

Accessibility

Accessibility statement for the SSEE website

The Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment (SSEE) at the School of Geography and the Environment (SoGE), 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 our information, courses and activities offered publicly through the web.

This accessibility statement applies to the SSEE website: www.smithschool.ox.ac.uk

How accessible is this website?

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

  • Alternative 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
  • The website can be used with a screen reader
  • Content is structured, ordered and labelled appropriately

 

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

  • Most older documents (e.g. Office files and PDFs) aren't fully accessible to screen reader software

We are working to address areas where our accessibility needs improvement. Please see 'Technical information' and our known issues listed under 'Non-accessible content' below for more details.

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:

Information in alternative formats

If you need information on this website in a different format like accessible PDF, large print, easy read, audio recording or braille please contact the webmaster at eb@smithschool.ox.ac.uk.

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 webpage or think we're not meeting accessibility requirements, please contact the webmaster at web@smithschool.ox.ac.uk.

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).

Other accessibility resources

If you'd like more information about accessibility and resources for students, staff and visitors in Oxford more generally, please visit the University's Equality and Diversity webpages.

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

Technical information about this website's accessibility

The Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment at the 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. As part of this commitment, we are required to publish known issues with our website.

The SSEE website is partially compliant with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines version 2.1 AA standard, due to the known issues listed under 'Non-accessible content' below.

Non-accessible content

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

Non-compliance with the accessibility regulations.

Issues with documents (including Office files and PDFs)

Many of our older documents (e.g. Word files, PowerPoints, PDFs) don't meet accessibility standards - for example, they may not be marked up so that they're accessible to a screen reader (WCAG 2.1 4.1.2).

Disproportionate burden

Content contributed by our collaborators via their own spaces on this site or submissions via our user base may not have always met the required accessibility standards. It may not always be possible to make our content accessible at the time of posting but will regularly review content and work towards making it accessible.

Legacy content is preserved as a useful record and archive to help guide future research projects. We may where possible update this legacy content on a case-by-case basis.

No official or authoritative information should be solely provided in these documents and alternative formats for documents provided on this website are available on request. The accessibility regulations don't require us to fix documents published before 23 September 2018 if they're not essential to providing our services, however we are working towards either making these documents accessible or replacing them with accessible webpages. Any new documents we publish will aim to meet accessibility standards.

Issues with text, including hyperlinks, descriptions, labels, web pages

HTML is used to format some content on our site (WCAG 2.1 1.3.1)

Although we have worked to reduce this across the website, there may still be some instances where HTML is used to format some content. We are using a quality assurance tool that helps us to check for these instances, and will use this and manual checks to improve and maintain the quality of content across the site as we update the website in the future.

Low contrast between foreground and background colours (WCAG 2.1 1.4.3)

Although we have worked to reduce this across the website, there may still be some colour contrast issues on some webpages. We are working on fixing these issues.

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

Third party content

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

Where we are legally required to feature third 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.

Third party platforms

We may 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
  • content or data we supply to others

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

Live video

Live video streams are used minimally on our website and do not have captions (WCAG 2.1 1.2.4).

We do not plan to add captions to live video streams because live video is exempt from meeting the accessibility regulations.

Archived / historical content (webpages and documents) not used for active administration purposes

This website has a small number of older webpages (e.g. old research project webpages) and documents (e.g. Word documents and PDFs) which were published before September 2018 that are not essential to the services we provide or used for active administration purposes. We are not planning on replacing these documents with accessible versions until the website undergoes a substantial redevelopment. If you experience any difficulties accessing older content, please contact the webmaster at web@smithschool.ox.ac.uk.

How we tested this website

This website was last tested during May 2022. An audit was carried out internally, using automated testing tools together with a manual check of a substantial and carefully chosen sample of webpages and content types.

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 improving the website content and structure. We are working with our content providers to ensure that future content and versions of this website are accessible.

We will continue to review the website on a regular basis, perform an annual audit, and check all new content.

 

This statement was prepared on 1 May 2022. It was last updated on 12 May 2022, 16:25 BST.

Related information