JWH_Attachment_I_-_Revised_PWS.pdf

ATTACHMENT I - PERFORMANCE WORK STATEMENT

JOURNAL WEB HOSTING – ENVIRONMENTAL HEALTH PERSPECTIVES

NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ENVIRONMENTAL HEALTH SCIENCES

RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK, NORTH CAROLINA

1. BACKGROUND: The NIEHS publishes the scientific journal Environmental Health Perspectives

(EHP). EHP is a world-renowned journal that helps the NIEHS to implement its strategic plan of advancing science and improving health. Thanks to its worldwide distribution and solid reputation, EHP disseminates cutting-edge research throughout the scientific community. The name EHP is synonymous with quality due to years of hard work from its dedicated team.

EHP is a diamond open-access (OA) journal that charges no author fees or page charges, and yet still produces and distributes high quality, composed, peer reviewed, and edited content. EHP is also an online-only journal; this distribution model keeps EHP content accessible to all authors and readers, and keeps the journal at the forefront of the publishing landscape. The journal is made available for free online at https://ehp.niehs.nih.gov. EHP publishes 12 issues per year, in a continuous-publication format. Each issue consists of both Research and original News content. This diversity of content helps EHP to reach a broad audience, from researchers and clinicians to policymakers, citizen scientists, and the educated public.

1.1. Current Processes and Specifications:

EHP publishes articles daily into monthly issues as part of its continuous publication workflow. A full-text archive of content back to August 2008 is maintained on the current site. EHP also publishes various collections to its website, including podcasts, special article collections, and proceedings abstracts – these are not necessarily an official part of the journal, but EHP is considered to be the publisher of record.

The current EHP website is built on the WordPress platform (and includes various third-party plugins), run on a datacenter maintained by NIEHS, and directly administered by EHP contract staff. The platform ingests HTML, which is converted from JATS XML (with MathML 2.0 and OASIS tables) sources provided by our composition contractor. A custom plug-in has been designed to automate the conversion and publication process to the extent possible on this platform.

EHP also publishes a Chinese Edition to a separate website (subdomain), also running on a WordPress platform and maintained on the NIEHS datacenter. The site contains select content from the English

Edition of EHP translated into Chinese.

EHP also publishes the annual ISEE conference proceedings to a separate website (subdomain), also running on a WordPress platform and maintained on the NIEHS datacenter. The site contains abstracts from five separate years of ISEE proceedings.

All three sites mentioned above (English journal site, Chinese journal site, ISEE proceedings site) are hosted on separate instances of WordPress.

Deposits to various metadata repositories (Crossref, PubMed, PMC) are also handled by a custom plug-in to the WordPress platform. No external archive (dark or otherwise) of content is currently maintained.

EHP currently publishes about 400 articles per year. 10% growth is projected each following year, but these are just estimates, and are subject to change.

2. OBJECTIVES: The basic service objective is to provide journal web hosting for a new website on an established third-party, separately hosted journals-publishing platform. The platform must be able to ingest

EHP production content without specific manual conversions, and must offer uninterrupted access to users worldwide. The platform must be versatile enough to handle our multiple types of content (Research, News, Abstracts, Collections, Podcasts) and our international/translated content, and should do so through a single site/platform. The service must also be robust enough to serve our users throughout the world.

Being a fully open-access journal, the site must offer unfettered access to all readers in all countries.

3. TASKS & DELIVERABLES: The Government will not exercise any supervision or control over the contract service providers performing the services herein. Such contract service providers shall be accountable solely to the contractor who, in turn is responsible to the Government. The contractor, in turn, shall be accountable to the Government for contractor personnel, subcontractors, or contract service providers.

3.1. TASKS: The Contractor shall provide the following services:

Task 1 – General Support Services: The contractor shall:

• Provide web hosting for the EHP journal, meeting all requirements listed in the Web Hosting section.

• Provide a site capable of single-source XML publishing, meeting all requirements listed in the

Single-Source XML Publishing section.

• Provide a site capable of continuous publication, meeting all requirements listed in the Article-by-

Article Publishing (Continuous Publication) section.

