Reducing barriers: accessible files and open access to research

When we talk about open access to research, we’re mostly talking about people’s ability to download, read and reuse research from the internet. The grand idea behind this is that it improves the equity in access to research and can therefore improve the quality of research in general. No one is barred from the research because of paywalls.

But there is another just as important dimension when providing equity in using research, and that’s the accessibility of documents. Accessibility relates to creating documents that can be used by as many people as possible[1]. This usually means using features that enable the document to be read by computers, but can also be about the formatting you use.

For example, poor colour contrast can be problematic for readers with impaired vision, so it is important to have sufficient contrast in your documents. There are several tools that can help assess the accessibility of colour contrast.

Principles of accessibility can be applied to all research outputs, whether journal articles, spreadsheets of data, theses, or book chapters. Below are a range of suggestions for how to make your research accessible:

Checking accessibility: If you are editing your research in a Microsoft or Adobe application, you can use accessibility checker tools to see if there are issues with the files and how to resolve them.

Format your file: In a text or html document, use styles to add headings and subheadings. This will allow screen readers to see a hierarchy to the information you’re sharing. (It also helps with generation of tables of contents and bookmarks.)

Format your file: Use tables to present information in text or html documents, and manage the table properties to set header rows.

Format your file: When sharing images, use alt text to provide a description of the image that can be read by screen readers. Image files do not usually have any semantic value unless alt text is applied. Alt text can be easily added in html editors, or many applications, including the various Microsoft apps, now have alt text options.

Accessible file formats: Share your research in an interoperable format. This is file format that can be used in a range of different software applications, rather than being locked to a proprietary software. Suggestions for interoperable file formats are available at the UK Data Service.

Accessible file formats: Try not to save your data as an image file, such as jpg, unless it is an illustrative image. A file needs to have text in it to be read and image files do not store that information, so saving text documents or spreadsheets as images will stop them being interoperable (i.e. machine readable).

These basic tips offer some quick and easy ways to help make your open research more accessible.

Further reading:

UK Government (2020) Publishing accessible documents.

Open University (2024) Creating an accessible ethesis.

[1] This is slightly different to the idea of Accessibility in the FAIR principles, which is primarily about being able to download a file, but is similar to the idea of Interoperability in the same set of principles, which is about being able to use files in different types of software by having machine readable content. Sometimes having a good acronym can trump overlapping definitions!

Photo by Tomas Tuma on Unsplash