Accessibility Statement for Oncology Central (powered by Taylor & Francis)

1. Accessibility declaration

Oncology-Central.com

Taylor & Francis is committed to ensuring that our platform is accessible for all our users, regardless of their ability or technology. We are constantly working on improving the accessibility and usability of our platform.

Our platform endeavors to conform to the World Wide Web Consortium’s (W3C) Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.2 AA Standard and Web Accessibility Initiative Accessible Rich Internet Applications Suite (WAI-ARIA) 1.2.

We also adhere to guidance from:

These guidelines detail how to make content accessible to a wide range of people with disabilities, including blindness and low vision, deafness and hearing loss, learning disabilities, cognitive limitations, limited movement, speech disabilities, photosensitivity, and combinations of these.

Preparation of this accessibility statement

This accessibility statement for Oncology Central was last reviewed and updated on 10 May 2026.

Oncology-central.com was last tested in June 2025 using our third-party automated tool from Siteimprove, which looks at a wide selection of pages representative of the product. The results of the automated tests were reviewed by our Accessibility Officer, alongside the Product Team (Product Management, Development, Technical Support, Editorial, and Content).

A small amount of manual testing has been carried out. Further manual testing has been scheduled for January 2026 and a selection of pages representative of the product will be comprehensively tested by our Accessibility Officer.

Corporate Accessibility Statement

Read the Corporate Accessibility Statement for Taylor & Francis to learn more about what we’re doing as a company across all of our sites and content workflows.

Our commitment to accessible publishing

Publishing Accessibility Action Group (PAAG) Charter

Taylor & Francis signed the PAAG Charter in December 2022 and are committed to meeting the 10 commitments of this charter. Our objective is to make all content accessible and to embed accessible practices throughout the publishing ecosystem.

Inclusive Publishing (The DAISY Consortium)

We are an Inclusive Publishing Partner. Inclusive Publishing is coordinated and managed by The DAISY Consortium (Digital Accessible Information System). The group contributes to mainstream standards, develops guidelines to promote best practices, raises awareness of accessible reading systems and supports open standards for inclusive publishing and shares knowledge to make mainstream publications accessible to all, including people with print disabilities.

Accessibility Conformance Report

Read the full Accessibility Conformance Report (ACR) for Oncology Central | oncology-central.com and check our Accessibility Roadmap to learn about any issues scheduled for review.

The Accessibility Conformance Report (ACR) may also be referred to as a Voluntary Product Accessibility Template (VPAT). The ACR is the final output, having populated the VPAT guidance document.

There are four VPAT templates, we use the combined template which covers Section 508, EN 301 549, WCAG 2.2.

Tools used for accessibility testing

We use a combination of automated tools and manual testing.

Accessibility testing tools: Siteimprove.com with site target set to WCAG 2.2 Levels A and AA, with ARIA and accessibility best practices included, to identify issues and potential issues. Accessibility Insights for Web (Edge Extension), and accessibility bookmarklets have also been used to support manual testing.

Assistive technologies: Non-Visual Desktop Access (NVDA) screen reader, as well as exclusive use of the keyboard to navigate site content and test user interface functionality.

Laptop: Microsoft Edge 135.0.3179.98 and Chrome Version 137.0.7151.105 on a DELL laptop running Microsoft Window 11 version 23H2. Resize display settings: 1280 × 1024 and 1280 × 768, with scaling at 100%, and browser set to 200%. Reflow display settings: 1280 × 1024, with scaling at 100%, and browser set to 400%.

Mobile: Samsung Galaxy FE running Android 15 and Chrome Version 137.0.7151.115. Used for checking Orientation with locked and unlocked screen rotation settings.

2. Accessibility roadmap

On Oncology Central, we release updates and developments as required throughout the year. In each release, accessibility is a fundamental aspect of the development and quality assurance processes, which is ensured with a combination of manual testing and the use of our third-party accessibility tool.

We conduct a site wide review annually, using our third-party accessibility tool to scan a representative selection of pages, alongside manual testing. This activity is supported by more targeted testing each quarter, which is used to review selected pages impacted by developments for compliance, with the latest WCAG 2.2 criteria and to ensure the platform adheres to the legislation and guidance outlined in our accessibility declaration.

