The latest versions (3.3.0+) of PKP’s Open Journal Systems (OJS), when used with the Default Theme, comply with World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1 AA and Section 508 Standards (2018 Revision) for publicly accessible web pages that constitute core pages in an OJS installation.
This compliance excludes but is not limited to the following: web pages that require OJS user login, including editorial workflow, journal management, author, and reviewer pages; web pages generated by OJS plugins that add to, extend, or modify core pages in an OJS installation (including 3rd-party plugins and child themes); content and documents published by a journal, including by its authors and editors (accessibility of published content remains the responsibility of each journal); and any other non-publicly accessible web pages.
Detailed accessibility conformance report of the OJS 3.3+ Default Theme is available via a Voluntary Product Accessibility Template (VPAT).
With each new release of OJS, PKP continues to improve the accessibility of its platform, including pages that require user login, including the editorial dashboard, journal management pages, and author/reviewer workflows. The goal is to ensure that core OJS publishing components are compliant with Authoring Tool Accessibility Guidelines (ATAG) to supplement existing WCAG and Section 508 compliance for publicly accessible pages, as outlined above.
To learn more about ongoing work and accessibility improvements scheduled for future releases, please visit PKP’s accessibility roadmap on Github.
