National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) Account Management, Planning, and Maintenance for Online Crowd-Sourced Studies.

Description:

This is a Sources Sought notice. This is NOT a solicitation for proposals, proposal abstracts, or quotations. The purpose of this notice is to obtain information regarding the availability and capability of all qualified sources to perform a potential requirement.

This notice is issued to help determine the availability of qualified companies technically capable of meeting the Government requirement and to determine the method of acquisition. It is not to be construed as a commitment by the Government to issue a solicitation or ultimately award a contract. Responses will not be considered as proposals or quotes. No award will be made as a result of this notice. The Government will NOT be responsible for any costs incurred by the respondents to this notice. This notice is strictly for research and information purposes only.

Purpose and Objectives: The purpose of this acquisition is to provide the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) with service for managing the online Amazon Mechanical Turk account and handling of participant compensation.

Project requirements:

The Contractor shall provide the following required online services:

Task 1: General Maintenance of Account on Amazon Mechanical Turk

The contractor will set-up an Amazon Mechanical Turk (AMT) account for online studies and will provide access to the NIMH, LBC. The contractor will regularly monitor the account to ensure it remains open during the course of the contract. The contractor will also engage in planning related to the studies that will be performed with the account, including preparing the account for being able to administer the proposed experiments and updating information on the account as experimental needs change.

Task 2: Managing the Account and Participant Compensation for Individual Studies on Amazon Mechanical Turk

The contractor will send funds to the AMT account for fulfilling compensation for participants. The contractor will regularly monitor and add funds to the AMT account to ensure there is enough for the completion of individual studies that are specified to the contractor. The following are three studies we plan to conduct on AMT upon approval, with the amount that would be added to the account for each study.

1. A large-scale memory recall task where one set of participants does the memory experiment, while another set scores the results of the memory experiment. Anticipated # of participants: 20,000 for memory task + 400,000 for scoring = 420,000 participants total.

2. A large-scale object matching task. Anticipated # of trials: 10,000,000 total.

3. A longitudinal study looking at effects of the time of day on cognitive performance. Anticipated # of participants: 5,000 x 20 time points: 100,000.

The contractor would deal with managing the accounting and maintaining sufficient funds for participant compensation for these above-mentioned experiments.

Anticipated Period of Performance: 12 months from the date of award.

Capability statement /information sought: Contractors that believe that they possess the ability to provide the required equipment, should submit documentation on their ability to meet each of the project requirements to the Contract Specialist.

The Contractor should directly and specifically state in the, capabilities statement, which project requirements can be meet and/or supplied. The Contractor must also provide their DUNS number, organization name, address, point of contact, and size and type of business (e.g., 8(a), HubZone, etc., pursuant to the applicable NAICS code and any other information that may be helpful in developing or finalizing the acquisition requirements.

The information submitted must be must be in and outline format that addresses each of the elements of the project requirement and in the capability statement /information sought paragraphs stated herein. A cover page and an executive summary may be included but is not required.

The response is limited to two (2) page limit. The 2-page limit does not include the cover page or executive summary.

The response must include the respondents' technical and administrative points of contact, including names, titles, addresses, telephone and fax numbers, and e-mail addresses.

All responses to this notice must be submitted electronically to the Contract Specialist. Facsimile responses are NOT accepted.

The response must be submitted to Jeffrey E. Brown, Contracting Officer, at jeffrey.brown@nih.gov.

The response must be received on or before July 9, 2018 at 12 pm, Eastern Time.

Disclaimer and Important Notes: This notice does not obligate the Government to award a contract or otherwise pay for the information provided in response. The Government reserves the right to use information provided by respondents for any purpose deemed necessary and legally appropriate. Any organization responding to this notice should ensure that its response is complete and sufficiently detailed to allow the Government to determine the organization's qualifications to perform the work.

Respondents are advised that the Government is under no obligation to acknowledge receipt of the information received or provide feedback to respondents with respect to any information submitted. After a review of the responses received, a presolicitation synopsis and solicitation may be published in Federal Business Opportunities. However, responses to this notice will not be considered adequate responses to a solicitation.

Confidentiality: No proprietary, classified, confidential, or sensitive information should be included in your response. The Government reserves the right to use any non-proprietary technical information in any resultant solicitation(s).

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