PART 1 – INTRODUCTION
1.1 Invitation to Proponents
This Request for Proposal ("RFP") is an invitation by the University of Ottawa (hereinafter referred to as uOttawa) on behalf of the members of the Ontario Council of University Libraries who are participating in the RFP (hereinafter referred to as OCUL) to prospective Proponents to submit non-binding proposals for the provision of a Software as a Service (SaaS) Library Services Platform (herein referred to as LSP), as further described in Part 2 - The Deliverables (the “Deliverables").
1.2 Background of OCUL and the Collaborative Futures Project
OCUL is a consortium of Ontario’s 21 university libraries, whose mission is to enhance information services in Ontario and beyond through collective purchasing and shared digital information infrastructure, collaborative planning, advocacy, assessment, research, partnerships, communications, and professional development.
OCUL has a strong tradition of collaboration amongst member institutions to maximize collective expertise and resources. OCUL members currently fund and use a range of shared services (link resolver, interlibrary loan, virtual reference, journal hosting, research data management and preservation) and shared custom-developed web-based platforms (Journals, Books, Accessible Content E-Portal (ACE), OCUL Usage Rights database (OUR), GeoPortal, odesi). These shared technology services and infrastructure are referred to as Scholars Portal and are managed by a central support team. OCUL and Scholars Portal are highly regarded leaders in the provision of shared services and technologies.
Building on this solid foundation of collaboration and cooperation, OCUL has developed a shared vision of the future of library management systems in Ontario’s academic libraries - a vision that articulates new possibilities for collaboration. This has been described as the Collaborative Futures (CF) project.
The CF vision involves radical collaboration to help OCUL libraries face the challenges of today - the transformation of scholarly communication and higher education, rapid developments in information technology, and declining or limited resources.
The vision is defined by the existence of a distributed and shared collaborative approach to print and electronic/digital resource management and discovery. This approach builds upon existing OCUL-wide collaborative initiatives such as Scholars Portal technology and collaborative licensing, as well as smaller-scale initiatives such as shared ILS systems and print storage facilities. The keys to achieving the vision include:
- Implement shared next generation library services platforms.
- Collaborate to manage and preserve print resources in a sustainable system.
- Collaborate to effectively use shared systems to manage electronic & print resources.
At this time, thirteen (13) of the 21 OCUL university libraries have agreed to move forward with migration to a shared Library Services Platform (LSP), with three (3) possible additions in the near term, and other interested OCUL members may join in future. The partners are listed in Appendix G.
CF project background:
Libraries in Ontario’s universities are seeking to improve their support for faculty and students; to modernize backroom workflows with greater streamlining and reduced duplication of effort; to reduce or redirect costs; to share expertise; and to meet their stewardship responsibilities for the province’s valuable print and electronic research collections.
These aims coincide with a challenging financial, technological, and service environment for many libraries:
· There are a greater number of collections—in print, audiovisual, and digital formats—to acquire, manage, and provide access to.
· The multiple systems for doing so are expensive, hardware-heavy, staff-intensive, rarely interoperable
· There is a significant transformation happening in scholarly communication, research, and higher education generally. The digital age is resulting in the rapid development of new research methodologies and new means and models of scholarly dissemination. Online learning and technology-enhanced teaching and learning offer new opportunities for the integration of scholarly resources and digital collections. Assisting faculty with research data management and stewardship has emerged as a new priority for many libraries
· An added concern is the overall financial well-being of Ontario’s university libraries; universities in Ontario rely heavily on provincial funding, which is at or near the lowest per student in comparison to the other provinces. There is no guarantee that even the current level of financial support from the Ontario government will continue.
To work towards these aims and address these challenges, Phase One of the shared LSP project began in 2015 as Collaborative Futures, with the participation of all 21 OCUL member institutions. This phase involved intensive information-gathering in many areas - library workflows, opportunities for shared print management, current system costs, market analysis, and collaboration models used in other library consortia - and resulted in a feasibility study presented to OCUL Directors. At the end of Phase One, the Directors expressed strong support for continuing the project and decided to concentrate on the procurement of an LSP as a first step to achieve our short- and long-term collaboration goals.
