Web accessibility
"Web accessibility, or eAccessibility,[1] is the inclusive practice of ensuring there are no barriers that prevent interaction with, or access to, websites on the World Wide Web by people with physical disabilities, situational disabilities, and socio-economic restrictions on bandwidth and speed." (Wikipedia)
Testing against WCAG 2.1
In January 2023 we tested the Septentrio platform against 47 of the success criteria in the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1. We followed the interpretation of the criteria provided by the Norwegian Authority for Universal Design of ICT, and used their test procedure and checklist.
We tested Septentrio's index pages and the pages of all peer-reviewed journals published by Septentrio. We also tested documents in active use (e.g., Word templates) and a selection of articles published in PDF format since 1 February 2022 for each peer-reviewed journal.
Among the tools we used were the WAVE browser extension, the Siteimprove Accessibility Checker and the W3C Markup Validation Service.
We found 15 breaches of current requirements, as detailed in our Accessibility statement (in Norwegian).
How Septentrio is working with web accessibility
Septentrio Academic Publishing is a publishing service with many editors and authors who produce content. We are working with our partners to meet the challenge of making the platform fully accessible for all. In the short term, we are providing training and support on accessibility for our editors (e.g., our editors' guide to creating accessible content). We are also helping editors to create accessible Word templates for authors.
If you experience accessibility problems in Septentrio's journals and series, and have suggestions for improvement, contact us at septentrio@ub.uit.no.