• Provide a site capable of hosting proceedings and abstracts, in addition to the journal content, as detailed in the Proceedings and Abstracts section.

• Provide a site capable of hosting article collections, meeting the requirements listed in the Article

Collections section.

• Provide a site that allows for interface customization, as detailed in the Customizable User

Interface section.

• Provide a site that supports full-text search with facets, as detailed in the Search section.

• Provide a site that supports social media integration, as detailed in the Social Media Integration section.

• Provide a site that is mobile responsive, and not dependent on apps for mobile views, as described in the Mobile-Responsive Site section.

• Provide a site that allows related articles to be linked together for the benefit of users and readers, as described in the Related Article Linking section.

• Provide a portal for EHP staff to access back-end systems and reports from the site, and to manually manipulate content, as detailed in the Customer Administration Portal section.

• Provide a site that is capable of hosting content in multiple languages, as described in the

International/Translated Content section.

• Provide a site that allows access to all content for people with disabilities such as but not limited to blindness, deafness, and colorblind, as detailed in the 508-Conformance section.

• Provide the ability to send out email alerts for content on the site to alert users to new content, popular content, and more, as detailed in the Email Alerts section.

• Provide the ability to host podcasts with transcripts along with the journal content, as detailed in the Podcasts section.

• Provide usage statistics for the site and its content, as detailed in the Usage Statistics section.

• Provide a site capable of hosting EHP’s archive of previously published materials, as detailed in the Archives section.

• Meet all customer service requirements detailed in the Customer Service section.

Task 2 - Web Hosting Support Services: EHP does not wish to continue hosting the online platform at the NIEHS datacenter. Instead, the platform provider shall deliver robust hosting services for their proprietary platform. The contractor shall meet the following requirements:

• The site provided by the contractor shall be hosted from datacenter(s) offering redundant access options to ensure maximum uptime. Please detail all redundancy options currently in place at the various hosting centers.

• The site provided by the contractor shall be accessible from datacenters throughout the continental

United States.

• The site provided by the contractor shall have sufficient processing power and bandwidth to serve content and pages to the 150,000+ monthly visitors to EHP’s web properties.

• Best-practice data archiving schemes shall be in place to ensure long-term data integrity.

• The site provided by the contractor shall allow for the use of the journal’s existing URL

(https://ehp.niehs.nih.gov).

• The site provided by the contractor shall allow for the hosting of both HTML/XML content, as well as downloads of various file types (PDF articles, graphic files, various supplemental material files associated with individual articles, Podcasts and associated transcripts, Excel spreadsheets, PowerPoint slides, zip bundles, code and data files, and the like – the contractors shall specify any restrictions on file type downloads).

• Any scheduled hosting maintenance that would degrade the user experience or take the site offline must be posted in advance, and shall occur outside normal U.S. business hours (Monday–Friday, 8:00 am–5:00 pm Eastern) whenever possible.

• Support for streaming audio or video.

• Ability to deliver the site over a secure connection (HTTPS enforced, HTTP Strict Transport

Security (HSTS) with long duration, RSA 2048 bit Key length, SHA256withRSA certificate signature algorithm, TLS 1.2, perfect forward secrecy).

Task 3 – Single Source XML Publishing: The EHP production and composition process follows the best practices of single-source XML publishing. As a result, the new web publishing system must be capable of ingesting our content in an XML format. The site provided by the contractor must meet the following requirements:

• Must accept JATS XML content as source files and automatically convert this to HTML for online viewing. Standard JATS shall be supported – platforms that support only customized versions of

JATS (as prescribed by the platform) will not be considered. JATS 1.1 Archiving and Interchange

(Green) with OASIS Tables is the current specification for EHP.

• Must accept MathML content, which must be displayed in a typeset, interactive format. Platforms that require math/MathML to be displayed as images will not be considered. The Government requires use of display tools such as MathJax. (MathJax is considered superior than KaTeX, due to wider compatibility and better visual presentation of math.) MathML 2.0 (Presentation Format) is the current specification for EHP.

