Response_to_Questions_v2-_Daily_News_Digest.pdf

91990019Q0020‐ Daily News Digest

Question Response

Is there any incumbent on this contract? Can you please provide contract number, company, period and value.

Contract is ED‐OCO‐14‐C‐0118 Contractor is Bulletin Intelligence, LLC Period of Performance is a 12‐month base and four 12‐month option periods, expiring on 9/22/2019.

Total contract value is $942,917.93.

What is the price determination factor ? Is this a best value or lowest price technically acceptable ?

As mentioned in the Evaluation Criteria, tradeoff methodology is being used with factors other than price, when combined, are more important than price.

How many personnel required for this effort? Full time or part time?

It is up to the offeror to decide how many full‐time or part‐time personnel are required to meet the requirements of this solicitation.

What are the qualification requirements for personnel ?

There is no specific qualification requirements, just that the offeror propose "a team with knowledge, skills and abilities to support the Education Department’s goals and objectives for this project."

Is there any overtime requirement for this effort? How many hours a week (Example: 40) ?

No. No overtime requirement. It is up to the offeror to decide the hours of work per week to meet the requirement of the solicitation.

Past performance required? If yes,how many past performance / references required ?

The offeror may submit past performance, however no submission for Past Performance is required; the Government reserves the right evaluate in accordance with FAR 13.106‐2(a)(3).

What is the estimated period of performance start date? As mentioned in the period of performance, the start date in 9/23/2019.

Can you share a sample news digest from the most recent period of performance that represents, for any overlapping requirements, the scope and level of detail that best satisfies ED’s needs?

No, it is up to the vendor to propose their best solution.

Under Sources for Stories, the RFQ includes a bullet for “Major social media news sources, where stories are trending, such as Twitter, Facebook, Medium, Instagram, and others.” As trending stories are often the same stories that are published through the other sources mentioned, should this category only be considered for relevant but non‐news links, such as images and memes?

No.

The RFQ makes note of an “excluded stories list, if needed.” What criteria determines whether this is produced? For pricing purposes, is it appropriate to consider this as a separate, daily product?

Excluded stories have been stories about ED principals not related to their official duties at the Department.

The RFQ notes that trending statistics should be prepared for 3 platforms: Twitter, Facebook, and Medium. However, it also includes the word “etc.,” implying that others should be included. If so, what other platforms should be included?

No. See answer to question 22 (Spreadsheet line 25).

The RFQ states “all web pages” developed under this work statement to be 508 compliant. Does that requirement extend to SaaS/COTS web pages originated by third party media services?

The 508 requirement extends to these pages.

Is there one incumbent vendor currently providing all of these services, multiple vendors, or is this a new engagement? Follow‐up, if there are existing engagements, can you provide the contract numbers for current awards?

One vendor, under ED‐OCO‐14‐C‐0118 is currently providing all of these services.

Is there a budget that the Department would like to make vendors aware of for this project? The budget developed is for Governemnt use only.

Is there any need to analyze / monitor / have access to news which was published prior to the start of this contract?

No, the Daily News Digest will only need to cover news that occurs the period of performance.

Does the Department require access to a media contact database? No.

Will the Department need access to a social media influencer database? No.

Regarding the daily deliverable, what is the expectation on written summaries for articles? As much detail as you can provide will be helpful in providing an accurate quote.

The vendor writes a clear impartial headline and a short abstract, which summarizes and covers key points in the coverage. Sources are noted with circulation figures given next to the source. Short summaries, including headline, abstract and source, run 100 words. Longer entries covering mulitple sources may run 300+ words or even cover multiple pages in the brieifing. The briefing tends to run around 10 pages each day, but it gets longer when there is more coverage of the Department.

Will the ‘hit sentence’ where keywords are mentioned be acceptable as opposed to a written summary?

No.

Is there a need to monitor content in multiple languages (in addition to English)? No.

For the ‘Twitter Feed’ described under Format and Layout, is a sampling of Twitter data and content acceptable or does the Department require access to the full Twitter firehose?

The current Twitter feed covers Department Twitter accounts and members of Congress from the Education and Education Appropriations committees in the House and Senate. The Departement reserves the right to add other accounts to follow.

Is it required to monitor content from additional social networks outside of Twitter, Facebook, YouTube & Instagram (ie: Redditt or other forums)?

At this point, no.

