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Accessibility, privacy & security

Microbiome Repo is a public research resource of the Olm Lab at the University of Colorado Boulder (Department of Integrative Physiology). This page states how the site meets the University of Colorado Boulder's requirements for accessibility, privacy and security.

Accessibility

The University of Colorado Boulder is committed to providing equitable access to its programs and information. This site aims to conform to the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1, Level AA, the standard used by the CU Boulder Digital Accessibility Office.

Every page has a "Skip to main content" link, one top-level heading, landmark regions (banner, navigation, main, footer) and a declared language.
All navigation menus, filters, tables and the study and sample pages work with a keyboard; keyboard focus is always visible.
Form controls have labels; images and figures have text alternatives; colour is never the only carrier of meaning (badges carry text, line styles and tooltips as well as colour).
Text and interface colours from the CU Boulder palette meet the WCAG AA contrast ratio (4.5:1 for text).
The rotating globe stops when you hover, drag or click it, and does not rotate when your system asks for reduced motion.
Every chart, map and interactive explorer is backed by the same data as a table or as a downloadable CSV/Parquet file (Downloads), so no information is available only visually.

Known limitations. The world maps and the PCA scatter plot are visual summaries; their underlying values are in the study tables and downloads. The sample and registry explorers need JavaScript and WebAssembly; the tables they query are downloadable directly. Very large tables are paged.

Testing. Each build is checked automatically for missing labels, missing text alternatives, duplicate identifiers and heading structure. A review by CU Boulder's Accessibility and Usability Lab has been requested.

Report a barrier. If any part of this site is difficult to use, email matthew.olm@colorado.edu with the page address and the problem; we will fix it or provide the information in an accessible format. You can also contact the CU Boulder Digital Accessibility Office.

Privacy & analytics

This site is a set of static pages. It has no user accounts, no log-in, and no forms that send information to us. It sets no cookies.
Page views are counted with GoatCounter, which records aggregate, cookie-free counts (page, referrer, browser type, country) and does not store IP addresses or build profiles of visitors.
The site is hosted by GitHub Pages. Pages load the CU Boulder brand bar and footer from colorado.edu, fonts from Google Fonts, and pinned JavaScript libraries from jsDelivr; these providers receive the standard information your browser sends with any request (such as IP address and browser type).
"Flag an issue" and "Contribute" links open a form on GitHub; anything you submit there is public and governed by GitHub's terms.
All metadata shown here comes from public archives (ENA, NCBI SRA/BioSample, DDBJ) and published papers. No private or controlled-access data are used; values that the sources contradict are withheld rather than published.

Security

Static files only: no server-side code, database, log-in or file upload.
Served over HTTPS only (HTTPS is enforced by GitHub Pages).
Third-party JavaScript libraries are pinned to exact versions; those loaded as script tags (d3, topojson, jQuery, DataTables) carry Subresource Integrity hashes. A Content Security Policy blocks plug-ins and base-URL injection.
The site is published only from tagged releases by a GitHub Actions workflow; the main branches are protected against force-pushes and deletion. All source code is public: pipeline, site, data.
Report a security problem to matthew.olm@colorado.edu (also listed in security.txt).

Contact

Matthew Olm, Olm Lab at the University of Colorado Boulder, Department of Integrative Physiology — matthew.olm@colorado.edu. Metadata corrections: Contribute.