MODIFICATION
Q -- Consumer Health Information on Herbs and Supplements
- Notice Date
- 3/24/2015
- Notice Type
- Modification/Amendment
- NAICS
- 519130
— Internet Publishing and Broadcasting and Web Search Portals
- Contracting Office
- Department of Health and Human Services, National Institutes of Health, National Library of Medicine, 6707 Democracy Blvd., Suite 105, Bethesda, Maryland, 20894, United States
- ZIP Code
- 20894
- Solicitation Number
- NIHLM2015427
- Archive Date
- 4/18/2015
- Point of Contact
- Maryann Carroll, Phone: 3014517329
- E-Mail Address
-
maryann.carroll@nih.gov
(maryann.carroll@nih.gov)
- Small Business Set-Aside
- Total Small Business
- Description
- This is a Small Business Sources Sought notice. This is NOT a solicitation for proposals, proposal abstracts, or quotations. The purpose of this notice is to obtain information regarding: (1) the availability and capability of qualified small business sources; (2) whether they are small businesses; HUBZone small businesses; service-disabled, veteran-owned small businesses; 8(a) small businesses; veteran-owned small businesses; woman-owned small businesses; or small disadvantaged businesses; and (3) their size classification relative to the North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) code for the proposed acquisition. Your responses to the information requested will assist the Government in determining the appropriate acquisition method, including whether a set-aside is possible. An organization that is not considered a small business under the applicable NAICS code should not submit a response to this notice. All responsible sources may submit a capability statement which will be considered by the National Library of Medicine. This Sources Sought Notice is not a Request for Quotations (RFQ), nor is an RFQ available. Interested firms responding to this Sources Sought Notice must provide a capability statement that displays the following: (a) Microsoft Word or PDF file in 12 point font (b) DUNS number, organization name, address, point of contact, and size and type of business (e.g., 8(a), HUBZone, etc) pursuant to the applicable NAICS code) (c) Technical and administrative points of contact, including names, titles, addresses, telephone and fax numbers, and e-mail addresses (d) Staff expertise, including their availability, experience, and formal and other training; (e) Current in-house capability and capacity to perform the work; (f) Prior completed projects of similar nature; (g) Corporate experience and management capability; and (h) Examples of prior completed Government contracts, references, and other related information; The capability statement should contain enough sufficient detail for the Government to make an informed decision regarding your capabilities; however, the statement should not exceed 6 pages (excluding attachments.) All capability statements must be submitted electronically no later than 10:00am eastern time on April 3rd, 2015 to Maryann Carroll, at maryann.carroll@nih.gov. Disclaimer and Important Notes: This notice does not obligate the Government to award a contract or otherwise pay for the information provided in response. The Government reserves the right to use information provided by respondents for any purpose deemed necessary and legally appropriate. Any organization responding to this notice should ensure that its response is complete and sufficiently detailed to allow the Government to determine the organization's qualifications to perform the work. Respondents are advised that the Government is under no obligation to acknowledge receipt of the information received or provide feedback to respondents with respect to any information submitted. After a review of the responses received, a pre-solicitation synopsis and solicitation may be published in Federal Business Opportunities. However, responses to this notice will not be considered adequate responses to a solicitation. Confidentiality: No proprietary, classified, confidential, or sensitive information should be included in your response. The Government reserves the right to use any non-proprietary technical information in any resultant solicitation(s). _________________________________ DRAFT Statement of Work: Consumer Health Information on Herbs and Supplements National Library of Medicine 1. Background To assist consumers in obtaining the information they need to make informed decisions about health care, the National Library of Medicine (NLM) has developed MedlinePlus (medlineplus.gov), an easily understandable Web resource for the public. MedlinePlus contains and links to information from authoritative health Web sites and content providers, especially those from the National Institutes of Health. NLM makes MedlinePlus available to the public through a variety of MedlinePlus-branded Web sites, Web services, Web applications, APIs, email and social media communications, XML files and search results. This Statement of Work (SOW) addresses NLM's need to license herbal and dietary supplement information in English and Spanish for MedlinePlus. 