How are you (and your institution) assessing 3rd party vendors (databases, digital asset managements) for accessibility?

Our institution will be formally including accessibility as a part of our criteria for determining which
3rd party vendors (e-learning resources, databases, digital asset managements) to purchase.

Do you run any automated or user testing on 3rd party vendors?

We're trying to determine a realistic (in our staff capacity) of criteria for determining accessibility for current and prospective 3rd party vendors.

I've found about VPATs which can be a bit complex that I've found and also not always be an accurate representation of the vendors'
actual sites/resources when I've conducted automated tests on their pages. Additionally, If I were to use them, I'd need
to create a scoring system whether (perhaps based on thes value of the supporting features'column) which I've considered.
Because what they state on a VPAT and what's in reality may not match, I'm leaning towards not using the VPATs at all.

When you've found any discrepancy between a vendor's VPAT and your own testing and requested them to fix the compliance issue?

For those not familiar with VPAT, check out
https://vpats.wordpress.com/
https://accessibility.oit.ncsu.edu/it-accessibility-at-nc-state/developers/accessibility-handbook/overview-understanding-the-nature-of-what-is-required-to-design-accessibly/voluntary-product-accessibility-template-vpat/

With the aforementioned issues of VPAT, I'm considering adopting a criteria checklist provided by the ASCLA (I've uploaded to my library's website -
https://cpl.org/wp-content/uploads/think_accessible_before_you_buy.pdf
(Yes, I'm aware that it's a PDF).
into a score-based card. Thoughts?

Thanks in advance for your attention and insight.

Regards,
Will Skora
Web Developer
Cleveland Public Library



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