Accessibility statement
De Gruyter is committed to ensuring that our platform is accessible for all of our users, regardless of their ability or technology. We are constantly working on improving the accessibility and usability of our platform degruyter.com.
De Gruyter is working towards conforming with level AA of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.1 and Section 508 Standards of the U.S. Federal Accessibility Standard for degruyter.com.
Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1 standards are set by World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), the main international standards organization for the Internet. These guidelines are widely accepted as the gold standards for digital accessibility and serve as the basis of most accessibility regulations worldwide.
The Section 508 Standards were established to implement Section 508 of the U.S. Rehabilitation Act, which requires government agencies to provide access to electronic and information technologies for disabled individuals that is comparable to access available to non-disabled individuals.
De Gruyter’s approach
We aim to ensure that accessibility is at the core of our platform development.
We endeavor that all features and functionality on the degruyter.com platform are developed in line with WCAG 2.1 guidelines. Automated and manual testing is conducted to ensure new features and functionality conform to accessibility guidelines.
We aim to be open and transparent about what is not working well on our platform. Our aim is to resolve known issues as quickly as possible.
A full accessibility audit of the degruyter.com platform is conducted periodically to ensure it conforms to the current international accessibility guidelines. Any issues discovered are assessed and prioritized accordingly in our development roadmap.
Feedback is welcomed from users to notify us of any accessibility bugs they find. Your feedback helps us to improve degruyter.com. Please see below for contact options.
De Gruyter’s Accessibility Conformance Report
For a detailed review of how degruyter.com supports the WCAG 2.1 and Section 508 criteria, please refer to our Accessibility Conformance Report (based on VPAT v2.4).
Please note: this statement was last updated in October 2021, and all information contained within is correct as of that date.
Accessibility status of degruyter.com
We want as many people as possible to be able to use this website and our content. You should be able to:
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
The website is accessible for:
Usage with limited or no vision or perception of colour
Usage with limited or no hearing, and with no or limited vocal capability
Usage with limited reach
Recommended Browser
Google Chrome
Evaluation methods used for accessibility testing
The website was tested with assistive technologies (including screen reader, screen magnification, contrast switching, keyboard, speech recognition)
Testing with automated accessibility tools, such as:
Accessibility Insights for Web
Lighthouse Automation Tool
ClaroRead Screen Reader
Keyboard navigation
The TAB key can be used to navigate through links within the site menu and the main text of each page. Once a link has been highlighted, use the ENTER key to activate the link.
Headers
Our content pages use structured headers to aid legibility of the text. The first header on the page is the main content header followed by any appropriate sub-headers.
Changing the text size
Most browsers will allow you to change the font size. This will be reflected on the site.
Alternative content
For visitors using screen reader or speech browser software, we've provided sensible alternative text for most of the images where this alternative text will aid your understanding of the web page.
Tables
We are using tables for the display of tabular data. For users of screen readers and speech browsers, we associate headers with their respective rows and columns to aid legibility.
Magnification and Reflow
Text can be resized without assistive technology up to 200 percent without loss of content or functionality.
Copy and Printing
All content on degruyter.com is DRM-free. Printing or copying text through browser functionality is possible. Please keep in mind that copyright conditions apply and can be found in our Terms and Conditions.
PDF files
To open PDF files, you need a PDF viewer such as Adobe Reader. Adobe provides advice on Adobe Reader’s accessibility features.
Detailed content and access options
degruyter.com is both an information source for anyone wanting to find information about the services of the publisher De Gruyter, and also the publishing platform for all electronic content published by De Gruyter and our partner publishers.
As such, degruyter.com hosts content from journals, books and online databases.
Digital Rights Management
degruyter.com does not have any DRM restrictions. However, details on permitted uses of the content, please see our Terms and Conditions page or contact our Rights Team at: rights@degruyter.com.
Journals
Most journal content is offered in HTML and PDF format. Journal content from before 2012 and also content from some current journals is only available in PDF format. All PDFs can be downloaded by the user and viewed in a PDF viewer.
Most tables in HTML articles are compatible with screen readers and other assistive technologies. Some older content may not have alternative text for images.
PDF standards may have changed over the years and especially the PDFs for older content may not be accessible with screen readers or other assistive technologies.
Books
Book content is offered with HTML for metadata and PDF for the content itself. For all books, it is possible to download each chapter as a PDF. Many of the books additionally have a download option for the PDF of the complete book. Many books published after 2015 are also available in EPUB format. All PDF and EPUB files are downloadable from the site.
PDF standards may have changed over the years and especially the PDFs for older content may not be accessible with screen readers or other assistive technologies.
EPUB allows content to be enhanced for users with specific accessibility needs (e.g., dyslexia) or preferred reading modality (e.g., audio, tactile). EPUB offers further features such as e-sizeable fonts, changeable text and background colours, page bookmarking as well as passage highlighting and notes.
Databases
Most database content is offered in HTML. Some database products, which are based on print products, additionally have a PDF download option.
All tables are compatible with screen readers and other assistive technologies. All images/figures all have meaningful alternative text.
Further known issues
We are currently working on issues making the navigation easier by adding “skip to main navigation” and “skip to navigation” links.
We are also working on creating a more visible focus outline to make the site easier to navigate for keyboard users.
Contact Us
Should you experience any difficulty in accessing degruyter.com, please don’t hesitate to get in touch with our support team. We aim to respond within 3 business days.
Email us at service@degruyter.com
Call us on +49 (0)30 26005-102
More contact details can be found on our Customer Service contact page
This statement was last reviewed and updated on December 08, 2021