2. Objective The National Library of Medicine (NLM) requires unique authoritative herbal and dietary supplement information for inclusion in the MedlinePlus full and mobile web sites (http://medlineplus.gov and http://m.medlineplus.gov), both of which include information in both English and Spanish. The herbal and dietary supplement information will be an important resource for consumers, and will augment the information already provided on MedlinePlus. NLM will host the content on its own servers. Content will be displayed in MedlinePlus templates with attribution to the content provider. Links to the content may also be included in email updates and Twitter posts sent from the National Library of Medicine to interested users. The Vendor shall provide us with the data (at no cost) or a sample set of the data and a complete list of available units (at no cost) within a week after the award is made for our internal planning purposes. If the vendor is willing to provide the data while we are negotiating the license agreement that would be a benefit to the government and we would welcome that. The vendor will be available for questions regarding the data and implementation on MedlinePlus, MedlinePlus en español, and MedlinePlus Mobile during the time period before the base year starts. This will facilitate our programming and testing time before we make the content available on the site. Once the base year officially starts, which is when the data will be publically available on the site, we will pay for the base year as planned. 3. Mandatory Requirements a. Authoritative content: The content must be accurate and authoritative. The authorship of the content must be identified. The medical advisory board of the health content must be provided via the web. Content should be based on peer-reviewed evidence and contain references to the evidence. b. Audience: The content must be written for the general layperson. The content must be consumer-friendly and written at a consumer reading level. c. Equivalent content in English and Spanish: The content of the monographs must be completely equivalent in English and Spanish. The content must be structured in such a way that NLM can map from information in one language to the other. d. Regular updating of content: Content must be current, and reviewed and updated at least yearly. Content updates must be accompanied by detailed documentation of the changes that have been made to the content. Documentation must include a list of information that has been added, edited, or deleted. e. Emergency updating of content: There must be a provision for updating and/or replacing inaccurate or outdated content outside the regular update schedule if requested by NLM or deemed necessary by changes in the health environment. f. No commercial content: Information must be free of commercial endorsements or advertisements. g. Unobtrusive co-branding: Branding by the content provider must be minimal and unobtrusive. h. No registration: Users must be able to access all content licensed by NLM without having to register with the content provider. i. Format of content: Content must be delivered to NLM in a desired format, such as well-formed XML with accompanying DTD or schema. NLM seeks text-based, descriptive information about supplements. j. Accessibility of content: Content must be accessible in accordance with Section 508 (29 U.S.C. 794d). It is the responsibility of the content provider to familiarize themselves with Section 508 requirements and ensure that their content meets these requirements. k. NLM prefers content should provide graded scales of effectiveness for remedies. l. NLM prefers having high-quality drawings or photographs that accompany the information. 5. Specific Technical Requirements a. Files must be customizable to be integrated into the MedlinePlus environment. The content must be delivered in well-formed XML. NLM will use the XML to: i. index content for its search engine. ii. provide users with a printer-friendly version of the individual content pages. The content provider does not need to provide this formatting. NLM can create this formatting. iii. provide users with the ability to email the individual content pages to other users. The content provider does not need to provide the service. NLM may implement this with a custom solution. b. NLM will implement links to social networking sites and other online sharing forums from the individual content pages to allow MedlinePlus users to easily share content of interest within their social networks. The links will be implemented through a custom solution or through a third party such as AddThis.com. 4.1 Accessibility Requirements Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act requires that Federal agencies' information and communication technology is accessible to people with disabilities. The herbal and supplement content offered must be Section 508 compliant. Specifically, the end product must be conformant with all applicable provisions, including: 1194.22 Web-based Intranet and Internet Information and Applications. 