Issues will be reviewed, and necessary fixes scheduled into our roadmap for completion each quarter.

WCAG Criterion Issue detail
1.2.1 Audio-only and Video-only (Level A) Transcripts are not available for all video content.

·       Remediation Q2 2026.
1.2.2 Captions (Level A) Closed captions are not available for all video content.

·       Remediation Q2 2026
1.3.1 Info and Relationships (Level A)

2.4.6 Headings and Labels (Level AA)

 Heading levels are skipped with pages often missing a Heading Level 3 and/or 4 (H1, H2, H5).

The homepage does not have a Heading 1.

·       Remediation Q2 2026.
1.3.3 Sensory Characteristics (Level A) For some users it may be visually difficult to determine which text on the page is a link.

Further testing to be carried out to assess user experience impact, and review any required improvements to link presentation. Timescales to be agreed.
2.4.1 Bypass Blocks (Level A) Pages do not have a “main content” landmark, or “skip to main content” link.

The homepage does not have a Heading 1.

·       Remediation Q2 2026.
2.4.4 Link Purpose (In Context) (Level A) There are 617 occurrences across 111 pages where there are links on the page without a text alternative. These are predominantly the “Search” icons on the main navigation bar, previous and next chevrons on carousels, video thumbnails, and social media icons.

13 occurrences, across 10 pages, links need to be manually checked to ensure they go to the same destination.

·       Remediation Q3 2025.
4.1.2 Name, Role, Value (Level A) 24 occurrences of podcast inline frames (iframes) without a text alternative to summarize the visual content to help screen reader users understand the iframes purpose on the page.

·       Remediation Q1 2026.

Occasional occurrences where an element has a role of “hidden”, but it receives keyboard focus. These are predominantly the buttons. These will be updated as they are encountered on site.
1.4.3 Contrast (Minimum) (Level AA)

 

 79 occurrences across 34 pages where color contrast is below minimum contrast requirements; these are predominantly outbound links. View ACR for list of different color contrast issues.

·       Remediation Q3 2025 for CSS text colors.

·       Any links that were manually amended, and therefore not resolved by the CSS update, will be fixed as and when pages are reviewed.
1.4.11 Non-text Contrast (Level AA) Blue banner (00B0CA), with white text. Ratio 2.6:1.

Blue buttons (21B0DD) with white text. Ratio 2.52:1.

·       Remediation Q3 2025
2.4.7 Focus Visible (Level AA)

 

 277 occurrences, across 104 pages, that require manual testing to confirm if the page elements receive a visible keyboard focus indicator.

Example: the Register form fields do not have a visible focus indicator, and the focus indicator on the checkboxes is easy to miss.

·       Remediation Q1 2026

Implemented fixes

WCAG Criterion Issue detail
1.2.1 Audio-only and Video-only (Level A) Transcripts have been added to all video content.
1.2.2 Captions (Level A) Closed captions have been added to all video content.
1.3.1 Info and Relationships (Level A)

2.4.6 Headings and Labels (Level AA)

 H1 has been added to the homepage.

A total of 166 instances of unstructured headings across 55 pages have been remediated, particularly on webinar and Spotlight pages where the issue occured frequently.

·         Remediation for further pages will continue when they are encountered and on request by users
2.4.1 Bypass Blocks (Level A) H1 has been added to the homepage.
4.1.2 Name, Role, Value (Level A) Text alternatives have been added to inline frames (iframes) to summarize the visual content to help screen reader users understand the iframes purpose on the page on podcast pages.

Occasional occurrences where an element has a role of “hidden”, but it receives keyboard focus. These are predominantly the buttons. These will be updated as they are encountered on site.

 

3.           Content types and formats

Platform

Oncology Central, part of Taylor & Francis, is a free online platform that is dedicated to advancing oncology by offering access to trusted, engaging and insightful resources – including breaking news, peer-reviewed articles, webinars and articles from key opinion leaders.

The platform provides oncology professionals with a range of resources, in various formats to ensure our content is as accessible as possible. This includes:

eBooks

eBooks are available in PDF and EPUB3 formats (accessed online and downloadable). We aim to publish all eBooks with searchable, selectable text, but cannot guarantee this for some our older or acquired content. We do not currently have a way to mass validate PDF content for accessibility, our focus is currently on ensuring EPUB is the best it can be.

