Accessibility statement for Waltham Forest Adult Learning Service ‘Learning Hub’ Moodle website

This accessibility statement applies to the Waltham Forest Adult Learning Service (WFALS) virtual learning environment (VLE) Moodle website at https://walthamforest1.mrooms.net/

This website is for WFALS and is a customised version of the Moodle site provided by Open LMS.

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

How accessible this website is

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

• some content is only available as pdfs, PowerPoint, Excel or MS Word not html
• not all images have meaningful alt text
• not all videos or recordings will have captions or transcripts
• the course materials could include images of text
• not all links are meaningful links
• accurate heading hierarchy is not always followed.

Feedback and contact information

If you need information on this website in a different format like a Word document, accessible PDF, large print, easy read or audio recording, please:

• email Adult.Learning@walthamforest.gov.uk
• call 020 8496 2974

We’ll consider your request and get back to you within five working days with an initial reply.

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, please email Adult.Learning@walthamforest.gov.uk or call 020 8496 2974.

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

Email Adult.Learning@walthamforest.gov.uk or call 020 8496 2974.

Technical information about this website’s accessibility

Waltham Forest Adult Learning Service is committed to making its websites 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

Some images might 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).

This affects course content on the website. Our staff will be reminded to add alt text to uploaded images.

Other uploaded content can include Word documents, Excel files, PowerPoint files and pdfs that will fail a variety of WCAG 2.1 criteria for colour, contrast and legibility.

Most of the videos and recordings on this Moodle site are from live sessions. Live videos are exempt from these regulations. However, some pre-recorded videos uploaded as course content might not have captions or transcripts.

Disproportionate burden

Accessing information and lessons

Uploaded content can include Word documents, PowerPoint files and pdfs that will fail a variety of requirements for colour, contrast and legibility.

It’s not possible to manually check or monitor all the files uploaded by staff over hundreds of courses so we can’t claim the site content is fully accessible.

This site is provided as part of our licence with Open LMS (a third party). Open LMS has a tool that can help us assess the accessibility of all content on this Moodle website, but the cost is high and our teaching team need to be trained in understanding accessibility.

We’ve assessed the cost of fixing the issues with accessing information and lessons uploaded by non-trained staff. We believe that doing so now would be a disproportionate burden within the meaning of the accessibility regulations. We will make another assessment after our staff has had accessibility training.

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

Live video

We will recommend enabling automatic captions or providing transcripts for live video streams although live video is exempt from meeting the accessibility regulations.

What we’re doing to improve accessibility

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

Most of the course lessons include PowerPoint files, pdfs, Excel files and Word documents that are essential to understanding the courses. We will encourage staff to provide content as accessible html or in MS Word where possible.

Our policies are published as accessible HTML pages as well as pdfs and/or Word documents where possible.

Preparation of this accessibility statement

This statement was prepared on 21 September 2020. It was last reviewed on 22 September 2020.

This website was last tested on 22 September 2020. The test was carried out by our marketing and communications officer.

We used this approach in deciding on a sample of pages to test: main page and a manual check of other pages. We used the approach suggested at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/doing-a-basic-accessibility-check-if-you-cant-do-a-detailed-one/doing-a-basic-accessibility-check-if-you-cant-do-a-detailed-one

A full check of this site is not possible without using a bespoke checker. This is because most of the content can only be accessed by signed-in users. This statement is therefore based on a check of the public homepage and other pages and a manual check of a sample of pages.