St Mary’s Mahara (e-Portfolio) Accessibility Statement
This accessibility statement applies to the mahara.stmarys.ac.uk website:
The Mahara ePortfolio system is an interactive and innovative multimedia platform which enables students to record and collate their development. This platform is run by St Mary’s University and hosted by CoSector.
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’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
Mahara has a good level of accessibility when it comes to viewing and creating content. Most of the administration pages include the accessibility improvements mentioned above, however, as this is the most complex part of Mahara, there are still some pages that may have issues. Mahara are continuing to work on the administration functions in relation to accessibility and aims to address these issues in future versions.
For further information on specific issues which are under investigation by the supplier, please refer to https://blueprints.launchpad.net/mahara/+spec/accessibility
Feedback and contact information
We’re always looking to improve the accessibility of the applications. If you find any problems not listed on this page, need information on this website in a different format (such as an accessible PDF, large print, easy read, audio recording or braille) or think we’re not meeting accessibility requirements, please email web.accessibility@stmarys.ac.uk
We’ll consider your request and get back to you in ten 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, contact the Equality Advisory and Support Service (EASS).
Technical information about this website’s accessibility
St Mary’s University is committed to making its website 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 version 2.1 AA standard, due to the non-compliances listed below.
Non-accessible content
The content listed below is non-accessible for the following reasons.
Non-compliance with the accessibility regulations
The Mahara ePortfolio system is run by St Mary’s University, but has been developed by a third party open-sourced community which means that some aspects of its accessibility are outside of our immediate control.
We list below further areas within Mahara that we know are not fully accessible.
Platform – issues we have identified with the St Mary’s Mahara platform
- Some images do not have a text alternative, so people using a screen reader cannot access the information. This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.1.1 (non-text content).
- Some of the pages on this website use themes that lack a contrast ratio of at least 4.5:1 between text and background colours. This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.4.3 (Contrast).
- Some of the pages on this website use themes that use colour as the sole indicator of visual information, for indicating an action or prompting a response. This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.41 (Use of Colour).
Disproportionate burden
At this time, we have made no claims of disproportionate burden.
Intranet content
Under the regulations intranet and extranet content are exempt from compliance deadlines until such time as they are substantially revised. It is believed that the content of the Mahara has not met the criteria for substantial revision since the regulations came into force and as such this content will be expected to comply as of the next substantial revision to the platform.
What we’re doing to improve accessibility
Mahara is an open sourced platform and we will continue to work with the supplier to address the accessibility issues highlighted and deliver a solution or suitable work around. We have developed new training and materials for our staff that cover how to create accessible content for the web and we are continuing to work through our documentation and guidance to make it more accessible (including captioning video materials).
We will continue to monitor the system’s accessibility and will carry out further accessibility testing as these issues are resolved. However, due to the complex nature of the information displayed it may not be possible to resolve all accessibility issues. If this is the case, we will ensure reasonable adjustments are in place to make sure no user is disadvantaged. We plan to have resolved many of the accessibility issues by the next upgrade scheduled for August 2021.
How we tested this website
This website was last tested on 20 August 2020. The test was carried out by us. All pages of the website were tested along with a sample of the documents from each area of the website.