Notice of Intent - American Council on Education

This Notice of Intent to Award a sole source contract is conducted in accordance with Federal Acquisition Regulations (FAR) Part 12, Commercial Items. The authority for this award is FAR 13.106-1(b)(2), for purchases exceeding the simplified acquisition threshold. The requirements at 13.501(a) apply to sole-source (including brand-name) acquisitions of commercial items conducted pursuant to subpart 13.5. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS)/FEMA, National Emergency Training Center (NETC), National Fire Academy (NFA) intends to negotiate on a Sole Source basis with the American Council on Education (ACE), One Dupont Circle, N.W., Washington, DC 20036. DHS/FEMA intends to issue a non-competitive award that will result in a period of performance of a base year from date of award through 12 months, plus four (4) one-year option periods to be exercised at the discretion of the government. The intended procurement will be classified under the North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) 611710 Educational Support Services, with a small business size standard of $15 million [average annual receipts for 3 preceding fiscal years]. The purpose of the contemplated award is to permit ACE to review and evaluate the content of National Fire Academy (NFA) courses and make recommendations on the acceptability of those courses for vocational, associate, baccalaureate, and graduate credit to over 1,800 educational institutions nationwide. NFA students are then able to obtain college credit for the courses they complete. Additionally, ACE publishes The National Guide for College Credit for Workforce Training which serves as a listing of courses which have been recommended for college credit. NFA courses figure prominently among the list. This notice of intent to sole source is not a request for competitive quotes and no solicitation document exists for this requirement. All parties interested in responding to this notice shall: 1) Include contractor information on the services provided which clearly support the requirements outlined below; 2) fully explain your capabilities and qualifications by submitting a detailed capability statement within 15 calendar days from the date of this notice. Submissions after that date will not be considered. Telephone or facsimile requests for information will not be considered. Responses to this intent to sole source notice must be made in writing and submitted (using PDF, MS Word, Excel Attachments) to Kim Logue, Contract Specialist at Kim.Logue@fema.dhs.gov. - Contractor must have a College and University network base of at least 1,800 higher education institutions that consider their credit recommendations for transfer to degree programs; - The College and Universities that are in the network base must be nationally represented throughout the United States; - Contractor must show that they have a long-standing relationship with the educational organizations that they perform credit recommendation services for; - Contractor must accept the credit recommendation given to NFA courses that were previously reviewed and awarded by American Council on Education (ACE); - Contractor must have an Online Guide which lists all NFA courses that have received credit recommendations. This Guide must include course information for each course; i.e., course name, course code, length of course, course description, objective, learning outcome, credit recommendation; - Contractor must maintain the Online Guide so that it provides up-to-date, public access to the entire database of NFA courses; - Contractor must award credit recommendations in various categories; i.e., vocational, associate, baccalaureate, graduate; and - Contractor must be able to immediately provide an electronic transcript service for NFA students, which will be sent to the student's college or university. All capability statements received by the closing date of this notice will be considered by the Government. A determination by the Government not to compete based on responses to this notice is solely within the discretion of the Government. Information received will be considered solely for the purpose of determining whether or not to conduct a competitive procurement. All Contractors doing business with the Federal Government must be registered in the System for Award Management (SAM) database. Registration is free and can be found online at https://www.sam.gov/portal/public/SAM/.