The EPUB format was introduced to the Taylor & Francis Digital Hub platforms in June 2025. We are working to update all previously published eBooks in this format.

Journal articles

Oncology Central is partnered with several journals, which cover cancer research and clinical oncology.

Journal articles are directly hosted on Taylor & Francis Online (TFO), and are available as HTML, PDF and EPUB3 format. Varying levels of accessibility are available depending on the age of the product. Where an article you require is not accessible, please use our Request service.

For further detail on the accessibility of our journal articles and the TFO website, please read the Accessibility Statement for Taylor & Francis Online.

News

Short articles covering a recent development within the site’s scope. Written up by our in-house editors. Occasionally featured as rehosted press releases and clearly marked when so. Published on our standard WordPress pages, which are reviewed on a quarterly basis to ensure compliance with the latest WCAG 2.2 criteria and to ensure their adherence to the legislation and guidance outlined in our accessibility declaration.

Expert opinion articles

Long form articles including editor written pieces and contributed articles from the community that permit the author to express their opinion and go beyond stated fact. Published on our standard WordPress pages, which are reviewed on a quarterly basis to ensure compliance with the latest WCAG 2.2 criteria and to ensure their adherence to the legislation and guidance outlined in our accessibility declaration.

Interviews

Interviews with experts in the community written in a Q&A style or in a typical feature interview style with quotes from the expert woven into the article. Published on our standard WordPress pages, which are reviewed on a quarterly basis to ensure compliance with the latest WCAG 2.2 criteria and to ensure their adherence to the legislation and guidance outlined in our accessibility declaration.

Conference Reports

Contributed articles from attendees at conferences, detailing their experiences, take aways and session summaries from the conference. Published on our standard WordPress pages, which are reviewed on a quarterly basis to ensure compliance with the latest WCAG 2.2 criteria and to ensure their adherence to the legislation and guidance outlined in our accessibility declaration.

Ask the experts

Longform articles that feature insight from multiple members of the community, compiling their responses to a set of identical questions, providing viewpoints from across the spectrum of people relevant to the website’s scope. Published on our standard WordPress pages, which are reviewed on a quarterly basis to ensure compliance with the latest WCAG 2.2 criteria and to ensure their adherence to the legislation and guidance outlined in our accessibility declaration.

Webinars

Interactive webinars and panel discussions. Hosted on Totem webinar platform when live and rehosted directly on site using the Cadmore media player once promotion is over, at which point transcripts are available.

Infographics

Infographics hosted on site in text recognized PDF formats (accessed online and downloadable).

Videos

Topic overview videos and interviews (transcripts are available), embedded using Cadmore media player.

Podcasts

Series and standalone episodes, where experts break down innovative topics in oncology into engaging, easy-to-follow conversations. Transcripts available with all podcasts published after June 2025, and the majority posted prior. For any podcasts missing a transcript they can be made available on request. Hosted on SoundCloud and Acast.

4.           Accessibility features

Embedding accessibility

Taylor & Francis aims to ensure that accessibility is at the heart of our platform development, by subscribing to the Four Principles of Accessibility – POUR, as published by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C).

  • Perceivable: Users must be able to perceive the information being presented to them by at least one of their senses.
  • Operable: Users must be able to operate the interface, it cannot require interaction that a user cannot perform.
  • Understandable: Users must be able to understand the information as well as the operation of the user interface.
  • Robust: Content must be robust enough that it can be interpreted reliably by a wide variety of user agents, including assistive technologies. This means that users must be able to access the content as technologies advance.

Perceivable

Text alternatives

  • If you require alt-text adding to an eBook or journal article that doesn’t yet have this in place, please use our Request Service.
  • Most non-text elements outside of the article content provide alt-tags.

Time-based media

  • Most podcasts and videos have transcripts provided. Some videos have the transcript directly below, other videos need to be viewed in full screen mode to view the transcript.
  • Most videos have closed captions, and these can be toggled on and off.

