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SAMHSA's Section 508 Resources

What is the process for requesting a 508 Assessment from SAMHSA?

As of May 2009, SAMHSA requires website contractors and developers follow the steps below when requesting a 508 assessment:

Step 1

CONTRACTOR TEST AND CHECKLIST CREATION: The contractor must conduct a detailed accessibility test on each web page included in the assessment as well as all related documents such as PDF files. The contractor must verify each page or file is compliant with Section 508 standards before submitting their request. Specifically:

  • For web requests, the contractor must fill out one (1) 508 Website Checklist for each main section of the site; one (1) 508 Website Checklist for each form contained on the site; and one (1) 508 Checklist for A/V and other multi-media file.
    Download SAMHSA's 508 Website Checklist     508 compliant Word file
  • For each document on the website, the contractor must fill out one (1) 508 checklist for each individual PDF, .DOC, .PPT, .XLS, Flash, Audio, Video, or other multi-media file in the submission. Dowload these checklists at http://508.samhsa.gov/checklistsTools.aspx

These checklists provide the verifiable objective evidence (VOE) that SAMHSA requires to process your request.

Note: If this is not an initial assessment request and you are requesting a follow-up assessment from SAMHSA, you only need to provide VOE checklists for each web page or document that was fixed and being submitted for a new round of testing.

Step 2

EMAIL REQUEST TO WEBMASTER: The contractor should send an email to the SAMHSA webmaster (and cc their Project Officer) detailing

    • the reason for the request,
    • the ticket number for the request (if one was previously given to you),
    • a list of the web pages and files to be tested,
    • the URL to test (if applicable).

  1. ATTACH CHECKLISTS TO EMAIL: The contractor attach to the email all checklists used to verify the files are 508 compliant. These files should be zipped up in a separate zip file called VOE.zip. All checklist files should be named in an appropriate manner so the Webmaster can easily make the correlation between a particular checklist and the file it was used to test.

    For example, if a website update contains 10 HTML web pages and 5 PDF files, the VOE would contain 1 HTML checklist, and  5 PDF checklists.

    The checklists can be found at the following URL http://508.samhsa.gov/checklistsTools.aspx  

  2. ASSESSMENT REPORT COMPLETED: Within 1-3 days, the 508 Assessment team will complete a cursory review of your files using the tools at their disposal which may include JAWS 9, the Adobe PDF checker, the Wave Toolbar and manual testing of code in web pages and PDF files.. To conduct the assessment the team randomly tests a small percentage of your submission. Once complete, they will forward an Assessment Report to the SAMHSA Webmaster. The Webmaster will send the report to the contractor.

    At that time, the contractor may or may not be required to provide additional updates. When the updates are completed, the contractor shoud resubmit the request and the process will continue. During subsequent assessments the SAMHSA Assessment team may test other areas of your submission.

If you have any questions, please contact the SAMHSA Webmaster at webmaster@samhsa.hhs.gov

Last Update: 06/12/2009