Accessibility Statement

Accessibility Statement for Blackboard, Aberystwyth University’s Virtual Learning Environment (VLE)

This statement relates to all webpages beginning blackboard.aber.ac.uk.

Blackboard is a commercial product, designed and developed in accordance with the internationally recognised Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0 Level AA. Details of the accessibility of the user interface are available on Blackboard’s website.

We want as many people as possible to be able to use this service. For example, that means you should be able to:

  • 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
  • enable high contrast styles
  • collapse the course menu to reduce the clutter on the page and help you focus on the task at hand.

Blackboard recommends the use of JAWS when accessing Blackboard using Firefox or VoiceOver On a Mac when using Safari. Further information about Screen readers and Blackboard is available. 

How accessible this system is

We know some parts of Blackboard aren’t fully accessible:

  • most older PDF documents aren’t fully accessible to screen reader software
  • most Panopto lecture recordings don’t have captions
  • some course menus that have been amended to include textured backgrounds or poor colour contrast
  • some text made using the content editor
  • some images that have been uploaded without alternative text
  • some documents uploaded into the VLE which are not accessible

For more details, see our technical accessibility statement.

Feedback and contact information

If you need information on Blackboard in a different format like accessible PDF, large print, easy read, audio recording or braille, please contact us.

Users of Blackboard can:

Reporting accessibility problems with this website

If you find any problems not listed on this page or think we’re not meeting accessibility requirements, please contact us.

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).