Accessibility

Owned by Chris F
Last updated: Mar 08, 2024 by Claudia Cox
3 min read

The Wiseflow platform was selected based on numerous requirements including accessibility for both students taking assessments and staff authoring and marking assessments.

This page includes UCL's  AssessmentUCL accessibility statement, as well as guidance for accessing alternative formats of the AssessmentUCL Resource Centre guides.

 

 

AssessmentUCL Accessibility statement

AssessmentUCL (WISEflow) is a cloud-based assessment platform which provides functionality to support the assessment journey for staff and students for a range of assessments including exams.  The platform supports author assessment content, assessment delivery, marking and internal moderation, external moderation and the provision of feedback to students. The platform also has tools for analytics and security.  

We want as many people as possible to be able to use this service. The service is run by UCL but the AssessmentUCL platform is provided by UNIwise. This means that certain aspects of its design are not under UCL’s control.  In such cases we lobby the supplier and use whatever influence we can to ensure accessibility is maximised. 

This Accessibility Statement describes the accessibility of the platform itself rather than the assessment materials. The assessment materials can take many different forms such as documents and media. UCL provides guidance to teachers on creating content that is as accessible as possible.

Accessibility of the platform 

AssessmentUCL adheres to the WCAG2.1 (ISO/IEC 40500:2012) and WAI-ARIA standards and recommendations, which are produced by W3C.  AssessmentUCL is partially compliant at Level AA, which indicates that staff and students should be able to do the following: 

  • in most cases, change colours, contrast levels and fonts 

  • in most cases, 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 (including the most recent versions of 

  • JAWS, NVDA and VoiceOver) 

For general guides on using assistive technologies with a range of devices visit: My Computer My Way.

Additionally, AssessmentUCL has built-in accessibility functions and tools that help students completing exams authored on the AssessmentUCL platform.  

Accessibility limitations  

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

  • The Flow overview page has a list of issues. As it stands it presents challenges for dyslexia, scotopic sensitivity, shade blindness, low vision, blindness and motor impairments. Once in the exam environment the accessibility tools become available which improves the situation somewhat. 

  • Some issues with font sizes and colour contrast outside of the exam interface. 

  • Tabbing order is problematic on some pages and also the use of arrow keys may change questions rather than navigating around the page. 

  • Drop-down menus not readable by a screenreader. 

  • Correct button labelling not available in some places. 

  • Drag and drop not accessible for keyboard users or screenreader users. 

  • Missing alt tags and empty table headers. 

  • The way exam papers are downloaded into the web interface which limits the interaction for the student with the paper. 

Technical information on accessibility  

UCL is committed to making its digital services accessible, in accordance with the Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) (No. 2) Accessibility Regulations 2018, which specifies the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) version 2.1 AA standard. On their published Accessibility Statement Uniwise state that currently their interface is partially compliant with the WCAG AA.  

What Uniwise are doing to improve accessibility 

Uniwise have identified accessibility improvements as a development priority for 2021. Details can be found in their published Accessibility Statement.  

Feedback and contact information

If you find any problems not listed on this page or think we're not meeting accessibility requirements, please email digitalaccessibility@ucl.ac.uk.

Enforcement procedure 

If you’re not happy with how we respond to an accessibility issue you have raised you may contact the Equality Advisory and Support Service (EASS). 

This statement was last reviewed in March 2021.  

AssessmentUCL guidance alternative formats

The guidance you are currently reading in the AssessmentUCL Resource Centre has been created to be accessible.

Captions have been provided alongside video.

Any page on this resource centre can be exported as a PDF or Word document. With the page open:

  1. Click the More options menu icon on the top right. It appears as three full stops.

  2. Select Export to PDF or Export to Word

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If you encounter any accessibility issues with using the Wiseflow platform or using the guidance provided, please contact digi-ed@ucl.ac.uk.