Statemement of Objectives (SOO) Final.pdf

STATEMENT OF OBJECTIVES (SOO)

Commercial Exam Delivery & Proctoring for:

DoD – Functional Certification Exams

(26 July 2021)

1. PURPOSE

The purpose of this requirement is to acquire the capability, through a commercial third party test proctoring company (hereafter referred to as “the contractor”), to administer professional certification exam(s) for the Department of Defense (DoD) acquisition workforce (examinees), around the world, on an individually approved and scheduled basis. The contract shall provide for secure proctored exams, either physically at contractor-provided test centers or virtually using the contractor’s established remote protected online (live) proctoring methods. The Defense Acquisition University (DAU) has responsibility to develop, deploy, and manage the certification exam program(s) on behalf of DoD.

It is anticipated that each examinee (candidate) will sign-up for their respective certification exams through the same registration process used to enroll in classes delivered by DAU. This will ensure all existing organizational approval workflow requirements are met. Once DAU receives the approval for the examinee (candidate) to take the certification exam, the examinee will be directed to the contractor’s registration website to schedule and make arrangements to take the exam. The contractor shall provide exam results to DAU and examinees immediately after completing the exams. The exam results must contain the examinee’s overall exam score and a breakdown of incorrect answers by competency level(s). DAU will also provide the employee and their employing service/agency additional feedback as necessary.

2. BACKGROUND

The Defense Acquisition University (DAU) was designated as the entity responsible for creating and administering functional certification exam(s) for the Department of Defense (DoD) acquisition workforce. Currently, the functional areas requiring certification exam proctoring support are the Contracting (CON), and Program Management (PM) Functional Areas. DAU anticipates there may be future requirements to deliver additional (new) functional area certification exams, or variants to (existing) exams. However, the exams representing the firm requirement as of the date of this solicitation are as follows:

a. CON (single level) Certification Exam

b. The PM Practitioner Certification Exam

c. The PM Advanced Certification Exam

DAU has designated and assigned both a CON and a PM team to plan, develop, and manage these exam programs. DAU is responsible for the development of exam material (questions, answers, references) and will provide the contractor with an initial bank of exam questions. DAU may periodically revise, remove, replace, and add test questions to increase the test bank size, and will provide to the contractor for upload into the contractor’s exam delivery system.

3. PERIOD AND PLACE OF PERFORMANCE:

3.1. The Period of Performance (POP) for this effort will be for a base year (12 Months) plus 4 option periods of 12 months each. The award date is targeted for August 2021 to allow for sufficient time to ensure 01 Oct 2021 exam availability target date, taking into consideration the time necessary to establish/publish the exam material provided by DAU into the contractor’s exam delivery system. (Date ranges are estimated and are dependent upon actual award date)

3.2. The contract award date, and initial period of performance (POP) shall allow for a targeted exam ready date of 1 Oct 2021. In order to facilitate meeting this date, DAU will provide exam items to the contractor, in an electronic format as required by the contractor’s normal commercial practices, as soon as practicable after contract award.

3.3. The place of performance shall be either at the contractor’s established test facilities/locations worldwide, or remotely in accordance with the contractor’s established live and secure remote proctoring methods/procedures. The determination whether each individual exam is delivered either in person or remotely is at the discretion of the examinee (candidate) when he/she schedules the exam through the contractor’s website.

4.PERFORMANCE OBJECTIVES:

4.1. Exam Scheduling & Data Linkage: Establish organizational linkage between DAU and the contractor for the purposes of exam scheduling and delivery. Within 15 days after contract award the contractor will work with the assigned DAU Contracting Officer’s Representative (COR) to coordinate with DAU/IT and Academic Scheduling to establish a data exchange (via flat files or Application Programming Interface (API)s depending on the commercial exam provider’s capabilities) between DAU Student Management for the purpose of managing and tracking examinee application, supervisory/chain-of-command approval, scheduling, and record of exam delivery and grade. For exam registration purposes, personal shared data will be limited to examinee’s name, DAU ID number, the examinee’s work email address, and the completion record being sent to the examinee (candidate).

4.2. Exam Delivery: Exams and proctoring shall be made available worldwide, on-demand per examinee, either in-person (on-site at the contractor’s facility) or using an online (live) secure proctoring method. (See section titled: “Exam Delivery Specifications” for more information on minimum exam delivery requirements.)

4.3. Exam Particulars: The following table provides characteristics for each certification exam for the purpose of establishing contract line items, pricing, etc.:

Exam Title # of Questions Exam Duration (Limit) CON Certification Exam 150 3 Hours (180 Min.)

PM Practitioner Exam 100 2 Hours (120 Min.)

PM Advanced Exam 100 2 Hours (120 Min.)

