Suppliers can participate in the ST4S assessment process in one of two ways:
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- Supplier initiated (self-nomination)
- Invitation from a school or education authority
Supplier initiated – Suppliers complete the ST4S Readiness Check and iterate until they are ready to submit for a full assessment. Note: Suppliers can access the Readiness Check at any time and use it to gauge their readiness for a full ST4S assessment. Learn more about the Readiness Check here.
Invitation from a school or education authority – Suppliers receive an invitation to participate and complete an ST4S Readiness Check, iterating until they are ready to submit for a full ST4S assessment. Note: Suppliers can access the Readiness Check at any time and use it to gauge their readiness for a full ST4S assessment. Learn more about the Readiness Check here.
- Once suppliers have completed the Readiness Check and obtained a satisfactory outcome, they may formally submit their results for consideration by the ST4S Working Group to undertake the full ST4S assessment.
- The ST4S Working Group use a range of criteria to prioritise services for assessment including usage by local schools, procurement activities or recent reported incidents involving the product or involving products of a similar type.
- Suppliers are invited to participate in the full ST4S assessment process and are sent an online questionnaire containing a number of criteria across categories such as data protection, organisational security, software development practices, privacy controls and data breach incident. These criteria are more comprehensive than those within the Readiness Check.
- Suppliers completing the questionnaire are required to attest that their responses are true, correct, accurate, up-to-date, and not misleading in any way. Depending on responses to some questions, additional supporting documentation may be required.
- When submitted the supplier responses are analysed and validated by the ST4S Team.
- Results are reviewed with the supplier and any items that require clarification are worked through collaboratively.
- Once the review is complete, the final assessment results are made available to ST4S Working Group members and educational jurisdiction Chief Information Officers and the New Zealand Ministry of Education. Approved ST4S stakeholders may distribute the results to their schools.