Amendment 1.docx

\SAP

State of South Carolina

Request for Proposal Amendment 1 Solicitation:

Date Issued:

Procurement Officer:

Phone:

E-Mail Address:

Mailing Address:

5400023178 04/29/2022

ZACH YARBROUGH

803-896-0284 zyarbrough@mmo.sc.gov SFAA, Div. of Procurement Services, MMO 1201 Main Street, Suite 600 Columbia SC 29201

DESCRIPTION: Website Maintenance and Enhancement

USING GOVERNMENTAL UNIT: South Carolina Educational Television

SUBMIT YOUR OFFER ON-LINE AT THE FOLLOWING URL: http://www.procurement.sc.gov

SUBMIT OFFER BY (Opening Date/Time): 05/10/2022 05/11/2022 @ 1100 ET (See "Deadline For Submission Of Offer" provision)

QUESTIONS MUST BE RECEIVED BY: 04/15/2022 @ 1600 ET (See "Questions From Offerors" provision)

NUMBER OF COPIES TO BE SUBMITTED: One (1) on-line submission and, if necessary, One (1) Redacted Copy submitted online.

Initial here if NO redacted copy is necessary___________

CONFERENCE TYPE: Pre-Proposal

DATE & TIME: 04/14/2022 @ 1000 ET

(As appropriate, see "Conferences - Pre-Bid/Proposal" & "Site Visit" provisions) LOCATION: Virtual Contact the Procurement Officer for Access

You must submit a signed copy of this form with Your Offer. By signing, You agree to be bound by the terms of the Solicitation. You agree to hold Your Offer open for a minimum of one hundred (100) calendar days after the Opening Date. (See "Signing Your Offer" provision.)

NAME OF OFFEROR

(full legal name of business submitting the offer) Any award issued will be issued to, and the contract will be formed with, the entity identified as the Offeror. The entity named as the offeror must be a single and distinct legal entity. Do not use the name of a branch office or a division of a larger entity if the branch or division is not a separate legal entity, i.e., a separate corporation, partnership, sole proprietorship, etc.

AUTHORIZED SIGNATURE

(Person must be authorized to submit binding offer to contract on behalf of Offeror.)

DATE SIGNED

TITLE

(business title of person signing above)

STATE VENDOR NO.

(Register to Obtain S.C. Vendor No. at www.procurement.sc.gov)

PRINTED NAME

(printed name of person signing above)

STATE OF INCORPORATION

(If you are a corporation, identify the state of incorporation.)

OFFEROR'S TYPE OF ENTITY: (Check one) (See "Signing Your Offer" provision.)

___ Sole Proprietorship ___ Partnership ___ Other_____________________________

___ Corporate entity (not tax-exempt) ___ Corporation (tax-exempt) ___ Government entity (federal, state, or local)

COVER PAGE - ON-LINE ONLY (MAR. 2015)

SAP

SAP

PAGE TWO

(Return Page Two with Your Offer) HOME OFFICE ADDRESS (Address for offeror's home office / principal place of business)

NOTICE ADDRESS (Address to which all procurement and contract related notices should be sent.) (See "Notice" clause)

_________________________________________________ Area Code - Number - Extension Facsimile

_________________________________________________ E-mail Address

PAYMENT ADDRESS (Address to which payments will be sent.) (See "Payment" clause)

____Payment Address same as Home Office Address ____Payment Address same as Notice Address (check only one) ORDER ADDRESS (Address to which purchase orders will be sent) (See "Purchase Orders and "Contract Documents" clauses)

____Order Address same as Home Office Address ____Order Address same as Notice Address (check only one)

ACKNOWLEDGMENT OF AMENDMENTS

Offerors acknowledges receipt of amendments by indicating amendment number and its date of issue. (See "Amendments to Solicitation" Provision)

DISCOUNT FOR PROMPT PAYMENT

(See "Discount for Prompt Payment" clause)

PREFERENCES - A NOTICE TO VENDORS (SEP. 2009): On June 16, 2009, the South Carolina General Assembly rewrote the law governing preferences available to in-state vendors, vendors using in-state subcontractors, and vendors selling in-state or US end products. This law appears in Section 11-35-1524 of the South Carolina Code of Laws. A summary of the new preferences is available at www.procurement.sc.gov/preferences . Per 11-35-1524(E) Preferences do not apply.

