B10_-_Pre-award_FedBizOpps_Posting_1.pdf

Intent to Award Notice – 140G0123Q0262

The US Geological Survey (USGS) has a requirement for a new 5-year contract for ALTMETRIC

EXPLORER for INSTITUTIONS (EFI) Subscription.

Digital Science and Research Solutions, Inc. (DSRSI) is the proprietary of Altmetric Explorer for

Institutions (EFI).

Altmetric Explorer for Institutions data provides insight for publishers, authors and editorial staff on how published content is being used and shared. Their display images are designed to identify how much and what type of attention an article has received, are embedded into any platform to showcase activity related to individual articles and the flexible Application Program Interface (API), only available through subscription, and incorporates data for display in multiple applications managed by USGS (e.g., Publications Warehouse).

The interface permits full access to the Altmetric database (currently 8 million outputs) where USGS can monitor and report on USGS publishing efforts as an entity or by individual authors. This custom-built system tracks research mentions, can locate published items referenced only by citation and without an identifier, detects human natural language references to publications to capture non-formal citations, and provides results utilizing both link detection methods and data mining techniques. The system automatically benchmarks every research output to distinctively provide vital relational data to contextualize the level of attention received by an item. Once results are delivered, they can easily be exported for use outside of

Altmetric Explorer.

The total anticipated period of performance will be Date of Award – 09/01/2023.

The USGS is aware of no other source that can provide the above. Therefore, it intends to make an award to Digital Science and Research Solutions, Inc., unless it is contacted by any vendor who believes they have can provide a service that can meet the needs of this requirement. Vendors are invited to contact the

Contract Specialist, Tricia Rampersad via email at trampersad@usgs.gov no later than 1:00 PM EDT, Thursday, August 24, 2023, with an affirmative answer.

The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) considers employee signatures to be Personal Protected Information, and therefore all employee signatures have been redacted. By posting this document, the Contracting

Officer attests all appropriate signatures have been obtained.

JUSTIFICATION FOR OTHER THAN FULL AND OPEN COMPETITION (FAR 13.1)

The following information is provided to demonstrate the proposed contractor’s unique qualifications:

The United States Geological Survey (USGS) Library has need for a service measuring scholarly impact in the research life cycle, scholarly communications, and the publishing community.

Previously USGS authors have only been able to use the number of times written articles were cited by others to prove relevance for publishing in their fields of study. This measurement is used to track how

USGS information products are referenced in several areas outside of scholarly publishing and is a measure of the level of impact that the science expertise has on research areas and disciplines. This service is required to provide feedback on social media and other communications that is otherwise unavailable.

The statutory authority for this sole source acquisition is in accordance with FAR 13.106-1(b)(1) – only one source reasonably available (exclusive licensing agreements/proprietary data). USGS believes that Digital

Science and Research Solutions, Inc. is the only source available with a product that provides the requisite information to USGS scientists and USGS leadership about the social media impact of their scientific publications authored by USGS users of Altmetric EFI as well as being able to follow the social media activity for any article that is being tracked by the Altmetric product, whether or not it has a USGS author.

mailto:trampersad@usgs.gov

USGS believes that DSRSI is the only source with the following required functionality:

• The product does not require individuals to update a profile or provide regular updates about their research outputs.

• The product comprehensively tracks news sources and policy documents across multiple languages using sophisticated text mining techniques, Digital Object Identifiers (DOIs), and URLs.

• The product provides fully auditable and transparent data at the output level, allowing researchers to determine both the source of the attention (both author and outlet) and the content of the attention.

• The product facilitates benchmarking against all trackable Altmetric content – not just the content from the purchasing institutions.

• The product permits export functionality of mention results in a convenient format, such as comma separated values (CSV).