• The platform must accept and display high-resolution images (including vector-based EPS files) with the XML input. Files should be automatically converted to the file types required by the platform as needed.

• The platform must support the display of OASIS tables (within the JATS 1.1 framework).

Platforms that require tables to be displayed as images, or that require tables to be provided in

XHTML format, will not be considered.

• The URLs for supplemental materials files associated with an article must be “predictable,” so that composition staff can embed links to these files in publication PDFs before final publication.

• The platform must be capable of automatically converting the provided JATS XML into the appropriate format for deposit at outside databases, including Crossref, PubMed, and PubMed

Central. The platform must also manage the deposits of these data, DOI registration, and distribution of metadata to any other major Abstracting & Indexing services (indicate all that are supported).

• The platform must support the automatic distribution of both metadata and full-text content to

Abstracting & Indexing services, as well as archiving services such as Portico, CLOCKSS, and

LOCKSS.

• The platform must provide downloadable article citation information in multiple formats (such as

EndNote and BibTeX), for users to import into their reference manager software. These formats shall be automatically created from the publication XML – the publisher or composition services provider will not deliver these formats separately.

Task 4 – Article-by-Article Publishing (Continuous Publication): EHP publishes each article as it becomes ready, directly into the current open issue. The site provided by the contractor shall meet the following requirements:

• The platform shall allow for articles to be published live one at a time, including directly into an issue. (Anything published online in January is part of the January issue, for instance.)

• Metadata deposits shall take place as soon as the article is made live.

• The platform shall be capable of registering DOIs on behalf of EHP at the time of article publication.

• The platform shall contain automated tools to make readers aware of new article-by-article publications (email alerts, new content lists on various pages – list all that are available for use).

• The platform shall support scheduling papers for publication at various times throughout the day and night. EHP occasionally embargoes content, and these may be published outside normal business hours, such as at 12:01 am Eastern.

• Support for a publisher-defined page numbering/article ID scheme, making use of the <elocation-id> element in the JATS DTD, shall be included.

o With its article-by-article content, EHP does not use traditional page numbers, and instead makes use of article identifiers. However, the platform shall support both this and traditional page numbers, as our back content will be posted with the originally assigned page numbers. Note that mixed issues (issues containing some content with page numbers, and some with article identifiers) shall not be published.

o Support for <elocation-id> must also include the ability of the platform to automatically compose an HTML Table of Contents for each issue as it is built. The publisher or the composition services provider will not deliver a separate TOC file to the platform.

Task 5 – Proceedings and Abstracts: In addition to the journal, EHP occasionally publishes groups of abstracts from partner organizations in the form of online proceedings. Currently these are limited to 1–2 per year, but future support for additional published proceedings is desired. EHP has not yet determined exactly how these proceedings will relate to the journal (special issues, supplements, or a separate title altogether); as such, flexibility will be required. The contractor shall plan for at least two (2) publications per year. If applicable, additional publications will be executed by negotiated modifications to the contract.

The contractor shall provide support for ingesting this content from non-JATS XML sources, including other types of XML, or CSV or delimited files. All levels of support should be defined.

Task 6 – Article Collections: EHP sees great value in having the ability to quickly and easily aggregate previously published content of various types (Research papers, News articles, Proceedings abstracts, Podcasts) into special collections. Readers have demonstrated a desire to have access to content that has been vetted for a special purpose, and presented in a cohesive unit. Our next platform shall offer EHP the ability to quickly and easily create a virtually unlimited number of special collections for our readers. The system shall dynamically generate a “table of contents” for the collection based on the articles/content that

EHP chooses to include, and that TOC shall be accessible via a dedicated page on the site. The site shall also host a Collections page, where users can browse all available collections. Ideally, each collection shall be associated with a graphic on this browse page, in order to help the content stand out to readers.

The collection itself (not its contents) shall be HTML only; no associated PDFs or other downloadable versions of the collection TOC need to be generated by the system.

Email blasts about new collections shall be supported by the contractor. As an Open Access publisher, access controls are not required for these collections.

