Mahara accessibility statement

This accessibility statement applies to the Mahara e-portfolio tool, an external open-sourced platform, used within the University of Glasgow. We continue to work with Mahara to address any accessibility issues highlighted and deliver a solution or suitable work around.  

Using this website

The Mahara project team aims for inclusion. All people wanting to work with and access content on a Mahara site, including those with (temporary) disabilities or special needs should be able to do so. Mahara accessibility information is published at Accessibility - Mahara Wiki. 

AbilityNet has advice on making your device easier to use if you have a disability.

How accessible is Mahara

Mahara has tested their software against all three WCAG (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines) 2.1 levels. 

This is grouped into three categories:

Screens for viewing, creating, and editing content 

Screens that are accessible to majority of account holders and those that would view the site without an account can be navigated via an interaction with the keyboard and screen readers. Mahara prioritises these areas for the web accessibility for the biggest impact as that is where most interactions would be. 

Administration screens 

Most of the administration screens are accessible via the keyboard and screen readers. However, since administration is the most complex part of Mahara, there are still some pages that may have issues. Mahara is continuing to work on improving the accessibility and aim to address these issues in future versions. 

Mahara has a good level of accessibility when it comes to viewing and creating content. Mahara is continuing to test the administration pages to make them more accessible. With the right configuration, Mahara can be used by organisations that require compliance with WCAG 2.1 Level AA. 

Compliance status 

This website is partially compliant with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines version 2.1 AA standard, due to the non-compliances listed below. 

Non-accessible content 

There are areas in Mahara that are not yet fully compatible with WCAG 2.1, and Mahara is working on fixing these for the best experience possible. Some issues can be mitigated with a workaround while a select few may require major work, e.g., providing captions or transcripts for multimedia content if external services are not used. 

As Mahara is an e-portfolio platform, content is produced by individual users; students and staff, Mahara can only test core product screens such as front pages and the basic structure of portfolio pages. It is up to the portfolio authors to ensure the content they upload, i.e., their contributed content, is accessible. Portfolio authors have tools on hand to support them creating accessible content, e.g., to add alt text, to use appropriate heading levels that take page headings into consideration, to downsize uploaded images automatically for bandwidth considerations, keyboard accessible page layouts etc. 

For further information on specific issues which are under investigation by Mahara please refer to Mahara accessibility.

Feedback and contact information

If you experience any problems using the administration features, or other features, please report these using the guidance provided in the section ‘Reporting accessibility problems with this website’ below and this can be shared with the vendor to help further improve the service. 

If you need information on this website in a different format like accessible PDF, large print, easy read, audio recording or braille:

We’ll consider your request and get back to you in 5 days.

British Sign Language

BSL users can contact us via contactSCOTLAND-BSL, the online British Sign Language interpreting video relay service.

Find out more about BSL assistance: contactSCOTLAND

Reporting accessibility problems with this website

If you find any problems that aren’t listed on this page or think we’re not meeting the requirements of the accessibility regulations, contact:

We’ll consider your request and get back to you in 5 days.

Enforcement procedure

The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) is responsible for enforcing the accessibility regulations. If you’re not happy with how we respond to your complaint, contact the Equality Advisory and Support Service (EASS).

Technical information about this website’s accessibility

The University of Glasgow is committed to making its website accessible, in accordance with the Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) (No. 2) Accessibility Regulations 2018.

Content that is not within the scope of the accessibility regulations 

There may be older user-generated PDF and Word documents that have been published as resources onto Mahara by content owners and may not meet accessibility standards - for example, they may not be structured so they are accessible to a screen reader.  The accessibility regulations do not require fixes to PDF or other documents published before 23 September 2018 if they are not essential to providing our services. For resources that are being shared post 23 September 2020, ongoing advice and guidance will be provided to content owners to ensure any materials shared meet the accessibility regulations. 

There may be pre-recorded audio and video content created by content owners and published before 23 September 2020 which may not be accompanied with a text alternative, captions, audio description or sign language interpretation. The accessibility regulations do not require fixes to such content. It will be the decision of content owners to decide if older content should be re-created with text alternative, captions, audio description, or sign language interpretation to content pre-dating 23 September 2020.  For resources that are being shared post 23 September 2020, ongoing advice and guidance will be provided to content owners to ensure any materials shared meet the accessibility regulations. 

What we are doing to improve accessibility 

We are continually working to improve accessibility and will continue discussions with Mahara to ensure future versions are fully compliant with the Digital Accessibility Regulations 2018. If you have any feedback in relation to accessibility of this service, please use the contact details provided above in the section titled 'Feedback and Contact Information'. 

Preparation of this accessibility statement

This statement was prepared on 15th September 2020. It was last updated in October 2023. 

This page was last updated 27 October 2023.