Sources Sought Questions and Answers - 50310226Q0182.pdf

Question No. Vendor Question Government Response 1 How does the Government define an ad-hoc alert?" Would a media monitoring software service, which provides automated alerts based on keywords, suffice for this requirement?

Ad hoc reporting may be required during a period of high-impact, breaking news coverage and may consist of requested additional news briefings and/or an updated summary of the key news and developments relevant to the SEC's work. Automated alerts may suffice depending on the nature of the request and the ability to adhere to prioritization of news sources.

2 What is the level of detail required for a weekly summary report?

Does the analysis of key trends and developments include an analyst-written assessment?

The weekly summary report shall provide an analysis of the key trends and developments in the news coverage, including any relevant insights or observations. The report shall also include a summary of the most significant news stories and developments from the past week. The government is not requiring the method in which the vendor performs the assessment.

3 What are the expected hours for customer support? Is the contractor expected to adhere to the provided response times within business hours or over an extended time range?

Expected hours for customer support are 9:00 a.m.- 6:00 p.m. EST.

Response times would be expected during business hours.

4 Is the lookback period for every report 24 hours, or are Monday and post-holiday reports expected to capture news from a period greater than 24 hours?

The lookback period for Monday and post-holiday reports should include previous non-workdays if relevant to reporting criteria.

5 Are SEC-issued press releases to be included in the Daily News Briefings?

SEC-issued press releases should not be included.

6 Is reporting from a Tier 2 outlet expected to be included in the report if the story is already covered by a Tier 1 outlet, but the Tier 2 outlet provides new or unique information not available in a Tier 1 source?

Yes

7 How does the Government measure accuracy and relevance? How will the government determine if an accuracy score of 98% is maintained by the contractor?

Accuracy and relevance will be measured based on reporting of relevant coverage as defined by the pre-determined criteria and topic-based search queries in the SOW and as agreed to by the COR.

Identification of missed coverage outside of the daily briefings and/or ad hoc requests will be monitored and measured against the accuracy/relevance metrics.

Sources Sought Vendor Questions and Government Responses Sources Sought Notice Title: Sources Sought for News Monitoring Services Notice ID: 50310226Q0182

The following questions were received in response to the Sources Sought Notice. The Government's responses are provided below for informational and market research purposes only. These responses do not constitute a solicitation or otherwise obligate the Government.

Sources Sought Vendor Questions and Government Responses Sources Sought Notice Title: Sources Sought for News Monitoring Services Notice ID: 50310226Q0182

The following questions were received in response to the Sources Sought Notice. The Government's responses are provided below for informational and market research purposes only. These responses do not constitute a solicitation or otherwise obligate the Government.

8 Could the Government further define what constitutes an ad-hoc report?" A 30 minute turnaround time for a report could be difficult, depending on the report's complexity.

Ad hoc reporting may be required during a period of high-impact, breaking news coverage and may consist of requested additional news briefings and/or an updated summary of the key news and developments relevant to the SEC's work.

9 Does the Government anticipate the Daily News Digest's clear summaries" to be required to be human-written, or copy-and-pasted from the articles themselves?

There is no requirement for human-written content. However, summaries should be summaries derived from source articles rather than cut/pasted content from a segment of the article.

10 Does the Government not intend on a one Base Year + 4 Option Years period of performance?

The anticipated period of peformance is one (1) year. However, based on the results of market research and the Government's needs, the Government may consider a contract consisting of a one-year base period with four (4) one-year option periods.

11 The contractor shall maintain a 24/7/365 coverage plan to ensure that news monitoring services are available at all times, including outside of regular business hours." Is this clause referring to the ad-hoc alerts? Or does this clause refer to the Daily News Digest (9.1), which must include news published at any time of the day, any day of the year?

This refers to the inclusion of news published at any time, as well as any potentially automated alerts/ad hoc reporting.

12 Is SEC seeking a platform subscription, a managed briefing service, or both?

Deliverables shall be sent directly by email to identified/"subscribed" recipients. How that service and recipients identified is at the discretion of the vendor. Interface should be easily navigable by the Government to update/access information.

13 How will accuracy and relevance be measured? Accuracy and relevance will be measured based on reporting of relevant coverage as defined by the pre-determined criteria and topic-based search queries in the SOW and as agreed to by the COR.

Identification of missed coverage outside of the daily briefings and/or ad hoc requests will be monitored and measured against the accuracy/relevance metrics.

Sources Sought Vendor Questions and Government Responses Sources Sought Notice Title: Sources Sought for News Monitoring Services Notice ID: 50310226Q0182

The following questions were received in response to the Sources Sought Notice. The Government's responses are provided below for informational and market research purposes only. These responses do not constitute a solicitation or otherwise obligate the Government.

14 What rights are required for licensed and copyrighted content? Recipients should have access to the full articles provided.

15 Are the listed sources mandatory or illustrative? Listed sources are mandatory. Vendor may include additional sources as appropriate based on the tiered handling requirements identified.

16 The SOW requires archived materials to be searchable and retrievable, but we want to confirm the intended delivery model.

Should vendors interpret the archive requirement as providing SEC users with access to a searchable, vendor-hosted research platform?

All collected materials shall be archived in a searchable format, with a data retention rate of at least 99%. Access to archived materials will be provided by the vendor within 2 hours of receipt of a request from the COR. The government is not requiring the method in which the vendor performs this requirement.

17 Please clarify the pricing assumptions vendors should use for the ROM estimate. Specifically, should vendors provide pricing for: a single licensed user, or a specified number of licensed users?

Please price for both a specified number of subscribers in increments of 500 up to 2,500, as well as pricing for an enterprise model. 5-10 users would require any applicable advanced permissions.

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