Phase Two proceeded in 2016 with further market research, developing the technological and business requirements for a shared system, and building consensus on the nature of this complex collaboration.
Currently, in Phase Three of the project (Procurement and Implementation), thirteen (13) OCUL institutions are committed to the RFP, with three (3) possible additions in the near term, and other interested OCUL members may join in future.
1.3 Type of Contract for Deliverables
The selected Proponent will be requested to enter into negotiations for an agreement with the Council of Ontario Universities (COU) for the provision of the Deliverables in the form attached as Appendix A, Form of Agreement, to the RFP. The Form of Agreement is presented in “Draft Form” and may be modified following the contract negotiation process. COU accepts no liability for the acts of, decisions by, and information about the participating OCUL members. The master agreement will be signed by COU and the selected Proponent will also be required to develop a Customer Service Agreement (CSA) to be used in conjunction with Appendix A that will be executed between the selected Proponent and COU detailing the specific technical and functional requirements between these two parties. It is COU ’s intention to enter into the Form of Agreement based on that attached as Appendix A to the RFP with only one (1) legal entity. The term of the agreement is to be for a period of five years, with an option in favour of COU to extend the agreement on the same terms and conditions for an additional term of up to five years. It is anticipated that the agreement will be executed on or around March 1, 2018. The CSA will echo the terms of this agreement.
1.4 No Guarantee of Volume of Work or Exclusivity of Contract
UOttawa makes no guarantee of the value or volume of work to be assigned to the Successful Proponent. The Agreement to be negotiated with the selected Proponent will not be an exclusive contract for the provision of the described Deliverables. UOttawa or participating OCUL members may contract with others for the same or similar Deliverables to those described in this RFP or may obtain the same or similar Deliverables internally.
1.5 Trade Agreements (CFTA – CETA)
Proponents should note that procurement falling within the scope of the Canadian Free Trade Agreement (www.cfta-alec.ca) as well as the Common Economics Trade Agreement http://www.international.gc.ca/trade-commerce/trade-agreements-accords-commerciaux/agr-acc/ceta-aecg/index.aspx?lang=eng
are subject to that chapter but that the rights and obligations of the parties shall be governed by the specific terms of each particular tender call.
1.6 Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act
The Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act, 2005 – O. Reg. 429/07, applies to the services provided by the Proponent.
This Regulation establishes accessibility standards for customer service and it applies to every designated public sector organization and to every other person or organization that provides goods or services to members of the public or other third parties and that has at least one employee in Ontario.
http://www.mcss.gov.on.ca/en/mcss/programs/accessibility/index.aspx
Procurement must comply with these laws and ensure that all conditions are met.
Information modules will be provided to the Successful Proponent.
[End of Part 1]
PART 2 - THE DELIVERABLES
2.1 Description of Deliverables
This RFP is an invitation to submit non-binding proposals for the provision of a Software as a Service (SaaS) Library Services Platform (LSP), full-featured to meet the specified requirements, as well as implementation services to migrate the partners to the new shared solution, and ongoing support and development.
Participating OCUL members (Appendix G) are seeking proposals for a SaaS LSP with robust, proven, “next generation”, forward-looking solutions, with a full range of integrated functionality for both staff and public-facing user services, and which readily integrates with the technology environments in each of the participating universities. The system should address the specific needs of Higher Education and be scalable for a group that includes both large research-intensive institutions as well as small undergraduate institutions, and to add more OCUL partners in future. Additionally, uOttawa and participating OCUL members are looking for benefits of a shared LSP that will leverage the spending on behalf of all the partner institutions.
OCUL seeks a shared LSP solution that will support the CF vision. The vision sees OCUL library employees working in an environment in which collaborative work is a given. They collaborate routinely with staff at other OCUL libraries, are familiar with OCUL-wide standards and policies, share expertise across the consortium, and may work on local projects or on behalf of another institution for the good of the OCUL community.
