Online Adaptive Basic Skills Assessment

This sources sought announcement is for information and planning purposes only; it is not to be construed as a commitment by the Government. A contract may not be awarded as a result of this sources sought announcement. The purpose of this sources sought is to identify interested small businesses to include small business, service-disabled veteran owned small business, HUBZone Small Business and Women-Owned Small Business for Online Adaptive Basic Academic Skills Assessment for the Department of Labor Job Corps. The Government will determine the set-aside category upon evaluation of capability packages in accordance with FAR Part 19. If capability packages are not received from at least two responsible small business concerns from any of the categories identified above in accordance with FAR Part 19 by the response date or if the Government determines that no small business concerns, in accordance with FAR Part 19, are capable of performing this requirement based upon an evaluation of the capability packages submitted; this requirement will be solicited under full and open competitive procedures. Only small businesses are to submit capability packages. Interested small business concerns in NAICS code 611710 with a size standard of $14M are encouraged to submit their capability packages. The capability packages for this sources sought market survey are not expected to be proposals, but rather statements regarding the company's existing experience in relation to the areas specified in the Statement of Work. Capability packages must not exceed 20 pages and must be submitted electronically. The Contractor shall clearly identify the type(s) of Small Business Concerns on the capability package. Contractors are responsible for all costs for submitting their capability packages. All contractor questions must be submitted no later than 22 August, 2013 at 3:00 PM EST. All capability packages shall be submitted no later than 30 August, 2013 at 3:00 PM EST to Ms. Na Lin at Lin.Na@dol.gov. Small business concerns are to demonstrate their experiences in answering the following: 1. Can the Contractor provide unlimited online, adaptive basic academic skills assessments in reading and math (computation and applied math) to students in all Job Corps centers? 2. Can the Contractor provide a comprehensive testing support system that will include, but not be limited to: registering students for tests; providing test accommodation for students with disabilities; scheduling and monitoring tests; and providing reports and exporting test data to Job Corps' Data Center? 3. Can the Contractor provide test content aligned with Common Core State Standards; predictive of student success on one or more state-approved high school equivalency tests; accepted by the U.S. Department of Education's National Reporting System (NRS); and compliant with the Adults with Disabilities Act of 1990? 4. Can the Contractor provide dedicated bandwidth to support all 127 Job Corps locations testing simultaneously? Can the contactor please provide details on bandwidth dedicated solely to Job Corps testing? 5. Can the Contractor provide active redundant network paths for application fault tolerance? These redundant paths shall be operated by separate data carriers. 6. Can the Contractor provide an API (Application Programming Interface) for data transfers between Contractor systems and Job Corps/Department of Labor systems? These transfers are required to be completed in a secure/encrypted method approved by the Department of Labor. 7. Can the Contractor provide technical assistance through both email and telephone from 7:00 a.m. Eastern Standard Time until 1:00 a.m. Eastern Standard Time Monday through Friday to support all Job Corps centers? 8. Can the Contactor provide system uptime measurements and circuit utilization statistics as it relates to Job Corps testing? 9. Can the Contractor provide a complete listing of all annual costs for testing services, training, technical assistance, project management and any other related costs? Areas or tasks where a contractor does not have prior experience should be annotated as such.