Accessibility at Arden University

The European Accessibility Act (2025)

Arden’s commitment to the European Accessibility Act

At Arden, accessibility is a core value and a continual journey. We believe that everyone should be able to access education equitably and fully wherever they are and whatever barriers they may face. We are working to meet the requirements set forth in the European Commission’s European Accessibility Act, which comes into force on 28^th June 2025; not just in order to comply with the regulations, but also because we believe in what the Act stands for in aiming to bring a fairness and consistency of approach to all service users.

What is the European Accessibility Act (EAA)?

The European Accessibility Act (EAA) has been mandated by the European Commission to ensure harmonisation of member state approaches towards the accessibility of digital products and services. Whilst it is not a UK law, certain UK businesses need to comply with the legislation if their products or services are sold or accessed in the European Union (EU). 

The regulations relate to the accessibility of hardware, software and content of products and services such as computers and operating systems, websites and apps, customer and payment portals, transportation services, and audio/visual and media services, as well as a number of other areas.

The regulations require certain levels of technical conformance, most of which are illustrated by the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG), currently at level 2.1. Each digital service will need to demonstrate via an Accessibility Statement how they meet these requirements, as well as further information on how users can access the service or find out further information. 

Arden’s approach to the European Accessibility Act

At Arden, some of our digital services can be accessed by people in the EU and so we have deemed them in scope and subject to the regulations. At the time of writing this statement, the Act is very new and we do not yet have all the information about how it will be monitored and enforced across all EU member states. We have therefore taken a proactive approach to ensuring that we are committed to fulfilling our responsibilities, as well as working towards sector-leading best practice across all of our products and services.

We have worked with colleagues and students across the University to formulate plans and resources for testing, documentation, monitoring and guidance to ensure that we have a robust and inclusive process at an institutional level. We have also been working with our third-party service developers to ensure that they share our commitment to providing the most equitable experience for our users, and to request any required development or documentation. 

We are testing our internal services and documenting our findings and progress across the University. We are committed to progressing this important work across all levels of our organisation.

Next steps 

We will be testing our services and reviewing and publishing Accessibility Statements annually. These will be available via a central repository, as well as locally for each service at point of access. We will also continue to work with service owners and content creators to share best practice and guidance as it emerges, and to ensure that we have a shared responsibility across the institution to make our content and services accessible to all users.

Accessibility is one of Arden University’s core values; we want as many people as possible to be able to access and use our websites. To adapt our web content to your needs or preferences, you should be able to:

• Use our Accessibility Widget (provided by AccessiBe) to create an accessibility profile for yourself or to adjust the appearance, colour or orientation of our websites
• Resize text up to 200% without impact on the functionality of the website
• Zoom in up to 400% without loss of information or functionality
• Navigate the website using just a keyboard:

Tab to ‘Skip to content’ links at the top of the page to jump over repetitive information and access the main content

Tab through the content; the current location will be indicated by a clear visual change

Control our embedded media player to play audio and video materials

• Use a screen reader (e.g., JAWs, NVDA) to:

Listen to the content of web pages and use any functionality on the page

List the headings and subheadings on the page and then jump to their location on the page

Bring up a list of meaningful links on the page

• Use transcripts or closed captions with most audio and video materials

For additional accessibility information on our teaching and learning websites, please email us. To tell us about a disability and find out what support is available, students should contact our Inclusion Services Team.

We strive to exceed current accessibility standards. However, we know some elements of our websites may not be fully accessible. These include:

• Older legacy and archived material
• Some third-party content not created by Arden University
• Sites linked from Arden University pages but not run by Arden University
• Some of the activities in some of our older modules
• Some content created and shared in tutorials
• Older PDFs and Word documents may not be fully accessible to screen reader software
• The colour contrast for some text, particularly in older documentation, may not be sufficient

We’re always looking to improve the accessibility of our websites. If you find that a certain section of our website is not accessible and you can’t get access to the information that you need, please contact us to request support, and we will ensure that you are provided with the information you need.

Arden University is passionate about supporting all of our students to succeed, and we are very experienced in arranging reasonable adjustments and meeting our students’ accessibility needs. If you have a disability, a long-term health condition, mental health difficulties, neurodiversity or any other disability-related needs, please contact our Inclusion Services Team.