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Accessibility statement

De Gruyter is committed to ensuring that our platform is accessible for all of our users, regardless of their ability or technology. We are constantly working on improving the accessibility and usability of our platform degruyter.com.

De Gruyter is working towards conforming with level AA of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.1 and Section 508 Standards of the U.S. Federal Accessibility Standard for degruyter.com.

Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1 standards are set by World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), the main international standards organization for the Internet. These guidelines are widely accepted as the gold standards for digital accessibility and serve as the basis of most accessibility regulations worldwide.

The Section 508 Standards were established to implement Section 508 of the U.S. Rehabilitation Act, which requires government agencies to provide access to electronic and information technologies for disabled individuals that is comparable to access available to non-disabled individuals.

De Gruyter’s approach


We aim to ensure that accessibility is at the core of our platform development.

We endeavor that all features and functionality on the degruyter.com platform are developed in line with WCAG 2.1 guidelines. Automated and manual testing is conducted to ensure new features and functionality conform to accessibility guidelines.

We aim to be open and transparent about what is not working well on our platform. Our aim is to resolve known issues as quickly as possible.

A full accessibility audit of the degruyter.com platform is conducted periodically to ensure it conforms to the current international accessibility guidelines. Any issues discovered are assessed and prioritized accordingly in our development roadmap.

Feedback is welcomed from users to notify us of any accessibility bugs they find. Your feedback helps us to improve degruyter.com. Please see below for contact options.

De Gruyter’s Accessibility Conformance Report


For a detailed review of how degruyter.com supports the WCAG 2.1 and Section 508 criteria, please refer to our Accessibility Conformance Report (based on VPAT v2.4).

Please note: this statement was last updated in October 2021, and all information contained within is correct as of that date.

We are currently working on getting an updated VPAT showing the current status of the website.

Accessibility status of degruyter.com


We want as many people as possible to be able to use this website and our content. You should be able to:

  • 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

The website is accessible for:

  • Usage with limited or no vision or perception of colour

  • Usage with limited or no hearing, and with no or limited vocal capability

  • Usage with limited reach

Recommended Browser
Google Chrome

Evaluation methods used for accessibility testing

  • The website was tested with assistive technologies (including screen reader, screen magnification, contrast switching, keyboard, speech recognition)

  • Testing with automated accessibility tools, such as:

    • Accessibility Insights for Web

    • Lighthouse Automation Tool

    • ClaroRead Screen Reader

Keyboard navigation
The TAB key can be used to navigate through links within the site menu and the main text of each page. Once a link has been highlighted, use the ENTER key to activate the link.

Headers
Our content pages use structured headers to aid legibility of the text. The first header on the page is the main content header followed by any appropriate sub-headers.

Changing the text size
Most browsers will allow you to change the font size. This will be reflected on the site.

Alternative content
For visitors using screen reader or speech browser software, we've provided sensible alternative text for most of the images where this alternative text will aid your understanding of the web page.

Tables
We are using tables for the display of tabular data. For users of screen readers and speech browsers, we associate headers with their respective rows and columns to aid legibility.

Magnification and Reflow
Text can be resized without assistive technology up to 300 percent without loss of content or functionality.

Copy and Printing
All content on degruyter.com is DRM-free. Printing or copying text through browser functionality is possible. Please keep in mind that copyright conditions apply and can be found in our Terms and Conditions. For details on permitted uses of the content, please contact our Rights Team at: rights@degruyter.com.

PDF files
To open PDF files, you need a PDF viewer such as Adobe Reader. Adobe provides advice on Adobe Reader’s accessibility features.

Detailed content and access options


degruyter.com is both an information source for anyone wanting to find information about the services of the publisher De Gruyter, and also the publishing platform for all electronic content published by De Gruyter and our partner publishers including a webshop.

As such, degruyter.com hosts content from journals, books and online databases.


Journals

Most journal content is offered in HTML and PDF format. Journal content from before 2012 and also content from some current journals is only available in PDF format. All PDFs can be downloaded by the user and viewed in a PDF viewer.

Most tables in HTML articles are compatible with screen readers and other assistive technologies. Some older content may not have alternative text for images.

PDF standards may have changed over the years and especially the PDFs for older content may not be accessible with screen readers or other assistive technologies.


Books

Book content is offered with HTML for metadata and PDF for the content itself. For all books, it is possible to download each chapter as a PDF. Many of the books additionally have a download option for the PDF of the complete book. Many books published after 2015 are also available in EPUB format. All PDF and EPUB files are downloadable from the site.

PDF standards may have changed over the years and especially the PDFs for older content may not be accessible with screen readers or other assistive technologies.

EPUB allows content to be enhanced for users with specific accessibility needs (e.g. dyslexia) or preferred reading modality (e.g. audio, tactile). EPUB offers further features such as e-sizeable fonts, changeable text and background colours, page bookmarking as well as passage highlighting and notes.


Databases

Most database content is offered in HTML. Some database products, which are based on print products, additionally have a PDF download option for the original text.

All tables are compatible with screen readers and other assistive technologies. All images/figures all have meaningful alternative text.


European Accessibility Act

De Gruyter has formed an internal working group with the aim to make all newly published content compliant with the European Accessibility Act which comes into effect in the summer of 2025. The working group has reviewed the guidelines and have defined the way forward to make them applicable to all content published in PDF format. Things like title and language tagging, alternative text for visual elements, semantic enrichment of structural elements, division of content, structure and style and additional metadata are part of the enhancements which will be taken forward.

Recent corrections to degruyter.com

  • We fixed some issues in the mobile website where links and buttons did not have a discernible name.
  • We fixed an issue where the "skip to content" button on the corporate content pages did not work.
  • We reviewed and corrected the color contrasts for various parts of the page.

Further known issues

  • We are aware that H2 headings are missing from the homepage of degruyter.com. This is due to the structure of the page, and we are working on a solution.
  • We are also working on better structure on our so-called "corporate content" pages which explain the services of De Gruyter to various user groups. This is a work in progress.
  • We intend to change the focus outline for the Cookie banner page, so that it can be more quickly addressed when tabbing through the site.

Contact Us


Should you experience any difficulty in accessing degruyter.com, please don’t hesitate to get in touch with our support team. We aim to respond within 3 business days.


This statement was last reviewed and updated on August 02, 2023

Downloaded on 19.3.2024 from https://www.degruyter.com/publishing/accessibility
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