Student Practicum Software Solution at TSTC I.Purpose Texas State Technical College seeks a cloud-based student practicum software solution for the Health Sciences Division, which includes multiple departments with practicum, clinical, and field-based needs.

While the initial scope is limited to Chemical Dependency Counseling, Biomedical Equipment Technology, and Health Information Technology, TSTC wants a solution that fits within the broader Health Sciences environment and supports future consideration for additional departments based on the results of this implementation.

The purpose of this project is to replace disconnected department-level processes with a single system for practicum management, skills tracking, hours verification, communication, documentation, and reporting. The solution must improve accountability, support audits, strengthen skills validation, and reduce risk tied to manual and inconsistent practicum processes.

II.Scope of Work The following sections supplement the attached requirements spreadsheet and provide additional scope, context, and response instructions.

A. Functional Requirements Response The attached requirements spreadsheet is part of this solicitation and must be completed as part of the proposal. For each requirement, respondents must indicate whether the capability is:

● Included in base solution

● Requires additional solution

● Not Available

● Other - Please describe in proposal

TSTC will use the spreadsheet responses to evaluate functional fit, licensing implications, implementation approach, and overall solution value.

For this phase, TSTC’s functional focus is limited to Chemical Dependency Counseling, Biomedical Equipment Technology, and Health Information Technology. The core foundation of the system should support:

● Preceptor, partner, and site management, including assignment and scheduling

● Student practicum scheduling and hours management

● Skill progression and completion requirement tracking

● Certification and vaccination requirement tracking

● Time tracking, verification, and approval

● Student records and portfolio management

● Internal communication and mobile access

● Management reporting

Additional requirements included in the full requirements set are intended to help TSTC assess future fit for other Health Sciences programs, but the items listed above represent the primary focus for this phase.

B. Department Structure and Operating Environment

TSTC’s Health Sciences Division includes multiple departments with practicum, clinical, and field-based operating needs across the college. TSTC has 10 campuses statewide, though not all campuses include Health Sciences programs. Health Sciences departments include:

Departments:

● Emergency Medical Services

● Associate Degree in Nursing

● Licensed Vocational Nursing

● Biomedical Equipment Technology

● Chemical Dependency Counseling

● Health Information Technology

● Dental Hygiene

● Surgical Technology

These departments represent the first phase of implementation and will serve as the basis for evaluating broader adoption across other Health Sciences programs. Current scale for the initial scope includes:

● Biomedical Equipment Technology

○ The program itself usually has about 217 total students per semester

○ Only about 20 to 30 of them are practicum students

● Health Information Technology

○ The program itself usually has about 115 total students per semester

○ Only about 4 to 5 of them are practicum students

● Chemical Dependency Counseling

○ The program itself usually has about 270 total students per semester

○ Only about 10-12 of them are practicum students

C. Security and Compliance Validations The proposed solution must satisfy applicable security, privacy, and compliance requirements.

Required security items:

● SOC 2 Type II report, or equivalent independent third-party assessment

● TX-RAMP certification

● Encryption at rest and in transit, with AES-256 or stronger encryption for data at rest

● Redundant and geographically separated data centers

● Documented disaster recovery and business continuity procedures

FedRAMP and StateRAMP do not satisfy the TX-RAMP requirement. Respondents must hold TX-RAMP certification to qualify.

At proposal submission, respondents shall provide the relevant report identifier, certification identifier, validation identifier, or program status for each required item, including the current status and expected completion date if not yet complete.

All required security validations, reports, certifications, and program statuses must be complete and verifiable before a respondent advances to the second phase. Respondents selected for the second phase shall provide supporting documentation to TSTC’s IT Security team for review.

Upon contract execution, the selected supplier shall provide disaster recovery and business continuity documentation to the appropriate TSTC IT personnel.

TSTC reserves the right to request supplemental documentation, impose additional review requirements, or determine that specific features are not acceptable.

TSTC maintains internal confidentiality requirements for personnel involved in the solicitation and evaluation process, and submitted security documentation will be shared only with personnel who have a legitimate need to review it. If a respondent requires additional nondisclosure documentation before providing supporting materials, that requirement must be identified in the proposal.

D. Future Expansion and Growth

Respondents shall describe their standard post-implementation process for:

● Adding new Health Sciences departments

● Expanding to additional TSTC campuses where applicable

● Adding new programs, users, roles, or site partners

● Pricing for future department or campus expansion

● Pricing for additional users or administrative licenses

● Storage, record, or other data-related pricing associated with growth

● Configuration, training, or onboarding approach for future expansion

This information is requested for planning and evaluation purposes only and does not require a detailed future implementation plan.

III.Requirements for Proposal Organize submissions in the order below. Each criterion includes specific deliverables to enable clear scoring.

A. Technical Requirements & Functional Fit

● A completed requirements spreadsheet with a clear response for each item, including whether the capability is included in the base solution, available through an additional licensed module, dependent on third-party software, not available, or available only through custom configuration or development.

● A narrative describing the overall solution architecture, role-based access, location-based access, and reporting capabilities.