OCUL currently carries out many aspects of its work in this way, and this LSP should both leverage that collaborative mindset and also expand and extend it. Other library consortia have found that a shared platform enables a wider range of basic sharing of data, resources, and services, and introduces efficiencies and opportunities. The shared LSP environment should also facilitate the discovery and management of electronic and print resources in ways that are not possible with current siloed systems, through which information about collections is not shared or viewable by a wide range of researchers across multiple institutions. The LSP should position the member libraries to work together in order to take advantage of future library, technology, and higher educational opportunities, initiatives, and services.
COU and participating OCUL members are interested in implementing a world class solution that will address these needs and achieve the overall objectives described below.
2.1.1 Objectives
A number of guiding objectives have been recognized by the participating OCUL members for implementing a shared LSP system. This initiative is expected to realize the following collaboration priorities, while also providing robust and forward-looking operational functionality.
As a newly forming partnership, some sharing will take longer to achieve for technical and policy reasons, but we need a system that provides this capacity from the outset, so that we can phase in as needed over time. This includes adding new partners within OCUL
- Capability to share a common configuration by default, but would also allow for local differences where necessary
- Shared records, cataloguing, and electronic resource management
- Preserving local information for important local variations or specialized collections
- Shared integrated knowledgebase on a platform with unified workflows where management of print/physical records and licenses is increasingly similar
- Enabling future collaborations such as deeper shared licensing, shared acquisitions and collection management.
- Shared bibliographic record loading at the consortial level
- Shared Discovery interface, in choice of English or French, with capability for local and expanded consortial views and integrated fulfillment
- Shared patron services facilitated by appropriate authentication and access
- Shared analytics
2.1.3 Opportunity
Participating OCUL members seek a supplier who will enter into a creative and capable partnership with us to take OCUL forward into this new level of collaboration.
However, for this project OCUL members reserve the right to have fewer than thirteen institutions at the initial implementation.
The proposal provides an opportunity for suppliers to demonstrate how they can provide the best solution to launch the OCUL vision, addressing the following:
- Functionality and services to facilitate our priority collaboration outcomes for the new consortium, now and into the future
- A unified discovery solution that enables discovery and fulfillment of resources locally and consortially
- Unified management of resources, including selection and acquisition of physical and electronic resources, metadata management and fulfillment across all resource types
- Integrated functionalities that facilitate streamlined workflows and user experience
- Advanced and forward-looking technologies for high reliability cloud-hosted solution
- Demonstrated and flexible tools for integration and interoperability with local institutional and third party systems
- Highly capable and experienced support for a complex migration to a new consortial implementation
- Demonstrated capability and scalability to support an academic consortial implementation of the size and scope of the OCUL partnership and anticipated expansion, with potential to serve all universities in Ontario
- Demonstrated record of innovative product development to meet the needs of the evolving library market to support a creative and involved academic customer base
2.2 Material Disclosures
2.2.1 Funding.
Thirteen Universities are in a position to acquire the system at this time, and are listed in Appendix G Participating Universities.
[End of Part 2]
PART 3 - EVALUATION OF PROPOSALS
3.1 Stages of Proposal Evaluation
UOttawa and the selected evaluation team will conduct the evaluation of proposals in the following five (5) stages:
StagesEvaluationWeight (in percentage)
Stage IMandatory RequirementsPass / Fail
Stage IIRated Criteria50%
Stage III
Scripted Interview/Demo
30%
Stage IVPricing (5 year cost of ownership) 20%
Stage VCumulative Score
References
Security/Privacy Risk Assessment (selected Proponent)100%
3.1.1 Stage I – Mandatory Requirements
Stage I will consist of a review to determine which proposals comply with all of the mandatory requirements. Proposals failing to satisfy the mandatory proposal content requirements as of the Initial Submission Date will be provided with an opportunity to rectify any deficiencies. Proposals failing to satisfy the mandatory proposal content requirements as of the Submission Date will be excluded from further consideration.