Seven PDF-only collections will be provided from our old platform, to be hosted on the new site. No metadata is available for these collections, so it is anticipated that these will simply be aggregated on a single page for download by interested users.

Task 7 – Customizable User Interface: EHP is a multidisciplinary journal serving a variety of users. As a result, the web interface shall accommodate everyone from professional researchers to laypeople. EHP desires a platform that allows for some customization directly by the publisher, using pre-made “widgets” to rearrange page elements and add functionality where needed. Robust professional support and design personnel at the platform provider are also essential to this task, especially during initial setup.

Task 8 – Search and Taxonomy: Users are conditioned to reach directly for the search box instead of browsing for the content that they want, making a robust search engine (with advanced search options, faceting, and filtering) essential to the success of any website. However, few companies are able to perform search well, and an ill-performing search engine is just as bad as no search engine at all. The platform must offer support for a robust search engine, using available metadata such as article type, title, authors, abstract, publication date, and full-text search, and shall also provide users with relevant “see also” links (aka, the Amazon experience) on both the search page and on individual article pages. This improves reader engagement and keeps them on the site longer.

Customization of the search pages (tools and results) is required.

The platform shall also allow for full-text indexing by major third-party search engines (Google, Yahoo, Bing, Baidu, etc.), and shall provide for some form of search-engine optimization.

Task 9 – Social Media Integration: Our current site offers buttons for users to share content and links via

Facebook and Twitter, and a few other popular social media sites. The new web platform must offer at least the same level of integration, but will ideally be setup to allow users to share content via many more outlets. Provisions for supporting and generating Facebook Open Graph (OG) meta tags, to allow for more consistent postings, are also needed.

Task 10 – Mobile-Responsive Site: More than 10,000 readers access our site from a mobile device each month, making a positive mobile experience critical to EHP’s continued success and growth. While some publishers have embraced apps as the path to mobile success, EHP requires that the Contractor operate a mobile-optimized/mobile-responsive website. The platform must be device aware, and must present a mobile-optimized interface to all users accessing it via a mobile device.

Task 11 – Related Article Linking: EHP frequently publishes articles that are related to one another, whether it be a multipart research paper, a news article linked to research, or a letter/response combination.

The platform must make use of the <related-article> elements in the JATS DTD to automatically build these links into the UI of the appropriate article page. The site shall be forward looking (e.g., if an erratum is published with a <related-article> link back to the original paper, a related article link shall appear on both the erratum page and the original article page without the need to upload revised XML for the original paper).

Task 12 – Customer Administration Portal: The website hosting platform must provide an administrative interface for EHP staff and its designates to upload content, publish content, preview content in staging, run reports and retrieve usage statistics, administer accounts, resupply metadata deposits, and more. Self-service will be a key aspect of EHP’s next platform.

Task 13 – International/Translated Content: The EHP Chinese Edition currently exists as a separate website. For the future, the journal wishes to integrate this content into the primary EHP website.

• The platform must support the use of adding translated text to the JATS XML source content, and allowing users to switch between languages easily in the full-text HTML view.

• The platform shall allow for PDFs in multiple languages to be presented to the user, or for the

PDF presented for download to dynamically change based on the language selection of the user.

• Alternate character sets/alphabets need to be supported in the HTML to allow for proper display of foreign full-text content.

• The system shall be capable of displaying instructions to readers in alternate languages.

EHP does not yet have any specific plans to support languages other than Chinese, but support for other

Asian characters is desirable.

Task 14 – Email Alerts: Email is still an excellent option for reaching out to users and letting them know when new content has been posted to the website. Users of the web platform shall be given the opportunity to sign up for email alerts about new publications, new issues, new translations, most cited articles, most read articles, and other important content alerts. The site must maintain these lists, and must offer the ability to automatically generate alerts within certain parameters, pulling article data directly from the site as needed. No lists may be purchased or sold, and lists become the property of the U.S. government at the conclusion of the contract.

The content of the email alerts (titles, authors, publication date, DOI, and links) must be generated by the site; EHP staff will not provide separate documentation detailing the content of every email alert that needs to be sent.