AMENDMENTS TO SOLICITATION (JAN 2004)

The Solicitation may be amended at any time prior to opening. All actual and prospective Offerors should monitor the following web site for the issuance of Amendments: www.procurement.sc.gov (b) Offerors shall acknowledge receipt of any amendment to this solicitation (1) by signing and returning the amendment, (2) by identifying the amendment number and date in the space provided for this purpose on Page Two, (3) by letter, or (4) by submitting a bid that indicates in some way that the bidder received the amendment. (c) If this solicitation is amended, then all terms and conditions which are not modified remain unchanged. [02-2A005-1]

The Solicitation is hereby amended as follows:

Old Proposal Due Date: 05/10/2022 @ 1100 ET New Proposal Due Date: 05/11/2022 @ 1100 ET

QUESTIONS FROM OFFERORS - AMENDMENT (JUN 2017)

The solicitation is amended as provided herein. Information or changes resulting from questions will be shown in a question-and-answer format. All questions received have been reprinted below. The “state’s response” should be read without reference to the questions. The questions are included solely to provide a cross-reference to the potential Offeror that submitted the question. Questions do not form a part of the contract; the “state’s response” does. Any restatement of part or all of an existing provision of the solicitation in an answer does not modify the original provision except as follows: underlined text is added to the original provision. Stricken text is deleted. [02-2A097-1]

1. Are you looking for in-state bidders, or are you also open to bidders from other states?

We are open to bidders from other states.

2. Do you have any development or programming capabilities in-house?

No, ETV does not have any development or programming capabilities in-house.

3. Do you expect vendor to create the content for the new site as a part of the project?

No, South Carolina ETV is the content creator.

4. What was the investment in the previous website?

ETV will not be releasing the requested information at this time.

5. What is the budget for this project?

ETV will not be releasing the requested information at this time.

6. We are an AWS Public Sector Partner for cloud hosting. Are you open to host the new website on AWS Cloud? No, we already have hosting with DartPoints.

7. Is it mandatory to obtain a SC state business license at the time of proposal submission?

Please see the clause titled LICENSES AND PERMITS (JAN 2006). Offerors are not required to obtain a SC State Business License at the time of proposal submission. For more information, visit https://scbos.sc.gov/ and https://sos.sc.gov/.

8. Offshore Contracting – We are an US based entity; however, can we perform some part of work outside US region? No..

9. In addition to the tasks described in section (B), “Scope of Work”, sub-section (2), “Enhancements,” are there known website issues (such as performance problems, bugs, or broken functionality) that will not be resolved during the website rebuild and that will be passed to the maintenance and enhancement service vendor to complete or remediate? The website has no issues currently and maintenance is still ongoing.

10. Please describe the website’s search indexing framework. Does it use Drupal’s core search indexer or an external indexer such as Apache Solr or ElasticSearch. We use Apache Solr.

11. Please provide links to several Spanish-translated content.

You can find our growing collection of Spanish-translated content at https://www.knowitall.org/collections/spanish-translations

12. Please elaborate on the requested enhancement “Kaltura API Updates.” The desired outcome is that “content from Kaltura can be expedited into the Drupal website more quickly.”

a. Does this mean that Kaltura content is pushed to or ingested by the Drupal website on some regular/automated interval and you all would like to increase the frequency at which this occurs?

Yes, the content is ingested by the Drupal website. The cron runs every few hours seeking new content from the KMC (Kaltura). It’s quite a bit of content to run through so it may be a while before new media content displays in the Drupal backend.

b. Another interpretation might be that you are looking for the vendor to provide a way for administrators to manually pull in Kaltura content as needed, rather than waiting for an automated sync.

