2021 Summary Writing Workshop.pdf

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FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION

FINANCE DIVISION | PROCUREMENT SECTION

STATEMENT OF WORK

U.S. Government Summary Writing Workshop Program

Development and Delivery for the

Intelligence Division

Statement of Work

March 9, 2021

1 Scope

The FBI hosts Summary Writing Workshops to improve its linguists’ writing and expression capabilities, so that these skills can be leveraged in other areas to further the mission. The FBI plans to have multiple iterations of the Summary Writing Workshop to be held between the beginning of April 2021 and the end of September 2021 via an online platform to provide FBI linguists with improved English writing, grammatical, and expression skills. The online platform to be used in providing virtual instruction is at the vendor’s discretion but must be made known to the Contracting Officer and Contracting Officer

Representative at least seven (7) business days before the start of the workshop. The number of iterations of this Workshop is currently unknown; however, there will likely be three iterations. The base period of performance of the BPA Call and any potential periods of performance will take place during the period of performance of the overarching BPA Call’s period of performance.

Summary Workshop No. Period of Performance Duration

Workshop No. 1 April 5 – May 17, 2021 Six (6) Weeks, 1 day

TBD --- Workshop No. 2 TBD Six (6) Weeks, 1 day

TBD --- Workshop No. 3 TBD Six (6) Weeks, 1 day

1.1 Description of Services/Introduction

This Workshop for up to ten (10) linguists shall focus on English composition, improving summary writing skills, use of English grammar, and English expression. The iterations will be attended by and observer, not included as one of the linguist attendees. The goal of this Summary Writing Workshop is to prepare linguists to meet their customers’ needs by providing summaries that are clear, concise, and concrete.

Standards for performance should be presenting essential elements of information based on main idea of source material, information that is important to the customer, and additional relevant information considered supplementary. The goal of an effective summary is to collect key information about your writing topic, by asking and answering questions — Who? What? When? Where? Why? and, How? After going through the necessary steps of reading, organizing, writing, and reviewing the summaries, students need to ensure that they have provided the following necessary elements:

1. Main Idea

2. Pertinent details

3. Organization

4. Word Choice

5. No spelling or grammar errors.

A well-written summary does the following:

1. Provides all pertinent information (usually per collection requirements, and/or as requested by the customer).

2. Demonstrates the students’ comprehension of the original text.

3. Holds the reader’s interest by varying sentence structures and/or expressions.

4. Is concise and easy to read.

Attachment C – Statement of Work Guide and Template to Procurement Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) – Requirements Generation

5. Is written in third person.

Additionally, the length of the summary should be shorter than the original. The level of detail should be reflective of the customer’s needs and collection requirements.

This is a non-personal services contract. The Government shall not exercise any supervision or control over contractor employees performing the services herein. Such contract service providers shall be accountable solely to the Contractor who, in turn is responsible to the Government.

1.2 Background

In FY20 the FBI required the development and delivery of a series of U.S. Government (USG) Summary

Writing (SW) Workshops. The Workshop was successfully delivered and completed in November 2020. In

FY21 the FBI needs to continue to provide its linguists with training on summary writing with emphasis on the improvement of English writing skills, use of English grammar, and English expression.

2 Applicable Documents

None.

3 Requirements

Offerors will propose an instructional curriculum to address the required objectives, and the successful offeror will execute this plan by teaching linguists English composition, writing skills, grammar, and expression and evaluating each student’s proficiency in meeting the objectives of the Summary Writing course. Offerors have latitude in developing the instructional curriculum under the general requirements and objectives the FBI has established under this Scope of Work. The FBI will own and receive a copy of all lesson plans and materials developed for this training.

The instructor will present students with materials for the first assignment, providing an exemplary, ideal summary, as well as a poorly executed summary, along with the original text. Based on the provided products, the students will review the summaries and start writing their own summaries for their next assignment, for the new material that the instructor will subsequently provide.

The first assignment shall be sent to the students on the first day of the workshop Monday, April 5, 2021 along with any other course materials pertinent to the instruction at hand. Students shall return their completed assignment back to the instructor by COB Thursday, 8 April 2021. The review of the assignment shall be due back to the student from the instructor by Monday, 12 April 2021.

Subsequent assignments shall follow the same pattern each week:

• The instructor will send the new assignment to the student on Mondays.

• The students will return the completed assigned to the instructor on Thursdays.

• The following Monday, the instructor reviews and grades the assignment and returns to the student.

