Intelligent Transportation Systems Professional Capacity Building (ITS PCB) Program- ITS Awareness, Outreach, and Learning

Announcement This Sources Sought Notice (SSN) solicits comments that will be used to help identify organizations interested in partnering with the Intelligent Transportation Systems Professional Capacity Building (ITS PCB) Program to deliver ITS awareness, outreach, and learning. Feedback and comments on any aspect of the SSN are welcomed from all interested public, private, and academic entities. However, DoT is particularly interested in feedback on the list of questions and their associated topics provided at the end of this SSN. In addition, respondents are asked to identify the nature of their work, their interest in ITS education and training, and their areas of expertise, to help reviewers better understand the perspective and experience that informs their submission. Also, if affiliated with a research or educational group, please identify the focus of your current research or academic program. The ITS PCB Program is seeking to broaden interest in ITS and reach new markets. The Program is interested in expanding these efforts to include communicating emerging research results from the connected vehicle program to a wider audience of transportation professionals, including future ITS professionals at the college and university levels. To reach these new public, private, and academic audiences, the PCB Program believes that it needs to expand partnerships to entities familiar with these new audiences, especially those involved with connected vehicle research, testing, and deployment. These new partners (professional associations, universities, or other entities) may bring with them new or innovative awareness, outreach, and/or training strategies and delivery techniques that prove to be very effective and efficient for a targeted audience. The ITS PCB Program is part of the ITS Joint Program Office, within the Research and Innovative Technology Administration, U.S. Department of Transportation. The ITS PCB Program provides comprehensive, accessible, and flexible ITS learning for the transportation industry. By using the Program, public agencies can build and sustain a capable and technically proficient ITS workforce, and transportation professionals can develop their knowledge, skills, and abilities while furthering their career paths. The Program currently offers online courses, blended learning courses, the Talking Transportation Technology (T3) webinar series, and Peer to Peer (P2P) exchanges. In 2011, it partnered with the Institute of Transportation Engineers (ITE) to develop a series of ITS Standards web-based training modules. As of summer 2013, 37 training modules will be offered, as well as another 10 modules focused on transit ITS standards available in 2014. In addition, ITE is also producing an ITS e-Primer with 14 on-line modules covering a number of ITS deployment and research topics. This will be available on the ITS PCB website in fall 2013. Other activities underway by the ITS PCB Program include awareness and training workshops with the ITS America State Chapters, Connected Vehicle webinars and workshops, and expanded academic coordination and products, including the recent development of two case studies. The ITS PCB Program also provides continued partnership and support of the Consortium for ITS Training and Education (CITE), which offers a variety of ITS training and education courses through online and blended learning, as well as material that can be incorporated into university-level classroom education. The PCB Program serves the ITS workforce, which includes researchers, practitioners, decision makers, and emerging ITS professionals, both in the public and private arena. In the last 17 years, the PCB Program has focused its efforts on educating transportation managers, engineers and technical staff at state and local departments of transportation and transit agencies to plan, implement, operate and maintain ITS technology investments. The PCB Program is refocusing its agenda to prepare the transportation workforce to adopt new connected vehicle technologies and to take better advantage of proven ITS solutions. The Program is responding to customer needs regarding time and budget constraints on training opportunities and the desire to use emerging social media tools to better engage and collaborate with its audience. You can view the ITS PCB Program strategic plan online at: http://www.pcb.its.dot.gov/PCBStratDirection.aspx. Information on the ITS JPO's connected vehicle research program is available at: http://www.its.dot.gov/connected_vehicle/connected_vehicle.htm. This this SSN is hereby issued on behalf of the Transportation Planning Division of the Volpe National Transportation Systems Center with the intent to identify interest in partnering with the ITS PCB Program and deliver the "next generation" of ITS training and learning to current and future ITS professionals. Respondents are reminded that feedback or comments on any aspect of this notice are welcomed from all interested public, private, and academic entities. While all feedback is welcomed, the DoT is particularly interested in feedback on the list of questions. Respondents may respond to some, all, or none of these specific questions. Additional information about the DoT's ITS Joint Program Office and the ITS PCB Program can be obtained at http://www.its.dot.gov/ and http://www.pcb.its.dot.gov/. An ITS PCB Program overview can be found at http://www.pcb.its.dot.gov/program_overview.aspx Questions 1. What is your organization's interest in partnering with the ITS JPO's PCB Program? 2. How is your organization uniquely positioned or qualified to support ITS training? 3. Are there target audiences that your organization is most familiar with or is your ITS linkage more toward a generalized ITS audience? 4. Is there a partnership model with the ITS PCB Program that may prove most efficient and effective in both training future ITS professionals and supporting the educational needs of the current ITS professionals? 