Last updated: 3rd March 2022

We want everyone who visits Cambridge Core to feel welcome and find the experience rewarding.

We are continually working to make Cambridge Core as accessible and usable as possible. To help us make it a positive place for everyone, we've been using the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1 [Opens in a new window]. These guidelines explain how to make web content more accessible for people with disabilities, and user friendly for everyone. The guidelines have three levels of accessibility (A, AA and AAA). The target for Cambridge Core is level AA.

Available functionality

You should be able to:

• change colours, contrast levels and fonts by adjusting browser settings. Different browsers include these options under different menus – they can usually be found under Tools, Settings, Options, Content or Reading View depending on the browser. There are also browser extensions specifically dedicated to changing colours and contrast options, e.g. Change Colors [Opens in a new window] for Google Chrome and Color Changer [Opens in a new window] for Mozilla Firefox.
• zoom in up to 400% without the text spilling off the screen for most of the website
• navigate most of the website using just a keyboard
• listen to most of the website using a screen reader (including the most recent versions of JAWS, NVDA and VoiceOver)
• use text to speech tools to read out website content in both PDF and HTML format (e.g. ClaroRead for Chrome browser). Text to speech tools are built into some browsers (e.g. Microsoft Edge) and are available as a plug-in for many others. Your phone, tablet or laptop accessibility settings are also likely to provide text to speech functionality.
• skip directly to main content and other important pages

Available formats

The majority of our content is available in both PDF and HTML format. These formats are not protected by Digital Rights Management (DRM). To open PDF files, you will need a PDF viewer such as Adobe Reader [Opens in a new window]. Please see the following guide for advice on using the inbuilt accessibility features of Adobe Reader: Reading PDFs with reflow and accessibility features [Opens in a new window].

In addition to our PDF and HTML content our users can generate shareable links to content via the Cambridge Core Share tool. This tool enables authors and readers to easily generate a link to an online, read-only view of a journal article. This link can be freely shared on social media sites such as Twitter and scholarly collaboration networks such as ResearchGate to enhance the impact and discoverability of research and opportunities for collaboration in research. For more information, please visit the services for sharing content [Opens in a new window] page.

Copy and Printing

The absence of Digital Rights Management software on our platform means assistive technology users should experience no barriers caused by print or copy restrictions – however normal copyright conditions still apply and can be found in our terms of use [Opens in a new window].

How accessible this website is

The majority of this website is fully accessible, and we run regular audits to identify any new problems. However, we know some parts of this website aren’t fully accessible:

• Some of our content which is in PDF format, hasn’t been designed for accessibility – for example, older archive content reproduced from original printed sources is presented in the form of scanned PDFs (where possible we offer an HTML alternative format).
• The PDF transformation service we currently use does not allow us to offer zooming up to 400% for PDF formatted content.
• Most tables within HTML format content are generally presented as images.
• Some images and videos within book and journals content do not currently have alternative text descriptions. We are working with our authors to provide this information where possible.
• Some marketing images and videos are not currently accessible, however we are working with our marketing team to ensure that descriptions for screen reader users are available across the site.
• No audio descriptions are currently present for videos, but synchronised captions are present for some videos.
• Third party software is used on the site to enhance the reading experience, for example: Hypothesis annotation tool, Code Ocean widget, HotJar user feedback tool and the Shareaholic social media linking tool. Whilst every effort is made to ensure that any third party we work with provide accessible software we cannot guarantee full AA compliance. Please let us know if you experience any problems (contact details provided below).
• Our citation service is currently provided by an external application and is not fully accessible at present.
• The Cambridge University Press navigation bar at the top of the screen is managed separately to the Cambridge Core website and is therefore audited independently to this site. It is currently under business review, for which accessibility is a key driver for improvements.
• Core share functionality is not fully accessible, since this is protected unlicensed content. Our read only functionality means that standard features such as copy and paste are not available. Links within the content are not available for keyboard users. We are currently looking into accessible alternative solutions. If you have any problems with Core share, please contact our technical team (please see details below).

What to do if you can’t access parts of this website

Cambridge University Press now publishes the majority of its new titles, and many older titles, in accessible ebook formats either for individual purchase or on platforms suitable for institutions. Where a work is unavailable for purchase in a suitable format, we welcome enquiries from both individuals and institutions to provide one. More information and the Accessibility Request Form can be found here. We aim to respond to any requests within 5-7 working days.

Technical information about this website’s accessibility

This website is partially compliant with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines version 2.1 [Opens in a new window] AA standard, due to the non-compliances listed in the report attached below.

Browser and mobile device support

Cambridge Core is optimised for modern browsers including Microsoft Edge, Mozilla Firefox, Apple Safari, and Google Chrome. You may experience unexpected behaviour in other browsers, although we use fully validated code which should work on any browser. However please note that we no longer support Internet Explorer 11.

Cambridge Core is responsive, it re-organises itself depending on the screen size and orientation of the device being used to view it. We test the experience on various devices including most popular IOS, Android and MS Windows phones and tablets.

How we test this website

This website undergoes regular testing against the above guidelines by development and quality assurance teams. Working with in house accessibility specialists, any actions derived from the testing are taken and prioritised into our future work.

We also conduct testing with users who have a variety of different types of disability to ensure the website is optimised for use with assistive technologies.

In addition, we work with the Digital Accessibility Centre (DAC) who audited the site against WCAG 2.1 As a result of the audit we achieved DAC Accessible AA accreditation[Opens in a new window] in February 2022

Engagement with accessibility services

Cambridge University Press have engaged with various accessibility initiatives and audits:

• RNIB Bookshare [Opens in a new window] collections (formerly Load2Learn) by donating digital files to the collection which ensures that accessible content reaches print disabled learners as fast as possible.
  
• The e-book accessibility audit [Opens in a new window], which is a joint project between several UK Higher Education Institution (HEI) disability and library services, Jisc and representatives from the book supply industry. The audit supports an inclusive approach by seeking to introduce a benchmark for accessibility in e-book platforms.  The focus is on key areas of practical user experience to measure basic accessibility functionality and guide targeted platform improvement.
  
• The ASPIRE project [Opens in a new window] which aims to standardise accessibility statements so that readers know the benefits they can exploit or the barriers they need to work around when accessing texts in digital format. Cambridge Core won a gold ASPIRE badge in January 2020. You can read more about our involvement with ASPIRE here [Opens in a new window].