A01-Performance Work Statement Final.docx

US Department of Agriculture (USDA)

Performance Work Statement CONTRACT 4804 Interview Audio Transcription

Contents

Project Title CONTRACT 4804 Interview audio transcription

General Information

1.0 Background and Purpose

Wildfires have grown in size and intensity in recent decades, particularly in the United States (US) West. The National Forest System (NFS) has created a Wildfire Crisis Strategy (WCS) that, in part, relies on selling and otherwise removing timber in order to reduce the amount of fuel available for future fires.

Challenges related to timber sales are an organizational issue for the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) Forest Service (FS) that impacts operations at different organizational levels, across functions, and within the surrounding economic, social, and environmental systems. We will use a comparative case-study approach to better understand the needs, existing data and planning tools, innovations, and successes of planners and managers on National Forest System (NFS) units in Wildfire Crisis Strategy (WCS) Priority Landscapes.

We plan to identify 5-8 National Forests across a range of issues and levels of success in innovating new practices/addressing challenges, and to conduct in-depth case studies in each, using semi-structured interviews of forest managers, other market participants, community members, community organizations, and others.

The purpose of this proposed work is to transcribe those interviews from audio to written content, allowing for later content analysis. This transcription should be done with a high degree of accuracy and reliability, to avoid unnecessary follow-up, review, and revision of the transcription work by research personnel, thus allowing the research personnel to focus on research.

2.0 Definitions

AI – Artificial intelligence ASR - Automatic speech recognition BIL – Bipartisan Infrastructure Law CUI – Controlled Unclassified Information FS – Forest Service (of the US Department of Agriculture) NFS – National Forest System (of the US Department of Agriculture Forest Service) US – United States USDA – United States Department of Agriculture WCS – Wildfire Crisis Strategy (a strategy of the National Forest System to address wildfires of increasing size and intensity)

Clean transcript (sometimes called “clean verbatim”) – a written version of the words and sounds spoken, with various meaningless utterances, stammers and repeated words, guffaws, filler words and phrases, and false starts and self-corrections removed to improve readability. Small edits may be allowed for grammar and readability, but the words in the transcript convey the full meaning of the speaker, are attributable to the speaker, and are not paraphrased.

Project data - audio files provided by the research team, resulting transcripts/transcription documents, and any other intermediate products or other outputs based on those data.

Verbatim transcript (sometimes called “true verbatim” or “full verbatim”) – a written version of the exact words and sounds spoken, including filler words and phrases (e.g., “like”, “um”) and stammers/repeated words.

Contractor Requirements

3.0 Technical Requirements / Tasks

Contractor shall transcribe audio to written text with a high degree of accuracy (>99%), and in a timely manner (within 2 weeks of receiving audio files). This will include some words and jargon specific to the forest management context, timber sales and contracting, and administration within a federal government agency (USDA FS/NFS).

4.0 Deliverable / Schedule

Transcription deliverable: Research team will supply contractor with audio files in a standard audio format (e.g., .wav or .mp4). Contractor will transcribe and return in a standard document format (e.g., .docx or .pdf). Contractor will return completed clean transcripts at least on a weekly basis. Verbatim transcripts are NOT required. Individual files should be transcribed and returned within 2 weeks of audio file being supplied, unless otherwise agreed upon with research team. File transfers will be via a shared, secure server.

Reporting: Contractor should provide a weekly report of transcripts finalized to date and any challenges or issues encountered (e.g., corrupted or unusable audio, unknown technical terms, etc.). This can be a simple list on one page or less. The report will also require the contractor to certify that no known data breaches occurred.

Key Deliverables

5.0 Government Furnished

Research team will supply audio files for transcription in a standard audio format (e.g., .wav or .mp4). File transfers will be via a shared, secure server.

Research team will review and approve final products as described in Section 11.

6.0 Travel

Not applicable.

7.0 Contractor’s Key Personnel

Transcriber(s) – Human professional transcriber or transcribers, ideally with some knowledge of technical terms related to forest management, sales and contracting, and/or administration within a federal government agency.

8.0 Security Requirements

Project data constitute controlled unclassified information (CUI) and are government property. Although this information is not classified, it is sensitive and requires protection by the research team and the contractor.

Data may not be in any way disseminated, shared, or divulged with any individual other than the specific transcriber or transcribers assigned to this task.

Contractor must use a secure server with controlled access to allow only the specific transcriber or transcribers assigned to this task.

9.0 Data Rights

Project data constitute controlled unclassified information (CUI) and are government property.

Automatic speech recognition (ASR) or Artificial intelligence (AI) may be useful in facilitating transcription, or as a first-draft tool. This contract will require human supervision and intervention for the transcription, use of these tools to facilitate and speed transcription is allowable as long as the contractor can meet performance, data security standards, and quality control.

Use of project data to “train” AI is NOT allowed. Data must be secured in such a way that use of any automated tools will not lead to dissemination of the data or other violation of the Security clause (Section 8).

10.0 Section 508 - Electronic and Information Technology Standards Not applicable.

11.0 Performance Requirement Measures

% for NOT meeting the Task

If COR or Research team otherwise learns of alleged data breach, not reported by contractor, COR or Research team will investigate the alleged breach.

If data breach is reported by contractor, COR or Research team will work with contractor to understand the incident. Depending on the severity and impact, COR may recommend enhanced security protocols or terminate the contract.

If data breach is not reported by contractor but later substantiated, contract is subject to immediate termination.

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