Accessibility statement for Regional Ethnology of Scotland Website

Website accessibility statement in line with Public Sector Body (Websites and Mobile Applications) (No. 2) Accessibility Regulations 2018

This accessibility statement applies to: https://collections.ed.ac.uk/eerc

This website is run by the Library and University Collections Directorate which is part of Information Services Group 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:

Customising the website

AbilityNet has advice on making your device easier to use if you have a disability. This is an external site with suggestions to make your computer more accessible:

AbilityNet - My computer my way

With a few simple steps you can customise the appearance of our website using your browser settings to make it easier to read and navigate:

Additional information on how to customise our website appearance

If you are a member of University staff or a student, you can use the free SensusAccess accessible document conversion service:

Information on SensusAccess

How accessible this website is

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

Feedback and contact information

If you need information on this website in a different format, including accessible PDF, large print, audio recording or braille:

Reporting accessibility problems with this website

We are 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, please contact:

We will consider your request and get back to you in 5 working days.

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 please contact the Equality Advisory and Support Service (EASS) directly:

Contact details for 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

Contacting us by phone using British Sign Language

British Sign Language service Contact Scotland BSL runs a service for British Sign Language users and all of Scotland’s public bodies using video relay. This enables sign language users to contact public bodies and vice versa. The service operates 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

Contact Scotland BSL service details

Technical information about this website’s accessibility

The University of Edinburgh is committed to making its websites and applications 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 (WCAG) 2.1 AA standard, due to the non-compliances listed below.

The full guidelines are available at:

 Web Content Accessibility Guidelines version 2.1

Non accessible content

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

Noncompliance with the accessibility regulations

The following items to not comply with the WCAG 2.1 AA success criteria:

At this time, we believe all items are within our control. Unless specified otherwise, a complete solution, or significant improvement, will be in place for those items within our control by March 2024.

Disproportionate burden

We are not currently claiming that any accessibility problems would be a disproportionate burden to fix.

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

Interactive maps

This website hosts a mapping service. Currently, online mapping and mapping services sit outwith the 2018 accessibility regulations.

“These Regulations do not apply to the following content of a website or mobile application of a public sector body— (d)online maps and mapping services, as long as essential information is provided in an accessible digital manner for maps intended for navigational use;” (The Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) (No. 2) Accessibility Regulations 2018)”

The mapping service is not fully accessible, as it is not possible to interact with individual map features using assistive technologies. Although maps are currently not within the scope of the regulations, we will continue to strive to make the site as accessible as possible.

There is additional information available in different formats, including maps, to download and information in the AccessAble - UoE app available for iOS and Android:

AccessAble Information.

PDFs

Many of our older PDFs do not meet accessibility standards – for example, they may not be structured so they are accessible to a screen reader. This does not meet WCAG 2.1 success criterion 4.1.2 (name, role, value).

WCAG 2.1 success criterion 4.1.2 (name, role, value)

Some of our PDFs are essential to accessing information on the site. For example, several of the audio interview files have corresponding transcripts in PDF form. We will try to ensure any new PDFs or Word documents we publish will meet accessibility standards.

Regulations for PDF's

What we're doing to improve accessibility

At this time, we believe all items are within our control. We will continue to address the accessibility issues highlighted to deliver a solution or suitable workaround. We are looking to move this site to a new content management system within the next 12 months and will be working to ensure this resolves the accessibility issues. Unless specified otherwise, a complete solution or significant improvement will be in place for those items within our control by March 2024.

While we are in the process of resolving these accessibility issues, or where we are unable, we will ensure reasonable adjustments are in place to make sure no user is disadvantaged. As changes are made, we will continue to review accessibility and retest the accessibility of this website.

Preparation of this accessibility statement

This statement was prepared on10th September 2020. It was last reviewed on 3rd March 2023.

This website was first tested by the Digital Library & Development team in September 2020 and reviewed on 15th September 2021 and again on 3rd March 2023. The testing was initially carried out by The University of Edinburgh Library and University Collections Digital Library Development team using the automated Wave WEBAIM and Little Forest testing tool. The testing in October 2022 included full manual as well as automated testing.

This website was last manually tested by the Digital Library team, Library and University Collections, University of Edinburgh in March 2023. This was primarily using Mozilla Firefox (91.7.1esr), Microsoft Edge (99.0.1150.55) and Google Chrome (99.0.4844.84), browsers for comparative purposes.

Recent world-wide usage levels survey for different screen readers and browsers shows that Chrome, Mozilla Firefox and Microsoft Edge are increasing in popularity and Google Chrome is now the favoured browser for screen readers:

WebAIM: Screen Reader User Survey

The aforementioned three browsers have been used in certain questions for reasons of breadth and variety.

We ran automated testing using Wave WEBAIM and Little Forest then manual testing that included:

Change Log

Since our first evaluation and statement, which was based on automated testing, we have undertaken extensive manual testing. This includes utilising a range of assistive technology to ensure we have a clear picture of the accessibility issues and how best to resolve them.