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Educause HECVAT Vendor Assessment Tool Gets an Upgrade

Educause has announced HECVAT 4, the latest update to its Higher Education Community Vendor Assessment Toolkit.

HECVAT is a community-driven tool designed to help institutions evaluate solution providers against an institution's policies and appetite for risk, Educause explained in a news announcement. Version 4 was developed with extensive community feedback via surveys, conferences, and user testing.

Among the new features, Educause said:

  • A new set of questions evaluating solution providers' privacy practices and compliance, created by volunteers from Educause's Chief Privacy Officers Community Group;
  • A tab for a privacy analyst to provide input on a completed HECVAT;
  • New AI-specific questions developed by community volunteers;
  • The ability for institutions to customize their HECVAT review based on their individual requirements;
  • The HECVAT Full, Lite, and On-Prem versions have been combined in one file that guides solution providers on which questions apply to their offering;
  • Institutional Evaluation tabs allow users to select categories to include in a solution's score;
  • Institutions can mark items as "non-negotiable" and view those criteria in a new tab; and
  • A "high risk" score provides a lightweight solution evaluation.

Educause has launched a new HECVAT website in conjunction with the update, which offers improved training materials for both solution providers and institutions.

About the Author

Rhea Kelly is editor in chief for Campus Technology, THE Journal, and Spaces4Learning. She can be reached at [email protected].

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