4 Place of Performance

The primary place of performance will be virtually using an online platform of the successful offeror’s choosing. This online platform must be made known to the Contracting Officer and Contracting Officer

Representative at least seven (7) business days prior to the start of the workshop to provide the U.S.

Government sufficient time in informing and preparing its students for the systematic and technical requirements necessary to participate in the course.

5 Deliverables

Each week the instructor will email a contemporary text in English of approximately 1500 words, or an audio clip that does not exceed 5 minutes of speech or dialogue, for summarizing. At least four of the assignments will be text-based, while two of the assignments will be based on audio material. The text will present factual material in non-technical prose and will focus on topics of general law enforcement interest such as criminal investigations, corruption, human trafficking, organized crime, police activity, and terrorism. Texts may include elements of judgment and/or opinion. Audio material shall consist of a dialogue, a monologue, or news reporting, focusing on the topics listed above. Students will return their weekly summaries to the instructor, who will review them with an emphasis on all requirements listed above, while also noting any elements of the expression that are incorrect. Whenever possible, the instructor will note patterns of errors, provide examples and explanations of correct usage, and provide corrective practice exercises for each student, or for the group if required. It is expected that the instructor will spend up to two hours per week per student reviewing each student summary and providing individualized correction and guidance for improvement, as well as reviewing practice exercises that are assigned and answering students’ questions. Students will be allowed to spend up to four hours per week producing the summary, reviewing feedback, and completing any additional practice exercises that may be assigned. The instructor will discuss generalized problems noted in the students’ summaries.

The instructor will provide examples and explanations of the summary writing guidelines and will provide exercises allowing students to practice overcoming problem areas. The instructor must be a U.S. citizen.

Instructor resumes are to demonstrate native skills in English, and extensive experience in providing instruction on English grammar and expression or summary writing. Students are to be provided with guidance on how to continue to develop their skills after training is completed.

6 Vendor Proposal

In accordance with the terms and conditions of this SOW, the vendor shall provide its proposal for meeting the training requirement to the CO by the provided deadline of March 19, 2021 by 4:00 P.M. CST.

Proposals shall include the Name of Vendor and the Vendor POC’s contact information to include email address and phone number.

Pricing should be itemized to show for the Language-Related Training and the Foreign Language and

Language-Related Training: Curricula and Materials Development and a cumulative total inclusive of the aforementioned.

1. CLIN 0001: Language-Related Training (up to 10 students):

Two (2) hours for introductory synchronous meeting of instructor and students using the vendor’s virtual platform. During this meeting the instructors will review the students’ initial summary writing assignments and the vendor will provide instruction on using the virtual platform.

148 hours for virtual instruction, review of student work, and individual and group feedback.

The hours represent the expected, actual, and required magnitude of the work involved in delivering this training workshop requirement. The Firm Fixed Price (FFP) contract type chosen for this acquisition requires the successful offeror to establish a price inclusive to providing for the entire training workshop and the curricula and materials required to be provide therein under the specifications defined in this

Statement of Work.

Total price for CLIN 0001: Please provide a price for CLIN 0001 – Language-Related Training

2. CLIN 0002: Foreign Language and Language-Related Training: Curricula and Materials Development: 30 hours

The hours represent the expected, actual, and required magnitude of the work involved in delivering this training workshop requirement. The Firm Fixed Price (FFP) contract type chosen for this acquisition requires the successful offeror to establish a price inclusive to providing for the entire training workshop and the curricula and materials required to be provide therein under the specifications defined in this

Statement of Work.

i. Total Price for CLIN 0002: Please provide a price for CLIN 0002 – Foreign Language and

Language-Related Training: Curricula and Materials Development

In order to plan for scope escalation as future requirements become known, offerors will provide three

(3) quotes – one for each Workshop where the Scope of Work will remain the same as what is provided, with only the dates subject to change as they become known. Offerors should not provide for a total price for all three workshops unless they have also itemized the prices for CLIN 0001 and CLIN 0002 for each of the three workshops. The government is not considering any quantity of training iterations beyond three

(3) for this requirement in fiscal year 2021. The initial iteration of this workshop will be established as the base period of performance under the BPA Call with the potential two other iterations being established as options under which the United States Government has the sole, unilateral right to exercise.

6.1 Requirements for Proposal Preparation

This section specifies the requirements for the preparation of quotations.

