This time of year, many government acquisitions professionals are rushing to do procurements. Did you know about the Quick Links that provide quick and easy pre-packaged Section 508 solicitation documentation for a number of standard EIT deliverables? In addition to providing solicitation documentation, these links identify typical applicable Section 508 provisions to help agencies in generating Government Product/Service Accessibility Templates (GPATs) and vendors responding with Voluntary Product Accessibility Templates (VPATs).
In your rush, don’t forget that any attachments you include in your solicitation need to be accessible. A document scanned to PDF isn’t accessible unless you make it so!
October 20th, 2011 1:09 pm
The biggest problem with buying accessible electronic and information technology in the Federal government is inaccurate VPATs. After you receive a spectacular VPAT, you ask the vendor for a demo and we find out that the VPAT was written without testing with assistive technologies and the product is far from compliant. Instead of voluntary product accessbility template, I would like a TRUE PAT. Hence an evaluation matrix is more useful as you make the vendors rank their product based on the applicable provisions and this results in effective scoring of a product and results in procuring a more compliant product. You cannot hold the vendor to compliance with a VPAT as it is voluntary but when they respond to a matrix and are awarded contracts based on it you can hold them to compliance.
November 3rd, 2011 10:14 am
Sujatha, you bring up some really good points. Here’s our take on some of the points you made:
One, agencies have to verify claims vendors make in their proposals. It doesn’t matter whether the requirement is for a VPAT, TRUE PAT, or any other accessibility documentation; if they want to compete for the work, they need to provide the material required and the government needs to evaluate it.
Two, the BuyAccessible Wizard generates a Government Product Accessibility Template (GPAT) that you can include in your solicitation for the vendor to complete.
Three, A VPAT or a GPAT becomes a TRUE PAT if it is required as a part of an acquisition. This means it is no longer voluntary and any information in it should be accurate.
Four, accessibility testing using only Assistive Technology is not adequate for all technical provisions. The BuyAccessible Quick Reference Guide indicates those technical provisions that support interoperability with Assistive Technology. If you want consensus measures of accessibility for technical provisions you can generate an Acceptance Guide from the BuyAccessible Wizard or the Quick Reference Guide.