K--Activity Insight for Faculty Data System

The U.S. Geological Survey has a need for continued use of a web-based system for collecting standardized information on research and teaching accomplishments which generates a variety of performance metrics and customizable reports. The existing USGS system is Digital Measures' proprietary "Activity Insight for Faculty," previously issued under USGS order G09PX00321. USGS intends to award this new purchase order to the incumbent vendor, Digital Measures, LLC. The USGS has determined that there is no other source that can provide the above services (see sole source justification below); therefore, the USGS intends to make an award to Digital Measures, LLC for a base year and four option years of services. Vendors may contact the Contracting Officer, [email protected] by the response due date indicated on this announcement. The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) considers employee signatures to be Personal Protected Information, and therefore all employee signatures have been redacted. By posting this document, the Contracting Officer attests all appropriate signatures have been obtained. SOLE SOURCE JUSTIFICATION STATES THE FOLLOWING PART: JUSTIFICATION AND APPROVAL Justification for Other Than Full and Open Competition (FAR 13) 1. Contracting Agency and Activity. The Department of the Interior (DOI), United States Geological Survey (USGS), Office of Acquisition and Grants (OAG) plans to contract by means other than full and open competition. This document sets forth the justification and approval for use of one of the exceptions to full and open competition allowed under the Competition in Contracting Act (CICA) of 1984. 2. Nature of Action Being Approved. We are proposing to initiate a follow-on contract to continue, without disruption, existing services, maintenance and customization of our "Activity Insight for Faculty" web-based system provided by Digital Measures, LLC. 3. Description of Supplies or Services. Digital Measures (DM) "Activity Insight for Faculty" (AIF; http://www.digitalmeasures.com/) is a web based system for collecting standardized information on research and teaching accomplishments and subsequently generating a variety of performance metrics and customizable reports. Specifically, the AIF application currently provides the following needed services and capabilities: -Management of 800-1,000 active user accounts (>2800 users in system) with role-based security permissions. -Proprietary USGS Safety and Compliance tracking tool -Complete data backups performed daily using national banking standards and protocols (which ensures data backup is secure/prevention of catastrophic loss). -Web Services access to the data. -Complete, fully-functional and intuitive user interface that has been used, tested, and vetted by thousands of researchers across the world. Fully-customizable data entry screens, including the ability to add new screens and modify existing screens with all additions/revisions delivered within two weeks of the request. -Fully-customizable reporting, including new reports and modifications to existing turn-key reports with all report requests delivered within two weeks of the request. -Unlimited file storage for uploading and attaching files to data records (for example, attaching a pdf of a scientific publication to the publication) -Provide individual-based, customized job hazard analyses and safety training and compliance reports. The initial period of service will be December 1, 2013 to November 30, 2014, with four option years. 4. Estimated Dollar Value. [pricing information has been redacted] 5. Statutory Authority. The proposed action may be awarded on a sole source basis under the authority of FAR 13.106-1(b)(1): Only One source is reasonably available - the circumstances of the contract action deem only one source reasonably available. 6. Rationale Supporting Use of Citation in No. 5. AIF is a proprietary on-line system of DM. All requests for modifications must be made through an internal Work Request and tracking system. Modifications to the existing system can only be performed by certified DM staff (see attached). The safety tool developed in Digital Measures is USGS-specific and provides a customized, activity-based Job Hazard Analysis for every user in our system (as required per USGS policy) and clearly identifies the activity-based training each user needs to comply with USGS policy. The safety tool provides a safety compliance tool that is used by USGS for budgeting, identifying training gaps, and generating annual reports required for submission to the Bureau Safety Office. Moreover, awarding this order to a new contractor would be extremely costly in terms of time, money and effort, in excess of $100,000.00. This additional cost would be incurred due to system down-time, additional administrative labor hours/training hours, and the hiring of an additional web developer and a script developer. The current system has been extensively customized to meet USGS needs in terms of data entry screens and the underlying data schema. DM provided a "base" system of screens as a starting point, but many of the data entry screens in our system have been modified by adding/deleting fields, customizing dropdowns, adding help text or field descriptions via screen annotations or pop-up dialogs. In addition, numerous new screens have been developed to capture data related to safety training and tracking compliance. New reports have been developed to build customized, individual Job Hazards Analyses from the information entered by each user. This functionality is well outside of the standard faculty reporting requirements of a turn-key academic based system. We worked closely with DM developers to implement this functionality within their system architecture and extensive and unique logic was needed to reconcile the training needed from the training received and subsequently build the customized safety reports. Transferring the