U -- Request for Information - Continuing Educational Units

Federal Railroad Administration - Office of Safety - Safety Improvement and Development TeamRequest for Information - Continuing Educational Units. BACKGROUND: The Federal Railroad Administration (FRA), Office of Safety, Safety Improvement and Development Team (SIDT) is seeking information from educational organizations interested in awarding Continuing Educational Units (CEUs) to FRA employees who attend training developed, delivered, and/or managed by the SIDT. The SIDT uses the Systematic Approach to Training (SAT) model to develop courses delivered to Office of Safety employees. The SAT is a very rigorous adult training model, and the SIDT has customized application by developing a series of tools to perform up to three levels of validation for instructional objectives and pre/post testing. For the past two years, the SIDT delivered most technical training on the campus of Johnson County Community College (Kansas), and contracted with this educational institution for review of the course development and validation of learning objectives and pre/post testing. Specifically, the college's Center for Business and Technology reviewed the SIDT training model, the validation methods, and the SIDT training qualifications, and performed their own validation of FRA courses. Based on this assessment, Johnson County Community College offered CEUs to FRA employees attending training managed by the FRA SIDT. Beginning in Fiscal Year 2007, SIDT will deliver training to FRA employees at a variety of cities throughout the Continental United States. This logistical change will require additional administrative and communication tasks for both FRA and the educational organization with whom FRA contracts. For this reason, FRA has decided to issue this request for information to obtain feedback from educational institutions interested in contracting with FRA for CEU issuance. TRAINING PROGRAM LOGISTICS AND INFORMATION: 1. The FRA will deliver training in several cities in FY 2007, with delivery beginning in November 2006. The FRA plans to use hotel meeting rooms for training delivery. Classes begin either on a Monday or Tuesday of each week. SIDT training specialists record attendance daily. 2. The SIDT schedules about 60 training classes each Fiscal Year, and usually schedules 20 FRA employees for attendance at each class. Course hours range between 20 and 30. It is both possible and likely FRA will be delivering between two and four training classes during any particular week, and this training may be delivered at more than one location in the same week. 3. Students are composed of FRA employees and employees from various State and local governments. In the past two years, about 65% of students requested CEUs certificates. 4. The FRA prepares both a training course catalog and class/course calendar by the middle of October of each year. The catalog lists the course name, number of hours, and course description with terminal level objectives. FRA will provide both of these documents to the educational institution with whom we sign a contract, and will provide updated calendars if revisions are necessary during the training year. (See the attached FY 2007 Safety Training schedule). 5. Each FRA training specialist develops enabling objectives for each course, and uses an in-house form to validate the level of learning for each of the cognitive and affective domain objectives. The SIDT coordinator performs a second-level review of the objectives to ensure the instructional methods are suited to the level of learning the training wants to reach. FRA also uses an in-house method for performing trainer and team coordinator validations of pre/post test questions if the training uses testing for a particular course. 6. The FRA expects that educational institutions interested in documenting CEUs would also perform a validation of the course materials, objectives, and tests. The FRA would provide the course materials and data to the institution in either hard-copy or electronic format for review and filing. FRA would provide these materials once for each course, regardless of the number of classes scheduled for any particular course. If a course is modified, FRA would provide the updated course materials again. The FRA modifies about six courses per year and develops about two new courses per year. 7. The educational institution would prepare the CEU certificates upon receipt of the faxed or e-mailed attendance form, and then send them to the SIDT training specialists via overnight package for delivery no later than 9 a.m. on Thursday morning of each training class or mail them directly to the students within two weeks of course completion. 8. The FRA anticipates issuance of a combined synopsis/solicitation for this requirement sometime during November 2006. The acquisition will most likely be conducted in accordance with Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) Part 12, Acquisition of Commercial Items. The contract type will be firm-fixed priced or fixed unit priced. The anticipated contract term will be five years, composed of a one-year base period and four one-year option periods. INFORMATION REQUESTED FROM INDUSTRY: The FRA requests the following information from educational institutions or organizations by October 6, 2006. 1. Recommendations on a pricing structure for review and validation of FRA developed courses, issuance of CEUs to students, and the administrative and record management costs associated with providing CEU's for FRA developed courses. 2. Information on the methodology and requirements for awarding CEUs, and how CEUs are usually calculated. For example, how many CEU's would be offered per 10-hour block of instruction? 3. Recommendations on how the FRA might manage the logistics of this program with an educational institution to ensure timely issuance of CEU certificates to students after completion of a course. 4. Information on the amount of time required by an educational institution to review and validate training courses, and the approximate amount of lead time that the FRA should provide to an educational institution to accommodate this validation for new training courses. 5. Any other information that may be useful to the FRA when developing the solicitation for this requirement, including recommendations on contract type and term.