This accessibility statement applies to www.gculondon.ac.uk.

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

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

• you cannot modify the line height or spacing of text
• you cannot skip to the main content when using a screen reader
• most older PDF documents are not fully accessible to screen reader software
• live video streams do not have captions
• Legacy sub-sites that are archived, but not updated, as part of their funding terms

If you would like to provide general feedback about this website, not requiring a response, please email brand@gcu.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 page or think we’re not meeting accessibility requirements, contact:

accessibility@gcu.ac.uk

+44 141 273 1234

Directorate of Communications and Digital Engagement

Accessibility

Glasgow Caledonian University

Cowcaddens Road

Glasgow, G4 0BA

We’ll 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, contact the Equality Advisory and Support Service (EASS).

Contacting us by phone or visiting us in person

The University's contact details are available on the Contact Us section of our website. 

British Sign Language (BSL) users can contact us via contactSCOTLAND-BSL, Scotland's national BSL interpreting video relay service.

If you are visiting us in person, our Campus map provides an overview of our campus buildings. If you cannot view the map on our ‘contact us’ page, please call, email or write to us for directions. More detailed access guides for our campus buildings can be found on our AccessAble website.

Glasgow Caledonian 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 below.

Non-accessible content

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

Non-compliance with the accessibility regulations

Issues with media – images, video, audio

Some images do not have an appropriate text alternative, so people using a screen reader cannot access the information. We use a quality assurance application to identify these images and inform content editors of the requirement to change these. This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.1.1 (non-text content).

We plan to add text alternatives for all images which convey information by September 2022. When we publish new content we’ll make sure our use of images meets accessibility standards.

Issues with PDFs and documents

Some of our PDFs and Word documents are essential to providing our services. For example, we have PDFs with information about course specifications (PSPs), our fees and refund policy.

By Juine 2023, we plan to either fix these or replace them with accessible HTML pages. Any new PDFs or Word documents we publish will meet accessibility standards.

Issues with text

Some link text doesn’t make sense when read on its own (for example, ‘click here’). We plan to fix existing links which use generic text (click here, read more, find out more) by September 2022. We use a quality assurance application to identify any new link text and notify content editors of the requirement to change these.

Some older tables are not labelled with proper headers and column attributes. We have a programme of work to remove or upgrade these tables by October 2022.

Not all headers are properly nested. We plan to fix this by October 2022. We use a quality assurance application to identify these issues and inform content editors of the requirement to change these.

Issues with navigation by keyboard

On some pages, there is no way to skip the repeated content in the page header (for example, a ‘skip to main content’ option), we plan to fix this by October 2022.

Collapsible content on some pages is not able to be opened using a keyboard. We plan to fix this by October 2022.

Keyboard focus is not always visible as you tab through the web page, we plan to fix this by October 2022.

Hamburger ‘In this section’ menus on mobile view are not accessible by keyboard. We plan to fix this by October 2022.

Interactive tools and transactions

Some of our interactive forms are difficult to navigate using a keyboard. For example, some form controls are missing a ‘label’ tag and some of our forms are built and hosted through third party software and ‘skinned’ to look like our website. Forms built on our website we aim to fix by October 2022. We are investigating our use of hosted and third-party forms.

We are investigating accessibility issues with the floating chat window. We plan to fix this by December 2022.

It’s not always possible to change the device orientation from horizontal to vertical without making it more difficult to view the content. We are investigating this issue.

Disproportionate burden

As part of our ongoing assessment of accessibility, we are assessing the cost of fixing issues with navigation and accessing information, and with interactive tools and transactions in relation to disproportionate burden. 

www.gculondon.ac.uk is moving to a new, fully-compliant codebase in October 2022. All development work, including accessibility fixes, have stopped in the old codebase to prepare for the upgrade. Updated 5 July 2022.

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

PDFs and other documents

The accessibility regulations do not require us to fix PDFs or other documents published before 23 September 2018 if they’re not essential to providing our services. For example, we do not plan to fix https://www.gcu.ac.uk/media/gcalwebv2/theuniversity/gaq/dogfiles/universityresearchcommittee/Research%20Strategy%20Refresh%20V2.1.pdf.

Any new PDFs or Word documents we publish will meet accessibility standards.  We will continue to fix or replace our essential PDF and Word documents with accessible HTML pages (see above section: non-compliance with the accessibility regulations Issues with PDFs and documents for more information)

Video

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

Some video does not have captions and we do not plan to add captions because video published before 23rd September 2020 is exempt from meeting the accessibility regulations

Reproductions of some items from the University archive and from heritage collections may not be fully accessible; these are exempt from meeting the accessibility regulations.

Preparation of this accessibility statement

This statement was prepared on 16 July 2020. It was last reviewed on 6 July 2022.

The University’s Department of Communication and Digital Engagement uses two methods of testing for accessibility.

Automated testing

The University has invested in a website quality improvement platform, SiteImprove, which performs a detailed check of content and functionality for WCAG 2.1 AA compliance. This tool is implemented on the www.gculondon.ac.uk domain and provides weekly report of ongoing and new issues. You can download a full accessibility test report. 

Manual testing 

This website was last manually tested December 2020. The test was carried out on approximately 10% of gcu.ac.uk webpages which included a selection of pages with a variety of templates, page layouts and components.

GCU is committed to providing an inclusive and accessible website. The University has invested in a new website, which is designed specifically to meet the WCAG 2.0 AA requirements. The new GCU London website is due to go live in September 2022.

Our accessibility roadmap shows how and when we plan to improve accessibility on this website. Please contact us for a copy of our accessibility road map at accessibility@gcu.ac.uk. 

GCU is committed to providing an inclusive student experience, which offers all students the opportunity to achieve their full potential.

Our Disability Team provides advice, information and services to disabled students and applicants.

Please contact our student support team if you have any queries relating to your own needs, or if you wish to know more about GCU’s approach to supporting disabled students.