ABSTRACT
While institutional repositories have long focused on ensuring the availability of research, recent university initiatives have begun to focus on other aspects of open access, such as digital accessibility. Indiana University’s institutional repository (IR), IUScholarWorks, audited the accessibility of its existing content and created policies to encourage accessible submissions. No established workflows considering accessibility existed when this audit took place, and no additional resources were allocated to facilitate this shift in focus. As a result, the Scholarly Communication team altered the repository submission workflow to encourage authors to make their finished documents accessible with limited intervention. This paper shares an overview of the accessibility audit that took place, the changes made to our submission process, and finally provides tips and resources for universities who aim to integrate accessibility more thoroughly into their IR practices.
As web accessibility initiatives increase across institutions, it is important not only to reframe and rethink policies for digital repositories, but also to develop sustainable and tenable methods for enforcing accessibility efforts. For institutional repositories, it is imperative to determine the extent to which both the repository manager and the user are responsible for depositing accessible content. With recent budgetary restrictions and hiring freezes affecting many institutions, developing accessibility strategies with limited resources is more essential than ever. This paper will share the accessibility framework created by the Indiana University Scholarly Communication team; it also aims to help repository and content managers craft sustainable, long-term goals for accessible content in institutional repositories, while also providing openly available resources for short-term benefit.
The Scholarly Communication Team identified a spectrum of accessibility services, ranging from applying nascent accessibility practices to programs and platforms with no previous standards to implementing long term, sustainable solutions that balance library-mediated services with occasional user intervention. When initiating new policies, responsibility for accessibility will often fall more heavily upon the user, while ideal practices aim to be more collaborative in nature. Initially, instead of concentrating resources on retroactively deleting non-accessible content, we focused on our submission process, which we believe emphasizes the importance of depositing accessible documents. We created guidelines that allow users to add basic accessibility improvements without needing to significantly restructure or rewrite their document. Our guidelines provide “quick fixes” that authors can easily implement to their finished documents prior to submission, including adding structural tags and alt text, clearly labeling lists, and identifying document language. Moving forward, we aim to implement sustainable accessibility standards for deposited work, regardless of format or origin.
Institutional repository managers have often had difficulties incorporating web accessibility into their software and content. Most institutions with such repositories do not have the available resources to expand beyond the accessibility pre-built into popular repository platforms – and a large majority of IR software does not include particularly stringent accessibility features.Footnote1 Thus, depending on the submission process of the IR, responsibility for depositing accessible content falls on either the staff facilitating deposit, or the user submitting the content in question. While the types of files shared can vary greatly, most content deposited into IRs are text-based, such as grey literature or published papers. Grey literature is most often shared in Word documents or exported to PDF, whereas final-published articles are highly likely to be published in PDF. While there are many online resources available for creating accessible text-based files from various file formats, such as Microsoft Word DOCs and PDFs, the content in many IRs continued to be inaccessible by Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) standards – a problem that originates with publishers and is often neglected within most IR submission practices.
Studies have shown that while a majority of publishers produce accessible HTML versions of articles, the PDF versions of the same articles are often untagged and inaccessible.Footnote2 This unfortunately puts IRs at a disadvantage for accessibility, even when publishers allow final versions to be shared – while the final typeset version is the most visually appealing and likely to be cited, it is less likely to be accessible. Similar trends are seen amongst open access journals with licenses that allow for final PDFs to be shared.Footnote3 Since publishers are not prioritizing accessible PDF files, those interested in submitting their work into institutional repositories have to potentially take initiative for accessibility. Many authors are already overwhelmed by rights checking and versioning language as barriers for submission.Footnote4 Understandably, to avoid discouraging users from submitting work to IRs, repository managers often consciously choose to avoid strict accessibility policies to submitted content.Footnote5 This prioritization of availability over accessibility is by no means a wholly negative thing – after all, even if the document is not fully accessible, making it open access still increases the democratic spread of information – but the goal of the scholarly communication is to continually strive for improved access on all spectrums. When faced with our own web accessibility shortcomings, we decided to take action in any way that we could.