This could be a solution since we don’t have a manual process.

13. Please confirm that this interpretation of the usage of the Instructure Standards API is correct.

a. The AB Connect 4.1 API is used to fetch metadata, taxonomy and/or categorizations for website assets. The fetched data is saved to the website’s copy of the asset. The data is displayed when the asset is viewed by users or is used for website search filtering.

Metadata and categorizations are manually added by staff members from the taxonomy (Drupal Structure). The AB Connect 4.1 API specifically pulls in the most-up-to-date standards for the staff to select. See “Standard” tab at https://www.knowitall.org/video/lewis-and-clark-expedition-part-1-introduction-history-nutshell . Viewers can also browse by standards. https://www.knowitall.org/standard

14. Will SCETV consider a change to the website hosting provider and location if the vendor can prove it will be beneficial? Considerations include enhancements such as cost savings, increased security, enterprise-level technical support, streamlined DevOps, and greater performance. We already have hosting with DartPoints. We are not interested in changing at this time.

15. Will the current website host provide the development or test environments to facilitate the testing and review of work, or must the vendor provide this? Yes, ETV will work with the Contractor so they have access to the development, test and live environments.

16. Please provide details on the current website deployment process (Continuous Integration) from development to test to live environments. Examples include services such as GitHub repositories and automated deployments through programs like Jenkins or OpenDeploy. We have three environments, development, test and live. GitHub is probably mainly used for the website deployment process.

17. Please describe the server access that the vendor will be granted to the website environments (live, test and development). Specifically, will there be advanced access protocols available such as command-line or SSH? This may not be applicable, based on the deployment process. We have three environments, development, test and live. GitHub is probably mainly used for the website deployment process.

18. Please provide details on the website hosting environment such as Operating System version, Web Server type, PHP and MySQL versions, etc. The OS is Ubuntu Linux (64 bit)

a. Please also specify other server-level or application-level system requirements (e.g., any additional PHP extensions, Linux packages currently in use). ETV does not have any server-level information to provide.

19. If our organization is not yet certified as a South Carolina Certified Business, but expects to be before the award date, will our status be recognized thereafter? What if our status changes after the award date?

We will make note either before or after the award date of the certification.

20. Why is the vendor that is completing the redesign not being selected for the ongoing maintenance contract?

The contract ended. KnowItAll.org is a state-funded project and is required to seek a new maintenance contract via South Carolina’s solicitation process.

21. Who is the Incumbent and what was the contract value?

ETV will not be releasing the requested information at this time.

22. Is there any goal for diversified sub-contractors in this RFP?

ETV does not have a specified goal at this time.

23. Does SCETV have preapproved tools for accessibility check-in or is it contractors’ responsibility to choose?

We don’t have any preferences. Past companies have used SortSite from PowerMapper.com

24. Does the current website have an automated tool for monitoring cybersecurity, or is the contractor expected to implement a new one? We have cybersecurity management via our hosting company.

25. Can you provide a list of the platforms that are going to be integrated into the website? Ideally, we would like to know the number of total platforms and the names of each platforms needed.

We currently integrate with Google Classroom which is the most popular LMS. Schoology and Canvas are the other two popular LMS platforms.

26. Did SCETV work with any external consultant to develop this RFP?

No, ETV did not work with an external consultant.

27. Is your current vendor being considered for this engagement?

ETV is considering all responsive and responsible Offerors for this solicitation.

28. We understand that SCETV is currently undergoing a redesign and rebrand. When do you anticipate the redesign/rebrand being completed? We completed the redesign and re-brand November 2020.

29. Can you please elaborate on help desk services (will this be helping end user? or SC staff?) Help desk services are specifically for the SCETV staff. From time to time if there are issues with an end user, we will reach out for a solution. All direct contact with end users is with SCETV staff only.

a. Will prior approval by SCETV be required before contractor resolves/engages? SCETV needs to be engaged during any process.

