Topic outline

  • General

  • About Moodle

    • Moodle is Wrexham Glyndwr University's main Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) and is hosted by CoSector. Moodle is built by the Moodle project, which is led and coordinated by Moodle HQ. 

      Moodle's goal is to be fully accessible and usable for all users regardless of ability, and the WCAG 2.0 guidelines are followed.

      Wrexham Glyndwr University aims to ensure that teaching, learning and assessment resources built in and/or uploaded to Moodle are fully accessible to all users. 

      Using Moodle

      There are a number of accessibility features in Moodle, that mean 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. Moodle officially supports a range of screen readers, including NVDA Screen Reader (Windows), JAWS Screen Reader (Windows), Chromevox Screen Reader (Linux, Chrome OS, Windows, Mac OS X), Orca Screen Reader (Linux).

      AbilityNet has advice on making your device easier to use if you have a disability.


  • Accessibility of WGU Moodle

    • The accessibility of Moodle is considered at two levels.

      System level issues

      The Moodle platform is a complex system, with some customised elements. The code is always evolving and we regularly upgrade our site to reflect these changes. 

      The Moodle development community, supported by the Moodle Accessibility Collaboration Group maintains a list of known accessibility issues, which is regularly updated, and this accessibility statement will be updated to reflect up-to-date information.

      Content Level issues

      Our academic teams create and upload learning, teaching and assessment content to programme, module and personal tutor sites. Content could include lecture and presentation slides, module handbooks, assignment briefs, and video recordings. Our aim is for all content built in and/or uploaded to Moodle to be fully accessible to all users. However, it is not possible to guarantee this, and it is not therefore possible to say which parts of WGU Moodle are accessible or not. 

      We do know that some parts of Moodle are not fully accessible and we are working hard to improve things. At the time of writing, we consider that the following accessibility issues are of greatest impact:

      • If the left-hand 'burger' menu is displayed, the screen reader may read it first. (users of screen readers may wish to hide the menu at first use).
      • Some Moodle areas have been set up using a grid layout that makes use of images, but does not allow for 'alt' text for those images to be input. This is true of many of the courses created before the 20/21 academic year.
      • Some images and audio video materials have not been provided with meaningful 'alt' text and are not perceivable to assistive technologies.
      • Some links in content created in Moodle have not been given an meaningful name (e.g. 'click here').
      • Some content created outside of Moodle (e.g. in Microsoft Word, PowerPoint, or PDF docs) and then uploaded to Moodle have accessibility issues (usually missing 'alt' text on images, or missing heading structures), and are therefore difficult to access and utilise using assistive technologies.
      • Most older PDF documents are not fully accessible to screen reader software.
      • Not all videos have captions.

  • In-built Assistive Technologies

    • WGU subscribe to two in-built tools to support our users' experience of Moodle.

      Recite toolbar

      The Recite Me assistive technology toolbar allows you to customise our digital content, so that it can be consumed in ways that work for you. The link to this Accessibility toolbar can be found on the menu options on the top left of the Moodle page. Options available include:

      • text-to-speech
      • ability to change font size
      • ability to change background colour
      • rule, screen mask and magnifying glass.

      For information on using the Recite toolbar, please visit our Recite Me support page.

      Blackboard Ally

      Blackboard Ally creates alternative files that are easier to use by all students. Next to files that have been uploaded by members of staff, students can download alternative formats, including readable text for screen readers, HTML, ePub, tagged PDF (for improved use with assistive technology), electronic braille, MP3 audio versions for listening, BeeLine Reader or a translated version.

      For more information about how Blackboard Ally works for students, you can visit the Ally for LMS Help for Students pages maintained by Blackboard.



  • Feedback and contact information

    • If you need information on this website in a different format and have not been able to download this using the Blackboard Ally tool, then please email: vle@glyndwr.ac.uk.   

      We will forward your message to the appropriate member of staff and get back to you as soon as possible.

  • 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: vle@glyndwr.ac.uk.

       Your message will be forwarded to the relevant team who will get back to you as soon as possible.

  • 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

  • Compliance Status

  • Non-accessible content

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

      Non-compliance with the accessibility regulations

      Images without a description

      Some images do 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). Our aim is for all new content added after 17th September 2020 (the time of our most recent major revision to our Moodle site) to include 'alt' text for all images.

      Links without meaningful purpose

      Some of the links are not labelled clearly. This means that links do not make sense when taken out of context, and for some links it is not possible to know what the purpose of the link is. This fails WCAG: 2.4.4 (link purpose in context). We will correct link text over time as we review each page.

