Falmouth Learn Accessibility Statement

Learn is the VLE which hosts content for Falmouth Online modules, courses pages, and staff resources.  

The name ‘Falmouth Learn’ is Falmouth University’s name for the Canvas VLE platform provided by Instructure. 

Falmouth University want as many people as possible to be able to use this software. For example, that means you should be able to: 

  • change colours, contrast levels and fonts using browser or device settings 
  • zoom in up to 400% without the text spilling off the screen 
  • navigate most of the website using a keyboard or speech recognition software 
  • listen to most of the website using a screen reader (including the most recent versions of JAWS, NVDA and VoiceOver) 

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

Instructure also publishes it’s own accessibility statement for the Canvas platform: 

How accessible this software is 

We know some parts of Learn are not fully accessible: 

  • Profile page – notifications 
  • Module homepages 
  • Announcements 
  • Inline file previews 
  • Gradebook (staff view) 
  • Calendar (editing event view) 

Feedback and contact information 

If you find any problems not listed on this page or think we’re not meeting accessibility requirements, contact us using our web form. 

Enforcement procedure 

The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) is responsible for enforcing the Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) (No. 2) Accessibility Regulations 2018 (the ‘accessibility regulations’). If you are not happy with how we respond to your complaint, contact the Equality Advisory and Support Service (EASS). 

Technical information about this software’s accessibility 

Falmouth University is committed to making Learn accessible, in accordance with the Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) (No. 2) Accessibility Regulations 2018. 

Compliance status 

The software has been tested against the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.2 AA standard. 

This software is partially compliant with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines version 2.2 AA standard, due to the non-compliances listed below. 

Non-compliance with the accessibility regulations 

Ensure an element's role supports it’s ARIA attributes - 4.1.2: MUST: Name, Role, Value (Level A) 

When ARIA attributes are used on HTML elements that are not in accordance with WAI-ARIA 1.1, they conflict with the semantics of the elements which can cause assistive technology products report nonsensical user interface (UI) information that does not represent the actual UI of the document.* 

Elements must only use supported ARIA attributes -4.1.2 Name, Role, Value  

Using ARIA attributes in roles where they are not allowed can interfere with the accessibility of the web page. Using an invalid role-attribute combination will, at best, result in no effect on the accessibility of the application and, at worst, may trigger behaviour that disables accessibility for entire portions of an application.* 

ARIA attributes must conform to valid values  

ARIA attributes starting with aria- must contain valid values. These values must be spelled correctly and correspond to values that make sense for a particular attribute in order to perform the intended accessibility function. Failure to comply with allowed values results in content that is not accessible to assistive technology users. * 

Interactive controls must not be nested - 4.1.2: MUST: Name, Role, Value (Level A) 

Nested interactive controls are not announced by screen readers. Affecting only certain areas when editing a calendar event. * 

Elements must meet minimum colour contrast ratio thresholds - (WCAG) 2.1 1.4.3 Contrast (Minimum) (Level AA) 

Some people with low vision experience low contrast, meaning that there aren't very many bright or dark areas. Everything tends to appear about the same brightness, which makes it hard to distinguish outlines, borders, edges, and details. Text that is too close in luminance (brightness) to the background can be hard to read.* 

Frames must have an accessible name - 4.1.2: MUST: Name, Role, Value (Level A) 

All frame or iframe elements in the document must have a title that is not empty to describe their contents to screen reader users.* 

Images must have alternate text - 1.1.1: MUST: Non-text Content 

All images must have alternate text to convey their purpose and meaning to screen reader users.* 

Scrollable region must have keyboard access - 2.1.1: MUST: Keyboard  

2.1.3: MUST: Keyboard (No Exception) 

Elements that have scrollable content should be accessible by keyboard.* 

* The locations of these issues are part of the software platform and out of our direct control. These issues have been raised with the supplier, and we hope they will be addressed during their next cycle of the development. 

Disproportionate burden 

Navigation and accessing information 

We have not classified any of the non-compliant content as a disproportionate burden to fix and we have not identified any issues that would class as an exemption under law. 

Content that’s not within the scope of the accessibility regulations 

PDFs and other documents 

The accessibility regulations do not require us to fix PDFs or other documents published before 23 September 2018 if they’re not essential to providing our services.  

Any new PDFs or Word documents we publish will meet accessibility standards. 

What we’re doing to improve accessibility 

Our accessibility roadmap shows how and when we plan to improve accessibility of Learn. 

To summarise, these include: 

  • Reacting quickly and effectively to feedback regarding non-compliant content and communicating these issues to relevant the parties. 
  • Periodically auditing our content for accessibility issues and correcting any issues. 
  • Regularly meeting with this third-party supplier feeding back accessibility issues and working with them to improve their services. 

Preparation of this accessibility statement 

This statement was first prepared on 12/08/2020. It was last reviewed on 27/10/2025.   

Learn was last tested on 27th October 2025 against the WCAG 2.2 AA standard. 

The test was carried out by the Digital Learning team at Falmouth University. The most viewed pages were tested using automated testing tool, Axe DevTools. A further audit of the software was carried out to the WCAG 2.2 AA standard.