Special Notice – National Fire Academy LMS Software

Notice Type: Special Notice

Posted Date: 26-MAY-15

Office Address: Department of Homeland Security; Federal Emergency Management Agency; Acquisition Operations Division (AOD); 500 C Street SWPatriots Plaza -- 2nd Floor Washington DC 20472

Subject: National Fire Academy LMS Software

Classification Code: D - Information technology services, including telecommunications services

Solicitation Number: HSFE30-15-I-0016

Contact: Erich G Ducote, Contract Specialist, Phone 5047156072, Email [email protected]

Setaside: N/AN/A

Place of Performance (address): Emmitsburg, MD

Place of Performance (zipcode): 21727

Place of Performance Country: US

Description: Department of Homeland Security

Federal Emergency Management Agency

Acquisition Operations Division (AOD)

The Department of Homeland Security/Federal Emergency Management Agency/U.S. Fire Administration (DHS/FEMA/USFA) intends to negotiate and award a contract on a sole source basis (IAW FAR 6.302) with Plateau Systems, Ltd. As an entity of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS)/Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), the mission of the United States Fire Administration (USFA) is to reduce the costs in human lives and to avert the economic losses incurred as a result of fires and related emergencies. Through leadership, advocacy, coordination, and support, USFA serves the nation independently, coordinating its efforts with other Federal agencies and in partnership with fire protection and emergency service communities; and, with a commitment to excellence, USFA provides public education, training, technology, and data initiatives in this vital area of public safety.

The USFA continues to seek ways to maximize the training and education experience for its external training audience - fire and emergency responders - as well as extending the capability for collaboration and information-sharing. As a means of accomplishing these goals, the National Fire Academy (NFA) needs a robust, web-based learning management system (LMS) solution that allows students to self-register based on domain, complete courses at their own pace, take randomized final exams, print completion certificates based on domain, and track the student's progress and accomplishments.

The vendor hosted LMS application and database should reside in a federally-approved, secure environment that is compliant with all government standards. These services should allow for secure, remote loading of courses to a content server, creation of multiple domains with individual branding and certificates, shared catalog access across domains, automated inactivation of user accounts, and data analysis and reporting from a myriad of training courses in multiple curriculum areas. The system must also have ad-hoc or custom reporting capabilities.

The contractor must be able to meet the core responsibilities required for this requirement as follows:

* The Contractor shall deploy a secure, web-based LMS application for use by the USFA/NFA. The Contractor will establish and maintain both a staging environment and externally facing production environment to be used by staff, students, and other USFA/NFA personnel as deemed appropriate. This shall include remote access to a content server and a minimum of 10GB space. Contractor will be responsible for managing domain, operating system, and service accounts on all server and network equipment. See minimum technical requirements section for details.

* The Contractor shall provide a one-time set-up, initial application administrator training on the functions of the LMS and routine/standard upgrades and on-going support.

* The Contractor shall administer and manage all database services including implementation, patching, monitoring, and migration of data. The contractor shall furnish the client with a system security plan for that must include nightly database backups and for disaster recovery.

* The Contractor shall provide ongoing maintenance and technical support for the application and database 24/7. Contractor shall provide client with Tier 2 customer support services for system administration configurations, troubleshooting, and reporting of system issues.

* The following, optional requirement may be tasked of the Contractor:

o Provide a web-based, 360 Degree Multi-Rater Assessment Tool to support NFA's Leadership & Executive Development curriculum area.

Requirements:

* Hosted Software as a Service (SaaS) LMS solution/application outside FEMA/USFA/NFA firewall on secure, provider servers (to include remote content server) or cloud environment. Hosted application and servers must be located in space partitioned for Federal customers only. All data stored for Federal customers must be stored in partitioned space and must be encrypted using unique encryption keys for use only on Federal data. Back up servers must be located at an alternate location and must store encrypted data nightly for use in recovery of operations of the Federal data. Vendor must incorporate the Risk Management Framework approved by DHS and be able to demonstrate confidence that the cloud solution is at an acceptable level of risk. The provider vendor must meet a standardized, government-wide security framework which have documented their existing information security infrastructure includesing a security assessment, authorization, and continuous monitoring for cloud services per the Risk Management Framework in their system security plan. The vendor must demonstrate FISMA compliance based on NIST SP 800-53 and have initiated the authorization of their cloud-based solution under the new Risk Management Framework approved by DHS.

* Need hosted content server as well as access via SFTP proxy to server for application administrator to load and delete content as needed. Must be separate function not in conjunction with the application (port 22) "out of band" procedure.connection (need 10GB of space for content hosting).

* A system with an intuitive, flexible, user interface (HTML5 GUI with no Java, Flash, or Flex dependence) that focuses on learning.

* Ability to accommodate 50,000 active users with unlimited course completions.

* Account Ddeactivation/inactive userautomated process scheduled by application administrators feature (ability to maintain unlimited inactive user records).

* Compliance with Section 508 standards.

* Meet Federal Information Processing standards and controls required by the National Institute of Standards and Technology.

* SCORM 1.2 and up to SCORM 2004 4th edition conformancet (to include Tin Can API when available).

* AICC standard compliance.

* Federal Enterprise Guidelines (FEA).

* Capability to import/export data including but not limited to user accounts, completions, demographics, content, etc., for the purpose of data migration, interfacing with additional systems, or other general data sharing purposes. At a minimum, ability to provide a .csv data file. All data exported must be encrypted with public keys and decrypted with private key at client location. * Allow for workflows and roles and permissions for external user accounts to befor system administrationset and controlled by application administrator.

* Allows for creation of multiple domains via application administrator with separately customized branding.

* General support and technical services for NFA administratorsapplication administrator for system changes/upgrades.

* Ability to run ad hoc and create new, custom reports from within application.

* Allow for user self-registration with ability to create custom form fields. This should include ability to collect and store Personally Identifiable Information (PII) of a sensitive nature requiring storage in privately encrypted tables within the database. The privately encrypted information must not be accessible via the application only via Database Administrator or via specialized data feeds.

* Works Application must be compatible with all internet browsers. (Must include the latest IE, Fire Fox, Chrome, and Safari browsers.)

* User application should be Cconfiguredable in/for "responsive design" - including allowing for multiple devices and mobile platform capability.

* Works User application should be compatible with all operating systems (latest Windows OS and Apple IOS).

* Ability for branding of logon page by application administrator with customized language.

* Domain or item driven, customizable course completion certificates. (Must be able to apply background images as required.)

* Upgrade/patch releases included at least quarterly.

* Scalable solution.

This notice is NOT a request for quotation (RFQ) for competitive quotes/proposals and no solicitation document exists for this requirement. However, parties interested in responding to this notice shall submit technical data, including cost, sufficient to determine capability in providing the same services. All capability statements received by the closing of this notification of this synopsis 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 normally be considered solely for the purpose of determining whether to conduct a competitive procurement.

Based on the above information, the only organization known which can provide technically acceptable services is Plateau Systems, Ltd.

Submit email capability statements (using PDF, MS Word, Excel attachments) to Erich Ducote, Contract Specialist at [email protected]. Statements are due not later than 11:00 a.m. EST on June 10, 2015.

Link/URL: https://www.fbo.gov/spg/DHS/FEMA/PP5-2/HSFE30-15-I-0016/listing.html