Jobs and Careers

COMPETITION TYPE : 

Request for Quotation (RFQ)

DETAIL DESCRIPTION : 

DPI is soliciting offers from qualified companies to provide services for upgrading and improving the existing website of the Republic of Armenia Academy of Justice to enhance its accessibility and comply with WCAG 2.1 guidelines. The specific requirements of the requested upgrade are defined in the “Technical Requirements” section of this document.

TECHNICAL REQUIREMENTS

Technical Overview: The newly launched Republic of Armenia Academy of Justice’s website https://www.aoj.am is not compliant with Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1 available at https://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG21/. The Academy of Justice and DPI would like to comply with WCAG 2.1 guideline to ensure that people with disabilities such as visual, hearing, motor, or cognitive disabilities can perceive, understand, navigate, and interact with the website.

To understand current compliance, DPI produced a WCAG compliance report for https://www.aoj.am using AInspector for Firefox (https://ainspector.disability.illinois.edu/), a tool produced by the University of Illinois to assess WCAG 2.1 compliance. The report identified 190 Violations, 151 Warnings, and 852 manual checks.

Violations: These are instances where a website or digital content does not meet the accessibility criteria set out by WCAG. Violations occur when there are elements or functionalities on the website that fail to meet the required accessibility standards. For example, if an image lacks an appropriate text alternative for screen readers, it would be considered a WCAG violation.

Warnings: Warnings are issues that might not necessarily violate the accessibility guidelines outright, but they indicate potential problems or areas of concern that could impact the user experience for people with disabilities. These issues might not be as severe as violations, but they still warrant attention. An example of a warning could be having low contrast text that might be difficult for some users to read.

Manual Checks: Manual checks refer to the process of evaluating accessibility aspects of a website or content through human assessment. While automated accessibility testing tools can identify certain issues, they can't catch everything. Manual checks involve human testers reviewing the content and interactions to identify issues that might not be easily detectable by automated tools. These manual checks can include tasks like verifying that keyboard navigation is functional, confirming the correctness of alternative text for images, and ensuring that multimedia content is adequately captioned.

The report is attached to this RFQ as Annex 3. The selected vendor may use their own compliance tools to assess compliance, however DPI will use AInspector in the acceptance process as outlined below. Note that the Academy of Justice site includes a sizable amount of content in PDF and video format in the resource library. These resources are excluded from the scope of work.

Technical Resources:

The website https://www.aoj.am is run on a dedicated server managed by the Academy of Justice IT team. It uses PHP 8.0, Laravel 8, and MySQL 8 as a back end. For the front it HTML5, CSS3, Boostrap, and Javascript are used. Github is used as the Git repository and the selected vendor will be provided access. The site is currently deployed via cPanel or SFTP.
The selected vendor will receive full technical specifications after award.

Deployments will be coordinated with the Academy of Justice IT team. The contractor will be responsible for deploying updates to the site, excluding aspects that can only be done the Academy of Justice IT team.

Technical Objectives:

Task 1 - Update the Academy of Justice website to comply with WCAG 2.1 guidelines

The vendor will update the Academy of Justice website using the compliance report in Annex 3 and, at their preference, their own review so that the Academy of Justice website complies with WCAG 2.1 guidelines. It is expected that the vendor:
- Address all violations noted in Annex 3;
- Review all warnings noted in Annex 3 and determine if changes are needed to comply with WCAG 2.1 and make the necessary updates to bring these elements into compliance;
- Review all "manual checks" to determine if changes are needed to comply with WCAG 2.1 and make the necessary updates to bring these elements into compliance;
- Address all other WCAG compliance items identified using other tools or in the process of executing the updates.

If full compliance is not possible the vendor will raise which WCAG 2.1 Principles and Guidelines cannot be achieved and why to DPI for review and acceptance by DPI. It is expected that the WCAG compliance work will not change the functionality or content of the Academy of Justice website.

After completion the vendor will:
- Create a final report detailing WCAG compliance using AInspector, or an equivalent tool;
- Deploy the updated site in a staging/testing server for review and acceptance by DPI as outlined below.

