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Passed Policies and Progress

Find out what Students' Union policies have been passed by students, and more importantly, what is being done about them.

Here you can find a list of all the policies which have been passed by student council. We're working on a live tracker so you can check the progress of each policy, but until we've got that up and running please contact your student president team to ask for an update on policies. You can also check out current ideas and rejected ideas.

Policy Idea

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  • 12 score
    12 voters

    Captions on social media posts for people with visual impairments

    Submitted 3 years ago by Hannah Eaton
    Passed
      5comments
      Social media posts from societies and the student's union- particularly for photos/images- should include descriptions in the caption to allow students with visual impairments to still interact with societies and their social media. This also extends to use of hashtags, making sure people capitalise the first letter of each word so that screen-readers can get the information across accurately to the user.

      Why you think it is important

      This is very important for accessibility at UWS. We want to make sure that everyone is included and that no student feels left out due to disability. These are simple measures that could increase engagement and make students with visual impairments feel welcome and involved.

      Is there anything else you think we should know?

      Some social media has automatic features for descriptions although these are not always entirely accurate (i.e. Facebook uses an AI system to describe images). Instagram and Twitter have similar settings but they are not automatic. This is why it would be beneficial to have written descriptions below the original caption, so that no errors occur from the AI systems.
    Sarah Anderson
    11:35am on 5 Jan 21 As someone with a hidden disability captions dont just help those with visual disabilities but also help a wider audience understand and take part in materials. It is fairly easy to add descriptions manually and I'm sure the Society committee would be available to provide assistance with this.
    Hannah Eaton
    4:54pm on 7 Jan 21 *Although this comment is on my own suggested policy, it is on behalf of the views of The Accessibility to Education UWS society.* The Accessibility to Education UWS society approves of this policy and encourages student representatives to vote in favour of it.
    Gordon Lawrie
    11:37pm on 8 Jan 21 Not only is this a good policy, it is the law. W3C first published Web Content Accessibility Guidelines in 2005. The Equality Act has been in force since 2010. Whilst Society's may need help and guidance, there is really no excuse for the Student's Association not having Standard Operating Procedures in place to ensure that all content authors are complying with the law.
    Gordon Lawrie
    6:13pm on 9 Jan 21 I should probably add, I am willing to put my money, or at least my time where my mouth is. Once this policy overwhelmingly passes, as it is going to, if the Association needs any help drawing up SOPs I stand ready to assist.
    Ellie Gomersall
    7:10pm on 17 Jan 21 The UWS Greens have voted to support this policy and would like to encourage student reps to vote in favour of it.