Moodle Archive (VLE)

  • Publication date September 19, 2019
  • (Updated On October 6, 2023)

Accessibility statement for Moodle Archive

This accessibility statement applies to City, University of London’s Moodle website (https://moodle.city.ac.uk). Moodle is an online learning platform (or virtual learning environment) for staff and students. It does not cover external websites and services that may be linked to from inside this website or have content embedded in this website as these are covered by additional accessibility statements. The Moodle Archive uses version 3.9 of Moodle and this statement was prepared with regard to version 3.9.

This website (Moodle – https://moodle.city.ac.uk) is run by City, University of London. We want as many people as possible to be able to use this website. For example, that means you should be able to:

  • change colours, contrast levels and fonts
  • zoom in up to 300% without the text spilling off the screen
  • navigate most of the website using just a keyboard
  • navigate most of the website using speech recognition software
  • listen to most of the website using a screen reader (including the most recent versions of JAWS, NVDA and VoiceOver)

We’ve also made the website text as simple as possible to understand.

How accessible this website is

Our goal is for this website (Moodle – https://moodle.city.ac.uk) to be fully accessible and usable for all users regardless of ability. However the variety of third-party plugins and user-generated content means it is very difficult to maintain a fully accessible site.

Moodle core code is supplied by moodle.org and programming follows ARIA recommendations to inform assistive technologies. Core developers follow established best practices and new features are thoroughly tested before being released. City’s own plugins and code modifications are carried out using established best practices and new features are thoroughly tested before being released.

Moodle uses the ‘Atto’ text editor as standard. This has a number of features to encourage accessible content authoring including a limited set of html editing functions (to discourage user-defined html styles), an in-built accessibility checker, a maths equation to text converter and enforced image alt tags.

Moodle maintains a list of supported accessibility tools at the url below:
https://docs.moodle.org/dev/Accessibility

Moodle forms created with the standard forms library are designed to be accessible.

We know some parts of this website are not fully accessible:

  • Moodle contains lots of user files which must be downloaded to be viewed. These are mostly Adobe PDF, Microsoft Word, Excel and Powerpoint formats and these may not be fully accessible to screen reader software or constructed using accessibility features.
  • Moodle themes using Bootstrap (such as the City theme) do not support accessibility by default. Bootstrap has an “aria” javascript module that adds accessibility to some features such as menus.
  • Some video streams won’t contain captions or have transcripts available
  • Most video streams won’t have audio descriptions
  • Some images do not have alternative text

Feedback and contact information

If you need information on this website (Moodle – https://moodle.city.ac.uk) in a different format like accessible PDF, large print, easy read, audio recording or braille, contact:

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

If you cannot view the map on our ‘contact us’ page, call or email us for directions (https://www.city.ac.uk/about/contact).

Reporting accessibility problems with this website

If you find some content or a document that is not accessible, you should speak to the owner of the content or your module leader or your personal tutor or your course officer in the first instance about how they can provide an alternative.

We are always looking for ways to improve the accessibility of this website (Moodle – https://moodle.city.ac.uk). If you find any problems not listed on this page or you think we’re not meeting accessibility requirements, contact:

For more information about IT Services for students, please visit the website listed below.
Student Hub: IT Services

Complaints procedure

In the event that you remain dissatisfied, then please follow the University’s existing complaints procedure. You may wish to consider escalating your concerns to the Neurodiversity or Disability team ( SCMHAS@city.ac.uk ) in the first instance under stage 1 of this procedure, before completing the stage 2 complaints 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’re not happy with how we respond to your complaint, contact the Equality Advisory and Support Service (EASS).

Contacting us by phone or visiting us in person

To get in touch with someone to discuss accessibility issues for this website (Moodle – https://moodle.city.ac.uk), please contact:

For more information about IT Services for students please visit the website listed below.
Student Hub: IT Services

Technical information about this website’s accessibility

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

Compliance Status

This website (Moodle – https://moodle.city.ac.uk) is partially compliant with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines version 2.1 AA standard, due to the non-compliances listed below.

Non-accessible content

The content listed below is non-accessible for the following reasons.

Non-compliance with the accessibility regulations

Moodle maintains a list of accessibility issues and these are constantly being worked on.

Examples of these issues include using ‘drag and drop’ with a keyboard, using Moodle filepicker with a keyboard, ambiguous or missing labelling of form elements, inconsistent use of header elements, inconsistent behavior of screen reader with error text, navigation missing ARIA labelling, icon contrast too low, keyboard navigation on pages where paginated data are displayed, inability to embed accessibility metadata with rich media etc.

Specifically, there are the following issues:

  • Not all images currently have alternative text
  • Not all complex images (graphs and flow charts) contain alternative descriptions
  • Transcripts and captions are not provided with all video content
  • Transcripts and captions are not currently provided with audio/visual feedback on Moodle assignments
  • Some link text doesn’t make sense when read on its own (for example it is titled ‘click here’)
  • Some Moodle activity names are duplicated with a Moodle module which means that they don’t make sense when read on their own (for example, ‘Assignment’)

Much of the content in Moodle is in the form of PDFs and MS Office documents that often don’t meet accessibility standards. Issues that we are aware of with external files are:

  • Files may not be structured so that they’re not accessible to a screen reader
  • Files may not contain navigation aids such as table of contents and links

Through the provision of workshops and online guidance, City encourages content creators to ensure that newly created content is fully accessible.

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

Much of the content in Moodle from past modules (2018-19 and earlier) is in the form of PDFs and MS Office documents that often don’t meet accessibility standards. For example, they may not be structured so that they’re accessible to a screen reader or may not contain navigation aids such as table of contents and links.

If you find a document that is not accessible you should speak to the owner or module leader in the first instance about an alternative.

What we’re doing to improve accessibility

  • Through the provision of workshops and online guidance, City is encouraging content creators to ensure that newly created content, PDFs and MSOffice documents are accessible.
  • We enabled an instructor content accessibility reporting tool (Ally) on all modules in July 2022.
  • We enabled a student automated format conversion tool (Ally) on all modules in July 2022.
  • We created a new User tour for staff to highlight the availability of Ally on all modules in July 2022.
  • Moodle version 4 contains a number of accessibility improvements and we will look at upgrading to Moodle 4 in July 2023.

Preparation of this accessibility statement

This statement was prepared on 19th September 2019. It was last reviewed on 27th July 2022.

This website (Moodle – https://moodle.city.ac.uk) was last tested in July 2020. The test was carried out by City, University of London.

We used the WAVE accessibility checker and NVDA screen reader on a sample of Moodle module home pages, new features, different activity type pages and a selection of PDF resources. Results are used to improve our theme, submit issues to Moodle if they relate to core code and to inform guidance for staff.