● Security package summary: SOC 2 Type II (or equivalent) summary; TX-RAMP Level 2 status;

encryption and key management approach.

● AI disclosure consistent with Section II.E, including any AI-enabled features and the associated security and risk controls.

● Representative screenshots, workflow diagrams, or similar visual artifacts supporting core use cases such as dispatch, case workflow, and reporting.

B. Implementation Approach

● Suppliers must provide a detailed project plan for system implementation and migration of existing records.

● This should include:

a) Timeline with milestones

b) Roles and responsibilities

c) Data conversion and testing process

d) Cutover and support strategy

C. Relevant Experience This section is intended to capture the respondent’s experience providing practicum, clinical, or field-based software support within higher education. Responses to this section are separate from Section F, which addresses history of support for Institutions of Higher Education in Texas.

● Describe the respondent’s experience supporting Health Sciences programs or similar practicum, clinical, or field-based environments within higher education.

● Indicate whether the proposed solution has been used in disciplines similar to the Health

Sciences departments included in this RFP and describe the general range of program types supported.

● Summarize the respondent’s general approach to working with colleges that have multiple departments, shared administrative needs, and program-specific workflow differences.

D. Future Expansion and Growth

● Approach to onboarding additional Health Sciences departments, programs, campuses, and users within a unified environment.

● Future Growth Price List, including any department or campus onboarding fees, user licensing tiers, storage or data pricing increments, and applicable volume or multi-year discounts.

● Any configuration, role-based access, workflow segregation, or data partitioning considerations that would affect future expansion across additional departments or campuses.

E. Pricing Proposal

● Itemized pricing for implementation, licensing or subscriptions, configuration, training, data migration, and ongoing support or maintenance.

● Clear identification of any one-time fees, recurring fees, optional modules, pass-through or third-party costs, and any services or functionality not included in the proposed base purchase.

● Pricing details for any student-facing costs, including who pays the cost, the length of student access included, any renewal or extension fees, and any additional charges required beyond the initial purchase or implementation.

F. History of Support for Texas IHEs [Texas Education Code 51.9335(b)(8)]

● Provide a history of support for Institutions of Higher Education (IHE) in Texas, including sponsorships, grants, donations in-kind or otherwise, internships/externships, apprenticeships, etc., with dates, institutions, and impact summaries.

G. Artificial Intelligence Disclosure and Review The information requested in this section will not be evaluated or scored as part of the proposal evaluation process; however, it may be considered in determining a respondent’s eligibility or ability to conduct business with TSTC.

Respondents shall disclose whether the proposed solution includes artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning, generative AI, automated decision support, or other AI-enabled capabilities.

If no AI-enabled functionality is included, the respondent shall state that in its proposal.

If the proposed solution includes AI-enabled functionality, the respondent shall provide, as part of its proposal, a supplemental response that addresses the following:

● Identify the foundation models, large language models, or APIs used by the solution, including whether they are developed in-house, hosted internally, or provided through third-party services.

● Identify which components, modules, or features of the solution use AI-enabled functionality and which features remain fully functional without AI.

● State whether AI-enabled functionality can be enabled, disabled, or otherwise controlled through administrative settings.

● Describe whether customer data can be restricted from being transmitted to third-party AI providers and whether customer data is used for model training, retraining, fine-tuning, or service improvement.

● Provide a data flow diagram or equivalent documentation showing how prompts, contextual data, outputs, logs, and related information are processed, transmitted, and stored.

● Describe how bias is evaluated, tested, monitored, and mitigated for use cases relevant to the proposed solution.

● Describe how hallucinations, inaccurate outputs, or other unreliable AI-generated responses are identified, limited, and communicated to end users, including whether citations, source references, confidence indicators, or similar safeguards are provided.

● Describe the controls in place to protect against prompt injection, unauthorized disclosure, data exfiltration, and other AI-related security risks.

● Identify which AI-related events are logged, who is authorized to access those logs, and the applicable retention period for such logs.

● Describe how customer data contained in backups, archives, or replicated environments is handled upon contract termination or data destruction.

● Identify the geographic locations and hosting environments in which AI-related data is stored, processed, or transmitted.

● Describe how customers are notified of model changes, feature updates, or other AI-related modifications, and whether model versions or related functionality can be controlled or maintained for stability.

Any AI-enabled functionality will be subject to additional TSTC review, including additional security verification and risk evaluation. TSTC reserves the right to request supplemental documentation, impose additional review requirements, or determine that specific AI-enabled features are not acceptable.

IV.Evaluation Criteria

The evaluation of the proposals shall be based on the requirements described in this RFP. All properly submitted proposals will be reviewed, evaluated, and ranked by TSTC in accordance with the evaluation criteria set forth below:

Criteria to be Evaluated Points

Technical Requirements & Functional Fit 35

Implementation Approach 5

Relevant Experience 20

Future Expansion and Growth 10

Pricing Proposal 25

History of Support for Texas IHEs 5

Total 100

IV.Evaluation Criteria