The IU Libraries’ Scholarly Communication department’s investigation into repository digital accessibility was initiated by an upper-level administration call for accessibility auditing. We conducted a wide-scale audit of our department’s entire web presence, including: public information websites, internal wiki pages, the more than 55 journals in our journals publishing program, the department WordPress blog, departmental LibGuides, and most importantly, our open access repository, IUScholarWorks (IUSW). The audit aimed to assess these websites by WCAG standards, as recommended by several guidelines on library digital accessibility.Footnote6 Our department utilized several open and freely available online accessibility review tools for this audit: the Web Accessibility Evaluation Tool (WAVE), Functional Accessibility Evaluator (FAE), and Google Lighthouse.Footnote7 This audit highlighted several key areas of improvement, allowing us to update the accessibility of our web content; this included updating alt-text for all visuals, removing empty links, presenting fully accessible contact and reporting forms, and adding new colors/shading for the visually impaired. Unfortunately, this audit also highlighted that the content in IUScholarWorks was largely inaccessible – due in large part to our previous oversight of accessibility and limited intervention in the submission process.
IUScholarWorks runs on the open-source repository software DSpace, and was made public in 2007. Since its inception over a decade ago, there has been no formal accessibility policy for deposit, a fact that this audit highlighted. With over 12,000 works of various file formats, sizes, and levels of accessibility (and no additional resources provided to our department to process such content), we made the strategic decision to focus on a future policy and rehaul of our submission process. While our back content may remain inaccessible until we receive additional funding, our new submission process would ideally encourage accessible submission without overburdening our current repository staff.
After reviewing our own repository, IUScholarWorks, we realized that addressing and improving its accessibility would require more nuanced changes than many of our other solutions. Instead of simply making one-shot structural changes (like alt-text and color-palette), improving our repository’s accessibility would require long term and continuous work from both the repository manager and those submitting their work to the repository. To begin, we identified a five-step spectrum of accessibility policies, ranging from entirely user-dependent accessibility practices to entirely library automated processes. Step One is for institutions with no prior accessibility practices or guidelines; the user is entirely responsible for the accessibility of their documents, and whatever each author decides to do with their document is what is deposited. In Step Two, the library provides guidelines or recommendations to improve a document’s accessibility, but the user must choose to implement said recommendations. Step Three balances responsibilities equally between library and user. In Step Four, the library is even more involved and provides resources such as batch accessibility edit services, although tech intervention is minimal. In Step Five, accessibility services are completely library facilitated; each institution will have different requirements for achieving long term, sustainable accessibility policies, so be sure to assess the needs and available resources of your institution to establish solutions to fixing IR inaccessibility. The spectrum is fully illustrated in .
Figure 1. Spectrum of accessibility policies
Upon beginning the accessibility audit, our department was at Step One; we had no formal policies regarding IR accessibility, nor did we provide any additional resources to improve the accessibility of submitted documents. After completing the audit, we decided that Step Two was the most attainable step given our resources and funding allocations. In moving towards Step Two, we focused on the submission process, deciding to rework our current submission guidelines to encourage users to submit accessible documents.
IUSW follows a three-step submission process that all users must follow to deposit their work into the repository. Users are first responsible for checking the rights of their work, ensuring that they can legally deposit their work. The second step requires users to contact IUSW for authorization and to decide on the collection to which they want to submit their work. In the third and final step, users followed our old submission guide to submit their work. Our submission process emphasizes the importance of the submission and requires a division of labor between the author and departmental staff; each user is responsible for checking copyright and communicating with the Scholarly Communication department, but the actual submission process is done by library staff. We decided that incorporating accessibility guidelines into an already dialogic and balanced process would facilitate our move from Step One to Step Two on the accessibility spectrum. We wanted to emphasize the importance of depositing accessible documents, so we decided to rework our submission guide to include a section on accessibility. By positing accessibility as a part of the submission process, we hope to encourage users to think about accessibility as part of the creation process, not something perfunctory.
