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HSHQDC-15-R-00148
Amendment 1: Questions and Answers
| 1 | |
| Could you provide a sample of some of the 50,000 sources, and the deposition of the source types (blogs, forums, news, social media, etc)? | |
| http://www.cidrap.umn.edu/ |
http://bioprepwatch.com/ http://www.who.int/feeds/entity/csr/don/en/rss.xml http://hisz.rsoe.hu/alertmap/index2.php http://www.promedmail.org/ http://crofsblogs.typepad.com/h5n1/ http://resiliencesystem.org/ http://outbreaks.globalincidentmap.com/home.php https://flutrackers.com/forum/ http://empres-i.fao.org/eipws3g/#h=1 http://www.oie.int/wahis_2/public/wahid.php/Diseaseinformation/WI http://www.thepoultrysite.com/poultrynews/category/33/food-safety/ http://www.thejakartapost.com/ http://allafrica.com/
| 2 |
| What’s the difference between “indexed every 12 hours, at a minimum” and “update content on an hourly basis, at a minimum”? Depending on the meaning, this could greatly change the scope of effort. |
| Each source must be indexed (i.e., information collected from a source) every 12 hours, minimum. It is assumed that not all sources will be indexed at the same time, therefore, content for the feed from all sources collectively should be updated at least hourly |
| 3 |
| The SOW notes that no development should be required and that data must be provided 2 weeks from DOA; What is the planned award date. |
| The planned award date is no later than September 30, 2015. |
| 4 |
| “Contractor shall implement ad-hoc requests […] within 48 hours of request.” Please confirm this if 48 business hours. |
| This is 48 hours, or 2 days, total – not limited to business hours. When a novel disease emerges, it is important for NBIC to be able to modify its search quickly to support its biosurveillance mission. As an example, before the emergence of human cases of H7N9 influenza in China in 2013, “H7N9” was not a disease of interest. It was important to be able to quickly adapt to include “H7N9” related content. |
| 5 |
| "Contract shall provide a written or oral response to the Government within 2 hours of receipt of a technical problem/concern." Please confirm this is 2 business hours. |
| Yes, this is 2 business hours. |
| 6 |
| Will NBIC provide the list of 50,000 independently published on line data sources for the contractor to search? |
| The SOW states the requirement that “Data feed is available for immediate delivery without development (i.e., Technology Readiness Level (TRL) 7 or higher).” The contractor must provide access to a minimum of 50,000 independent sources as part of immediate delivery. The feed should supply sources providing global coverage of available open source information primarily reflecting indigenous news media outlets. NBIC guidance will subsequently help refine the source list, as necessary. |
| 7 |
| In support of the automated system 24 hours per day, 7 days per week and 365 days per year coverage, will the Government accept Analyst coverage during normal business hours and persistent monitoring by a technology with alert systems for remainder of the day? |
| This solicitation is for an automated real-time feed to be delivered 24/7/365. The quality of the feed should be consistent throughout the entire day. |
| 8 |
| To meet the requirements for translation within 2 hours, will the Government accept machine translation of identified documents? |
| Yes, machine translation is acceptable. |
| 9 |
| Please describe in further detail the requirement for how the Government would like the specific data items to be conveyed as to format, frequency and time of day? |
| The Government requires receipt of the data feed via SecureRSS, structured so as to contain the metadata listed in the SOW requirements: |
· Filters, tags, and curates information prior to delivery so that at minimum, a short synopsis of information contained in a single article, along with a link to the original web-hosted article is made available.
· Convey structured, event-based information including, but not limited to the specific disease/agent, location, time stamp of the original publication, and details and/or significance of the event derived from the reporting source For frequency/time of day, the answer to Question 2 above applies: “Each source must be indexed (i.e., information collected from a source) every 12 hours, minimum. It is assumed that not all sources will be indexed at the same time, therefore, content for the feed from all sources collectively should be updated at least hourly”
| 10 |
| Does the Government require direct licensed “hands-on” access to the system or just access to the data generated by the system? |
| The Government requires access to the data generated by the system. |
| 11 |
| It is understood that the Government will receive data generated by the system for use as it desires. The requirement for Government Purpose Rights suggests that the Government expects contract funds to be applied to the development of the system. Please explain the applicability of Government Purpose Rights in relation to a fully developed system that a Contractor may utilize? |
| The Government Purpose Rights clause has been removed from the SOW. Please data rights clauses included in the RFP. |
| 12 |
| Will the contract type be Time and Materials or Firm Fixed Price? |
| Firm Fixed Price. |
| 13 |
| As this procurement appears to be well suited for small business, does the Government plan on making this a small business set aside? |
| No. |