30. What is considered an acceptable "high priority" response time for downtime / website errors during school hours?

A response to downtime or website errors should be immediate. We understand there must be time to investigate. We expect updates from the Contractor so we can pass along the information to our customer service.

31. At what cadence (e.g., weekly, monthly, quarterly) does SCETV expect the contractor to perform Drupal updates. check for errors, etc.? We expect the Contractor to perform Drupal updates monthly. We expect they monitor for any security issues, patches, etc. weekly.

32. We understand the contractor will be responsible for running SEO and accessibility reports at the end of the fiscal year. Will the contractor be responsible for running these reports more than annually? No, the Contractor will not be responsible for running SEO and accessibility reports more than annually.

33. Common Cartridge for Safari Montage - ability to import selected assets into State LOR (elaborate?) Here is an article that discusses the partnership between Safari Montage and SC Department of Education. https://www.safarimontage.com/case-study.aspx KnowItAll is one of the vendors who offer content through the Learning Object Repository (LOR). Safari Montage refers to the sharing of content as a “common cartridge.”

34. Are there specific security standards (certifications, etc.) that the site must meet? No, there are not specific security standards (certifications, etc.) that the site must meet.

35. Can you please elaborate on the expectations around the “monitoring third party integrations” requirement? If there are updates to the two APIs (Kaltura and Instructure Standards), we expect the Contractor to be aware and make any necessary adjustments.

36. Are the 200 hours of maintenance and support expected to cover items a-f listed in the scope of work? The 200 hours of maintenance and support per year are for the items listed in Section III, B, (1).

37. Does each developer working on the project need 5+ years of experience as a developer working with Drupal? Yes. Each developer working on the project needs 5+ years of experience working with Drupal.

38. What are the obligations for the selected firm around modifying and updating things like taxonomy and other site functionality based on updates to state educational standards? SCETV staff has access to updating the taxonomy structure. We use the AB Connect 4.1 API from our vendor Academic Benchmarks to provide the most up-to-date standards. The Contractor’s role is to make sure the API is functioning properly and are aware of any updates. We have contacts and access to documentation with Academic Benchmarks if there are questions.

39. Can you elaborate on the enhancement for "Need the Ability to Sort Sub-Series pages"? Can we assume that this functionality can be controlled by a small number of staff? This is not a feature for the staff but for users of the website. We see this as an additional way to filter content on the series page.

40. Will preference be given to South Carolina-based contractors? Per 11-35-1524(E) Preferences do not apply to this solicitation. However, South Carolina – based companies are encouraged to submit an offer.

41. Will preference be given to DBE / MWBE firms? Per 11-35-1524(E) Preferences do not apply to this solicitation. However, DBE / MWBE companies are encouraged to submit an offer.

42. Can you please elaborate on what constitutes an “educational website” as stated in the requirements for contractors? Our primary audience is K-12.

43. What metadata or backend taxonomy is already in place to designate certain pages as Spanish language content to support searching that content? Collections is a taxonomy in our backend. As translations are added to assets, they are tagged to display under Spanish Translations. You can find our growing collection of Spanish-translated content at https://www.knowitall.org/collections/spanish-translations

44. Can you list out and describe the purpose of all custom modules currently used on the site? The main custom module is the Common Cartridge for Safari Montage. This customized solution provides the SC Department of Education and their vendor, Safari Montage, the ability to import selected assets from Knowitall.org into the State’s Learning Object Repository (LOR). The Common Cartridge uses IMS Global standards.

45. Can we base our estimates on the assumption that the selected vendor would be working with a single point of contact? If you are asking if there is one single point of contact for requests, yes, that’s correct. All requests from any issues the staff encounters will be submitted by the single point of contact.

46. Given the open-ended level of effort expectation for the enhancement request "Add more Platform Integrations. We currently only have Google Classroom. We would like to add Schoology, Canvas, and others used in South Carolina" will it be acceptable for this item to be listed as TBD until completion of the discovery phase? Yes. In a previous question above, we can settle on Schoology and Canvas for the discovery phase.

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