Accessibility Statement for Open eLMS

This is an accessibility statement from Open eLMS Ltd which applies to the Open eLMS suite of products, namely:

Open eLMS
Open eLMS AI
Open eLMS Forms
Open eLMS Bespoke
Open eLMS Catalogue
Open eLMS Creator

We want as many people as possible to be able to use this website. For example, that means users can:

change colours, contrast levels and fonts
zoom in up to 300% without the text spilling off the screen
navigate most of the Open eLMS LMS using just a keyboard
navigate most of the Open eLMS LMS using speech recognition software
listen to most of the Open eLMS LMS using a screen reader (including the most recent versions of JAWS, NVDA and VoiceOver)
used ergonomic design to enhance the user friendliness of the learning experience
and we’ve also made the Open eLMS LMS text as simple as possible to understand.

Measures to support accessibility

Open eLMS Ltd. takes the following measures to ensure accessibility of Open eLMS:

Include accessibility as part of our mission statement.
Include accessibility throughout our internal policies.
Provide continual accessibility training for our staff.
Assign clear accessibility goals and responsibilities.
Employ formal accessibility quality assurance methods.

Compatibility with browsers and assistive technology

Open eLMS will work with any modern browser and operating system (last 3 years) with a variety of assistive technology plugins. Accessibility of Open eLMS relies on the following technologies to work with the particular combination of web browser and any assistive technologies or plugins installed on your computer:

HTML
CSS
JavaScript
HTML5
PHP

How Accessible is Open eLMS

We know some parts of the Open eLMS system is not fully accessible, although the system uses frameworks to ensure accessibility in most cases. Some exceptions include:

the text will not reflow in a single column when you change the size of the browser window

you cannot modify the line height or spacing of text in all text boxes (only comment boxes)

most older PDF documents are not fully accessible to screen reader software
embedded video will in some cases not have captions (either on screen or CC)
Configuration/branding options in Open eLMS may take the system away from AA standards: Examples include loading in background branded images which cause AA failures due to contrast. because We cannot ensure the quality of contributions by users and sometimes client needs override accessibility. We provide guidance where this occurs. Please report any issues to support@openelms.com and the design team will advise on a solution, else switch on the Accessibility mode in configuration settings.
Course creation with Open eLMS Creator: User generated content will not always be accessible because Users do not add alt text etc. Providing guidance on how to make accessible elearning – elearning courses on course creation are being refreshed. Make use of Open eLMS Creator accessibility tools.
Content library needs updating with accessibility additions: Not all course images etc have alt text added because Courses have been built over the last 15 years and some need updating with accessibility features. Refreshing the Open eLMS Catalogue of courses. Course updates will be released and updated soon.

Feedback and Contact Information

We welcome your feedback on the accessibility of Open eLMS. Please let us know if you encounter accessibility barriers on Open eLMS:

Phone: +44 (0)203 929 2051
E-mail: info@openelms.com
Address: Kemp House, 152 – 160 City Rd, London EC1V 2NX

We try to respond to feedback within 4 hours.

Reporting Accessibility Problems

All content should be accessible; in the case where a legacy course is not accessible for instance then Open eLMS should be informed and a replacement course will be provided at no additional cost.

We encourage all clients to report any non-conformities should they find them.

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

Open eLMS Ltd. 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

The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) defines requirements for designers and developers to improve accessibility for people with disabilities. It defines three levels of conformance: Level A, Level AA, and Level AAA.

Open eLMS Learning Management System (including Open eLMS Forms) is fully compliant with WCAG 2.1 level AA standard. Fully conformant means that the content fully conforms to the accessibility standard without any exceptions.
Open eLMS Bespoke elearning is fully compliant with WCAG 2.1 level AA standard.
Open eLMS Catalogue elearning is partially compliant with WCAG 2.1 level AA standard due to some legacy courses have not been fully adapted but the majority of elearning does have alt tags etc to enable full AA conformity.
Open eLMS Creator is not compliant with WCAG 2.1 level AA due to this being a limited use, back-end tool; efforts made to audit conformity are considered uneconomic at the current time.

Non-Compliance with the Accessibility Regulations

The Open eLMS Catalogue elearning is partially compliant with WCAG 2.1 level AA standard due to legacy courses not being updated with all alt tags. The updating of all 250 legacy courses is currently being undertaken and work is expected to be complete on this by the end of Q1 2023.

Disproportionate Burden

Auditing Open eLMS Catalogue is currently uneconomical due to it being a limited use, back-end tool; should the system further increase it’s use then accessibility will be included in the standard auditing process. Currently there has been no call to audit this system’s accessibility.

Content that’s not within the Scope of the Accessibility Regulations

PDFs and other documents

Some of our PDFs and Word documents are essential to providing our services. For example, we have PDFs with information on how users can access our services, and forms published as Word documents. By September 2020, we plan to either fix these or replace them with accessible HTML pages.

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 [example of non-essential document].

Any new PDFs or Word documents we publish will meet accessibility standards.

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

On-going Work

The primary focus on accessibility is to add alt tags to all legacy courses and continue the internal bi-annual and external annual accessibility report. This will implement full compliance with the WCAG 2.1 level AA standard for all Open eLMS systems and products apart from Open eLMS Creator.

There are no immediate plans to audit Open eLMS Creator although this is under regular review.

Auditing

Open eLMS Ltd assessed the accessibility of Open eLMS by the following approaches:

Self-evaluation
A bi-annual audit is carried out on the system Issues are rectified and then the system is immediately audited again to confirm compliance. The accessibility audit is a key asset in the company’s asset register, which insures that this process is repeated at the predefined 6 monthly internal. A copy of the last successful audit audit is available upon request.
External annual accessibility audit by Ten10. A copy of the last successful audit audit is available upon request.

Preparation of this accessibility statement

This statement was prepared on 23 June 2022. It was last reviewed on 23 June 2022.

Open eLMS was last tested on 13th April 2022. The test was carried out by Ten10.

The test applied to the entire website on mobile and desktop devices.

This statement was last updated on 23 June 2022