Task 2 – Deployment of WCAG-compliant site to production
After acceptance by DPI, the vendor will deploy the updates to https://www.aoj.am in coordination with the Academy of Justice IT team.

Task 3 - Provide warranty on work for a period of 6 months
The vendor will resolve any bugs reported by DPI if they were a result of work in execution of this RFQ for a period of 6 months after completion of Task 2.

Expected Deliverables
The successful offer must provide the following deliverables:
- Final report detailing WCAG 2.1 compliance on the current website outlined in Task 1
- Upgraded, deployed, and fully functioning site that is compliant with WCAG 2.1 as specified in Task 1.

Prior to deployment the site must be reviewed and approved by the Academy of Justice IT team. See the acceptance details below.
- Source code committed to the git repository
- End of warranty period report at the conclusion of the 6-month warranty period. The report will detail any bugs reported to the contractor, a determination if they were the result of the contractors work in execution of this RFQ, and their resolution if applicable under Task 3.

Acceptance requirements:
The developer will host and make available a test version of the Academy of Justice website and the Task 1 report prior to deployment on production. Academy of Justice and DPI staff will use the test version to ensure the site meets the requirements and objectives of this procurement using AInspector. The review will include all Violations and a ten percent sample of manual checks noted in Annex 3. If any defects or errors are detected, the Contractor is obligated to eliminate them before deployment.

REQUIREMENTS : 

Successful offerors must:
- Present Annex 1 and Annex 2 duly filled and signed as part of the application.
- Submit an offer in response to this RFQ before the mentioned deadline.
- Have at least 5 years of experience of website design and development services. Experience in working to ensure accessible educational e-content in line with WCAG 2.1. Guidelines is an advantage.

Experience in creating, developing, and upgrading websites for the Armenian state agencies will be an advantage (experience in designing websites in compliance with the requirements of the Republic of Armenia Government’s Decision N 1521-N of 26 December 2013 is preferred - Link to the decision: (https://www.arlis.am/DocumentView.aspx?DocID=88785)

APPLICATION PROCEDURES : 

Offer Submission Deadline
Offers must be received no later than October 23, 2023, 16:00 Yerevan time.

Submission of Offers
All offers must be submitted electronically to the following email address: ***********@***********.*** Please quote reference “RFQ # 2201-027” in the subject of the email.

Questions and Clarifications
All questions and clarifications regarding this RFQ must be submitted in writing to ***********@***********.*** no later than October 6, 2023, 16:00 Yerevan time. All correspondence must provide a reference to the RFQ number. Responses to the questions and clarifications will be published by DPI-Armenia by October 13, 2023, 17:00 Yerevan time. Questions and clarifications that may be of interest to other bidders will be circulated to all parties that submitted the questions. Phone calls to any staff members of the organization are strictly prohibited.

Required Documentation

The offers must include the following:
- Duly filled and signed Annex 1: Bidder General Information.
- Duly filled and signed Annex 2: Quotation Form.
- Company/PE Profile – describing the nature of business, field of expertise, licenses, if required for the service provided (a copy should be attached), certifications (a copy should be attached), accreditations if required (a copy should be attached), including brochures relevant to services procured, information on the number of employees, etc.
- Track Record – list of clients for similar services within the last 3 years indicating description of contract scope, contract duration, contract value. The service provider’s previous experience in delivering similar services should be clearly demonstrated. The bidder should provide names and contact information for up to three (3) entities that can provide feedback on the service provider’s performance (reliability of service).
- Proposal with a detailed description of services offered to DPI-Armenia, number of personnel with required qualifications to be assigned for the provision of services required.

Please clearly mention in your application letter that you learned of this job opportunity through Career Center and mention the URL of its website - www.careercenter.am. Thanks.

OPEN TO/ ELIGIBILITY CRITERIA : 

Only firms and other entities legally registered in the Republic of Armenia may submit an offer in response to this RFQ.

ADDITIONAL NOTES : 

Please download Annex 3 here: https://bit.ly/annex3
Please download RFQ 2201-027 here: https://bit.ly/44XrpXV
Please download RFQ 2201-027 Editable here: https://bit.ly/3t0PzDC