The electronic copies of the documents should be accessible in Adobe Acrobat (PDF format), MS Word, or

MS Excel.

Proposals shall consist of the following four volumes/sections of information and be submitted according the following number of volumes and format:

· Volume I – Completed Section B ‘Vendor Proposal’ of this Work Order o The Offeror shall complete any fill-in’s required including price.

· Volume II – Completed Proposal for the Development of a General Curriculum and Feedback at the

Introductory Level o The Offeror shall submit a proposal providing all information requested in Paragraph 1 of the Training

Requirements above (limit of 10 pages).

· Volume III – Proposal for the Development of Training Materials at the Introductory Level o The Offeror shall submit a proposal providing all information requested in Paragraph 2 of the Training

Requirements above (limit of 5 pages).

Each proposal shall provide full, accurate, and complete information in order to facilitate a thorough and timely evaluation. Quotations that fail to provide full, accurate and complete information may be deemed non-responsive. Offerors must submit all four volumes in order to be considered.

By agreeing to provide services under this solicitation, Offeror agrees to not distribute, disseminate, or otherwise spread the personally identifiable information (PII) of students attending training to individuals, groups, or other entities that do not have an FBI authorized need to know the student’s identity. In this instance, PII means any information that permits the identity of an individual to be directly or indirectly inferred including any information which is linked or linkable to that individual and, if lost, compromised, or disclosed without authorization, could result in substantial harm, embarrassment, inconvenience, or unfairness to the individual.

To develop and deliver the USG Summary Writing Workshop program, the FBI requires the following information:

Proposal for the development of a general curriculum and materials for USG Summary Writing Workshops at the introductory level. The proposal for curriculum and materials development is to include a description of the content to be presented. Content and activities are to focus on the development of the skills required to perform summary writing, according to the rubric that the instructor will provide. The proposal for curriculum development is to include a statement of training goals, such as maintaining the author’s main idea and supporting details when summarizing a document, at the end of the workshop.

The proposal for curriculum development is to include a description of homework to be assigned. The proposal for curriculum development is to include a description of how student progress will be tracked through a rubric, to evaluate each assignment.

Proposal for a model for feedback delivery. The instructor will assign summary writing tasks and provide feedback. The instructor will focus on overcoming any students’ tendency to adhere to native language structures resulting in English language expressions that are awkward or unidiomatic and may obscure meaning or impact accuracy. Whenever possible, the instructor will provide examples and explanations of correct usage, and provide corrective practice exercises for each student, or for the group if required.

It is expected that the instructor will review each student’s summary and provide individualized correction and guidance for improvement, as well as reviewing practice exercises that are assigned and answering students’ questions.

The proposal for workshop scheduling and delivery must include the following information:

A description of how the Offeror will identify and attract qualified instructors to provide Summary Writing training. Instructors must be US citizens and must have significant experience demonstrating experience writing summary products. The Offeror must describe how it will identify and recruit such instructors, and how it will establish an attractive rate at which to pay them. The Offeror is encouraged to submit resumes of potential instructors.

A description of how the Offeror will prepare each instructor to deliver workshop general curriculum and materials.

i. A description of the technical platform, and how the introductory meeting and instruction will be hosted.

7 Government Furnished Equipment or Information

Government Furnished Equipment is not applicable for this acquisition as services are provided remotely via an online media platform of the successful offeror’s choosing.

8 Personnel Availability

The Contractor’s normal workday will typically be within the hours of 8:00 A.M. EST and 4:00 P.M. EST and these hours of availability coincide with the duration of each workshop that the contractor will be leading.

9 Student Cancellations, Tardies, and Absences

The vendor should make student cancellations, tardies, or absences known to the COR on the same day in which the cancellation, tardy, or absence occurred. Likewise, the government will inform the vendor if a student has informed the government of expected cancellations, tardies, and absences.

10 Travel and Other Direct Costs

Travel costs will not be provided as the instruction is offered remoted via an online platform, and the instructor is not required to perform services for this contract from the government’s duty station.

11 Government Representatives

The governmental functions inherent to this contract shall be performed by the designated Contracting

Officer. The duly assigned COR shall ensure all actions pertaining to this contract are requested via the

Contracting Officer.

12.1 Contracting Officer Representative

The COR will be identified via letter of COR delegation authority for this contract. The COR is responsible, as applicable, for: receiving all deliverables, inspecting and accepting the supplies or services provided hereunder in accordance with the terms and conditions of this contract; providing direction to the

Contractor which clarifies the contract effort, fills in details or otherwise serves to accomplish the contractual Scope of Work; evaluating performance; and certifying all invoices/vouchers for acceptance of the supplies or services furnished for payment.

