Web Accessibility Statements

Accessibility Statement for the OCC Website 

This is an accessibility statement from Oakland Community College. 

Measures to support accessibility 

Oakland Community College takes the following measures to ensure accessibility of the OCC Website: 

  • Assigning clear accessibility goals and responsibilities for the website 
  • Running monthly Siteimprove tests of the site’s accessibility  
  • Valuing accessibility as the first of our three core values: ACCESSIBLE - We welcome people of diverse backgrounds and abilities. 
  • Maintaining an office and digital platform designed to provide accommodations to students with disabilities 

Conformance status 

The  Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) define requirements for designers and developers to improve accessibility for people with disabilities. It defines three levels of conformance: Level A, Level AA, and Level AAA. The OCC Website is conformant  with WCAG 2.0 Level A and we are actively working towards Level AA.

Feedback 

We welcome your feedback on the accessibility of the OCC Website. While we strive to make the site fully accessible, please let us know if you encounter accessibility barriers on the OCC Website using the website reporting form. 

We try to respond to feedback within 2 business days. 

Compatibility with browsers

The OCC Website may not perform to our standard with browsers older than 3 major versions or mobile operating systems older than 5 years.

Technical specifications 

Accessibility of the OCC Website relies on the following technologies to work with the particular combination of web browser and any assistive technologies or plugins installed on your computer: 

  • HTML 
  • WAI-ARIA 
  • CSS 
  • JavaScript 

These technologies are relied upon for conformance with the accessibility standards used. 

Limitations and alternatives 

Despite our best efforts to ensure accessibility of the OCC Website, there may be some limitations. Below is a description of known limitations, and potential solutions. Please contact us if you observe an issue not listed below. 

Known limitations for the OCC Website: 

  • Images: Images may not have text alternatives. Because legacy content did not include text alternatives. We require all newly uploaded images to have meaningful text alternatives. We are working our way through old images to repair this issue. If you encounter an image without a text alternative, please report the issue. 
  • PDFs: While we have made progress, not all PDF's are accessible. Some are not tagged properly for screen readers, some lack text alternatives for images, and others may have additional issues because historically, all PDFs have not been reviewed for accessibility. All new PDFs are tested and repaired before they can be posted to our site. We are working our way through old PDFs as we become aware of issues with each. We remove the PDF, make it accessible, or replace it with accessible web content. Additionally, we must sometimes link to third party PDFs over which we have no control. When we discover a third-party PDF creates a barrier, we let that party know about the issue. If you experience an issue with a PDF, report the issue with the form and let OCC know your desired resolution. 
  • Video: Not all videos have meaningful captions, audio descriptions, or media alternatives because we cannot ensure the quality of all past uploads. We require all newly posted media to be accessible to our standard. We are removing older media or adding meaningful captions, audio descriptions, or media alternatives. All videos on our site must be delivered via YouTube and use closed captioning or open captioning that has been reviewed before publishing. If you discover a video without meaningful captions or with other issues, report the issue with the form and let OCC know your desired resolution.
  • Keyboard navigation:  Some form controls are titled but unlabeled, some pages skip heading levels, and other issues may be encountered because legacy content does not conform to current standards. We are working to rectify the known keyboard navigation issues that affect the entire site (unlabeled form controls, anchor links without text, and positive tab index values). Known site-wide issues should be remedied by October 2022, except for issues with the calendar and site search, which will be completed by December 2022. We are working through the page-level issues (skipped heading levels) as each page comes up for review. Report the issue with the form and let OCC know your desired resolution. 
  • Text: May not scale because the viewport meta tag disabled user scaling in some pages. We are updating the viewport meta tag sitewide, and this should be remedied by January 2023.Report the issue with the form and let OCC know your desired resolution. 

Assessment approach 

Oakland Community College assessed the accessibility of the OCC Website by the following approaches: 

  • Self-evaluation with Siteimprove, Google Lighthouse, and AXE
  • External evaluation
  • Our site is continually evaluated through bi-annual review of the content. Testing various environments occurs at a major re-design or re-launch.

Evaluation report 

An evaluation report for the OCC Website is available.

Formal complaints 

Formal approval of this accessibility statement 

This Accessibility Statement is approved by: 

ACCESS Office 
Dean of Academic Support Services 

Marketing & Communications 
Marketing & Communications Vice Chancellor 

Date 

This statement was drafted in September 2022 using the  W3C Accessibility Statement Generator Tool and finalized in October 2022 after revision and review. 

First published 10/15/2022. This version published 10/15/2022.