Accessibility of the European Parliament Newshub (Wai AA- WCAG 2.0)

The webpages of the Newshub website of the European Parliament are compliant with web content accessibility guidelines (WCAG) 2.0, available at the following address: http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG20. The compliance level is AA.

This is not valid where third party content is shown e.g. feed data, pictures or videos. Social media buttons (such as the “Like-Button” from Facebook, the “+1-Button” from Google + and the “Tweet-Button” from Twitter) are not accessible either.

The Newshub relies on the following technologies: HTML 5.0, CSS 2 and 3, JavaScript 1.8.5 / ES 5, JPEG, GIF, PNG and Adobe Flash.

Furthermore the Adobe PDF technology is used, but not necessarily needed to access content.

RSS

By clicking, the user will be redirected (in the same window) to a page gathering all RSS-feeds provided by the Newshub.

The European Parliament Newshub is a web application aggregating information from the different actors in the European Parliament: the members, political groups, president and news service of the institution. It acts as an instant news service, displaying items from the last 5 days.

Display

The items appear based on the time they are gathered by the Newshub, with no editorial intervention.

Gathering is done on a very regular basis to be as close as possible to real-time but an item that has been published on a website or a blog may not instantaneously appear on the Newshub.

Filters

Users can filter information according to different criteria.

The languages preferences on the top of the page allow users to display only the items that are in the languages they understand. Language detection is automatic for each item fetched by the Newshub. If no language is found, the item is classified under the language assigned to the feed by the contributor.The language preferences do not apply when in the view: Contributors >MEPs

Users can save their language preferences for the next visit - provided they use the same device.

The timeline in the header of the page allow users to travel back in time and see what happened on the Newshub at any moment in the last 5 days.

In order to highlight popular items, the Newshub computes a relevance score for every item based on the amount of interaction this item gets on its platform of origin (such as "Likes" on Facebook or "Retweets" on Twitter). Based on this score, a special algorithm defines popular items which then appear as "most discussed".

Topic filtering is done by automatic indexation of feed items. Feeds in languages other than the 23 official EU languages cannot be taken into account in the topic filtering, although they are supported by the Newshub.

Other filters and a search box are available in the navigation bar.

Other functionalities

Users can favourite any page of the Newshub as well as their search criterias by using the yellow "Favourite" button at the top left hand corner of the page.

Users can subscribe to RSS feeds on any page of the Newshub by using the yellow "RSS" button at the top left hand corner of the page.

Contact the Webmaster

Please report errors or broken links or forward your comments and suggestions about the European Parliament Newshub website to webmaster@europarl.europa.eu

Liability and Privacy policy

The European Parliament has no control over the content published by the members, political groups and President, and can therefore not be held accountable for what is displayed. Every Newshub contributor is responsible for what is published on their platform. Content published by the EP press service complies with the legal provisions laid down on the European Parliament website: http://www.europarl.europa.eu/portal/en/legal-notice

The information on the Newshub may link to or embed external sites and features over which the European Parliament's services have no control and for which the European Parliament can accept no responsibility. The privacy policies of these websites apply and we suggest users review them.

The names and pictures under which Newshub contributors appear and all information about the contributors, although partially derived from the European Parliament database (CODICT), are the sole responsibility of the contributors.

Storing of information

In order to achieve the best performance, the application uses the HTML5 technology of "Local Storage". This enables the Newshub to provide a much faster service and a smoother user experience as pictures and script logics are stored locally.

Items are displayed for 5 days and then disappear from the Newshub, unless the small amount of published items makes it necessary to display them for longer, in order to keep the application filled. For the smooth functioning of the application, items are stored on a server.

Technical disclaimer

The European Parliament cannot be held liable for direct or indirect damage that may result from use of this site. We take all possible steps to minimise disruption caused by technical errors. Some data or information on this site may have been created or structured in files or formats that are not error-free. We cannot in such cases guarantee that our service will not be interrupted or otherwise affected by problems. The European Parliament accepts no responsibility in case of defective transmission of data due to the various networks of the internet or to incompatibilities due to the user's web browser.

The European Parliament cannot be held liable in case of disruption to service and unavailability of the Newshub. However, all measures are taken to provide an availability of 99.5%.

General rules

Without prejudice to any of the above mentioned provisions, the legal provisions of the European Parliament website may apply. They can be found @ http://www.europarl.europa.eu/portal/en/legal-notice