Accessibility in the Technology Procurement Process

Accessibility at Dartmouth

Dartmouth is committed to ensuring that its programs, services, and activities are accessible to all. Disability-related accommodations are delivered through a network of established programs and offices that serve undergraduate, graduate, and professional school students, faculty, staff, visitors, and guests.  Please visit home.dartmouth.edu/accessibility to learn more and for a list of Dartmouth resources.

Accessibility and its Role in Technology Procurement

Every person procuring technology has some responsibility to learn about technology accessibility, why it is important, and how to conduct an accessibility review.  When procuring a technology good or service that will be used by more than one person, the following should be considered.

• Is it compliant with WCAG 2 Level AA success criteria?  If so, then the good or service does 'offer web accessibility functionality' as that phrase is used in Dartmouth's contract management system.  If the good or service is not fully compliant then you should investigate whether other products that are fully accessible meet business needs.

  • Levels of Conformance - WCAG success criteria are organized into three levels of conformance.  Please visit webaim.org/standards/wcag/ for more information.

    • Level A is a basic requirement for some users with disabilities to be able to access and use web content.

    • Level AA indicates overall accessibility and removal of significant barriers to accessing content.

    • Level AAA provides improvements and enhancements to web accessibility for some users with disabilities.

• If the technology good or service is not WCAG 2 Level AA compliant, does the vendor have an accessibility roadmap that it can share?

• If the technology is not compliant with WCAG 2 Level AA and the vendor does not have an accessibility roadmap, then the good or service does not 'offer web accessibility functionality' as that phrase is used in Dartmouth's contract management system.  The acquisition should be considered an exception and noted as such.

• To learn more about how to document WCAG accessibility standards/guidelines, you can review the Voluntary Product Accessibility Template (VPAT) found at itic.org/policy/accessibility/vpat.  A template Accessibility Conformance Report begins on page 10 of the VPAT 2.4Rev WCAG resource.