Purchasing and Procurement Guidelines

All information and communications technology developed, purchased, upgraded, or renewed by or for the use of George Mason University shall comply with all applicable University policies, Federal and State laws, and regulations, including but not limited to the Information Technology Access Act, §§2.2-3500 through 2.2-3504 of the Code of Virginia, as amended, the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1. Level AA, and all other regulations promulgated under Title II of The Americans with Disabilities Act, which are applicable to all benefits, services, programs, and activities provided by or on behalf of the University.

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The Architecture Stardards Review Board (ASRB) is responsible for reviewing, verifying compliance, and providing recommendations with regards to new/upgrade software or hardware procurement projects.

• Procurement projects are reviewed for, among other things, integration, enterprise management, security, and accessibility.
• Projects under the purview of the ASRB include requests for new development, installation and/or integration of applications at George Mason University. This includes activities within ITS, academic and administrative units, software applications developed by university faculty and staff, as well as software procured from 3^rd party vendors and consultants.
• This committee will not review upgrades, bug fixes, and incremental improvements to existing programs. Major changes to existing systems and programs – those that change the fundamental architectural design, base functionality, or other primary elements of the initial implementation may require review.

For more information about the accessibility part of the ASRB Review, please visit Purchasing and Procurement FAQs.

If you are developing, managing, or updating a web site, there are several things to consider to ensure that the structure, navigation, and content are accessible to users with disabilities. These considerations extend to documents and videos as well.

Major components included in the accessibility guidelines include:

1. Images
2. Links
3. Navigation
4. Form fields
5. Data tables
6. Text, and
7. Page structure.

Visit Web Accessibility Standards opens a new window for more details. This page provides guidance on how to create an accessible web site in accordance with Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act and Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1.