Study of the accessibility of a sample of scientific electronic journal publishing platforms

Abstract

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to analyse the degree of accessibility of a set of electronic journals that are hosted on widely used online scientific journal publishing platforms and whose content quality has already been certified. Two studies were performed, in which the accessibility of the selected platforms was studied in 2011 and 2016.Design/methodology/approachThe research was performed on publishing platforms than hosted more than 20 journals about human behaviour and factors that may influence it. The evaluation was carried out following the methodology described by the Web Accessibility Initiative in their Website Accessibility Conformance Evaluation Methodology.FindingsThe results show that, in spite of an improvement in accessibility, all the analysed electronic consultation platforms contain errors that could hinder their users’ access to their content. The incidence of errors found varies considerably among platforms. As the user interface of each platform analysed is common to all the online scientific electronic journals it hosts, the results obtained are valid for all other journals hosted on a given platform.Research limitations/implicationsObtained results were valid in the date and time the websites were analysed. Changes made on the websites since then make that the results of an accessibility analysis would be different.Practical implicationsAnalysed platforms would require taking steps to ensure their accessibility.Social implicationsUsers with disabilities cannot use these platforms appropriately due to the accessibility problems found. The lack of web accessibility also has implications regarding visibility of published articles and common users.Originality/valueThis work offers a systematic analysis that includes manual accessibility evaluation, which has not been performed in scientific article publishing platforms to the extent presented in this paper. Articles found in the literature perform automatic analyses, which lack the depth of a manual one. Besides, when manual accessibility analysis is performed, usually the home page of a platform or journal alone is considered.