VocBench Support and NALTerms Integration

The Department of Agriculture Agricultural Research Service is soliciting a quotation for VocBench Support and NALTerms Integration services, with proposals due September 18, 2026. This is a noncompetitive, restricted-competition procurement with a sole-source justification citing Lore Star S.R.L. as the suggested source; however, all responsible sources may submit quotations under an unrestricted RFQ framework.

Place of performance is Calverton, Maryland. The contract comprises one one-year base period (September 30, 2026 through September 29, 2027) and four one-year option periods, for a total period not to exceed five years. The NAICS code is 541511, Custom Computer Programming Services; the small business size standard is $34.0 million. This is a FAR Part 12 commercial-items acquisition with firm fixed-price pricing.

Core scope includes ongoing technical support (40 hours per year base allocation) for the open-source VocBench platform used as NAL's primary curation and editorial interface for NALTerms; migration from a sandbox environment to NAL-managed cloud servers (to be completed within one year of award); configuration maintenance; troubleshooting; evaluation and implementation of open-source updates; user access administration; and guidance on vocabulary management and editorial governance. Support requests must be answered within two business days. The contractor shall also deliver refresher and targeted training sessions (typically four hours each) covering new features, workflows, administrative options, and staff onboarding, with training available within six months of request and annually thereafter. An optional item for professional services and development of up to five days per year is available for improving curation workflows, enhancing input/output options (SKOS, ttl, nt, XML, JSON-LD), supporting USDA indexing automation, and developing visualizations or quality-control pipelines, available only when specifically requested by the Government.

Evaluation criteria are price (fair and reasonableness determination including base period and all option periods), technical acceptability (rated acceptable or unacceptable based on demonstrated capability to meet SOW requirements), and past performance (rated acceptable, neutral, or unacceptable). Award will be made to the lowest price technically acceptable offer with acceptable or neutral past performance. Questions are due September 14 at 12:00 p.m. CDT. The primary point of contact is Richard Hawthorne; the contract specialist is Monte Jordan (monte.jordan@usda.gov). Service Contract Labor Standards and prevailing wage determinations under WD No. 2015-4281 apply. An amendment issued September 4, 2026 revised the Statement of Work, revised contract line items, answered questions, and extended the due date to September 18. Offerors must acknowledge receipt of the amendment and maintain price firmness for 60 calendar days from the quotation deadline.