In addition to the hosted distribution discussed under Format and Layout, do Department users require access to a portal which allows them to search for content not included in daily briefs? If so, how many users require access to this portal? Do the all users on the account require simultaneous access to the portal?

No.

Can the Department provide a sample of their existing brief and a screen capture of the hosted website?

No.

How many Keywords/Topics does the department anticipate needing to track on a daily basis?

The current topics are listed in the RFQ. In addition, the vendor is pulling 20 to 30 search terms per day, currently.

How many Searches/Campaigns will vendors need to track at any given time?

Currently, the contract states that 3 special searches per year are included in the contract price. The Department has not used any of these in FY 2019.

How many employees will receive the daily brief?

Currently, the Department has less less than 4,000 FTEs; from our best estimates, we believe about 1,000 employees read the Daily Briefing.

With regards to requesting news from “Major social media news sources, where stories are trending, such as Twitter, Facebook, Medium, Instagram, and others,” does the Department require each vendor to list which social media sources they are able to access and use for the digest?

Yes, this RFQ is designed to take the clips into the 21st century.

With regards to the Appendix 1 (Page 14), in lieu of a generic sample and given the customized set of requirements for a morning clipping package described in the PWS, would the Department wish to set a publish deadline (date and time) for the samples so that prospective contractors synthesize and distill the news from the same 24 hours and the evaluation can be made “apples to apples” with news specific to the Department? If so, would 7:30 AM the day the proposal is due be appropriate?

No.

With regards to the Item F, Task 1 “The digest will include at least 40 education articles per issue” (page 6); is it fair to assume that in addition to the requirement listed in the solicitation, the government is also interested in learning about stories on education‐related topics even if the Department and its officials are not mentioned?

Yes. Our beat is Department‐related stories. By that, we mean we cover all of education, including news about the three biggest education programs outside the Department (Head Start at HHS and the National School Lunch and Land‐Grant Colleges programs at USDA). Certainly, we need to cover the Secretary and Department leaders as they travel, give speeches, appear before congressional committees and attend White House events, but with 40 stories a day, the Department calendar provides multiple opportunities for all education topics to appear in the clips: K‐12, postsecondary, vocational, special education and more. In a given year, the clips will cover stories from all 15 principal offices and all education topics from soup to nuts

The solicitation specifies a news “digest.” We assume this means that only the most important information from within each story is to be presented to ED (a “summary” rather than a digest in the sense of a simple collection of full‐ text articles). Can you please confirm that interpretation?

Yes. See the answer to question 18, above (Spreadsheet line 21).

With regards to the requirement for “summary of news coverage,” as described on Page 5 of the PWS, some contractors take the approach of providing only a link and an extract of the first sentence or two of an article, frequently repeating the same information from a large number of media publications. Would Education prefer that the analyst team producing the service carefully weave together the most salient pieces of information from across sources, no matter where in each article that information is found, and even if the key story elements are not near a keyword?

Yes. See the answer to question 18, above (Spreadsheet line 21). When noting the sources, a top‐notch summary will tell us what was different in the coverage, for example, as it jumped from major newspapers to network news to the cable cycle.

With regards to the “what’s trending in education” sidebar box, is the Department looking for trending social media conversations or how traditional news coverage is being engaged with on social media?

The Department primarily wants to track the latter, how traditional news coverage is being engaged with on social media.

Several platforms including Instagram and Facebook severely limit access to non‐public posts. To help vendors focus efforts on pages that are relevant to the Department, can the Department provide the vendor with a list of influencers and pages for the vendor to monitor?

Yes, once the contract is in place.

With regards to the complete cost build‐up referenced under Volume II‐ Business Quote (page 11), predicting named individuals and level of effort for a period of over five years is a challenge to do accurately. As news volume ebbs and flows and people are expected to change positions over the course of five years, would the government instead prefer a list of key personnel and their qualifications tied to a firm fixed price?

The offeror may provide their list of key personnel and pricing tied to these personnel for informational purposes, however the offeror will still need to provide a firm‐fixed price total for each period of performance based on the requirements outlined in the solicitation and any amendments.

Similarly, as this is a firm fixed price contract with multiple service features, rather than having vendors attempt to provide a breakdown of all labor and others costs (including allocations of overhead labor), would the government prefer a detailed pricing breakdown based upon requested features (i.e., daily briefing, special searches, social media, etc.)?

The offeror may provide a detailed price breakdown to accompany their Business Quote, however the offeror will still need to provide a firm‐fixed price total for each period of performance.