Sources Sought - NOAA Fishing Effort Survey (FES) 2023-2027.pdf

SOURCES SOUGHT

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), Office of Science and Technology (OST), Marine Recreational Information Program, Fishing Effort Survey (FES) 2023‐2027

Action ID: 1305M322RNFFK0002 Submission deadline: 10 January 2022 Proposed Period of Performance: 30 September 2022 – 29 September 2027

(Base + four 1 year options)

This request for information is issued to identify potential sources for the upcoming Fishing Effort Survey, to determine the capabilities of the vendor pool and anticipated competition. The information provided will be used to inform potential acquisition strategies and to support a determination about whether or not to set‐aside the acquisition.

This is an RFI only and is not a solicitation for a contract or grant award. It is not a request for proposals, and it does not obligate the government in any way. The Government will not reimburse the respondents for any costs associated with the information submitted in response to this request. This RFI does not obligate the government to reimburse any costs associated with the preparation and/or submission of this information. Nor does this RFI guarantee that the government will issue a request for proposal or award a contract for supplies or services.

Information Requested

1. Capability statement – Please provide a capability statement that shows your firm’s capability to perform the services described below. Please include a description of your firm’s expertise and resources which would be applied to this project, including:

a. Experience managing and successfully executing large‐scale, probability‐based population surveys;

b. Capacity to administer up to 360,000 mail surveys per year, including printing and mailing survey materials, monitoring the disposition of sample in real time, receipting returned surveys, converting completed surveys into an electronic database format, developing and executing quality control processes, and editing survey data;

c. Access to and experience developing and sampling from address‐based sample frames derived from the United States Postal Service Computerized Delivery Sequence File.

d. Experience augmenting address samples with auxiliary information to improve sampling efficiency.

e. Knowledge of the limitations of address samples and problems encountered when sampling from address frames – relevant experience to ensure that address samples represent target populations;

f. Expertise in SAS programming;

g. Expertise in survey sampling and estimation methods, including sample weighting;

h. Expertise assessing and accounting for non‐sampling errors, including nonresponse error, coverage error, and measurement error;

i. Expertise in developing survey materials, including cover letters and survey instruments.

j. Brief description of the amount and type of work expected to be performed in‐house (by the respondent/prime contractor versus subcontracted to other firms.

Please limit this section to 3 pages.

2. Sample Experience – Please include brief description of up to 3 projects of similar size, scope, and complexity to the services described herein. Please include a summary of the work completed, the dollar value, and period of performance. Please limit this section to 3 pages.

3. Size standard information – Please provide information about your business size status under NAICS 541910. The size standard for this NAICS is $16.0 million average annual receipts over the past 3 years.

4. List of any contracts/ordering vehicles held (GSA schedules, NOAA ProTech, etc.)

5. Company information and points of contact – Name, address, CAGE, DUNS, and point of contact email.

Project Background The National Marine Fisheries Service of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA Fisheries), United States Department of Commerce, requires a contract to conduct the Marine Recreational Information Program (MRIP) Fishing Effort Survey (FES), a self‐administered household survey that monitors recreational saltwater fishing activity by residents of coastal states. The purpose of the survey is to collect information about recreational saltwater fishing activity in 17 coastal states along the Atlantic coast, Gulf of Mexico and Hawaii.

This contract will include survey administration and data processing tasks for six (6) waves, beginning with Wave 1, 2023 and concluding with Wave 6, 2023. Four (4) optional years include data collection activities for 24 additional waves (Wave 1, 2024 through Wave 6, 2027).

The FES is a cross‐sectional, self‐administered, household mail survey. Survey samples are selected from residential address frames, and household residents are asked to provide information about saltwater fishing activity that occurred during two‐month reference waves. Survey results are used to estimate the total number of shore and private boat saltwater fishing trips taken by recreational anglers during each wave.

Summary of Tasks Task 1 ‐ Conduct of the MRIP Fishing Effort Survey

1.1. Project Management and Planning ‐ contractor shall perform general project management functions.

The contractor shall prepare and submit a final project management plan that reflects the requirements specified in the contract or describes and justifies any revisions to requirements and includes a detailed schedule of project activities.

1.2. Sampling ‐ The contractor shall conduct sampling in accordance with the FES sampling approach as described in the FES Annual Report (available at: https://media.fisheries.noaa.gov/2021‐08/MRIP‐

Fishing‐Effort‐Survey‐2020‐Annual‐Report‐V2.pdf) The sampling design supports state‐level estimation of key survey variables, including the total number of shore and private boat recreational saltwater fishing trips taken each wave. The FES utilizes address‐based samples (ABS) to identify saltwater anglers and collect information about recent recreational saltwater fishing activity. The sample frame is derived from the United States Postal Service Computerized Delivery Sequence File (CDS) and includes all residential addresses serviced by the USPS within the study area. For each wave, the contractor shall create the final FES sample frame, including obtaining from a qualified vendor all eligible addresses from the CDS and appending stratification variables. After the sample frame has been finalized for each wave, the contractor shall randomly select addresses from within each stratum. The estimated annual sample size is 364,441 addresses, which will be distributed among reference waves, states and strata.