      Video and audio controls

      Some videos and audio on our website do not have the required caption controls or transcriptions available (WCAG: 1.2.2, 1.2.4). In accordance with the regulations, all new content created after September 2020 will be made more accessible. 

      Issues with content in documents e.g. PowerPoint, Word and PDF

      Some PowerPoint, Word and PDF documents that are essential to learning, teaching and assessment may not meet accessibility standards, for example, they may not be marked up so they are accessible to a screen reader. 

      These issues will be addressed through a combination of provision of enhanced guidance, staff training and provision of accessible document templates (e.g. an accessible module handbook template in Word, an accessible PowerPoint slide template), use of Blackboard Ally to prompt improvement of accessibility, and use of Blackboard Ally course-level and institutional-level reports.

      Issues relating to the availability of accessible learning, teaching and assessment documents within Moodle should be raised first with the teaching team responsible for the Moodle area. Students should be able to use Blackboard Ally to download an alternative form; however if you continue to experience issues, you should contact vle@glyndwr.ac.uk. 

      Closed Captions for Video

      Some audio and video materials do not have text-based closed captions or transcripts. This issue will be addressed through a combination of provision of enhanced guidance and staff guidance. For videos uploaded into Panopto (the University’s platform for video streaming), closed captions, generated by automatic speech recognition (ASR) technology can be requested. ASR captions are typically 70-75% accurate, depending on the audio quality in the recording, the topic and the lecturer. Teaching teams will be encouraged to utilise this service wherever possible for audio and video resources used in teaching, learning and assessment, but students are advised not to rely solely on the captions when reviewing video content.

      However, for those students who require accurate captions as part of a reasonable adjustment, we can use human intervention to make corrections of automated captions. Students should either speak to their lecturer or they can email vle@glyndwr.ac.uk to discuss requirements. 

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

      This section covers issues that we do not need to fix right now. The law calls these exemptions.

      Portable Document Formats (PDFs) and documents

      Some of our PDFs that are not essential to providing our services were published before 23rd September 2018. We are implementing strategies to ensure that any new PDFs or documents we publish will meet accessibility standards. 

      If you have trouble accessing these documents, you could make use of the Blackboard Ally tool to download an alternative format. Alternatively, we will address specific issues on request. 

      We will focus our efforts on ensuring that Moodle and new content, created in and uploaded to it, is as accessible as possible going forward.

      Live video

      We do not plan to add captions to live video streams because live video is exempt from meeting the accessibility regulations. However, students who would benefit from captions on live sessions as a reasonable adjustment should speak to their lecturer about their requirements.

      Third-party content

      Our Moodle site contains third-party content. We do not have control over and are not responsible for the accessibility of this content, but we make best endeavours to work with the third-party to improve its accessibility. This may include:

      • Links to non-WGU websites
      • Content/functionality on our website.
      • Content hosted on other websites, such as social media sites.

      Wrexham Glyndwr University has been able to make use of  searchBOX, a centralised, independent directory of third-party accessibility information to help accessibility compliance across the sector. searchBOX catalogues the contact information and accessibility statements of third-party suppliers, enables the sharing of community-generated accessibility statements, and allows users to map their supplier ecosystem. 

      Users can access third-party accessibility statements using the free searchBOX Finder service. 

      Wrexham Glyndwr University will be encouraging all our partners and suppliers to support this effort by ensuring that their accessibility information is included in the searchBOX directory. 


  • What we're doing to improve accessibility

    • WGU has an accessibility working group who meet regularly and work on how the University can meet its obligations in relation to the new accessibility regulations for all of the University's digital provision.

      We have provided training opportunities and resources for members of staff on how to improve the accessibility of digital content for learning, teaching and assessment. 

      We have added a tool to Moodle called Blackboard Ally that enables students to download alternative formats from the VLE. It also helps to improve the accessibility of content uploaded to Moodle by prompting lecturers and other members of staff to fix accessibility issues. It also provides us with an institutional-level report and course-level reports, to help identify accessibility issues. We can then work to resolve these and to improve training and guidance for staff around the most common and most serious accessibility issues.

      We recognise that automatic captions may not always be entirely accurate. We are reviewing the options for providing more accurate captions on all videos shared via Panopto and Moodle, and will be making the case for more resource to allow for this.



  • Preparation of this accessibility statement

    • This statement was prepared on 22nd September 2020. It was last reviewed on 22nd October 2020.

      This website was last tested with assistive technologies on 13th May 2020, by members of staff at Wrexham Glyndwr University. We last made use of the institutional report available through Blackboard Ally on 22nd September 2020.