CMS (TerminalFour)

If you maintain a section of the main university website using the TerminalFour CMS, you must ensure you use the new style 'Foundation' pages. You’ll see examples of these if you visit the University course finder or most department websites.

Contact webmaster@lancaster.ac.uk for advice

Archived content

If you have archived pages in the CMS that use the old style, provided the content is no longer being updated it doesn’t need to be transferred to Foundation.

However, please inform webmaster@lancaster.ac.uk so it can be added to the Accessibility Statement.

Resources

• To find out whether a section you maintain needs transferring to the Foundation style, see the Foundation site information (VPN access only)
  This page is updated daily and shows how much of each section has been converted to Foundation.
• For guidance on using the Foundation pages, see the Digital Pattern Library of the CMS Toolkit
  In particular, relating to accessibility, you may want to refer to the guidance on:
• Content type rules and guidelines
• Headings
• Text
• Text and images
• Typography
• For guidance on creating accessible documents and other resources for your website, see the 'Creating accessible website content' further down this page.

Non-CMS websites

If you maintain a website or part of a website that does not use the CMS, you must still ensure that it complies with accessibility regulations.

You must ensure you use an accessible platform such as WordPress (including its templates), or if you build it yourself or commission an external company, you must ensure that all elements (banners, navigation, scripts etc) are accessible, not just the content.

If you are employing a 3^rd party you must ensure that an accessible platform and content is built into your agreement and you must not sign off the work as complete until you are certain that the website complies. Websites commissioned using public funds must be compliant even if they aren’t hosted on the www.lancaster.ac.uk domain.

What is classed as a non-CMS website? A non-CMS website could be:

• on a different URL e.g. http://imagination.lancaster.ac.uk
• on a subsection of the main website (e.g. a University WordPress site e.g. http://wp.lancs.ac.uk/digital-bursary
• On a different bit of the web server eg http://www.lancaster.ac.uk/fass/projects/edwardian-postcards

What happens to non-CMS legacy websites?

Legacy websites that are no longer maintained or updated (for example past research projects) need to be made accessible and archived with a statement outlining elements that may not be accessible.

Please submit details of any issues in the Help Centre web request form so that they are incorporated into the Accessibility Statement.

All non-CMS websites much be associated with someone who will take responsibility for them. If the owner/commissioner is no longer at the University responsibility will lie with the head of department.

Websites that are not used will eventually be deleted (subject to a timescale and procedure to be determined).

So, if your website is still required, you must conduct or commission an accessibility audit of it then, as necessary, ensure compliance with the accessibility requirements. That might be by updating it yourself, or engaging with the original authors to address problems.

Where cost/benefit or other factors make this prohibitive, you must provide full details as to why the site doesn’t meet requirements.

University WordPress sites

You should check that your chosen WordPress template is accessible. If you are uncertain how to do this contact ISS via the Help Centre.

• For guidance on creating accessible documents and other resources for your website, see the 'Creating accessible website content' section below.
• For guidance on ensuring a WordPress site is accessible, see the WordPress accessibility quick start guide

Creating accessible website content

You must ensure that content and resources on your website are accessible irrespective of whether your site uses the CMS, WordPress or another publishing system.

Make use of features and options that enable accessibility

In the CMS, the Foundation content types will address a lot of accessibility requirements.

In some instances, whether you're using the CMS or another system, input may be required from you in order for your content to be accessible (e.g. entering meaningful 'alt text' when inserting images on web pages). Make use of features and options that enable accessibility when they're available, whether mandatory or not.

Create accessible documents and videos

If you are providing a link to download a document (e.g. a PDF or Word document), you must ensure that the document itself is accessible. Similarly, if embedding a video in a web page or providing a link to a video, ensure that the video itself is accessible (e.g. include captions to accompany spoken words and audio description for action not captured by voice).

Avoid using non-accessible content

Some content can’t be made accessible (e.g. images containing text that can’t be read by screen readers). Avoid using such content. If you are linking to scanned text, make sure it has been created using OCR software (can you highlight the text with the mouse?)

Resources

• Short online Creating accessible resources course.
• Other key resources for creating accessible content can be accessed via the Quick Links.

Broadly speaking, the principles for making web content and Word docs accessible are the same.