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Accessibility statement

Accessibility statement

Accessibility Statement for marjon.ac.uk

Introduction

This accessibility statement applies to the website www.marjon.ac.uk.

This website is run by Plymouth Marjon University, which is a trading name of the University of St Mark & St John.

The website was developed in line with Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1 AA.

We believe that the web should be an open, inclusive and fair space for all. We want as many people as possible to be able to use this website. Our goal is to make this website easy to comprehend and accessible across devices from mobile phones to the largest of desktops.

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
  • Access transcripts of our video content
  • Listen to most of the website using a screen reader (including the most recent versions of JAWS, NVDA and VoiceOver)

AbilityNet has advice on making your device easier to use if you have a disability.

How accessible this website is

We know that some parts of this website are not fully accessible. These include:

  • Our internally developed forms and systems are not fully accessible with a screen reader, including the Open Day booking system, the Prospectus request form, the Apply Direct application, the online registration system, the ePay system and the graduation booking portal.
  • Some PDFs are not fully accessible, for example due to missing titles or heading tags.
  • There are a small number of navigation fixes required which could confuse a screen reader, or result in confusing readings, for example some pages are missing top-level headings; some links are not clear enough in terms of their purpose and some pages do not have the language defined.
  • Some video frames do not have a title.
  • There are a small number of appearance issues, for example some controls do not change appearance when selected and there are some examples of text which does not have very high contrast.
  • Some tables are not fully marked up, for example they do not have clear headers defined.

What we do about known issues

We work to achieve and maintain WCAG 2.1 AA standards, but it is not always possible for all our content to be accessible. Where content is not accessible, we will state a reason, warn users and offer alternatives.

Feedback and contact information

What to do if you can’t access parts of this website

If you need information on this website in a different format you can contact us on the details below.

Email: marketing@marjon.ac.uk

Phone: 01752 636700

We’ll consider your request and get back to you in five working days.

If you need information on our courses or applying to study at Marjon you can call +44 (0)1752 636890 (10am–4pm) or email admissions@marjon.ac.uk.

If you can’t view any of the maps you can call us on +44 (0)1752 636700 or email info@marjon.ac.uk for directions.

Our Contact page lists other departments you can call for information.

Reporting accessibility problems with this website

We’re always looking to improve the accessibility of this website. If you find any problems that aren’t listed on this page or think we’re not meeting the requirements of the accessibility regulations, contact marketing@marjon.ac.uk.

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).

Contacting us by phone or visiting us in person

We provide a text relay service for people who are D/deaf, hearing impaired or have a speech impediment.

Some of our offices and classrooms have audio induction loops. If you contact us before your visit we may be able to arrange a British Sign Language (BSL) interpreter.

Find out how to contact us: Contact us | Plymouth Marjon University

Technical information about this website’s accessibility

Plymouth Marjon 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 and exemptions listed on our non-accessible content page.

Non-accessible content

You can view the full list of accessibility non-compliances and exemptions for our website by following this link to our dedicated page

Disproportionate burden

Forms

  • Some fieldsets don’t contain a legend 
  • Some items with the same name inside a fieldset aren’t wrapped 
  • Some form controls don’t have labels 
  • Some labels in the document fragment don’t point to valid IDs 
  • The purposes of some form fields aren’t identified programmatically 
  • Some of our form pages require zooming and 2D scrolling on small screens 
  • Some form controls don’t contrast sufficiently with their surroundings 
  • Our forms don’t allow users to quickly skip to content 
  • The frames some of our forms sit in don’t specify a title 
  • The custom tabbing order doesn’t always make sense 
  • Some controls don’t change appearance when they are selected 
  • The language of our form pages isn’t specified 
  • Some links on our forms may not be able to be used by screen readers 

Response: Almost all of our forms are created inhouse and will be complex to fix. We’ve assessed the workload and cost of this and we believe that fixing the forms as they stand would be a disproportionate burden within the meaning of the accessibility regulations.

In order to provide a fix, our goal is to implement a CRM solution which will replace our forms built inhouse, which will provide a fully accessible solution. This is a long-term project and we aim to complete this by December 2023.

In order to provide an alternative to these forms, we can support users to complete them. Users can contact hello@marjon.ac.uk to arrange this support which would vary depending on the form required.

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

Old PDFs

We do not plan to amend non-essential PDFs or file formats which were created before 23rd September 2018 because they are exempt from meeting the accessibility regulations.

Live video

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

What we’re doing to improve accessibility

We have engaged an accessibility service, Silktide, to provide real-time comprehensive accessibility information rather than single point in time audits. This means we have constant and detailed feedback on fixes required, their priority and impact on the user, the number of them and where they are found. We commit to working through these fixes in a logical and prioritised way, focusing on the impact to the user first, and retaining the service ongoing.

Updates on this accessibility tracking will be reported twice a year at the Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Board.

Preparation of this accessibility statement

This statement was first published on 19 September 2019, then reviewed on 19 October 2020. It was comprehensively reviewed on 21 June 2022 and again on 28 March 2023.

This website was last tested on 28 March 2023 at time of publishing, to ensure that this statement is up to date. We used a real-time testing solution called Silktide.

Silktide categorises the accessibility concerns it finds in two different ways. Some are detected automatically, so we know they require us to take action to remedy them. Others are flagged but must be checked manually, so we have checked a sample of ten pages for each accessibility requirement and are confident that they did not occur in the sample. 

We are using this approach because we recognise that websites are dynamic spaces. We want to be sure that we are comprehensively fixing issues not only as they stand at one audit, but as they continue to arise. We recognise that we can design in accessibility as standard, but as websites are amended it is very easy to lose accessibility through lack of deep expertise of editors; for example in simple writing styles, or in tagging pdfs. The real-time, always-on audit means we have a running log of issues and can continually work in a prioritised and systematic way to fix them.

Link: Equality Advisory and Support Service (EASS).