general technical support for upgrade and initialization the NAL Thesaurus (NALT) for the Machine Age.

The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) intends to negotiate on a sole source basis a contract with Osuuskunta Sange, Aurorankatu 13B 16, Helsinki, Uusimaa, 00100, Finland for general technical support for upgrade and initialization the NAL Thesaurus (NALT) for the Machine Age. The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), Agricultural Research Service (ARS), National Agricultural Library (NAL) requires continuing support for the NAL Thesaurus (NALT) for the Machine Age Initiative (N4MA) onto a new platform and support to be provided by USDA ARS Partners in Data Innovations (PDI), that will allow wider accessibility for ARS staff. This project will provide continuing support for the NAL Thesaurus (NALT) for the Machine Age Initiative (N4MA) onto a new platform and support to be provided by USDA ARS Partners in Data Innovations (PDI), that will allow wider accessibility for ARS staff. Also, this project will provide training to optimize the expertise of the new NALT Concept Space central curation team, with consultation to facilitate the design and maintenance of sub-schemes within NALT by external communities of experts to meet their unique needs. This expert support, consultation, and training will allow NAL to leverage machine learning and artificial intelligence, both for automated subject indexing using NALT sub-schemes, and to support the curation and visualization of NALT Concept Space itself. Initiation of editorial user groups and best practices will be developed, documented, and coordinated, and expert consultation provided via design, development, and support for developing human and automated workflows and their integration as appropriate, to process NALT Concept Space through the VocBench curation software, and for publishing NALT in SKOSMOS or other appropriate online display. The editorial and curation teams will be established and the ongoing N4MA work will continue as NALT evolves both in terms of technical advances and optimization, management, and content. The goal is for NALT to be state-of-the-art now, and to create the computer and human workflows that will maintain this designation in perpetuity as the technology advances. The N4MA has also expanded to partner with the PDI to use NALT concepts for developing data shapes using ShEx (shapes expression). This contract will generally support, through expert opinion/feedback as needed, the integration of data shapes into the overall workflow and usage of NALT. The following work will run over the period of performance 9/30/2023 - 9/29/2028 (base plus four option years). The circumstance permitting other than full and open competition is FAR 13.501 and 41 USC 253(c)(5), only one responsible source and no other type of supplies or source will meet agency needs. NAL is mandated (7 U.S.C. 3101) to serve as the primary agricultural information resource of the United States. Dr. Suominen is uniquely qualified to provide services for this contract. He has a Doctor of Technology, and is a computer scientist specializing in user interface design, Linked Data and Semantic Web Technologies, combined with extensive experience working with national libraries, and other national and international organizations who maintain controlled vocabularies, and/or perform indexing for agriculture, including past work with NAL on the GACS vocabulary, a key component of this contract work. Dr. Suominen is a creator of the open-source web tool Annif to apply machine learning for automated indexing, which is ongoing, and central to this work. Annif, while it cannot meet our full indexing production needs yet, Annif will allow us to perform the development work and meet the requirements for content expansion, quality enhancement, and support much better integration with NALT Concept Space, and the engagement and support of research communities that the larger vendors and tools, including Cogito, simply cannot do. Annif has the clear advantage and is uniquely suited for NAL in terms of cost and NAL staff skills. It is also unique from other tools in its ability to deploy NAL created indexing with multiple vocabularies. This is critical to the NALT for the Machine Age service and engagement with research communities. Annif is open source and was originally designed by Dr. Suominen for the National Library of Finland. As such, it is perfectly suited to the needs of USDA's National Agricultural Library. Other indexing tools researched are focused on business applications generally without their own vocabulary as NAL has as a major focal point and product, and therefore cannot meet NAL's requirements. 1. Annif continues to be the foundation of the AI/ML testbed developed in this contract for subject indexing, with training using NALT Core sub-scheme, also a product of this overall project. As more domain specific sub-schemes are added to NALT Concept Space, these will also need to have models developed and tested for indexing an ever-wider variety of content. The testbed results will be compared with the results of NAL's existing or proposed indexing systems. a. Annif has the unique capacity to not only store multiple controlled vocabularies, but to also deploy them for subject indexing. b. Rather than requiring highly specialized computer skills, Annif can provide NAL staff and patrons a user interface allowing for testing state-of-the-art AI and ML approaches to subject indexing with its stored vocabularies. c. Finally, Annif is exceptional in its ability to allow users to test - ensemble, or combined algorithm approaches with AI. 2. Dr. Suominen is a global leader in understanding and developing vocabulary structures and related tools to manage and visualize them to assess the structure of NALT Concept Space vocabulary and existing workflows for its curation. In addition to Annif, Dr. Suominen is a developer of open-source Skosmos software, which is compatible with the new NALT Concept Space format. Skosmos is a globally recognized vocabulary visualization tool that NAL has recently deployed on the NAL website, and USDA internal websites. NAL has increased the frequency of NALT Concept Space publication to several times a year with a goal of publishing every month. 3. Dr. Suominen has unique experience as a computer scientist with deep knowledge working with a national library, and related development of tools and requirements. For example, developing Finto, a national service for Finland to maintain and publish controlled ontologies or vocabularies, like NALT Concept Space and NALT Concept Space sub-schemes. 4. Dr. Suominen has experience defining metrics and analytical approaches to measure how a national library's internal and external communities of experts might use, or help maintain specific subsets of vocabularies, like NALT Concept Space and NALT Concept Space sub-schemes. 5. A key component of this work is to define a revolutionary - NALT Core sub-scheme structure, within the Global Agricultural Concept Space (GACS). a. Dr. Suominen has extensive firsthand knowledge of GACS as an initial partner, he served in a leadership role along with the three GACS founders, the NAL, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), and the Center for Agriculture and Bioscience International (CABI). b. His consultation will be based on the extensive analytical and editorial work jointly completed over a period of four years by the GACS project in the early to mid-2010's. Dr. Suominen is uniquely qualified to provide the assessments and recommendations outlined in the SOW. His work has already, and will continue to enhance NALT Concept Space and automated indexing software solutions required by NAL. In addition, NAL will be able to provide new and better resources for NAL Divisions, USDA researchers and other NAL patrons to engage in their own Artificial Intelligence research with these new resources. Dr. Suominen is the only vendor capable of meeting NAL's requirements for deploying Annif to help NAL meet requirements for indexing content expansion and quality improvement, and in support of NALT for the Machine Age including NALT Concept Space integration and community engagement. Therefore, abasis for other than full and open competition is warranted. NAL IIB indexing operation is vital to the government's operation of the NAL and supports many library services the NAL offers. The NAL indexing operation generates approximately $400,000peryear through licensing of indexed content to several large publisher aggregators who provide access to thousands of customers worldwide, primarily college and university libraries. Enhancement of this NAL service could ultimately expand this distribution and support. Anticipated Date of Award: 09/29/2023 THIS NOTICE OF INTENT IS NOT A REQUEST FOR PROPOSALS. This notice is for informational purposes only and is not to be construed as a commitment by the Government. Vendors that believe they can provide the services listed above are invited to submit substantiating documentation in writing to the identified point of contact. Information received will be considered solely for the purpose of determining whether to conduct a competitive procurement. Oral communications are not acceptable in response to this notice. A determination by the Government to compete this proposed contract based on responses to this notice is solely at the discretion of the Government.