Task 15 – Podcasts Support Services: EHP has a fair amount of archival podcast content, and while we are not producing new podcasts at this time, we expect to do so again in the future. We require a platform to host and deliver this content in a forum separate from a journal issue or article, such as a dedicated collection, and not necessarily as supplemental data to an article, but still on the same platform as the journal. Further, podcasts shall be eligible for inclusion in other collections, and shall contain metadata that allows them to be surfaced via search. As part of our 508 compliance mandates, all EHP podcasts also include a full transcript, which must be presented alongside the podcast in both HTML and PDF format.

For new podcasts to come in the future, the basis for the HTML display will be a JATS XML deliverable, provided by EHP’s composition vendors. For archival podcasts, an MP3 audio file, PDF transcript, and either a JATS or PubMed XML metadata (not full text) file will be provided. There are approximately 52 archival podcasts that will be transferred to the new platform.

Task 16 – Usage Statistics: EHP is not permitted to collect personally-identifiable information about its users, so the journal relies heavily on aggregate data provided by the platform. The platform must be capable of capturing and reporting on the following data points, at least monthly (in most cases, real-time or near real-time statistics are preferred):

• Total page views, total users, and total unique users.

• Total PDF downloads.

• Most popular/most read content, with the ability to distinguish between the various types of content published by EHP.

• Number of subscribers to the various email alerts.

• Referral sources.

Integration or compatibility with Google Analytics/Universal Analytics is a plus.

The platform shall also support the use and display of alternative metric plugins, such as Altmetric (which

EHP currently uses).

Task 17 – Archives: The active archives on the EHP site currently date back to August 2008. Both full-text and PDF files are available (with some supplemental materials). However, EHP would like to launch the site with the full archive of published EHP content, so a transition plan that includes conversion of this archive material is required. Content published since May 2017 is available in JATS XML format; content published from April 2017 back to 1972 (the start of the journal) will be provided in NLM XML format.

More recent publications in this batch include full-text XML (with PDFs and graphics), while older content features XML-metadata only with PDF scans. The size of the EHP article archive is approximately 15,500 articles.

Our existing collections of secondary content shall also be migrated. Abstracts from the 2013–2016 ISEE proceedings will be provided as well-formed XML (all abstracts in a single file for each year; 5389 abstracts in total), while the 2011 ISEE proceedings only exist as individual PDFs – no metadata is available (1510 abstracts – these will simply be presented for download on a single page, perhaps as a single PDF or ZIP file). EHP did not publish the ISEE proceedings in 2012.

Migration of the existing Chinese content has not yet been planned. XML does not exist for these sources, though PDFs are available. Migration of archival content will occur post-launch, but the platform is required to provide support for this content.

Task 18 – Customer Support Services: EHP requires the assignment of an individual customer support representative (with a backup) at the contractor, to act as a single point of contact for all inquiries from the journal. Direct email and phone contact information must be provided for both individuals. The contractor shall stipulate a central customer support representative for EHP’s account. Any response that requires support to be initiated through a ticketing system or phone queue will be deemed unacceptable.

The journal expects the ability to host regular conference calls with the account manager, and with any other members of the contractor’s team that are required based on current projects or problems. The frequency for these calls shall be once a week at the start of the contract, moving to once every two (2) weeks or once a month under normal operations, as mutually agreed. A regular meeting schedule will be established to ensure consistency in these conference calls. When materials need to be shared in real time, a WebEx (or similar) meeting can be initiated by the contractor.

3.2. DELIVERABLES: The Contractor shall provide the following reports/plans as specified below (Also, reference Attachment III and Contract, Section H - Special Contract Requirements, Article H.7):

3.2.1. Email Alerts: TOC, most read, and new publication alerts for the English Edition; TOC alerts for the

Chinese edition. New publication alerts are due every Monday, other alerts are due monthly as determined by the Web Editor and COR. Alerts are distributed to the Web Editor, COR(s), and alert subscribers by e-mail.