Our goal in reworking the submission guide was to develop new submission guidelines that emphasized the importance of depositing accessible documents. With our current resources, we were unable to improve the accessibility of back content, but we intended that improvement to the submission guide would render all-new content accessible. However, we posited the accessibility guidelines as recommendations, not requirements. We decided that depositing as much content as possible was the utmost goal for the repository, and we did not want to discourage anybody from submitting or overwhelm submitters with requirements. To do this, we provided quick guidelines on making the most commonly submitted file types accessible. These guidelines serve as “quick-fixes” that authors can implement on an already completed document to make it more accessible. These changes do not place too much of a burden on authors, but they are also sustainable for our department.
To begin creating the “quick fixes,” we first researched accessibility policies in other IRs and general university accessibility guidelines, especially among our peer institutions. Of the many resources and policies we reviewed, we found the University of Washington’s IT Accessibility Checklist & Tutorial most helpful, and based many of our changes off their suggestions.Footnote8 We identified a list of best practices for creating accessible documents or improving the accessibility of an already finished document and prioritized them in order of importance, i.e., the fixes that made the greatest impact on a document’s accessibility were placed at the top of the list. These best practices were for both word and PDF, the two most common file types submitted. After researching other accessibility policies, we decided to include the following tips and guidelines for improving a document’s accessibility. They are:
Use headings/structural tags
Add alternative text
Export from Word to PDF to preserve accessibility
Other tips, including how to identify document language, use meaningful hyperlinks, and properly format lists
Once these four tips were identified, we incorporated them into our existing submission guide. They do, however, also exist as a stand-alone document to facilitate sharing our guidelines as a resource.
The old submission guide included a six-step process. The steps were:
Describe
Authors provided basic metadata elements, such as title, author(s), and date
Describe (again)
Authors provided additional metadata, such as subject keywords, abstract, and rights
Upload
Authors uploaded a file of their document
Review
Authors reviewed the metadata and ensured that the correct file was attached
License
Authors agreed to the IUScholarWorks License
Complete
Authors submitted their work to the repository
We created a new submission step from the accessibility guidelines, titling it as an optional “Accessibility Check,” and placed it between steps 2 (describe) and 3 (upload, now step 4) to form a new, seven-step submission process. The original accessibility guidelines were two pages, but we made the difficult decision to consolidate them to a single page, as we believed this increased their usability and we did not want to overwhelm users with an excessively long submission guide.
Upon incorporating the guidelines, we also updated the submission guide to create a new, accessible document, as our previous document was not accessible. We used the update as a run-through of our accessibility guidelines, ensuring that our submission guide document adhered to our four accessibility tips. Our old submission guide relied heavily on screenshots to convey information to users, so we also updated the captions to replicate all content found on the screenshots. When we were finished, we had a new, accessible submission guide that included tips on increasing the accessibility of submitted documents. This process has moved us from Step One to Step Two on the accessibility policies spectrum: our department provided users with guidelines and recommendations, but the majority of responsibility for the accessibility of the repositories’ content remained on the users, as they were the only ones responsible for assuring that they were submitting accessible documents. As our department was given no additional resources to improve our IRs accessibility, moving from Step One to Step Two was the best decision for our department, as it best fit our capabilities and provided us with sustainable improvements. Each department’s needs and resources will vary, so be sure to consider the nuances of your institution before making any changes.
After putting our new submission guidelines into place, we began to see some improvement in the accessibility of our newly committed materials. An informal assessment, comparing a random sample PDF and Word document content submitted by users over the last 6 months to previously submitted content showed a 38% increase in accessible files. While we are unable to explicitly link this to our new submission materials, we hope this trend will continue moving forward. We are also currently developing plans for a more robust assessment of accessibility in IUScholarWorks towards the end of the Fall 2020 semester, as well as conducting assessments for our other open access repository and new data repository launching this fall.
