| 70 -- Request for Information About Commercially Available Software |
| Program Summary |
 |
| Title: |
70 -- Request for Information About Commercially Available Software |
| GovCB Opps ID : |
ADP11979448060001428 |
| Document Type: |
Sources Sought Notice |
| FSC Code: |
70 - General Purpose Information Technology Equipment (including software).
|
| Solicitation No.: |
SB1342-08-SE-Scheuch |
| Source: |
http://www2.fbo.gov/spg/DOC/NIST/AcAsD/SB1342%2D08%2DSE%2DScheuch/SynopsisR.html |
Place of
Performance: |
Address: National Technical Information Service 5285 Port Royal Road Room 1219 Springfield, Virginia Postal Code: 22161 Country: UNITED STATES
|
Posted Date:
|
Dec 17, 2007 |
| Last Update: |
Dec 17, 2007 |
| Due Date: |
Jan 10, 2008 |
|
| Description |
|
General Information
| Document Type: |
Sources Sought Notice |
| Solicitation Number: |
SB1342-08-SE-Scheuch |
| Posted Date: |
Dec 17, 2007 |
| Original Response Date: |
Jan 10, 2008 |
| Current Response Date: |
Jan 10, 2008 |
| Original Archive Date: |
Jan 25, 2008 |
| Current Archive Date: |
Jan 25, 2008 |
| Classification Code: |
70 -- General purpose information technology equipment |
| Naics Code: |
423430 -- Computer and Computer Peripheral Equipment and Software Merchant Wholesalers |
Contracting Office Address
Department of Commerce, National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), Acquisition Management Division, 100 Bureau Drive, Building 301, Room B129, Mail Stop 1640, Gaithersburg, MD, 20899-1640, UNITED STATES
Description
Very Important --- This procurement will be done in Virginia, not in Maryland. Accordingly, it is very important that you disregard the Maryland address and phone number listed in this announcement. Please use the following for all correspondence:
National Technical Information Service
5285 Port Royal Road Room 1219
Springfield, Virginia 22161
Attn: Michael Scheuchenzuber
(703) 605-6116
E-Mail: Mscheuchenzuber@ntis.gov
FAX: (703) 605-6743
THIS IS NOT A REQUEST FOR PROPOSALS OR A REQUEST FOR QUOTATIONS; IT IS A REQUEST FOR INFORMATION (RFI). NEITHER UNSOLICITED PROPOSALS NOR ANY KINDS OF OFFERS WILL BE CONSIDERED IN RESPONSE TO THIS RFI.
The National Technical Information Service (NTIS)is currently performing market research to determine what software products
are available to support machine aided categorization and indexing for its digital library of Government technical reports and other information for the scientific, technical and business communities as outlined below:
NTIS Machine Aided Indexing Requirements and Constraints
Integration with the System
o Must feed approved and/or candidate terms to the A&I; records. (Currently these are stored in STAR, but this is not necessarily a requirement. It should integrate with an SQL relational database.)
o Must be able to be run in batch and interactive real-time mode
o The real-time interactive mode should allow for the "re-indexing" of individual records based on changes/corrections that have been made by the analyst, such as the provision or replacement of an abstract.
Approach
o A rule-based system seems to be preferred to one that is based solely on statistics or pattern matching through training sets.
o The elements to which the MAI is applied and the rules should be under NTIS control.
o Minimally the system should use titles and titles with abstracts. If content is OCR'd or received in electronic full text, the input to the system should be able to be modified or based on the content available for any particular document.
o The elements and the rules should be able to be set for different document/content types, different formats, different report series or agencies, different contexts (for example based on the subject categories assigned), and one or more products.
o The system should "learn" from corrections/changes that are made by the analysts at the record level over time.
o The system should allow the rules or knowledge base to be seen by the user. In other words, it should not be a black-box.
The KOS
o Must use or ingest one or more controlled vocabularies (thesauri).
o Support the use of multiple controlled vocabularies for the same record (may be different fields).
o Must work with a thesaurus of 5,000-10,000 terms with approximately 30-40 top terms and a depth of 8-9 levels, and a subject category scheme of 41 basic category codes and 445 subcategory codes.
o Utilize thesauri, taxonomies, including faceted, keyword clusters, synonym rings, and other KOS structures. NTIS is also interested in ontologies and would like to see the vendor's roadmap for moving in this direction.
o The MAI does not need to support the maintenance of the KOS.