3.2.2. Usage Reports: Data shall include most accessed articles, most popular pages on the site, total user traffic, geographic breakdown of users, unique visits, page views, referring sites, and device used to access the site. The report is due monthly, and as requested by Web Editor and CORs. The report shall be submitted to the Web Editor and COR(s) by e-mail.

3.2.3. Journal Web Hosting Data Report: Provide an annual report for journal web hosting on storage size and bandwidth used per month. The report is due 10 days after completion of each period of performance. Report shall be submitted to the COR(s) by e-mail.

3.2.4. Journal Web Administration Data Report: Provide an annual report for journal web administration on number of articles published and overall size of the journal, per month. The report is due 10 days after completion of each period of performance. Report shall be submitted to the COR(s) by e-mail.

3.2.5. A Privacy Threshold Analysis (PTA) is due within 30 days after contract award, and annually thereafter. Reference the Contract, Section H - Special Contract Requirements, Article H.7. A. 13 for details.

3.2.6. Contract Employee Data is due within 7-days (before an employee begins working on the contract).

Reference the Contract, Section H - Special Contract Requirements, Article H.7. A. 16 for details.

3.2.7. A Security Assessment and Authorization (SA&A) is due within 30 days after contract award, and annually thereafter. The SA&A shall include all plans/reports listed in Contract, Section H - Special Contract

Requirements, Article H.7. A. 23.2 not required to be submitted with the technical proposal.

4. QUALITY CONTROL: The Government is committed to a highly interactive relationship between quality control by the contractor and quality assurance by the government recipient of services. This relationship shall be achieved through an effective prevention-based quality control program dedicated to ensuring the best possible products and services to end users. The contractor shall provide their written

Quality Control Plan (QCP) for evaluation as part of the contractor’s proposal. The QCP shall be updated following award. The QCP shall document how the contractor intends on meeting and complying with the quality standards established in this PWS. At a minimum, the QCP shall include a self-inspection plan, an internal staffing plan, and an outline of the procedures that the contractor will use to maintain quality, timeliness, responsiveness, customer satisfaction, and any other requirements set forth in this PWS.

The contractor’s QCP shall be maintained throughout the life of the contract and shall include the contractor’s procedures to routinely evaluate the effectiveness of the plan to ensure the contractor is meeting the performance standards and requirements of the contract.

5. COMPLIANCE: All content published in EHP must meet Section 508 accessibility guidelines as defined by the federal government. Please see the following URLs for details:

• Section 508 Information: http://www.section508.gov/

• Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0: http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG20/

• Guide to the Section 508 Standards: https://www.access-board.gov/guidelines-and-standards/communications-and-it/about-the-section-508-standards/guide-to-the-section-508-standards

• Making Files Accessible: http://www.hhs.gov/web/section-508/making-files-accessible/index.html

The platform must allow for government contractors to scan both the website and its published content to confirm compliance with 508 mandates.

The government will be moving to the WCAG 2.0 (Level AA) standard in the near future; contractors should also consider whether their platform can operate under these guidelines. See http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG20/ for more details.

NOTE: If the deliverable includes features and functions in addition to those identified as requirements, these features and functions also need to conform to relevant Section 508 technical provisions, functional performance criteria, and information, documentation, and support.

6. PHASE-IN/PHASE-OUT PERIOD: To minimize any decreases in productivity and to prevent possible negative impacts on additional services, the contractor shall have personnel on board during the nine (9) month phase-in, and for up to six (6) months during phase-out. During the phase-in period, the contractor shall become familiar with performance requirements in order to commence full performance of services on the contract start date, and shall build or configure the new platform to meet the requirements of this document. The contractor shall prepare to assume full responsibility for all areas of operation in accordance with the terms and conditions of this contract. The contractor shall take all actions necessary for a smooth transition of the contracted support operations. Transition requirements are as follows:

• In order to minimize the disruption of service for any follow-on contract, the incumbent shall participate with the successor contractor and the contract officer representative (COR) in an orderly transfer of services for any follow-on contract. It is anticipated that a 6-month transition period is set aside at the end of the routine performance period for the phase-out of the contractor’s performance. Any resulting contract from this PWS shall include the phase-out transition period in the established completion date.

