508_Industry_Day_Questions_and_Answers.pdf

General Services Administration, Office of Government-wide Policy

Section 508 Industry Day Q & A

February 23, 2015

INDUSTRY DAY WAS FOR MARKET RESEARCH ONLY. STRATEGY AND ITEMS MAY

CHANGE IF A SOLICATIATION IS ISSUED.

Q – Who is the Prime.

A – SCRA –Contract# GS-00I-11-AA-C-0017

Q - Question number one and question number four in the RFI were kind of confusing because it appears that they were asking the same thing?

A- The questions are not intended to be the same. The premise we are using is that we want to gather information.

Q - Will GSA [be the] lead agency federal government in this effort?

A – Yes, and we will partner with many other agencies such as the

Access Board, DHS, Social Security, and EPA.

Q - How does GSA plan to collaborate with other agencies?

A - We collaborate through meetings, focus groups, and training. The

CIO Council and OMB are also partners.

Q - Does GSA have a committed budget to implement the recommendations from these efforts?

A - One of the things we are hoping to come out of this [RFI process] with is more information to let us know if we need to ask for a bigger budget and what more do we need to do to make this work.

Q - What are the next steps after the RFI submission?

A - The information that's gathered is going to be used to assist in the creation of the upcoming RFP and influence the future of the current 508 program.

Q - Is there a plan to announce a new Chief Disability Officer at the White House?

A - We have no information on a new Chief Disability Officer. As soon as I hear anything back from them I will let you know.

Q - Will there be a grand challenge around developing killer mobile apps that making Federal government services more accessible to all citizens?

A - I think it's something that we are certainly looking at addressing. I think that's certainly part of the Federal government's visual IT strategy to incorporate mobile capability in everything moving forward.

Q - Are we going to try to be leader in making sure that as we move to mobile that's also something that remains accessible?

A - Absolutely. With that said I don't think there is one specific app that we can develop that will fix all of that for the Federal government. It's something that we have to position ourselves as a leader and we need to have a lot of information about mobile applications and we need to know how it all applies. There is a lot addressed in the new standard[s] [Electronic and Information

Technology Accessibility Standards under section 508 of the

Rehabilitation Act of 1973] that I think we will need to look into and provide guidance on. I think our role will be providing guidance to the rest of the government as mobile IT is developed moving forward.

Q - Can you clarify that there's a page limit to the RFI response?

A - There's no page limit to your response but, however, you are requested to provide any additional materials including marketing and reference material as appendices.

Q - Does GSA expect full and open competition for the RFP or a select invite bid?

A - We will be utilizing GSA Schedules.

Q – What is the anticipated period of performance?

A - Period of performance is anticipated to be for one year from the date of award with four option year options.

Q - Is the RFP expected to include hands on remediation activities to install federal ICT?

A - I would say right now that, yes, probably a little bit of all of that is going to be included.

Q - Who is the prime?

A - SCRA.

Q - So my only question was if you had two sentences to describe the scope of what this contract accomplishes what is that?

A - We have training, the BuyAccessible tools, Section 508.gov and

BuyAccessible.gov and we have the Vendor Accessibility Resource

Center (VARC). One of the things we are hoping to do is expand these things and add new initiatives.

Q - Does GSA follow the DHS OAST testing process for Section 508?

A - DHS has a trusted tester certification program. It's a course that they are integrating into a program. Right now it's free to government employees. They are working on getting it on DAU as an on-line course. Right now it's a one week course and you have to have 90% or better to pass. It gives you certification as a Section

508 Trusted Tester which means you can go back to your agency and say “I can do this testing for Section 508 conformance and certify section 508 conformance.” That's a little part of it. What DHS is doing is trying to develop it into a program. Say Gordon took the trusted tester course and he passed it with flying colors, now what's he going to do with it? DHS is trying to put together a program saying

“Gordon - you are certified - you need to take this program and integrate it into your testing environment because it needs to become part of the testing process.” They also have a document remediation course and everything they offer for free. I wanted to say that one of the goals of the Trusted Tester course is to also get it out into industry so we can all be on the same sheet because a lot of times you know A is doing this and B is doing that and C is doing something else and they are not necessarily talking to each other.

Q - One of the other questions was what is the expected value of the award?

A – [It] [h]as not been determined.

Q - Someone was asking will there be a share point angle to this?

A - No, share point will not be included in the contract vehicle.

Q - How exactly is the contract going to be written?

A - We are not sure of what the new work is going to look like at this time. We are anticipating that your responses to the RFI will influence the RFP.

Q - When is the current contract expiring?

A – The current contract expires on November 30, 2015.

Q - Was the last contract awarded a small business set aside originally?

A - No.

Q - If you get enough RFI's from small business will you set aside small business?

A - That is not one of the goals of this RFI.

Q - Do you intend to award a best value?

A - The factors have not been determined yet.

Q - What was the amount the original contract was awarded for and is this being run by NCR region contracting or AAS or what contracting shop?

A – This award is being handled by the Central Office Contracting

Shop. The original contract was for ten million dollars over five years.

Q - There's been a lot of discussion off the record about the relationship between GSA and OMB, and I understand the Access Board and the CIO Council. Can you characterize where that might be going and how it relates to the RFI?

A - We have been formulating new relationships with the CIO Council and the Accessibility community of practice. They have been doing a lot of hard work on best practices for document remediation, and they have also developed all the templates for gathering the information from the Federal government which is required by the strategic plan. OMB has been working with us with some of the training issues.