information to another vendor's platform would require the same amount of customization, as well as require USGS to efficiently import our existing ten year data set. This would take considerable effort, thus resulting in increased financial and productivity costs (back-end data set consists of over 150 relational tables). Based on the effort required to move our previous data into DM, this would take approximately 4-6 months to map data fields, migrate data and proof data to ensure data were migrated accurately. That estimate does not include the safety functionality, which would require at least 2-3 months to implement in another vendor's system, (if, and only if, the vendor's platform had sufficient flexibility to incorporate this non-standard functionality). Furthermore, modifications to the scripts and coding currently used to generate our program-wide website would result in an unreasonable amount of "down- time" and a lack of availability to our users. The effort would also require an additional cost to acquire a web developer to update existing coding to match the new schema. 7. Other Information. The U.S. Geological Survey's Cooperative Research Units Program (CRUP) consists of 40 units in 38 states. Each unit is a partnership between the USGS, a host university, the state resource management agency, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Wildlife Management Institute. The unique cooperative nature and broad geographic distribution of the program present fundamental challenges for collecting information on the accomplishments and activities of our federal scientists which are needed to: 1) meet reporting requirements of the USGS (for example, CRU program submissions for the Government Performance and Results Act and Congressional Greenbook), the Units (such as Coordinating Committee Reports and budget reports), and the individual scientists (such as their Research Scientist Record, Vita and Faculty Activity Reports); and 2) for delivering a standardized, program-wide web presence with specific, standard information available across all units and scientists. DM is currently in use at 300 of the 500 largest universities in the country, is well established, and has an outstanding reputation for reliability and up-time. All clients of AIF (and their users) benefit from the extensive experience gained in developing AIF over the past decade and results in access to a system that: 1) has been thoroughly tested in terms of reliability and functionality (up time is greater than 99%); 2) provides an intuitive and user friendly interface developed from extensive input by users for ease of use and navigability; 3) provides turn-key reporting capabilities developed with input from both researchers and administrators; and 4) has an extensive support staff that offers redundancy in every part of the system. Redundancy has been a key concern of ours in the past when dealing with independent contractors and developers. The DM system has met or exceeded all of our needs from user management to data collection to reporting and has been extensively integrated into our standard operating and critical business practices. The data collected through DM are used for everything from system generated reports on productivity that are used for Annual Performance Reviews of our scientists, to populating our entire program-wide web site, to tracking safety training and compliance and generating individual, activity-based Job Hazard Analyses. Importantly, the latter functionality is something we successfully developed and implemented within DM which saved us the cost of pursuing a separate, disparate system for that purpose. DM is currently being used as the sole faculty reporting system at many of our host universities, and this number continues to grow as the AIF system expands globally. This is important because our scientists sit on the graduate faculty at their host universities and are required to provide much of the exact same information as part of their annual performance as faculty members, so this provides substantial benefits to our scientists as well as their host universities (cooperators). 8. The Efforts to Identify Additional Sources Including the Market Research Conducted. Market research conducted in September 2013 indicates the following: -A company called ESX Inc. offers a similar system called Faculty Information System. However, the ESX system does not provide a safety tracking and compliance tool that the USGS needs to ensure the safety of USGS staff and the staff and students they supervise. -Data180 also provides a "faculty credentials and activity reporting system." Tthe Data 180 system does not provide a safety tracking and compliance tool that the USGS needs to ensure the safety of USGS staff and the staff and students they supervise. 9. Future Plans to Permit Competition. We will continue to evaluate the practicality of alternative online reporting systems when considering future needs. Future requirements will be competed to the maximum extent practicable. 10. Recommendation and Certification from Program Office: Based on the above, I recommend this acquisition be conducted on the basis of other than full and open competition. I certify that technical data which form a basis for this justification that are the responsibility of technical or requirements personnel are complete and accurate. [Signatures have been redacted] Kevin Whalen Deputy Chief, CRU 11. Certifications and Approval from the Contracting Officer: a. The Contracting Officer determines the quoted price to be fair and reasonable in accordance with FAR 8.404(d), as the contractor is offering a discounted rate, and that rate has remained constant for each year since 2009 without any increases for inflation. b. This justification is accurate and complete to the best of my knowledge and belief. 12. Approvals [Signatures have been redacted] Katherine Vultaggio, Contracting Officer [Signatures have been redacted] Jennifer Farrell, Bureau Competition Advocate