During the transition period, the incumbent shall prepare transition reports and documents which shall describe the status of marketing efforts, all email lists, and any outstanding issues that a new contractor must know in order to continue service of the publication with minimal disruption.

• All electronic and print documentation and materials developed under the contract (including applications, databases, and intellectual property) shall be transferred, as directed by the COR, to the successor or the NIEHS.

6.1. Phase-Out: Prior to the completion of this contract, an observation period shall occur, at which time team management personnel of the incoming Contractor may observe operations. This will allow for orderly turnover of equipment and records, and will help to ensure continuity of services. The outgoing http://www.section508.gov/ http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG20/ https://www.access-board.gov/guidelines-and-standards/communications-and-it/about-the-section-508-standards/guide-to-the-section-508-standards https://www.access-board.gov/guidelines-and-standards/communications-and-it/about-the-section-508-standards/guide-to-the-section-508-standards https://www.access-board.gov/guidelines-and-standards/communications-and-it/about-the-section-508-standards/guide-to-the-section-508-standards http://www.hhs.gov/web/section-508/making-files-accessible/index.html http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG20/

Contractor is ultimately responsible for performing full services in accordance with the contract during the phase-out period and shall not defer any requirements for the purpose of avoiding responsibility or of transferring such responsibility to the succeeding Contractor. The outgoing Contractor shall fully cooperate with the succeeding Contractor and the Government, so as not to interfere with their work or duties. The outgoing Contractor shall ensure all outstanding work orders, equipment, and all Government-owned items are turned in to the COR. All outgoing Contractor personnel shall out-process through the designated Government personnel to ensure compliance with the Government’s requirements for closing e-mail accounts, terminating access, and turning in ID cards, etc. The outgoing Contractor shall be prepared to transition the work load to the newly selected Contractor during the 6-month phase-out period, which will occur prior to the end of the period of performance of the contract.

7. OTHER CONSIDERATIONS

• Restriction on contractor’s use of or dissemination of databases: Mailing lists either furnished to the contractor by the COR or prepared by the contractor as part of its continuing efforts to support the journal are protected by the Privacy Act, and shall not be used by the contractor or any other third party for any purposes other than for the expressed purpose of this contract. Mailing lists provided as part of this contract shall not be disseminated to other persons or entities, except the

COR and CO, and shall not be used by the contractor, its subcontractors, or any other organization of persons for any purpose other than the services specifically described by the PWS and contract document. The contractor shall ensure that all subcontracts and consultant agreements in support of this contract include this restriction.

• Privacy Act Notice: This PWS requires the Parties to do one or more of the following: design, develop, or operate a system of records on individuals to accomplish an agency function in accordance with the Privacy Act of 1974, Public Law 93-579, December 31, 1974 (5 USC 552a) and applicable agency regulations. Violation of the Act may involve the imposition of criminal penalties. The Privacy Act System of Records applicable to this project is Number 09-90-0024.

• Policies for Federal Agency Public Websites: This PWS requires the Parties to abide by the rules established in OMB M-05-04

(http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/omb/memoranda/fy2005/m05-04.pdf).

• Policy to Require Secure Connections across Federal Websites and Web Services: This PWS requires the Parties to abide by the rules established in OMB M-15-13

(https://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/omb/memoranda/2015/m-15-13.pdf).

8. DATA RIGHTS: The Government has unlimited rights to all documents/material produced under this contract to the extent permitted by the data rights clauses. The parties mutually acknowledge their understanding that this is the government’s intent. All documents and materials, to include the source codes of any software, if applicable, produced under this contract shall be government owned and are the property of the government with all rights and privileges of ownership/copyright belonging exclusively to the government. These documents and materials may not be used or sold by the contractor without written permission from the contracting officer. All materials supplied to the Government will be the sole property of the government and may not be used for any other purpose. This right does not abrogate any other government rights.

