Kortext was founded in 2013 with a vision to help every learner achieve more. In a little over 5 years we have become the UK’s leading personal learning platform and supplier of digital textbooks. Working with over 3,500 publishers including Pearson, McGraw Hill, Wiley and Oxford University Press, we supply over 1 million digital books to students in over 80 countries around the world.
Kortext has always been at the forefront of delivering accessible learning solutions and we remain committed to supporting the entire student population, especially so in the face of COVID-19. Our obsession with equitable access is more important today than it has ever been.
According to UK Government statistics, at least 1 in 5 people in the UK have a long term illness, impairment, or disability. Many more have a temporary disability.
“At Kortext, we are committed to providing rich, highly functional, long-term solutions for the needs of all.”
Our user-focused platform incorporates a number of accessibility features including the ability to convert text to speech with Read Aloud on App readers, change font and size to suit user needs in the book text in ereaders, zoom and adjust line spacing, margin width and text justification. Kortext also provides alternative text for images when supplied by the publisher and keyboard only input for select functionality.
Kortext conforms to level AA of the latest Web Content Accessibility Guidelines WCAG2.1. and regularly modifies its content to meet updated guidelines. Kortext also has an accessibility support team, and welcomes user feedback to further optimise accessibility.
Read more about Kortext’s accessibility here: https://www.kortext.com/accessibility/.
Kortext x ASPIRE
Kortext has been a huge supporter of the ASPIRE project since its inception in 2018 and won an excellence award at the inaugural ASPIRE awards in 2019. We have worked with ASPIRE to improve our accessibility statement to clearly explicate the accessibility of our platform, and create a transparent environment for our users.
As part of our process, we had a colleague who was focused on accessibility review our statement and highlight areas of improvement. Working with ASPIRE helped us to identify these gaps, as well as note areas where we had improved since the last audit. The process was iterative in that we checked the requirements and updated the statement as we progressed. ASPIRE supported us in the advice that they offered to help us reach the required standard and deliver the improvements needed.
Accessibility is a core tenet for the Kortext development team, meaning it is being considered at every part of the development process. As such we see the accessibility statement as a living document to be updated on an ongoing basis.
We were one of the highest-ranked aggregated platforms at the last ASPIRE audit and have now further improved our accessibility to achieve a 100% Gold ASPIRE score for our accessibility statement.
As one of the first major platforms to achieve a 100% ASPIREreview score, Kortext is helping universities to meet legal public sector accessibility regulations and is paving the way for accessibility in online learning.
“Using Kortext allows Universities to comply with the new digital accessibility laws brought in by the UK and European Governments on the 22nd of September and be ready for June 2021 where all of their digital data and platforms need to be accessible.”
Looking forward, we will continue to take on customer feedback and adapt and improve our platform and accessibility statement in order to provide the best experience possible for all users.