5. In your organization's opinion, are there different audience needs for ITS learning? How would you segment these audiences? Examples might be by role, such as planner, engineer, decision maker, researcher, or by organization, such as state department of transportation, transit agency, universities, or private sector organizations. 6. Do you see gaps in training various types of ITS stakeholders or audiences? How could your organization fill that gap? 7. Are there specific educational methods or techniques that your organization is currently employing that the DoT could employ to accelerate the movement of ITS technologies into deployment that would lower the cost and improve the quality of ITS learning? What are these, and how might they be implemented? Examples could be e-learning techniques, interactive games, or simulations. The learning techniques do not have to be specific to ITS, but must be adaptable to an audience of working transportation professionals. 8. How could the ITS PCB Program expand the use of CITE to offer e-learning for course credit? Is there a different model of delivering ITS learning through distance learning that the Program should consider? 9. Does your organization utilize social media? In what context and manner? How might social media collaboration tools be used to engage audiences in ITS learning? Examples might include using a social media site for collaboration on coursework, enabling text messages for quick responses during an e-learning, or other mobile or interactive tool or application. 10. Has your organization had any involvement with massive open online course (MOOC) providers? In what context and manner? Examples of online open educational resources (OER) sources utilized to reach a massive audience include Khan Academy, Harvard/MIT edX, Coursera, Udemy, Peer-to-Peer University (P2PU), and Udacity. 11. Are you aware of any learning materials beyond what has been developed by the DoT that explain the concepts of connected vehicle technology? This technology may be based on Dedicated Short Range Communications (DSRC), other wireless technology or a combination. The Connected Vehicle Research Program has developed Vehicle-to-Vehicle and Vehicle-to-Infrastructure Test Beds. Information about these facilities may be found here: http://www.its.dot.gov/connected_vehicle/technology_testbed2.html Submitting Responses Responses to this notice are not offers and cannot be accepted by the Government to form a binding contract or issue a grant. Information obtained as a result of this SSN may be used by the government for program planning on a non-attribution basis. This SSN does not constitute a solicitation (Request for Proposal or Request for Quotations) or promise to issue a solicitation in the future. As stipulated in FAR 15.201(e), responses to this notice are not considered offers, and shall not be used as a proposal. The SSN does not commit the Government to contract for any service whatsoever. The government is not seeking proposals at this time. Responders are advised that the government will not pay for any information or administrative costs incurred in response to this SSN. All costs associated with responding to this SSN will be solely at the responding party's expense. Again, THIS IS A SOURCES SOUGHT NOTICE (SSN) ONLY. THERE IS NO SOLICITATION AVAILABLE AT THIS TIME. REQUESTS FOR A SOLICITATION WILL NOT RECEIVE A RESPONSE. It is intended for market research and for informational purposes only and is NOT to be construed as a commitment by the Government, nor will the Government pay for the information submitted in responses. Respondents will not be notified of the results. It is the responsibility of interested parties to monitor https://www.fbo.gov for any further information or releases (if any). All questions and/or suggestions will be considered in any potential requirement. To be considered, interested parties shall make submissions in electronic format to the contract specialist, Mr. Michael Rigby at michael.rigby@dot.gov. This includes any questions related to this SSN. Electronic attachments to the e-mail shall be submitted in Microsoft Office 2003 (or later) productivity application formats, or any format that can be imported by Microsoft Office. Responses shall be prepared on standard 8.5 x 11-inch pages. Text font shall be no smaller than 12 point; however, chart text, figures, and/or matrices may be reduced to 8 point for the purposes of display and formatting. There is no page limit to responses. Pages shall be numbered, with headers and/or footers that identify each page as part of the whole document. Submissions are subject to public disclosure (See 49 CFR 7.17). The information is provided for discussion purposes and any potential strategy for this acquisition may change prior to any solicitation release. THE GOVERNMENT REQUESTS THAT NON-PROPRIETARY INFORMATION BE SUBMITTED IN RESPONSE TO THIS SSN. Should proprietary information be submitted, it should be marked "PROPRIETARY," and will be handled accordingly. The Government will not be liable for or suffer any consequential damages for any proprietary information not properly identified. Proprietary information will be safeguarded in accordance with the applicable Government regulations. Proprietary information or trade secrets should be clearly identified. Due Date for Responses Interested parties shall submit responses to this SSN by 11:00 A.M. Eastern Standard Time, May 20, 2013. Responses to this SSN shall be delivered electronically as an e-mail or as an attachment to an e-mail sent to michael.rigby@dot.gov. Telephone calls will not be entertained. Late responses may not be reviewed. Responses to this SSN will not be returned. When responding to this SSN populate the subject line DTRT57-13-SP-NPCB. Contracting Office Primary Point of Contact information: Michael Rigby U.S. DoT Volpe Center 55 Broadway Cambridge, MA 02142 E-Mail: michael.rigby@dot.gov Phone #: 617-494-3122