As we continue to develop our accessibility strategy, we hope to expand the formats in which we can provide accessibility assistance, as well as look forward to future repositories that integrate accessibility concerns at the development level. While the current pandemic and resulting budgetary constraints may limit our initial plans for tackling our back content, we plan to have student workers begin to prioritize making our most viewed PDFs accessible over the course of the next year. Overall, one of the most essential lessons our department gained from the accessibility audit and subsequent measures involved realizing that accessibility should be integrated within a system, rather than an optional recommendation. Since there are tentative plans for us to move onto a new platform for our institutional repository within three to 5 years, we have an opportunity to keep this in mind and make long-term changes for our next migration.
With the rise in accessibility initiatives among libraries and higher education institutions, many departments will have to rework or reconsider some of their services to improve their accessibility with minimal increases in available resources. Upon auditing the accessibility of their content and services, the Scholarly Communication Department at Indiana University Bloomington’s Libraries discovered the need to rework their institutional repository policies and processes, as no previous accessibility recommendations, guidelines, or services were in place. Given our resources, we focused on encouraging users to deposit accessible content moving forward; to accomplish this, we reworked our submission guide to include an accessibility checklist and guidelines for making documents more accessible. In the 6 months following the changes, the department saw a 38% increase in accessible files deposited to IUSW. While we cannot directly connect this rise to our new submission guide, we hope that moving forward the trend continues, and that the Scholarly Communication Department will be able to implement library-facilitated integrated accessibility requirements.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Margaret McLaughlin
Margaret McLaughlin is Scholarly Communication Graduate Assistant, Indiana University Bloomington, Bloomington, Indiana, USA.
Jenny Hoops
Jenny Hoops is Open Access Publishing Manager, Indiana University Bloomington, Bloomington, Indiana, USA.
Notes
1. Jean Gabriel Bankier and Kenneth Gleason, Institutional Repository Software Comparison (UNESCO, 2014), http://www.unesco.org/new/en/communication-and-information/resources/publications-and-communication-materials/publications/full-list/institutional-repository-software-comparison/ (accessed December 13, 2020).
2. Julius T. Nganji, “The Portable Document Format (PDF) Accessibility Practice of Four Journal Publishers,” Library & Information Science Research 37, no. 3 (2015): 254–62, doi:10.1016/j.lisr.2015.02.002.
3. Bill Marino and Katherine F. Mason, “Exploring Accessibility in DOAJ: A Case Study,” Serials Review 46, no. 2 (2020): 82–90, doi:10.1080/00987913.2020.1782632.
4. Hui Zhang, Michael Boock, and Andrea A. Wirth, “It Takes More than a Mandate: Factors that Contribute to Increased Rates of Article Deposit to an Institutional Repository,” Journal of Librarianship and Scholarly Communication 3, no. 1 (2015): eP1208, doi:10.7710/2162-3309.1208.
5. Denise Troll Covey, “Recruiting Content for the Institutional Repository: The Barriers Exceed the Benefits,” Journal of Digital Information 12, no. 3 (2011): 1–18, https://journals.tdl.org/jodi/index.php/jodi/article/view/2068 (accessed December 13, 2020).
6. Monica D. T. Rysavy and Russell Michalak, “Assessing the Accessibility of Library Tools & Services When You Aren’t an Accessibility Expert: Part 1,” Journal of Library Administration 60, no. 1 (2020): 71–79, doi: 10.1080/01930826.2019.1685273.
7. WebAIM at Utah State University, “WAVE Web Accessibility Evaluation Tool,” https://wave.webaim.org/ (accessed June 30, 2020); Jon Gunderson, “Functional Accessibility Evaluator (FAE),” https://fae.disability.illinois.edu/anonymous/?Anonymous±Report=%2F (accessed June 30, 2020); and Google Developers, “Lighthouse,” https://developers.google.com/web/tools/lighthouse (accessed June 30, 2020).
8. University of Washington, “IT Accessibility Checklist,” https://www.washington.edu/accessibility/checklist/ (accessed June 30, 2020).
Appendix A.
IU Resources
Provided at this link are openly sourced versions of the following resources mentioned throughout this paper: https://bit.ly/iunasig
Template for an Accessibility Audit using free, openly available software
Original IUScholarWorks submission guide
Updated IUScholarWorks submission guide with accessibility guidelines
The extracted “Quick Fixes” accessibility guidelines