Web Accessibility and Privacy Policies
Web Accessibility and Privacy Policies
Web Accessibility Policy
The College is committed to ensuring accessibility of its website for students, employees, and members of the community with disabilities. All pages on the College website will conform to the W3C Web Accessibility Initiative’s (WAI) Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.2, Level AA conformance, or updated equivalents of these guidelines.
With regard to the College website and any official College web presence which is developed by, maintained by, or offered through third party vendors and open sources, the College is committed to compliance with the provisions of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), Section 504 and Title II so that students, employees and members of the public with disabilities are able to independently acquire the same information, engage in the same interactions, and enjoy the same benefits and services within the same timeframe as those without disabilities, with substantially equivalent ease of use; and that they are not excluded from participation in, denied the benefits of, or otherwise subjected to discrimination in any of the College’s programs, services, and activities delivered online.
All existing web content produced by the College, and new, updated and existing web content provided by third-party developers, will conform to Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.2, Level AA conformance, or updated equivalents. This Regulation applies to all new, updated, and existing web pages, as well as all web content produced or updated by the College or provided by third-party developers.
This policy applies to all web content developed by or for the College and should be referenced within any contract of services or statements of work for web content, websites, services or applications. Any such contract or statement of work must include a provision for an independent statement of conformance stating that the work meets the required standard and should include a completed VPAT/ACR documenting accessibility conformance. This should form part of the deliverable approval process.
Resource documents that explain how to ensure web pages and online documents/content are available in the Knowledge Base under Accessibility Resources and can be made accessible for users with different disabilities.
The College will offer web accessibility training to provide awareness of common accessibility issues and how online content and documents can be made accessible to users with disabilities, including users with vision, motor and auditory impairments.
This policy shall be reviewed at least once a year on July 1st.
Web Privacy Policy
This privacy statement discloses the privacy practices for the College’s website domain of massasoit.edu.
The College collects information from our users at several different points on our website. If you choose to share personal information with us – by sending us a message or filling out an electronic form with personal information – we will use the information only for the purpose authorized. the College is the sole owner of the information collected on this site and we will not sell, share, or rent this information to others in ways different.
Our website automatically recognizes only the Internet domain and Internet Protocol (IP) address from which users accessed our site. We use IP addresses to analyze trends, administer the site, and gather broad demographic information for aggregate use. We do this so that we can improve the content of our site. Since IP addresses are not linked to personally identifiable information, this does not result in the identification of personal email address or other personal information.
This website contains links to other sites. Please be aware that the College is not responsible for the privacy practices of such other sites. We encourage our users to be aware when they leave our site and to read the privacy statements of each and every website that collects personally identifiable information. This privacy statement applies solely to information collected by this website.
Contact Info
For assistance in accessing a College website due to a disability, or for any reason, submit a Report an Access Concern form or contact our Webmaster at webmaster@massasoit.mass.edu.
Complaints can be filed with the College’s Title IX and Compliance Officer, Amee Synnott at asynnott@massasoit.mass.edu or by phone at 508-588-9100 x1304.
To file a complaint with the U.S. Department of Education, please contact the:
Office for Civil Rights
Boston Office
U.S. Department of Education
5 Post Office Square, 8th Floor
Boston, MA 02109-3921
Phone: 617-289-0111
Fax: 617-289-0150
Email:OCR.Boston@ed.gov
Rev B: 07/27/2022
Plan for New Content
With regard to the Massasoit Community College [the College] website and any official College web presence which is developed by, maintained by, or offered through third party vendors and open sources, the College commits to provide a website accessible to persons with diverse needs by complying with the World Wide Web Consortium’s (W3C’s) Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.2 Level AA and the Web Accessibility Initiative Accessible Rich Internet Applications Suite (WAI-ARIA) 1.0 for web content, so that students, faculty, staff, and members of the public with disabilities are able to independently acquire the same information, engage in the same interactions, and enjoy the same benefits and services within the same timeframe as those without disabilities, with substantially equivalent ease of use such individuals shall not be excluded from participation in, denied the benefits of, or otherwise subjected to discrimination through any College web content.
The Webmaster will be responsible for reviewing and evaluating new material that is published by the College staff and uploaded to the website for accessibility. Any areas of concern will be addressed within 30 days of discovery via a corrective action plan, to be developed by the Webmaster.
The College currently uses the Content Management System (CMS) from the vendor Modern Camps to manage all pages under the www.massasoit.edu domain. CMS users will be required to complete accessibility training prior to assuming responsibility for website content maintenance and prior to receiving access to the CMS.
User list of names and roles maintained by the Webmaster
- 10-Admin
- Typical user: System administrators.
- 9-Assistant Admin
- Typical user: High-level or reporting administrators.
- 8-Designer
- Typical user: Departmental administrators, often set as approvers for lower-level users.
- 5-Editor 6-Editor 7-Editor
- Typical user: General editors, often those who have experience in Modern Campus CMS.
- 1-Contributor 2-Contributor 3-Contributor 4-Contributor
- Typical user: Administrative staff who should be updating content but not creating new pages and material.
- 0-Reviewer
- Typical user: Supervisors or department heads who don't edit pages but want to review them before publishing.
The following procedures apply to all new, updated and existing web pages, as well as all web content produced or updated by the College, or provided by third-party developers.
- Pages
- Submit content, new or updated, in a Word document that has been checked for accessibility
- Before publishing a page, run these Final Checks
- Spelling
- Links
- Accessibility
- If issues cannot be fixed at this time, submit a ticket.
- Assets
Note: All must be accessible - PDFs
- Should be created in Word and checked for accessibility prior to converting into a PDF.
- Submitted PDFs need to come with verification that it has been checked for accessibility
- PDFs will be reviewed to see if it can converted to an HTML page
- Images
- Alt text must be provided
- Must be submitted to Marketing and Communications for approval
- Other – Word, Excel, PowerPoint, etc…
- Should not be added to the website
- Videos
- Must come from the College’s YouTube and Vimeo channels
Modern Campus will continue to maintain and develop site-wide templates that are used to create all of the site’s HTML based content located at the www.massasoit.edu domain. Any HTML/CSS/JavaScript update that is required to make a template accessible will continue to flow through that office.
Marketing/Communications are responsible for the overall design of the College’s website.
In order for any third-party applications to be embedded on the website, they are expected to comply with the same website accessibility guidelines followed by the College.
The College expects outdated, irrelevant content to be promptly deleted. Files and folders within the CMS should be examined yearly for obsolete material. Links within the website will be clearly labeled and placed consistently throughout, allowing all readers to move seamlessly through related pages.
Web content updates will be restricted by the templates within the CMS. Adjustments to templates can only be made by the vendor, Modern Campus, to ensure accessibility standards are followed.
All photos, graphics, illustrations, and videos published on the website must:
- Be owned, licensed, or used with documented permission.
- Comply with organizational branding and content standards.
- Include appropriate accessibility features, such as alt text for informative images and captions for video content.
- Respect privacy requirements and obtain necessary consent before publishing images or videos of identifiable individuals.
- Be relevant, accurate, and free of offensive, misleading, or inappropriate content.
- Be optimized for website performance and compatible with desktop and mobile devices.
- Be reviewed and approved by the designated website or communications team prior to publication.
Media content should comply with the organization's digital accessibility requirements, including applicable WCAG standards, before being published.
Videos must be downloaded from Massasoit Community College's YouTube or Vimeo channels.