REQUEST FOR PROPOSALS

Transcription

1 REQUEST FOR PROPOSALS January 15, 2015 Electronic Catalog Management System Project Due 2:00 PM CST/CDT Friday, February 6, 2015 Company Name: Contact Information: Printed Name & Title Phone Number

2 *Please mark the outside of your return envelope: TO: EAST CENTRAL COLLEGE 1964 Prairie Dell Road, Union MO PH: (636) FAX: (636) DUE: 2:00 PM, February 6, 2015 Questions concerning this Request for Proposals must be received by fax or no later than 10:00 AM January 23, Proposals must be received February 6, 2015, No later than 2:00 PM CST/CDT. DIRECT CONTACT WITH EAST CENTRAL COLLEGE BOARD OF TRUSTEES IS PROHIBITED. INSTRUCTIONS AND CONDITIONS: Please quote the lowest net price at which you agree to furnish the service listed. Please send 3 copies of this bid response sheet and descriptive folders giving trade names, specifications, and related information on items bid. Samples may be sent to further describe the merchandise in question. VERIFY YOUR PROPOSAL BEFORE SUBMISSION AS THEY CANNOT BE WITHDRAWN OR CORRECTED AFTER BEING OPENED. The College is exempt from the Missouri State Tax. The College is a state funded institution and requires all bids to be submitted as prevailing wage. Franklin County is listed under section 36 in the Missouri Statute. East Central College is not responsible for Request for Proposals lost in transit or received after time of quotation closing. It is the vendor s responsibility to confirm receipt of their proposal by the Purchasing Department. WE WILL ACCEPT ONLY SEALED WRITTEN BIDS; VERBAL QUOTES OR BIDS SUBMITTED VIA FAX, , OR ANY OTHER MEANS WILL NOT BE ACCEPTED. ALL PRODUCT DESCRIPTION, FEATURES, CHARACTERISTICS AND PRICING ASSOCIATED WITH THIS SERVICE MUST BE DETAILED IN THE BID. EAST CENTRAL COLLEGE RESERVES THE RIGHT TO REJECT ANY OR ALL PROPOSALS, WAVE MINOR IRREGULARITIES, CONSIDER MINOR VARIATIONS TO SPECIFICATIONS THAT ARE CLEARLY DETAILED, AND ACCEPT THE LOWEST BID WHICH APPEARS TO BE IN THE BEST INTEREST OF THE COLLEGE. Item# Qty Description Total Cost 1 Electronic Catalog Management System *Return this form to East Central College Purchasing Department with Unit Price and Extension Total indicated. East Central College reserves the right to purchase by individual item. All prices quoted shall be F.O.B. East Central College, Union, Missouri or to any East Central College off-campus location when indicated. All prices quoted shall be valid for a minimum of 90 days from closing date of request for proposal. We agree to furnish the above material and service for delivery as specified, at prices shown opposite each item. This form must be completely filled out and signed, or it will not be accepted. IT IS REQUIRED THAT THE VENDOR READ AND FOLLOW ALL INSTRUCTIONS ON THIS FORM. FAILURE TO DO SO IS SUFFICIENT CAUSE FOR REJECTION. THIS IS NOT AN ORDER Date: Name of Firm Signature & Title 2

3 Proposals must be received no later than 2:00 PM CST/CDT. Please send 3 Copies of the bid response sheet descriptive folders giving trade names, specifications and related information on items quoted. PROJECT TIMELINE January 15, 2015 January 17 18, & 21, 2015 January 26, 2015 February 6, 2015 February 6, 2015 March 2, 2015 Request for Proposals released to public Invitation to Issue Request for Proposals advertise Questions and inquiries concerning this Request for Proposals must be submitted not later than 10:00 AM: Fax: melissa.popp@eastcentral.edu Bids due by 2:00 PM, CST/CDT in room BH263 to: Melissa Popp, Purchasing Manager 1964 Prairie Dell Road Union, MO Attn: Electronic Catalog Management System Mail an original and two copies of the bid. RFP s publicly opened and read aloud, 2:05 PM, Buescher Hall, 2 nd Floor, Room 262 Recommendations submitted to the College Board of Trustees for Approval and Award. It is the responsibility of each vendor to inquire about and clarify any requirement of this solicitation that is not understood. The College will not be bound by oral explanations as to the meaning of specifications or language contained in this solicitation. All inquiries and questions deemed to be substantive in nature must be in writing and submitted as stated in timeline. Please provide business name, contact, telephone number, address and fax number on inquires. A copy of all queries and the respective responses will be provided in the form of an addendum to all vendors who have indicated an interest in responding to this solicitation. Your signature on the proposal cover sheet certifies that you fully understand all facets of this solicitation. Questions may be sent by FAX to or to melissa.popp@eastcentral.edu. ALL SERVICE DESCRIPTION, FEATURES, CHARACTERISTICS AND PRICING ASSOCIATED WITH THIS PROPOSAL MUST BE DETAILED IN THE BID. 3