The COR does not have the authority to alter or modify the Contractor's obligations, contract terms, conditions, specifications, or cost. If as a result of technical discussions, it is in the Government’s best interest to alter/change contractual obligations or the Scope of Work, the CO shall issue such changes.

The COR for this contract is Danielle Lindler. She can be reached by email at dlindler@fbi.gov.

12.2 Contracting Officer

This contract will be administered by:

Contracting Officer Tim Thornton, tthornton3@fbi.gov

13 Requirements for Proposal Submission

Quotations shall be submitted electronically via email to the Contracting Officer (CO) listed below by the Quotation Due Date of March 19, 2021 at 4 P.M. CST specified in the Statement of Work (SOW):

TIMOTHY THORNTON, Contracting Officer (CO) tthornton3@fbi.gov

Any questions pertaining to this solicitation should be sent via email to the Contracting Officer, Timothy Thornton, at tthornton3@fbi.gov.

Text pages when printed shall be 8-1/2 by 11 inches, single spaced and single-sided with a margin of at least one (1) inch. The Times New Roman font type with at least 12-point characters shall be used to enhance readability.

14 Evaluation and Award Process

The Government will award a Blanket Purchase Agreement Call (BPA Call) resulting from this solicitation to the responsible Offeror whose proposal conforms to the solicitation’s requirement and is deemed to be most advantageous to the Government. The Government will select the proposal that provides the best overall value. A written notice of award or acceptance of an offer mailed or otherwise furnished to the successful Offeror with the time for acceptance specified in the offer, shall result in a BPA Call without further action by either party. Before the expiration date and time specified by the Offeror, the Government may accept a proposal (or part of a proposal) without discussions, unless a written notice of withdrawal is received before award. The Government specifically reserves the right to accept an offer based solely on the Offeror’s proposal. The Government specifically reserves the right to remove from award consideration any proposal that does not conform to all requirements in the solicitation. Alternate proposals will neither be entertained nor evaluated. The Government reserves the right to make multiple awards.

mailto:tthornton3@fbi.gov mailto:tthornton3@fbi.gov

14.1 Basis of Award

The Government will award a BPA Call resulting from this solicitation to the responsible Offeror whose proposal, conforming to the solicitation, will provide the best value to the Government. Award of this BPA Call will be made on a competitive best value basis, using “tradeoff” among price and non-price factors.

The following evaluation factors are listed in order of importance:

1. Proposals for the development of a general curriculum, the development of training materials, and the schedule and delivery of the Summary Writing Workshop Program (Volumes 2 – 3)

2. Price (Volume I)

Price will be evaluated by utilizing price analysis to determine fair and reasonableness. Although non-price factors are more important than price, as non-price factors become more equal, price becomes more important, and may be the deciding factor for award. Offerors that do not propose all of the line items will not be eligible for an award.

The Government may elect to award to the other than the lowest priced Offeror or other than highest technical evaluated Offeror.

14.2 Evaluation Rating Table

The Government will evaluate all “non-price” Factors based on a color coded, adjectival rating system.

The color rating system will allow the evaluation board to identify strengths and weaknesses associated with each proposal. The following standard color scheme will be used and illustrates to what degree the proposal meets the evaluation standards:

ADJECTIVAL

RATING

QUALITY EVALUATION DESCRIPTION

Exceptional [Blue]

Proposal exceeds requirements and indicates an exceptional approach and understanding of the requirements. Risk of unsuccessful performance is very low. Strengths far outweigh any weaknesses. No deficiencies or significant weakness exist.

Good [Green]

Proposal meets requirements and indicates an adequate approach and understanding of the requirements. Risk of unsuccessful performance is no worse than moderate. No deficiencies noted and strengths outbalance any significant weaknesses or weaknesses that exist.

Marginal [Yellow]

Proposal does not clearly meet requirements and has not demonstrated an adequate understanding of the requirements. Risk of unsuccessful performance is high. Significant weaknesses identified. Other weaknesses are not offset by strengths. Any deficiencies present are easily correctible.

Unacceptable [Red]

Proposal does not meet requirements and contains one or more deficiencies.

Proposal is not awardable. The risk of unsuccessful performance is high since the quote’s strengths are far outweighed by its weaknesses.