4.4. Exam Maintenance: The contractor should provide capability for DAU to manage and/make modifications to the exam(s) as needs arise. Optimally, DAU would have access to the exams once these exams are established in the contractor system, with administrator-level (or equivalent) rights for the purpose of exam item maintenance (i.e., turn a question on/off, update/swap item(s), move items from one pool/form to another, or add items to be tested). However, at a minimum, there should be a way to update/modify the exam(s) on a periodic basis. In addition, the contractor shall provide access to test item analysis, item discrimination, and data analytics on an as-needed basis and provide the results of this analysis to DAU.

5.EXAM DELIVERY SPECIFICATION:

Exams will consist of multiple-choice questions.

Each question will contain a stem, a correct answer, and three distractors.

The exam system shall have the capability to host an exam ranging up to 180 questions.

DAU will provide all exam questions to the contractor.

The examinee (candidate) shall be allowed a specified amount of time to complete an exam delineated in paragraph 4.2 above.

Examinees shall not leave the examination area during active testing, except for reasonable biological breaks per the contractor’s standard procedures.

Immediate feedback in the form of a completion record shall be provided to examinee

(candidate) and DAU.

No-show policy (and cost implications) shall be clear and explicit, and made available to examinees (candidate) and DAU.

The exam system must be capable of randomizing questions drawn by from a variety of categories/pools in a way to present varied combinations of questions for each examinee.

The contractor shall adhere to commercial best practices, to include all nationally recognized standards established by the National College Testing Association (NCTA), and any other best practices of the commercial exam provider.

The contractor’s exam “system” shall be able to:

o Receive validation of examinee (candidate) eligibility from DAU. (The exact nature of this transaction is to be established after award of the contract.

Examples of possible methods may include (but not limited to): SFTP, Voucher #’s, Web API, etc.

o Schedule testing directly with the examinee (candidate) after they receive indication of authorization to take exam through the DAU registration system.

This would require setting up a process (between DAU and contractor) to determine how to manage approvals (i.e.; periodic data transfer of approved enrollees by student ID#, or student name matched with unique passcode, etc.).

o Administer the test securely (whether in-person or online).

o Follow relevant industry standard, Americans with Disabilities Act, and (any) other federally mandated requirements applicable to the industry.

o Provide access to examinee and item performance feedback, both overall and at a category/pool/question level, at a frequency in the form offered by the commercial exam provider.

o Provide test item analysis, item discrimination, and data analytics

6. QUALITY ASSURANCE

PERFORMANCE OBJECTIVES:

Required Services / Deliverable

ACCEPTABLE QUALITY

LEVEL (AQL)

MONITORING

METHOD

Deliver certification exam proctoring as scheduled by individual examinee, at established world-wide testing sites.

Ensure 100% availability by delivering proctored certification exams delivered on time, as scheduled

Periodic review

Deliver certification exam proctoring as scheduled by individual examinees through established remote examination processes.

Ensure 100% availability by delivering proctored certification exams delivered on time, as scheduled

Periodic review

Maintain functional linkage & data exchange between commercial exam provider and DAU IT/Scheduling systems

Ensure real-time coordination throughout the life of the contract

Periodic review

Conduct test item analysis, item discrimination, and data analytics.

Ensure availability of analysis on an as-needed basis

Periodic review

7. QUANTITY ESTIMATES:

7.1 The following The following table provides the estimated quantity of exam administration that DAU anticipates it will need during each contract period.

EXAM TITLE: ESTIMATES:

Base Year Year 1 Year 2 Year 3 Year 4

CON Cert Exam 1,250 3,000 3,000 3,000 3,000

PM Practitioner Cert Exam 900 1400 1,800 1,800 1,800

PM Advanced Cert Exam 360 550 720 720 720

Notes:

• DAU provides the examinee with the choice between in-person and virtual exam delivery. The Government estimates that the ratio of in-person vs. virtual exam delivery is 50/50.

• The estimated quantities are based on historical Defense Acquisition Workforce Initiative Act (DAWIA) certifications awarded in each of the respective functional areas (CON and PM) over several years. It is highly anticipated that demand for these exams will ramp up slowly for the first year, and may not reach full estimated throughput until late in Fiscal Year (FY) 2021 or even into FY 2022.

7.2: The “Exam Ready” targeted date of 1 Oct 2021 is strongly desired, with consideration given to the availability and quality of exam item/data files (Government Furnished Information (GFI)

8. GOVERNMENT FURNISHED INFORMATION (GFI):

The government exam team(s) will provide the contractor with the exams question data files, as developed and in a form/format as required by the contractor (MS-Excel, MS-Access, etc.).

Depending on the exam (CON, PM), the number of questions per exam will vary. A single exam may be comprised of several “pools” of questions at the (domain, competency, etc.) level, to allow for randomization (within the constraints of the exam delivery system) to enhance exam security and/or to lessen risk of exam item compromise.