1194.31 Functional Performance Criteria 1194.41 Information, documentation, and support. Applicable clauses depend on the nature of the content. These provisions can be found at the U.S. Access Board Guidelines and Standards. Updates to Section 508 guidelines are currently under revision. The Offeror will be expected to comply with revised section 508 standards within a reasonable timeframe once these new accessibility guidelines are issued. In addition, the Offeror should provide Level AA conformance to the World Wide Web Consortium's Web Accessibility Initiative (W3C-WAI) WCAG 2.0 standards when possible since they will likely soon be required by law under the update. Conformance includes ensuring that all content, including text, all non-text content such as multimedia and images, and any associated players or viewers, are fully accessible per Section 508 and WCAG 2.0 Level AA standards. The idea is to provide as close an equivalent experience as possible for all users. This includes but is not limited to ensuring every page is fully keyboard-navigable; that any and all prompts for user interaction are keyboard accessible; that controls for the media player are fully accessible and properly labeled; that all text elements are captioned and synchronized with the content and that all non-text elements are fully described, including any images, still or moving, that provide context as to the meaning of the content; and that multimedia does not auto-start on page load. 4.2 Accessibility Program Need Requirements for accessibility based on Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 (29 U.S.C. 794d) are determined to be relevant for the following program need: "Information on Herbs and Supplements for MedlinePlus." 4.3 Accessibility Product Requirements 1194.22, 1194.31 and 1194.41 from 36 CFR part 1194 Subpart D have been determined to apply to this acquisition. Solicitation respondents must describe how Information and Communication Technology deliverables meet at least these requirements identified as applicable in the attached Government Product/Service Accessibility Template (GPAT). 4.4 Accessibility Evaluation Factors Responses to this solicitation will only be considered for award after it has been determined that the proposal adequately addresses the requirements for Section 508. Only proposals which contain adequate information to document their responsiveness to the accessibility requirements (e.g. a completed GPAT) will be eligible for any additional merit consideration. If the deliverable proposed in response to this solicitation includes features and functions in addition to those identified as requirements, these features and functions also need to conform to relevant Section 508 technical provisions, functional performance criteria, and information, documentation and support. The accessibility of these additional features and functions should be described in the completed GPAT. 4.5 Accessibility Acceptance Criteria The herbal and dietary supplement information licensed as a result of this solicitation will be accepted based in part on satisfaction of identified requirements for accessibility. The Offeror must include a completed GPAT, a sample of which is included as a part of this solicitation. The Offeror should complete the two right-hand columns, including an explanation of how the product complies with the clause. If the deliverable includes features and functions in addition to those identified as requirements, these features and functions also need to conform to relevant accessibility technical provisions, functional performance criteria, and information, documentation and support. 6. Contract Type Anticipated Contract Type: Firm Fixed Price 7. Place of Performance Files will be delivered or retrieved electronically. 8. Period of Performance There will be a base year, plus four option years. Base Year: 7/30/2015-7/29/2016 Option Year 1: 7/30/2016-7/29/2017 Option Year 2: 7/30/2017-7/29/2018 Option Year 3: 7/30/2018-7/29/2019 Option Year 4: 7/30/2019-7/29/2020 9. Deliverables/Delivery Schedule SOW TASK # Deliverable Title #Calendar Days After Award Regular Content Update At a mutually agreeable schedule Initial Content File Delivery 14 days after award Response to User Feedback provided by NLM At a mutually agreeable schedule, preferably monthly Response to requests for emergency updating of content Within a mutually agreeable turn-around time 10. Inspection and Acceptance Criteria NLM will inspect and do a quality review of the delivered content as part of the regular update process. 14. Transition Plan The awardee will be required to provide NLM with technical support and advanced delivery of the content files within 1 week of being selected by NLM so that NLM can plan for the implementation of the content pages and links to these pages on MedlinePlus-branded sites, services and files. In the event that NLM ceases licensing this product, the Offeror will be notified within 30 calendar days of the change, but will help assist with the transition by providing technical support and addressing questions that facilitate transitioning to a new provider of content. The contractor shall create any requested non-proprietary documentation that NLM requests to aid with the transition. Any documentation developed for this purpose shall be the property of the government.
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- SN03677841-W 20150326/150324235621-338dcab765e03275927989f3ddbbdea5 (fbodaily.com)
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