Online Diary_RFI Instructions.docx

Request for Information /Sources Sought Bureau of Labor Statistics Testing and Related Services of an Online Diary

The Department of Labor (DOL) Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) is conducting market research and seeks information and sources to facilitate testing and related services of an online diary. This Request for Information (RFI)/sources sought Notice 1625DC-20-N-00004 is currently classified under the North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) as 541990 All Other Professional, Scientific and Technical Services with a size standard of $16.5 million.

The anticipated period of performance is 17 months or more.

DISCLAIMER:

This RFI/Sources Sought Notice is issued solely for market research information and planning purposes only and does not constitute a solicitation. All information received in response to this RFI/Sources Sought that is marked as proprietary will be handled accordingly. Responses to this notice are not offers and cannot be accepted by the Government to form a binding contract. Responders are solely responsible for all expenses associated with responding to this Sources Sought Notice.

A. Statement of Objective A previously developed open-source online diary (developed using Angular JS, NGiNX, and Elasticsearch) shall be modified to reflect minor changes that were made in the Consumer Expenditure’s (CE’s) large-scale feasibility test of online diaries (e.g. addition of fields to collect point of purchase information, layout of user settings, modification of username and password requirements, changes to select response options in fields). The updated diary shall be used to field an online test of a two-week Diary using an online probability panel with a sample size of 2,000 respondents divided across 3 consecutive months to meet the following research objectives of BLS:

1. Test the feasibility of administering a two-week online diary to a probability panel sample without the aid of an interviewer to assist in gaining cooperation and training the respondent on how to record expenditures.

2. Evaluate the response and cooperation rates for keeping a fully self-reported online diary, within the context of a probability based online panel.

3. Compare the sample composition of those that complete an online diary to that of the BLS Consumer Expenditure (CE) diary production sample to determine the differences in representativeness for various population subgroups.

4. Identify any deviations in data quality from a self-administered online diary compared to CE diary production data.

The contractor shall be responsible for updating the open-source diary, developing a self-administered family questionnaire for collecting demographic and income information (as needed), administering the test in an online probability panel, and providing the resulting data tables (including paradata) based on specified output requirements to the BLS, including the assignment of given item codes to reported expenditures.

B. Historical Information and Requirement The CE Diary Survey at BLS is currently fielded by using an in-person interview to place two copies of a one-week paper diary instrument that the respondent records expenditures in for two consecutive weeks. Interviewers place the diaries and train respondents on how to record the household’s daily expenditures. The interviewers also contact the respondents during the week to encourage the diary keeping task. In October 2019, the CE began a test of an online diary with the expectation of implementing the online diary into production in 2022 using the same in-person placement protocols as described above.

In-person interviews historically have higher response rates than other modes of data collection and depending on content can offer higher quality data. However, the main drawback to in-person interviewing is the higher cost compared to other modes of data collection.

Because the CE diary is already primarily self-reported, it lends itself to moving away from an in-person placement to being fully self-administered. This could lead to cost savings in the future; however, switching to a fully self-administered mode is not without risk. First, the response rates in self-administered modes tend to be lower than in-person modes. Also, there’s uncertainty surrounding the impact on quality of a fully self-administered diary without the aid of in-person training on diary-keeping procedures.

In order to explore the impact of a fully self-administered mode of the diary, we propose a test in an online probability panel. While results may not be fully comparable to a traditional address-based sample design, they will provide insight on some of the sampling and measurement error that might result from a fully self-administered mode.

A further benefit of testing a self-administered diary in an online probability panel (with recruitment from an address based sample with known probabilities) is to establish a platform that could allow for future experiments. These experiments could be more quickly designed and tested in an online panel with results feeding faster into production.

C. Instructions to Contractors

1. Please review the requirement and respond if you are an interested party.

1. Include both a capabilities statement and complete all sections of the Market Research Questionnaire, in Section D below. The sum of capabilities statement and Market Research Questionnaire should not exceed 25 pages. Any attachment related to a GSA schedule or Best-in-Class (BIC) acquisition solution does not count towards the 25 page limit.

1. All entities are encouraged to participate in this market research. Joint ventures or teaming arrangements are encouraged and are up to each industry partner. Multiple teaming arrangements are acceptable. Please express your intentions in the questionnaire and capabilities package. If applicable, please specify your small business classification in any response.

1. If you desire to participate in this market research request for information, you must reply via email with the corresponding your capabilities statement and Market Research Questionnaire to liu.jason@bls.gov and deangelis.michael@bls.gov no later than April 2, 2020 at 2:00 PM Eastern Time (ET). Proprietary information should be clearly marked. All submissions shall be submitted via e-mail. The naming convention for submission should include the entity name and RFI Online Diary, for example – ABCINCRFIOnlineDiary.docx. The email subject line shall be “Entity Name - RFI Online Diary Response.” The electronic format may be in Microsoft word or compatible with Microsoft Office suite of software.

1. Questions about this requirement must be submitted no later than March 26, 2020 at 2:00 PM Eastern Time (ET) to the emails listed above. The email subject line shall be “Entity Name - Online Diary Questions.” BLS plans to post answers to all questions received at the same point of entry for which the RFI is posted (for example: EBuy, beta.sam).

D. Market Research Questionnaire:

A. Please review and respond to the following questions on size standard.

· Please indicate your business classification for NAICS code 541990 All Other Professional, Scientific and Technical Services with a size standard of $16.5 million:

|_| Small Business |_| Other Than Small Business If another NAICS code seems more suitable, please provide and state classification.

· If your business classification is Small Business, do you anticipate remaining under the size standard of $16.5 Million for the next two years?

|_| Yes |_| No

· If your business classification is Small Business, do you qualify under any of the following certification programs and socio-economic categories? If so, which one(s)?

|_| HUBZone |_| Service Disabled Veteran Owned Small Business (SDVOSB) |_|Women Owned Small Business (WOSB) |_| 8(a) B. Market Research Questions:

1. Does your entity have a GSA schedule that allows for this requirement to be performed? If so, please provide the GSA schedule number, the full schedule as an attachment, and reference the section(s) that are applicable to the performance of this requirement. No page limit exists for any document(s) provided under this question.

2. Could this requirement be performed under one of Office of Management and Budget’s (OMB) Category Management’s Best-in-Class (BIC) acquisition solutions? If so, please provide the name of the solution and a description of how the referenced solution is applicable to this requirement. Include the document(s) related to the solution as an attachment and reference the section(s) that are applicable to the performance of this requirement. No page limit exists for any document(s) provided under this question.

3. What type of profile data on respondents (e.g., demographics) would your entity provide, and how frequently is this information updated?

4. What type of data on respondents’ previous participation in surveys (e.g., number of surveys completed, length of time in panel) would your entity provide?

5. What type of data cleaning / adjustments for quality would your entity do?

6. How would your entity design for a nationally representative sample, and what benchmarks would your entity control for?

7. How would your entity propose handling offline populations for the test described in the SOW?