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Digital accessibility statement

Accessibility statement for www.bbk.ac.uk and search.bbk.ac.uk

This statement applies to content published on the www.bbk.ac.uk and search.bbk.ac.uk domains. It does not apply to content on any other subdomain (e.g. blogs.bbk.ac.uk, or www7.bbk.ac.uk), nor to those areas of www.bbk.ac.uk listed under 'Non-compliance with the accessibility regulations'.

This website is run by Birkbeck, University of London. 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.

In addition, we have embedded ReciteMe’s cloud-based web accessibility software in this site. This provides a range of features and tools to allow more people to use the website.

You can turn on the ReciteMe overlay by accepting functional cookies and then clicking on 'Accessibility' at the top of the page.

How accessible this website is

  • We know some parts of this website are not fully accessible:
    • You cannot modify the line height or spacing of text, although the site includes the ReciteMe’s cloud-based web accessibility software that will allow you to do this.
    • Most older PDF documents are not fully accessible to screen reader software.
    • Some of our online forms are difficult to navigate using just a keyboard.
    • You cannot always skip to the main content when using a screen reader.
    • Some of the information on our Staff Profiles and Events pages may not be fully accessible. For example, non-contextual links may be apparent. Colleagues are provided with access to manually add content to these pages. More information on how we will continue to resolve the problems can be found in our roadmap.
    • As of June 2022, we have rectified several of our previous accessibility problems, following an accessibility audit. More information on what we have done so far and how we will continue to resolve the problems can be found in our roadmap.

Contact information and reporting accessibility problems with this website

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

Birkbeck, University of London 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

  • 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). We plan to add text alternatives for all images by summer 2023. When we publish new content, we’ll make sure our use of images meets accessibility standards.
  • Some lists are structured in such a way that people using a screen reader may not be able to tell how many items are in the list. This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.3.1 Info and Relationships. This mostly occurs in content representing either Events or Staff Profiles.
  • Some instances of the course search do not have accessible text on the 'Select departments' filter. This fails the following WCAG 2.1 success criteria: 1.3.1 Info and Relationships and 4.1.2 Name, Role, Value.
  • On some of our forms, such as the Request a Prospectus form, the input fields are the first elements to receive tab focus rather than the header etc. which is not consistent with the meaning of content or the rest of the site. This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 2.4.3 Focus Order.
  • Some pages contain duplicate ids, either as a result of a problem in a page template, or content added to system - often via copying and pasting directly from Microsoft Word. This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 4.1.1 Parsing.
  • On a small number of pages, inappropriate HTML tags are used to emphasise text. This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.3.1: Info and Relationships.
  • Some form fields on our 'experts database' search do not have appropriate labels. This fails the following WCAG 2.1 success criteria: 1.3.1 Info and Relationships and 4.1.2 Name, Role, Value. This form will be retired by October 2023 when the issue will be resolved.
  • Modal windows containing timetable information, viewed from within some pages on the online prospectus area of the site, have no titles or page headings. This fails the following WCAG 2.1 success criteria: 1.3.1 Info and Relationships and 2.4.2 - Page Titled. These modals will be redeveloped by June 2024 when the issue will be resolved.
  • Some of our recent PDF documents, such as our programme specifications, are missing key document information, and are not tagged in a way that assistive technology can recognise and interpret. This fails the following WCAG 2.1 success criteria: 1.1.1 Non-Text Content, 1.3.1 Info and Relationships, 2.4.2 Page Titled, and 3.1.1 Language of Page.
  • We plan to work through these and fix them as described in our roadmap.

Disproportionate burden 

  • There are currently no issues on bbk.ac.uk that we consider to be a disproportionate burden to fix.

Content that's not within the scope of this accessibility statement 

Web presences 

PDFs and other documents

Live video

What we’re doing to improve accessibility

Our accessibility roadmap shows how and when we plan to improve accessibility on this website, as well as showing the steps we have taken to date.

Preparation of this accessibility statement

This statement was prepared on 13 September 2019. It was last reviewed on 22 June 2023.

This website was last tested in June 2023. The test was carried out by Sitemorse.