BePress Digital Commons SSJ Redacted.pdf

Single Source Justification (Simplified Acquisition)

CONTROLLED UNCLASSIFIED INFORMATION

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Section A: General Contract Information

Is this a Bridge Action as defined in the AF Bridge Action Reduction Plan? Yes No

Contracting Activity: AFRL/PZLET

Project/Program Name: AFIT D'Azzo Research Library (AFIT/ENWL) - Bepress Digital Commons

Purchase Request / Local ID Number: F4F5AH5064A001

Estimated Contract Cost (including Options): $0.00

Section B: Description of the Supplies/Services Required

In accordance with FAR 6.302-1, FAR 13.106-1(b), and AFFARS 5313.106-1(b) this is a justification for other than full and open competition for a sole source acquisition.

The Air Force Institute of Technology (AFIT) requires access to the Bepress Digital Commons content management platform.

AFIT's research and education missions must communicate AFIT research efforts in publications in a centralized online venue that is easy to access. AFIT requires 1-12 month base period and 4-12 month option periods of online access to the SaaS (software as a service) product known as Digital Commons, for hosting of electronic theses, research documents, and grant data in a centralized online location on the internet, and made accessible without interruption to all researchers with an internet connection. Federal regulations on research funding mandate that government-funded research must be available to the public. This action will be awarded as a new Firm Fixed Price (FFP) contract. The appropriation for this requirement is Fiscal Year 2025 funds.

The acceptable product/vendor must provide the following:

- Demonstrated success in web hosting electronic theses and dissertations for academic institutions.

- Demonstrated success in web hosting conference proceedings and research journals that are created at academic institutions.

- Publication workflow process software for AFIT-hosted conferences and journals at no extra cost.

- Author-specific data analysis and visualization tool for the AFIT researchers who publish documents, personalized for the author/researcher.

- Creation and manipulation of program specific collection areas within the repository organization.

- Real-time usage data visualization and tables for downloads.

- Hosting of supplemental files, such as data sets.

- Turnkey functionality for quick startup of a searchable repository with content.

- Allow for AFIT-specific branding of online pages in the repository, and document cover sheets.

- Unlimited storage capacity at no additional cost.

- Search engine optimization embedded software, to maximize the visibility of repository content.

- Software maintenance and upgrades managed by the vendor at no extra cost.

- Storage, server space, and back-ups managed by the vendor at no extra cost.

- Metadata. The Product needs to be OAI-PMH compliant. That means that the documents and other digital objects which AFIT loads onto the hosted repository will be findable by a wide variety of search tools, thus promoting AFIT research to the most possible readers.*

* Please note that all material hosted on the repository will be cleared for public dissemination. Any documents outside of that criteria will not be stored on the repository.

The requiring activity seeks to award 1 base period and 4-12 month option periods. The individual price of each period is as follows - Base Period: $22,384.95, Option Period 1: $23,504.20, Option Period 2 : $24,679.41, Option Period 3: $25,913.38, and Option Period 4: 27,2209.05. The total price is $123,690.98.

This subscription will be purchased with FY25 3400 funds. This sole source requirement will be acquired from the following organization:

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Bepress 2100 Milvia Street, Ste. 300, Berkeley, CA Attn: Lindsay Packer Account Support Coordinator, North America ELSEVIER, Research Solutions Sales l.packer@elsevier.com 9443 Springboro Pike, Miamisburg, OH 45342

Digital Commons is platformed on Amazon Web Services, a FedRAMP approved cloud system. Local IT Approval reference for PR: CSRD # AETC-WPT-23-94, valid through 18 January 2027, and CSRD approval via AU ITCR REQ0224160, 19 January 2024.

Section C: Justification for Soliciting from a Single Source or Brand Name

The Bepress Digital Commons product is vital to the ongoing mission, outlined in detail in Section B, of AFIT. Access to this service from Elsevier is necessary for the successful day-to-day operations of the AFIT library, both for the library's patrons and staff. This subscription will need to meet the information needs of a wide variety of AFIT faculty and students. This resource will provide information and data to the AFIT library site and will be hosted on the vendor's own servers. AFIT's requirement is for an electronic content storage system that meets the demands of high level technical services. The purchase must offer the services to meet the needs of a broad user base, provide rapid access to electronic resources in applicable formats, and be accessible in all locations. The flexibility of the Bepress Digital Commons service makes it the only feasible supplier that can meet the AFIT library's needs and provide patrons with an all-inclusive online research repository solution. There are not comparable resources in the market that would cover all of aspects of this function in one place with the same level of access.

Bepress Digital Commons and Elsevier have exclusive legal copyright to their interfaces and tools. These products are vital to the AFIT faculty and students, the staff of the AFIT library, and to the effectiveness of the library's services to its patrons. The market research did not provide for any known replacement of the Bepress Digital Commons service provided by Elsevier. The proposed sole source is the only known source capable of providing the supplies for this requirement. Without this sole source acquisition the AFIT library's users will not have access to critical, one of a kind content.

In addition, AFIT would incur an unacceptably high number of hours of labor duplication if another source was selected. Since October 2017, there has been substantial labor investment in the repository using Bepress Digital Commons. Any other product or vendor will likely result in mission failure. There is no suitable alternative vendor or product to accomplish this work for the Air Force.

The only acceptable product to meet the requirements is sold by the company Bepress (Elsevier), called Digital Commons. No other commercial product available can provide AFIT with all of the required capabilities and qualifications listed above in section B. No other company besides Bepress (Elsevier) can sell or service Digital Commons. No other vendor can provide the services in this requirement while providing the required IT support level offered by Bepress (Elsevier) for their product, Digital Commons.

The existing DoD hosting solution, DTIC (Defense Technical Information Center) is not suitable to meet National Research Council (NRC) requirements, and it will not provide data to quantify usage of AFIT research documents. The publication work cycle employed by DTIC does not offer timely access to the research. Additionally, DTIC does not host ancillary materials to a thesis, such as data sets or survey forms. As a government research unit, AFIT is obliged to provide that ancillary material within reason.

Section D: Efforts to Obtain Competition

AFIT surveyed the market for vendors to obtain competition. The library used publisher's advertisements and new publication reviews in conducting its surveys, and was unable to identify publishers providing the information resources coupled with sufficiently modern interfaces and quality to those published by Bepress.

Market research indicated no other vendor or product can provide the data or capabilities to deliver that data in a competing requirement. Since the data and presentation tools are proprietary to Bepress and they do not allow resale by other partner

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In addition, an Intent to Award Sole Source (IASS) notice was posted to SAM.gov in March 2025, advising industry of the intent of the government to award sole source. The post requested that any interested firm submit a capabilities package informing the government of their ability to meet / satisfy the requirement.

Section E: Steps to Preclude Future Single Source or Brand Name Awards

AFIT has determined that the circumstances of this contract action deem only a single brand is reasonably available. However, AFIT will continually monitor the marketplace for other products and/or vendors that are less expensive, technically superior, or more responsive to the government's requirements. Trade publications, technical journals, and conference presentations will be used to monitor the marketplace. As new requirements are identified, AFIT will make every effort to ensure future actions will be competed under full and open competition.

Section F: Contracting Officer's Determination

I have determined, in accordance with FAR 13.106-1(b)(1), that the circumstances of this contract action deem only a single source is reasonably available.

Date

31-Mar-2025

Typed Name and Rank/Grade of Contracting Officer

Kerisha R. Wordlaw

Signature of Contracting Officer

WORDLAW.KERISHA.R.1264

466624

Digitally signed by

WORDLAW.KERISHA.R.1264466624

Date: 2025.03.31 09:27:03 -04'00'