EBSCO's goal is to provide a positive experience for all customers and users. To this end, accessibility is a key consideration in all of its product development and delivery strategies. EBSCO makes every reasonable effort to have its products and services available to all customers and users, especially those with disabilities, allocating significant time and resources towards ensuring its customers and users have equal access.
Measures to support accessibility
EBSCO Information Services takes the following measures to ensure accessibility of EBSCOhost, EBSCO Discovery Service:
- Appoint an accessibility manager
- Provide continual accessibility training for our staff, including by third party experts
- Assign clear accessibility targets and responsibilities
- Employ formal accessibility quality assurance methods
- Work directly with institutions and their users to understand problems and areas for improvement
- Conduct usability research with users with disabilities
- Partner with various organizations for support, training, and research
Conformance status
The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) defines requirements for designers and developers to improve accessibility for people with disabilities. It defines three levels of conformance: Level A, Level AA, and Level AAA. EBSCOhost, EBSCO Discovery Service is partially conformant with WCAG 2.1 level AA.
Partially conformant means that some parts of the content do not fully conform to the accessibility standard. The Accessibility Conformance Report (VPAT) for this product outlines the timelines to resolve known issues. As of 2023 the EBSCOhost/EDS product is substantially conformant with WCAG, and most known issues relate to third party publisher-supplied content.
Important note: Over the course of 2022-23 EBSCO will be replacing the user interface for EBSCO Discovery Service and EBSCOhost with a refreshed, more modern platform with enhanced accessibility (EBSCO New UI). All known conformance issues outside of third-party content will be resolved with this platform.
Other relevant standards
- Section 508 of U.S. Rehabilitation Act, 29 U.S.C. § 794d and subsequent revisions
- EN 301 549 Accessibility requirements suitable for public procurement of ICT products and services in Europe
Feedback
We welcome your feedback on the accessibility of EBSCOhost, EBSCO Discovery Service. Please let us know if you encounter accessibility barriers on EBSCOhost, EBSCO Discovery Service:
- Phone: US/Canada: (800) 758-5995, Outside US/Canada: -00- 800-3272-6000
- E-mail: accessibility@ebsco.com
- Postal address: 10 Estes St, Ipswich, MA, USA 01938
- Twitter: @EBSCO
We try to respond to feedback within 2 business days.
Compatibility with browsers and assistive technology
EBSCOhost, EBSCO Discovery Service is designed to be compatible with the following assistive technologies:
- Chrome with JAWS on Windows
- Firefox with NVDA on Windows
- Safari with VoiceOver on MacOS
- Safari with VoiceOver on iOS
- Chrome with Talkback on Android
EBSCOhost, EBSCO Discovery Service may not be fully compatible with:
- Browsers older than 2 major versions.
- Mobile operating systems older than 2 major versions.
Technical specifications
Accessibility of EBSCOhost, EBSCO Discovery Service relies on the following technologies to work with the particular combination of web browser and any assistive technologies or plugins installed on your computer:
- HTML
- WAI-ARIA
- CSS
- JavaScript
These technologies are relied upon for conformance with the accessibility standards used.
Additional accessibility features
- Text-to-speech feature on HTML full-text articles, including MP3 download for multi-modal learning and portability
- Headings and landmarks for screen reader navigation
- Descriptive text for images and non-text elements
- Accessible full-text formats such as HTML, EPUB and articles free of Digital Rights Management (DRM-free)
- Transcripts for videos
- Responsive user interfaces for access different sized devices
Assessment approach
EBSCO Information Services assessed the accessibility of EBSCOhost, EBSCO Discovery Service by the following approaches:
- Self-evaluation
- External evaluation
Formal complaints
We aim to respond to accessibility feedback within 2 business days: accessibility@ebsco.com
This statement was created on 7 April 2020 using the W3C Accessibility Statement Generator Tool. Last updated January 5, 2023.