4 Overview East Central College does not maintain a printed course catalog, and the existing PDF catalog is insufficient to meet student and college needs. ECC would like to digitize the college catalog process, thereby eliminating reliance on our current system while improving productivity, efficiency, transparency, and accuracy of records. This request for proposals (RFP) provides interested bidders with sufficient information to enable them to prepare and submit proposals for consideration by ECC to satisfy a need for a Web-based online academic catalog management solution for publication of a dynamic electronic academic catalog ("e-catalog"), including an administrative component that will support a collaborative curriculum edit-and-approval process. Specifications We seek an interactive platform that will streamline the process to create, organize, edit, and archive course information by seamlessly integrating with our student information system (Colleague). Automated workflow processes should manage who participates in content creation and approvals, with each step tracked and documented. The proposed solution, including both the online catalog, and the full administrative component, must be entirely Web-based. The ability to access both the public e-catalog, and the administrative portion of the software, from a PC, Mac, or Linux workstation, from any location with an Internet connection, using any standardsbased browser (such as Firefox or Internet Explorer), is mandatory. If the solution requires, for any reason or purpose, the use of software that must be installed on a workstation, that information must be provided in detail, including any platform limitations (Windows-only, for example). The system must be linked in real-time to a Web-based e-catalog portal, with the ability to instantly and automatically generate a dynamic electronic catalog. A dynamic online catalog is defined, for purposes of this RFP, as one that provides a live connection between the system administrative interface and the public e-catalog so that corrections can be made in real-time. The e-catalog portal must include consistent, user-friendly navigation, and also must also include a search function capable of returning results specifically for courses, and/or for programs, and/or for other catalog content exclusive of other catalog content and from the general campus website. The solution must be capable of displaying multiple catalog types, and multiple catalog years, including archiving past catalog versions, through a single e-catalog portal that does not require intervention by the institution s webmaster in order to update or display the e-catalog content. Archived versions of the catalog must be able to be presented within the e-catalog portal, and be searchable for unlimited years. The system must support the ability to have a persistent informational message inserted on every page of an archived e-catalog, such as Archived Catalog. The system must support the ability for this message to be modified (changed for example, to New Students Please See Current Catalog ) in real-time. 4

5 Specifications cont d The College intends to extend creation and editing capability to content owners in departments. Consequently, the solution must include a collaborative approval process system permitting an iterative edit/approval environment in which comments can be associated with edits, and in which other system users may be invited to comment, and approve or reject edits. The system must support the ability to attach reference documents to course and program information. Because the collaborative edit-approval system will be extended to content owners in departments, the solution must provide concurrent access to an unlimited number of administrative staff (administrators and editors) to manage content. At a minimum, the system must support global, limited editorial, and read-only access to the system. Any limitations on the number of concurrent users permitted, or user types, must be explained in detail. The system must also support LDAP protocol for administrative authentication. The system must support and track the relationship of content items, such as courses, to their owning entity, such as a department. A related system providing content access control must support the ability to grant a user editorial access to the entire content associated with a department without the need to grant access to those items one at a time. However, the system must also support granting access on a more limited basis, to a single course, for example. Please describe your solution's capabilities in this regard. The solution must provide a current and historic audit trail showing creation date/time, last modified date/time, approvals, comments, versions, editors (for every edit), maintained for the life of the catalog. The changes must be segregated by catalog year: each new catalog must have a unique and distinct editorial audit trail. In addition to the dynamic e-catalog capability, the solution must support the ability to export the catalog into Microsoft Word format; and to export course and/or program content in commaseparated-value (CSV) format. The e-catalog portal must include a system to permit users to maintain a retrievable list of courses and programs and other content of interest, if desired. It also should provide a way to help build relationship with prospective students, by providing a way for the student to request contact by an admissions officer, such that the student contact information can be saved and retrieved via the administrative interface by the appropriate staff in the admissions department, or ed directly to one or more accounts at the time the request is submitted. 5

