SOLICITATION SECTION M

SECTION 508 TECHNICAL EVALUATION

(06/04/01)

This suggested section for inclusion in your solicitation is offered with the understanding that the technical evaluation of a procurement process must always be customized to suit the conditions of each procurement action. This section specifically relates to other than indefinite delivery indefinite quantity (IDIQ) contracts.

Hence, no pre-assigned technical evaluation value can be given to compliance with the Electronic and Information Technology accessibility Standards issued by the Architectural and Transportation Barriers Compliance Board (Access Board) in response to Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, 1998 Amendments. Nor does the Federal Acquisition Regulation address the manner in which compliance should be technically evaluated. Evaluation of this set of standards must be considered among all other procurement requirements in reaching an award decision.

Keep in mind that even if not fully compliant, you are required to acquire the commercial product that provides the greatest degree of compliance while satisfying other functional requirements. Hence, some form of graduated evaluation is necessary. Depending on the planned use of the subject products, the technical evaluation values of compliance with the various Board standards will vary. All other requirements of the agency and requiring official are still relevant and evaluated as well. Section 508 standards constitute an additional set of requirements to be evaluated with the others.

A "best value" approach to evaluating offers or proposals appears to be the best for accommodating Section 508. This method generally ensures maximum flexibility in consideration of the multiple requirements to be satisfied. One of the reasons for this is that should your procurement process require an "undue burden" justification, either at the point of initial purchase request development or during offer/proposal evaluation, the requiring official is required by regulation to provide for an alternative means of access to allow an individual with a disability to use the information or data. (See the "EIT Undue Burden Exception Determination and Certification" provided at Attachment B to the "Section 508 Determination and Findings for Purchase Requests.") This alternative means will usually have associated effort, labor cost and time, yet it is not a requirement within the procurement process. But, it needs to be included in the best value determination.

In order to help simplify an otherwise complex and potentially confusing technical evaluation requirement, the attached Excel spreadsheet, Electronic and Information Technology Accessibility Standards Evaluation, may offer assistance. It may be used or referenced in Section C and placed in Section J of the solicitation for completion by the offeror as part of his/her proposal. Additionally, procurement requesters (requiring officials) may use it during market research to assess their findings relative to compliance levels of various products. Then, s/he may include it as part of either the EIT Commercial Non-Availability Certification of the EIT Undue Burden Exception Determination and Certification. The contracting officer must clearly and firmly prohibit the offeror from altering the spreadsheet format in any manner. The offeror must assure this, and only complete the spreadsheet as provided.

The contracting officer may modify any of the evaluative aspects of the spreadsheet to suit his/her specific procurement process. However, deletion of any of the standards is not recommended due to cross-references and their interdependence.

The Electronic and Information Technology Accessibility Standards Evaluation spreadsheet uses the same EIT section categories and numbering scheme as the original Access Board standards themselves. Only applicable sections need to be used. Each section will automatically total. Allowance is made for weighting standards, as appropriate. The proposal offeror completes the Product and Compliance Level columns on the spreadsheet, using one of the three pre-determined values for the latter.

The offeror must indicate under the "Product" column whether he has used "equivalent facilitation," which is provision of substantially equivalent or greater access than the accessibility standards through means other than those stated or implied by the standards. The offeror must cross-reference such notation to an explanation of how the equivalent facilitation accomplishes the functional capability.