3.1.2 Stage II – Rated Criteria (50%)
Stage II will consist of a scoring by uOttawa and the selected evaluation team of each qualified proposal on the basis of the rated criteria.
In order to proceed to the next stage, Proponents must meet the minimum threshold of 70% or 70 points, (70 points is 70% of Total Points excluding those for pricing and the Interview/Product Demonstration). Proposals failing to meet the minimum threshold requirement, subject to the reserved rights of uOttawa, may be disqualified and not evaluated further. If no proposal meets the minimum threshold requirement of 70%, then uOttawa reserves the right, in its sole and absolute discretion, to invite up to three of the highest scoring Proponent(s) to the next stage of the evaluation.
3.1.3 Stage III – Interviews and Product Demos (30%)
Interviews and product demonstrations will be held with up to three short-listed Proponents who provided qualified proposals on the basis of the rated criteria. In order to make the short list Proponents must meet the minimum score on the rated criteria as set out in 3.1.2. After the Interviews and Product Demos Proponents must meet and maintain the minimum threshold of 70% to be considered for the next Stage IV – Pricing.
There will be an extended group with off-site viewing via the web for the interviews and product demonstrations. OCUL may need to record the sessions.
3.1.4 Stage IV – Pricing (20%)
Upon completion of Stage III for all Proponents, the sealed pricing envelope provided by each Proponent will then be opened and Stage IV will consist of a scoring of the pricing submitted. The evaluation of price/cost shall be undertaken after the evaluation of mandatory requirements and any rated requirements has been completed.
3.1.5 Stage V - Cumulative Score and References
At the conclusion of Stage IV, all scores from Stage II, III and Stage IV will be added to identify the highest scoring Proponent. UOttawa will contact the references provided by the highest scoring Proponent and should these all prove satisfactory, the Proponent will be asked to complete a Security/Privacy Risk Assessment compatible with EDUCAUSE and Cloud Security Alliance (CSA) standards. Should this prove satisfactory, uOttawa will then enter into contract negotiations.
PART 4 - TERMS AND CONDITIONS OF THE RFP PROCESS
4.1 General Information and Instructions
4.1.1 Timetable
Issue Date of RFP29th November 2017
Deadline for Questions15th December 2017 by 4.00 PM (EST)
Deadline for Issuing Addenda21th December 2017 by 4.00 PM (EST)
Intent to Respond Form5th January 2018 by 4:00 PM (EST)
Submission Date22nd January 2018 by 12.00 PM (EST)
Interviews and product demos21st to 23rd February 2018
(tentative dates)
References
Security/privacy risk assessment
Conclusion of Contract Negotiations
90 calendar days from notification of award to selected Proponent
The RFP timetable is tentative only and may be changed by uOttawa at any time.
Please note that University of Ottawa offices will be closed for the Holiday Season, from December 23, 2017 to January 2nd 2018 inclusive.
4.1.2. Intent to Respond Form (Appendix D)
The Intent to Respond Form (Appendix D) should be completed and submitted by email or facsimile to the uOttawa Contact;
Carole Dessureault
Senior Procurement Officer, Procurement Services
University of Ottawa
E-Mail: carole.dessureault@uottawa.ca
Facsimile: 613-562-5780
4.1.3 Proponents to Follow Instructions
Proponents should structure their proposals in accordance with the instructions in this RFP. Where information is requested in this RFP, any response made in a proposal should reference the applicable section numbers of this RFP where that request was made. Responses to the Evaluation Criteria questions must be in the same order as presented in the RFP.
4.1.4 Proponents to Obtain RFP through MERX
This RFP is available through the electronic tendering system MERX at; www.merx.com/.
4.1.5 Proposals in English
All proposals are to be in English only.
4.1.6 Information in RFP Only an Estimate
UOttawa and its advisors make no representation, warranty or guarantee as to the accuracy of the information contained in this RFP or issued by way of addenda. Any quantities shown or data contained in this RFP or provided by way of addenda are estimates only and are for the sole purpose of indicating to Proponents the general size of the work.
