APlagiarism-JA-20Mar_Redacted.pdf

FAR 13 Determination At or Below SAT Source Selection Information ‐ See FAR 2.101 AND 3.104 ‐ For Official Use Only

DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE EDUCATION ACTIVITY

DETERMINATION For

SINGLE SOURCE OR BRAND NAME SOURCE SOLICITATION - FAR 13 (≤SAT)

Enterprise Anti-Plagiarism Software

1. Contracting Agency: Department of Defense Education Activity (DoDEA)

2. Description of Supplies and Services

DoDEA requires web-based anti-plagiarism software for all high schools and selected middle schools that can function within DoDEA’s secure IT environment. The enterprise solution must permit students to perform the anti-plagiarism check and email the results to their teachers. The required software has the following characteristics:

Generates a detailed, color-coded comparison between each paper and any matching sources the service finds in its databases (discussed below).

Allows instructors to view a side-by-side comparison of student papers and matching web documents to determine whether any plagiarism has occurred.

The enterprise solution searches (1) continuously updated content from the publically accessible Internet, (2) database of subscription-based electronically published content, and (3) Turnitin’s proprietary database. The subscription-based content consists of the following: CrossRef, EBSCO, Sage e-Reference, Emerald, ABC-CLIO, Pearson, McGraw-Hill, and Wiley, and Acumen Pl coursework.

Turnitin’s proprietary database contains over one billion archived student papers.

3. Description of Action

A firm fixed price contract is planned with a total estimated value of . The period of performance is September 2020 through January 2022 (12-month base plus a 4-month option period).

FY20 Operating and Maintenance (O&M) funds are available for the base period in the estimated amount of

4. Authority

FAR 13.106-1(b)(1)

5. Market Research

DoDEA has been using Enterprise Anti-Plagiarism Software by Turnitin since 2015, - Licenses were purchased on a sole source basis and has been accessed by high schools and selected middle schools through DoDEA’s learning management system (LMS), Schoology.

1) Incumbent: Turnitin, LLC, Oakland, CA (formerly owned by IParadigms, LLC; now a subsidiary of Advance Publications, Inc.) –

– Per the Dynamic Small Business Search, (Software Publishers) and #519130 (Internet Publishing and

Broadcasting and Web Search Portals). Only for #541511 (Custom Computer Programming Services) is it listed as a small business.

There are many for-profit and free anti-plagiarism software devices. A list of four well-known companies that market anti-plagiarism software is shown below. None of them were listed on DSBS. None were listed on SAM.gov.

1) Plagix, LLC, Sacramento, CA. 281-912-0548, marketing@unicheck.com - Not a small business, per DSBS. Description: Unicheck is a cloud-based plagiarism checker that does not only find text similarities but also references. The solution is mainly used in the education industry by more than 550 institutions and has over one million users all over the world.

2) PlagScan GmbH, Palo Alto, CA 650-804-3970, inf@plagscan.com - Description: Serves more than 1,500,000 single users, and 1,500 organizations such as Ministry of Education in Austria, Auburn University, University of Jordan, and University of Zurich.

3) Grammerly, Inc., San Francisco, CA. https://www.grammarly.com/contact/sales - No telephone number listed on the website. - Description: A free version is available. The premium account is ideal for content marketing companies who want to remove all kinds of plagiarism from the work they send to the client

4) Quetext, Kansas City, MO. https://help.quetext.com/hc/en-us/requests/new - No telephone number listed on the website. - Description: Promotes ethical writing practices through originality and correct citation. Provides intuitive technology that empowers writers to write authentic content.

Using the Federal Procurement Data System (FPDS) and Dynamic Small Business Search (DSBS) for the NAICS code used in the current contract, #511210 (Software Publishers), and the keyword, anti-plagiarism, yielded the following results:

DSBS: Forty-three companies were listed; however, none of their capability narratives mentioned K-12 education. They were overwhelmingly consulting companies that dealt with cybersecurity, encryption, email protection, anti-phishing software, and creating technology solutions for business and industry.

FPDS: There was one listing: .

6. Rationale for Single Source

Upon the basis of the following justification, I, as the Contracting Officer, approve this justification for the proposed contract action pursuant to the authority cited above because Turnitin enterprise anti-plagiarism licenses are essential to the Government's requirements, and market research indicates other companies’ products do not meet or cannot be modified to meet, the agency's needs.

Background: In 2015 DoDEA awarded contact, on a sole source basis to purchase Turnitin’s anti-plagiarism software. At that time, the rationale was as shown below in italics:

DoDEA requires an enterprise solution that has proven over time to be effective in reducing plagiarism at the secondary level. Turnitin’s patented and proprietary software is not offered by any other vendor or reseller. Turnitin is the only software on the market that offers the following combination of attributes:

Proven effectiveness over time in reducing plagiarism and has an enterprise solution which meets DoDEA’s rigorous cloud-based, technical, and security requirements.

o Turnitin software has generated over 36 million reports for almost 3,000 US schools since 2007.

o High schools that have used Turnitin software for two years report a 3.2 percent drop in plagiarism; high schools that have used the software for five years report a 15.8 percent drop; and high schools that have used the software for eight years report a 33.4 percent drop.

No other anti-plagiarism software:

o Possesses its own crawler to search the Internet. Turnitin’s crawler is patented and not made available to any other vendor or reseller.

o Can meet DoDEA’s technology requirements to include direct native application integration with Schoology.

o Has pattern-recognition matching that provides word-for-word and paraphrased text. Turnitin’s pattern-recognition matching capability is patented.

o Searches its own database with hundreds of millions of student papers. Turnitin’s proprietary database contains over 500 million student papers (August 2015).

o Detects translated plagiarism by matching content that has been translated from English into French, Spanish, German, Dutch, Swedish, Portuguese, Czech, Danish, Finnish, Greek, Hungarian, Italian, Polish, Romanian, and Turkish.

Rationale: In 2020 the anti-plagiarism marketplace has many new products compared to 2015. Also and importantly, LMS advances over the past five years include—for some systems—embedded anti-plagiarism software. DoDEA re-competed our LMS contract in FY20 and intended to re-compete this anti-plagiarism requirement if the LMS that was procured did not possess its own anti-plagiarism software. However, a protested was lodged, one consequence of which is that key data migration windows could not be met. Therefore, DoDEA must use the Schoology LMS until January 2022. Only when DoDEA acquires a new LMS can the next steps for this requirement be made.

Although other anti-plagiarism software may be able to work with Schoology now, procuring a new software for the current short-term—16 months—requirement would significantly disrupt the continuity of instruction. If a new anti-plagiarism software were introduced, it would require extensive professional learning for teachers, educational technologists and information technology staff. Also when DoDEA does acquire a new LMS—since some versions have embedded anti-plagiarism software—that hypothetical anti-plagiarism software would not be needed.

Based on the rationale above, the Contracting Office has made the determination to issue a sole source solicitation to as the only authorized seller of the required resources.

Enterprise Anti-Plagiarism Software

Technical Certification: I certify the supporting data under my cognizance and which forms a basis for this justification is accurate and complete to the best of my knowledge and belief.

DETERMINATION

Contracting Officer: I certify that the facts and representations included in this determination are accurate and complete to the best of my knowledge. I hereby determine that the circumstances of this contract action deem only one source reasonably available and the anticipated cost to the Government will be fair and reasonable. Approval is granted subject to the availability of funds and provided that the products/services described herein have otherwise been authorized for acquisition.