Are you looking to license software for use at Union? To help ensure accessibility across campus, Union's Finance Department has added accessibility steps to its Contract Management process.
Many software vendors offer completed VPATs, or Voluntary Product Accessibility Templates, for customers to review. A VPAT is a document that explains how a vendor's product meets ("conforms to") particular accessibility standards. Different accessibility standards will require different VPATs.
Union College uses the World Wide Web Consortium's Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0, Level AA standards, as a minimum.
Levels of conformance include: supports, partially supports, does not support, or not applicable.
Whenever possible, ask potential vendors for their VPAT during the procurement process.
For more information about VPATs and to download blank templates, visit the Information Technology Industry Council's VPAT page. ITI maintains the templates used by software vendors.