6 Specifications cont d The system must include the ability to link dynamically to other systems using dynamic URL-based variable replacement. For example, if the College provides a URL associated with a transfer equivalency or course registration system that uses course prefix, number and term to link directly to the course, the proposed system must be capable of incorporating the URL with course information, dynamically populating the necessary variables, and linking to the external equivalency or scheduling system. They system must support the ability to reference course information inline within programs by displaying course prefix, number, and title as a hyperlink. Clicking the hyperlink must result in course information being revealed inline without moving the user to another page, to a different location on the page, or reloading the page. The e-catalog portal must provide the ability to print any page from the online catalog, such that unnecessary navigational page elements are removed, resulting in a printed page that includes only the content elements for that page. In particular, it should be possible for an academic advisor to print the Fact Sheet content page for a program, and to also show detailed course information within the program, for only selected courses. All programs must provide the user with the ability to print a degree plan for the program on demand. The degree plan must include checkboxes with all the information from the program and be dynamically generated. Additionally, the print degree planners must automatically update when a change is made to the program in the system. The system must treat course information in a relational manner in the database. Specifically, a course should exist as a distinct "object" in the database, which can be referenced throughout the catalog, particularly in programs. In practice, this means the system allows a course to be edited or modified in a single location, and then automatically be updated wherever it is referenced in the system. This must also apply to any published e-catalog: correcting a typographical error in a course in a published e- catalog should require only that the correction be made to the course in a single location, and the correction being reflected in every location in which the course is referenced. This must happen in real time after the correction has been made. The e-catalog portal must be integrated with Web analysis software to provide Internet site statistics and reports for administrative users for the e-catalog portal within the administrative system, and with support for Google analytics. 6

7 Specifications cont d The proposed solution must allow the administrators the ability to upload into the system and link any type of digital media (video, audio, documents, etc.) to schools/colleges, departments, programs, and courses using simple text links or custom icons. This capability must exist separately from academic content so that it is not necessary to create hyperlinks to such content in the title or description of a course or program. There must be workflow for this in the administrative system that does not require intervention from a Webmaster. The proposed solution must be able to link to social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter. The proposed solution must include the ability to provide an auto-generated HTML e-catalog interface, and an HTML smart phone compatible interface. The proposed solution must provide the ability to publish catalogs on demand directly within the system without the involvement of IT or the Vendor. 7

8 Installation and Implementation It is expected that the bidder will provide consulting assistance to help transition existing catalog content into the proposed software solution. Describe specific services that will be provided as part of the proposed solution. Describe the project implementation approach and team members. Describe the total implementation time (number of weeks/months/years) for the proposed solution. State the total number of implementations of the proposed solution your company has completed over the last 12 months. Include the estimated time for implementation and the actual implementation time. Describe the service and support for the solution. Describe any training and reference resources available to the users. Include if resources are available to all users within the system or a select number of designated users. Proposed Time Schedule Request for Proposal Sent January 15, 2015 Proposals Due February 6, 2015 Committee Evaluation Completed February 20, 2015 Contract Approved by Board March 2, 2015 All proposals received from bidders will be reviewed and evaluated by a committee of qualified personnel selected by the College. This committee will recommend for selection the proposal which most closely meets the requirements for the RFP and satisfies the needs of the College. Vendors must respond to every bulleted item listed. Proposals will be evaluated first to insure that they meet all mandatory requirements as stated. Proposals that meet all requirements will be evaluated on the basis of uniform selection criteria and weighted technique. The criteria categories are listed below, not necessarily in priority order: Mandatory Requirements Proposed Software Customer References Schedule Technical Support Training Hardware Cost 8