Accessibility Statement

Last reviewed: April 2026

Our commitment

The Journal on Ethnopolitics and Minority Issues in Europe (JEMIE), published by the European Centre for Minority Issues (ECMI), is committed to making this website accessible to as many people as possible, regardless of technology or ability. We aim to meet the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1 Level AA standard.

This statement applies to the website published at www.ecmi.de/JEMIE.

Conformance status

This website is partially conformant with WCAG 2.1 Level AA. Partial conformance means that some parts of the content do not fully conform to the accessibility standard. The known limitations are described below.

The site has been assessed through a combination of automated testing (Lighthouse and WAVE) and manual testing including keyboard navigation and screen reader testing with VoiceOver on macOS and iOS.

Accessibility features

This website includes the following accessibility features:

  • Skip navigation links to main navigation, main content, and site footer
  • Visible keyboard focus indicators throughout
  • ARIA landmark regions (header, navigation menus, main content area, and footer) with descriptive labels, allowing screen reader users to jump directly between the major sections of each page.
  • Accessible carousel navigation on the homepage with previous/next controls and keyboard support
  • Properly structured heading hierarchy
  • All images have descriptive alternative text, or are marked as decorative where appropriate
  • Functional link images have descriptive accessible names
  • Interactive elements have descriptive accessible names
  • Focus is returned to the trigger element when the login modal is closed
  • Correct DOM reading order on article pages so that the abstract and article content are read before the sidebar content by screen readers
  • Accessible date filter fields on the search page with descriptive labels
  • Search results receive keyboard focus after form submission
  • Sticky footer on short pages ensures the footer does not crowd the content

Known limitations

PDF articles

Articles published as PDF galleys may not be fully accessible to screen reader users. PDFs are not currently structured with tagged headings, reading order, or alternative text for figures and tables. JEMIE is actively working to address this by making HTML versions of articles available alongside PDFs, which provide a fully accessible reading experience.

If you require an accessible version of a specific article that is not yet available in HTML, please contact the editorial team at info@ecmi.de.

Embedded video content

Video discussions are embedded using the YouTube player. The embedded player contains some interactive controls that may not have a visible focus indicator, as this is a limitation of the YouTube embed interface outside our control. Automatically generated captions may not meet WCAG 1.2.2 (Captions, Prerecorded) for all content.

A full written transcript is provided on the same page as each embedded video, and a direct link to YouTube is also provided where users can access the full YouTube accessibility interface.

Article title links on issue pages

Article titles on issue pages link to the article's abstract and metadata page. The link text does not indicate that the destination is an abstract page rather than the full text. Full text is available via the PDF or HTML buttons on the same page.

Duplicate navigation links

The site header contains navigation links that appear twice in the page, once for desktop and once for mobile display. Both sets of links are present in the DOM simultaneously. This is inherent to the site's responsive navigation layout.

Current page indication in navigation

Navigation links do not currently include aria-current="page" to indicate the current page to screen reader users. The current page is indicated by the page heading.

Citation format dropdown

The "More Citation Formats" dropdown on article pages does not automatically move keyboard focus to the first item when opened. Users need to Tab to navigate into the citation format list after opening it. This is a known behaviour of the Bootstrap dropdown component used by the OJS platform.

Login page

The login page is rendered by the OJS platform's core authentication system. Error messages after a failed login attempt are not automatically announced to screen reader users as the page performs a full redirect on submission. These are known limitations of the underlying platform.

User registration form

The registration form contains a labelling error in the password fields: the "Repeat password" field has an incorrectly associated label, meaning it has no label accessible to screen readers and the "Password" field has two labels. This has been reported to the platform maintainers (Public Knowledge Project) as a bug for resolution.

Search page

The search function requires a text query term to return results — it is not possible to search by date filter alone. This is a known limitation of the OJS platform search functionality.

Content editing limitations

Some structured content on this site, including submission guidelines, is entered through a content editor that does not provide heading formatting options. As a result, some section headings in these areas are formatted as bold text rather than proper heading elements, meaning they are not navigable by heading for screen reader users. This is a known limitation of the OJS platform's content editing interface and has been reported to PKP.

Third-party content

This site links to and embeds content from third-party services including YouTube and Creative Commons. The accessibility of these services is outside our control.

Platform information

This website is built on Open Journal Systems (OJS) 3.5, an open source publishing platform maintained by the Public Knowledge Project (PKP). Some accessibility limitations noted above are inherent to the platform and have been reported to PKP for resolution in future releases.

Feedback and contact

We welcome feedback on the accessibility of this site. If you experience any barriers or have difficulty accessing any content, please contact us:

Email: jemie@ecmi.de
Address: European Centre for Minority Issues, Schiffbrücke 12, 24939 Flensburg, Germany

We aim to respond to accessibility feedback within 5 working days.

Review

This statement was prepared in April 2026 following a comprehensive accessibility audit and remediation of the JEMIE website. It will be reviewed and updated annually, or following significant changes to the site.