NOAA staff will provide stratum sample sizes approximately one month prior to sampling for the initial reference wave of each year. The proposed sampling approach must ensure that samples are representative of all household addresses within the study area and address common issues that arise when sampling from ABS frames (e.g. houses under construction or renovation, households with multiple addresses, vacation addresses, group quarters, throwback addresses, etc.)

1.3. Update Survey Materials ‐ The contractor shall be responsible for updating all survey materials. The current FES mail questionnaire, cover letters and postcards are included in the FES Annual Report.

NOAA staff will provide electronic versions of all current survey materials following contract award. The contractor shall be responsible for converting survey materials into its preferred system for forms design

(e.g. Teleform) and formatting all materials to match current FES layouts. We do not anticipate substantive changes to survey materials, although they will need to be updated to reflect current dates, states, reference periods, contact information, etc. In addition, the contractor may propose modifications to improve the content of the materials.

1.4. Survey Administration ‐ The FES is a self‐administered mail survey questionnaire. The contractor shall be responsible for all aspects of survey administration, including printing, assembling, mailing, receipting, and processing all survey materials and returned questionnaires. The contractor shall administer the survey for two‐month reference waves. Data collection for each wave begins with the initial survey mailing, 6 days prior to the end of the reference wave. The contractor shall send a thank you/reminder postcard to all sampled addresses approximately 7 days following the initial mailing. The contractor shall complete a follow‐up mailing to all nonrespondents 24 days after the initial mailing. All mailings shall be delivered through regular, first‐class mail. Data closeout will be 12 weeks after the end of the wave.

1.5. Data File Preparation ‐ The contractor shall be responsible for converting returned mail questionnaires and completed surveys into a consolidated dataset. At a minimum, completed surveys shall be committed to the survey dataset on a daily basis to allow for near real‐time tracking of survey responses and ensure that preliminary data are as comprehensive as possible. For households that complete and return multiple surveys, the contractor shall commit to the final dataset the survey that was returned first. The contractor shall maintain scanned images, in pdf format, of returned mail questionnaires for delivery to NOAA according to the delivery schedule. Questionnaires that have been damaged or are otherwise inappropriate for scanning shall be manually reviewed by contractor personnel. If such questionnaires are complete and legible, the contractor shall be responsible for manually key‐entering survey information. Questionnaires that are illegible or missing key information shall be coded as such.

1.6. Quality Control Procedures ‐ The contractor shall propose and implement a set of data quality procedures that will ensure the collection of high quality data through all stages of data collection. The data quality procedures shall be specified in a written quality management plan that addresses each of the following activities: printing, preparing mailing packages, processing returned questionnaires, data entry/data verification, and data file production.

1.7. Respondent Interaction ‐ The contractor shall provide a toll free voicemail number, as well as an email address that allows respondents to leave messages regarding the survey. The contractor must respond to all messages within one (1) business day of receipt. The telephone line and email address shall be available on the first day of data collection, and the contractor must maintain a record of all contacts describing the nature of the correspondence and the resolution. Message logs must be summarized in FES wave reports.

1.8. Reporting ‐ The contractor shall propose a mechanism to provide NOAA staff with the ability to monitor the number of returned surveys and return rates, by year, wave, state and stratum, on a daily basis throughout each data collection period. The reporting tool shall be functional and available to NOAA staff by the initial survey mailing for the first reference wave

Additional Optional Tasks Task 2 ‐ Puerto Rico Fishing Effort Survey ‐ The contractor shall administer the MRIP Fishing Effort Survey in Puerto Rico. The Puerto Rico FES will utilize the design specified for task 1

Task 3 ‐ Additional FES Sampling ‐ NOAA Fisheries may choose to order additional sample for the Fishing Effort Survey. The estimated quantity for the additional sample may be up to 30% of the estimated quantities for task 1.

Task 4 ‐ Reporting Sensitivity Experiment ‐ The contractor shall administer an experiment to test respondent sensitivity to survey questions about saltwater fishing activity and possession of a saltwater fishing license.

Specifically, the Reporting Sensitivity Experiment (RSE) will evaluate the interaction of these questions on reporting behavior by administering alternate versions of the FES questionnaire that differ in question content and placement. The RSE will include three alternate questionnaire versions that are similar to the base FES questionnaire in terms of layout and the number of questions.

Summary of Deliverables –

1. Project management plan

2. Quality management plan

3. Post‐award kickoff meeting agenda and summary

4. Weekly meeting agendas and summaries

5. Mail survey materials

6. Preliminary wave datafiles

7. Final wave datafiles and reports

8. Scanned questionnaires

9. Near real‐time progress reports

Previous contract Information Incumbent Contractor: Research Triangle Institute (CAGE: 3A730) Contract Number: GS‐00F‐354CA Order Number: 1305M220FNFFK0177 Contract period of performance: 06/24/2020 – 12/31/2022 Award Value: $5,724,246.91

Questions ‐ Please submit any questions related to this RFI no later than 10 January 2022 to the Contracting Officer/Contract Specialist at joseph.hetrick@noaa.gov AND Jamie.abushakrah@noaa.gov.