Adaptable content

  • Information, structure, and relationships conveyed through presentation can be programmatically determined or are available in text.
  • Link text appears throughout the site as follows: Small purple letters in block capitals, and Dark blue letters in sentence case – both become underlined once they receive focus.
  • The content of the site does not restrict its view and operation to a single-display orientation.
  • The purpose of form fields can be identified by the browser, so that auto-complete suggestions can be offered in a dropdown.

Distinguishable content

  • Information is not conveyed through color alone.
  • Audio only and video content does not play automatically, and can be played, paused, stopped, and offers playback speed and volume control.
  • Most body text, large scale text, and images of text meet minimum color contrast ratios.
  • Text can be resized without assistive technology (up to 200%) without loss of content or functionality.
  • Content throughout the site is reflowable and responsive, and is not restricted to a single display orientation.
  • Most usable components like form fields and buttons, have a minimum contrast ratio of 3:1.
  • Spacing setting for lines, paragraphs, letters, and words, all adjust accordingly as the zoom is set to adjust the font size.

Operable

Keyboard accessible

  • All site functionality is accessible via keyboard, and without requiring any specific timings to complete keystrokes, or shortcuts.
  • There are no keyboard traps.

Enough time

  • There are no pages or functionality with time limits.
  • No automatically moving/animating content that lasts more than five seconds.

Seizures and physical reactions

  • There is no flashing content on the site.

Navigable

  • Landmarks for navigation, banner, and content info (footer), defining those parts of the page to support navigation with assistive technologies.
  • Pages do not have a “main content” landmark, or “skip to main content” link.
  • Titles on every page lets users know where they are and what type of content to expect.
  • The purpose of each link on the website can be determined from the link text alone or from the programmatic context of the link.
  • Search, footer links, top navigation bar are utilized to allow for multiple ways to locate a webpage within the website.
  • Headings identify sections of content. Page sections with the same name serve the same purpose across the website, ensuring users can understand and predict content structure.

Input modalities

  • User interface components with labels that include text or images of text, have a corresponding accessible name that contains the text that is presented visually.
  • No functionality needs to be operated by device motion, user motion, or dragging movements.
  • No overlapping targets and target size is a minimum of 24 × 24 pixels in size.

Understandable

Readable

  • The default language of all pages in this website is identified using the lang attribute in the html element (en-US).

Predictable

  • There is consistent footer that includes a “Contact us” section which provides an email address, an online form, and postal address.
  • Repeated components are presented in the same relative order each time they appear across the website.
  • Components that have the same functionality within the site are identified consistently throughout the website.

Input assistance

  • This website allows native browser autofill function to auto-populate fields as desired by the user.

Robust

Compatible

  • Most user interface components in the site provide programmatic name, role, and/or state information.
  • Supports all modern browsers and follows the graceful degradation web design strategy for older browsers. This means that all content should be available but newer features may not be fully supported.
  • Can be perceived, operated, and understood via screen-reader.
  • Compatible with all known major hardware devices and it automatically adapts to different screen sizes depending on the device being used (e.g. mobile, tablet or laptop).

5.           Feedback and contact information

Contact us

We are always developing solutions to further improve the site’s overall accessibility. In the meantime, should you experience any difficulty in accessing oncology-central.com please view the information on our Contact Us page, or email us at [email protected] or use our online contact form. We endeavor to respond within five business days, or fewer.

Request service

Taylor & Francis request service

When a work is unavailable for purchase in a suitable format, we endeavor to provide one within three working days. Institutions and individuals can place their request via our Academic VIP (Visually Impaired Persons) Team. Note, this team handle alternative format requests for all print-disabilities.

RNIB Bookshare and Bookshare

Taylor & Francis eBook titles are also available through RNIB Bookshare | UK Education Collection, and Bookshare | Benetech in PDF and EPUB formats, and are shared with these platforms as part of our automated publishing workflow. Where EPUB is provided, titles can be downloaded as a Word, DAISY, Braille Ready File (BRF) or EPUB file, as well as being supported by the built-in reading tool and Dolphin Easy Reader.

General information

If you would like more general information or help with web-accessibility, we recommend the BBC Accessibility Help page.

AbilityNet has advice on making your device easier to use if you have a disability.