The Results
o Support the assignment of as many terms as practical, with an average of 13 terms per document.
o Support the assignment of terms to conference proceedings where a large number and broad range of terms may be appropriate.
o Suggest 1-4 subject terms for each subject category assigned to the document (normally 3-5 subject categories per document) plus additional cross-disciplinary terms from the thesaurus.
o Assign of 2-3 major terms from among the 13.
o Present the results in ranked order with an optional alphabetic sort.
o Use all or part of the full text as well as surrogates such as titles and abstracts only. This should be based on a parameter setting or what is available from the item.
o Support the re-indexing of legacy documents, utilizing a mapping of old terms to new terms if available.
o Support both the creation of multiple subject categories (categorization) and index terms (subject indexing).
o Allow a parameter to be set that adds synonyms or BTs to records based on the occurrence of a term in the candidate set.
o Able to recognize scientific terms and notations (sub-or super-scripts, special characters, etc.)
o Suggest geographic terms (political subdivisions and landform names) with the authority file supplied by NTIS
o Suggest organization names based on an organization name authority list supplied by NTIS
o Extract proper names not on an authority list and present them as suggestions to the indexer
Efficiency and Effectiveness
o Must save time. (need data)
o Must be consistent (need data)
o Must be accurate (need data)
o Must allow new analysts to become proficient more quickly (need data)
Metrics
o Support the production of metrics that will help NTIS determine the efficiency and effectiveness of the system. This may be done in coordination with the input system/database.
Testing and Ongoing Maintenance
o Testing must be possible on an ongoing basis to ensure that the parameters and rules are kept up-to-date.
IT Preferences
o Either Windows or UNIX.
o Web service enabled. SOAP or REST.
o Must be easy to backup and restore, possibly with a mirroring capability.
o At the data level, the system should be open, SQL based.
o Presentation level should be browser based, including the administrative interface.
o Application should be easily maintained, perhaps by the vendor.
o Versioning of both the content and the application is important.
o Must be compliant with NIST security specifications.
o Play well with CISCO PICS firewall.
o Prefer that the software site inside the LAN domain rather than in the DMZ.
Licensing
o One enterprise-wide license rather than by server or desktop.
Key Questions
o How does the product build the rule-base? Does it create it based on human indexing during a specified time period, based on MAI suggestions accepted/rejected by humans once the tool is implemented, or based on manual development? Or on some combination of these approaches?
o How will the MAI tool work with the subject categories? Will the indexers be expected to assign the categories before the tool runs or will the tool run first? Will the tool suggest assignment of subject categories based on the terms suggested?
There would be approximately 50 users in one location (Springfield, Virginia). Manufacturers of such products are requested to respond in writing to this RFI by E-Mail to Mscheuchenzuber@ntis.gov NO LATER THAN JANUARY 10, 2008 and provide written responses to the following issues (1) Please provide commercial literature that describes, in the most detail possible:(a) the name of the software product, its version number and, if applicable, its release number; (b) the name of the company that owns the copyright to the software product; (c) highly detailed description of the technical capabilities of the software; (d) indication of which types of network environments in which it may be deployed; (e) indication of whether the software product is web accessible; (f) indication of whether the software is wireless accessible; (g) detailed description of security features; (h) indication of whether the software may be administered remotely (i) indication of whether off-line operation of the client is possible; (j) indication of whether synchronization of databases is possible when a connection to the server is possible (2) Please indicate whether the software may be purchased as a stand-alone product or whether it must be purchased as a "bundle" that includes other software products for which licenses must also be purchased (3) Please indicate whether your software meets the requirements of Section 508 (4) Please indicate the minimum number of users and the maximum number of users for each product for which information is being provided. (5) Please provide commercial list price information (NOT SPECIFIC PROPOSAL PRICING) for each product which reflects commcercial list pricing based on number of users, commercial lsit pricing based on which platform is deployed (6) Please indicate whether the software (and any other bundled products) is available for ordering through any GSA Federal Supply Schedule and/or any Government-Wide Acquisition Contracts and if so, the contract numbers for those contracts.
Point of Contact
Michael Scheuchenzuber, Contracting Officer, Phone (703) 605-6116, Fax null, Email mscheuchenzuber@ntis.gov - Joseph Widdup, Contract Specialist, Phone (301) 975-6324, Fax (301) 975-8884, Email joseph.widdup@nist.gov
Place of Performance
| Address: |
National Technical Information Service
5285 Port Royal Road Room 1219
Springfield, Virginia |
| Postal Code: |
22161 |
| Country: |
UNITED STATES |
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