9. PERIOD OF PERFORMANCE: The period of performance shall include a 12-month base period

(inclusive of a nine (9) month phase-in period) with four (4) 1-year option periods.

10. HOURS OF OPERATION: The contractor shall be responsible for providing routine services between the core hours of 8:00 AM – 5:00 PM Eastern time Monday through Friday, except federal holidays or when the government facility is closed due to local or national emergencies, administrative closings or similar government directed facility closings. All responses to queries from EHP staff and its contractors or associates must be issued in a timely manner, usually the same business day. The contractor shall at all times maintain an adequate workforce for the uninterrupted performance of all tasks defined within this PWS when the government facility is not closed for the above reasons. When hiring personnel, the contractor shall keep in mind that the stability and continuity of the workforce are essential. No overtime (OT) or compensatory time (CT) is authorized under this contract.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/omb/memoranda/fy2005/m05-04.pdf https://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/omb/memoranda/2015/m-15-13.pdf

10.1. Federal Holidays: The National Institutes of Environmental Health Sciences observes the following holidays:

• New Year’s Day Labor Day

• Martin Luther King’s Birthday Columbus Day

• Presidents Day Veteran’s Day

• Memorial Day Thanksgiving Day

• Independence Day Christmas Day

11. PLACE OF PERFORMANCE: The place of performance for all parties directly affiliated with fulfilling the services of this contract shall be within the continental United States.

12. CONTRACTOR PERSONNEL: Contract staff shall illustrate expertise in the following areas:

• An existing, robust system for publishing scientific journal content, which is already serving scientific journal customers (systems not being used to serve journals content do not qualify).

• Following established best practices for hosting and delivering scholarly journal content on the web.

• Following established best practices for maintaining security on public-facing websites.

• Strong web design skills and an understanding of how users access and consume content, as it relates to the scholarly journals publishing market.

• Proven track record for converting existing non-XML archival sources into content hosted on your system.

• Demonstrated understanding of 508/WCAG 2.0 compliance requirements, and existing tools to address these requirements on the platform.

• An existing ability to host translations of content along with the English-language version, and mechanisms to switch between these versions of content based on user preference.

• Strong understanding of XML publishing principles, and participation in the scholarly XML publishing community.

• Existing implementations of mobile-responsive websites for scientific journal customers.

• Existing implementations of search systems for scientific journal customers.

• Existing mechanisms to support continuous publication for scientific journal customers.

13. GOVERNMENT FURNISHED PROPERTY, EQUIPMENT, AND SERVICES: This section identifies those items such as property, information and/or services that will be provided for the contractor’s use (without cost to the contractor) to allow the contractor to provide the required services, such as materials, facilities, training, etc. as follows:

• Facilities: The Government shall not furnish work space, work stations, computers.

• Materials: The Government will not provide Standard Operational Procedures (SOPs), applicable regulations, manuals, texts, briefs or any other materials associated with these projects.

• Training: The Government will not provide any training, management, or accountability for contractor’s staff beyond the initial guidance given during initial setup, and the ongoing feedback that is provided throughout the course of the contract.

14. CONTRACTOR FURNISHED ITEMS AND RESPONSIBILITIES: The contractor shall furnish all supplies, equipment, and services required to perform work under this contract that are not listed under section 13 of this PWS.

14.1. Items: The contractor shall provide all required hardware, software, licenses, internet access, etc., along with all necessary support, to perform this work. The Government will not will provide any equipment, materials, or technical support. The contractor will not have access to the NIEHS network or email accounts.

When not specified, the contractor is free to select the software/hardware that best fits their needs (for instance, the journal offers no requirement on the software used for viewing graphics files from authors).

14.2. Security/Security Log: The contractor shall maintain the security and integrity of their systems at all times. This includes promptly installing updates to mitigate security threats, actively testing all software releases for potential security holes, and promptly informing customers of known or suspected data breaches.

15. ATTACHMENT/TECHNICAL EXHIBIT LISTING: This section lists all attachments and technical exhibits applicable to the contract.

• See Section J of the Solicitation/Contract.