SOURCES SOUGHT
D -- TRANS HUB
- Notice Date
- 7/23/2012
- Notice Type
- Sources Sought
- NAICS
- 518210
— Data Processing, Hosting, and Related Services
- Contracting Office
- Broadcasting Board of Governors, Director, Office of Contracts, Office of Contracts (M/CON), 330 C Street, SW, Room 4300, Washington, District of Columbia, 20237, United States
- ZIP Code
- 20237
- Solicitation Number
- BBG50-SS-12-2323
- Archive Date
- 8/14/2012
- Point of Contact
- Diane Sturgis, Phone: 202-382-7849
- E-Mail Address
-
dsturgis@bbg.gov
(dsturgis@bbg.gov)
- Small Business Set-Aside
- N/A
- Description
- The U.S. Broadcasting Board of Governors, (BBG), International Broadcasting Bureau (IBB), is soliciting sources and comments to the below Statement of Work for Translation Hub. It is the intent of the BBG to issue a Combined Synopsis/Solicitation for commercial items in accordance with format of Subpart 12.6. The North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) Code is 518210. This Solicitation Number BBG50-SS-12-2323 is issued as a Sources Sought with a budget of $300,000 for first 6 months with option for additional six months. Please provide comments via email and estimated cost in accordance with Statement of Work. Please forward comments and estimated cost in accordance with SOW to be sent to Diane Sturgis, email address dsturgis@bbg.gov. Statement of Work (SOW) – BBG Translation Hub Requirement (1) Purpose: The Contractor shall provide an Trans Hub to support the Broadcasting Board of Governors’ (BBG) coverage of events around the globe. The Trans Hub, referred to as ‘Translation Hub’, will provide machine and human-based translation services to the IBB/VOA newsroom. (2) Scope or mission: The scope of the contract shall be to provide a Translation Hub service to BBG and its grantees partners that shall ingest digital media content (textual and rich media) and provide a full transcription and translation of the original source material from the original source native language to another specified language(s) as identified in the section of Options. The Translation Hub shall support the ingestion, translation and output of multiple languages from multiple digital media inputs. The Contractor shall provide as first installment ingestion, translation and output of Twitter content (“tweets”) with referenced rich media in Arabic to English. The Contractor shall customize and manage this service, including the provision of high-quality translation services. In addition, BBG has described a set of option that represent features and functions that could be incorporated into this first installment or in future installments. The Contractor shall provide all necessary services for delivering and maintaining the Translation Hub service for the benefit of BBG editors and journalists and its publishing grantees; including services for information architecture, open source software licensing and customization, translation (machine, professional and crowd-source), hosting, design and user interfaces. (3) Period and place of performance: (1) The Trans Hub service will be a 6 month base period from the effective date of award (i.e. September 1, 2012 – February 30, 2013), with 6 month option periods to be exercised at the discretion of BBG. (2) All work is to be performed at the Contractor’s facility unless specified and approved by the Contracting Officer. (4) Background The Trans Hub will enable digital media “native language” content to be ingested, prioritized for action and then translated into multiple non-native languages. The first installment will be to support non-Arabic speaking newsroom staff to crowd-source information in Arabic. The intention of the service is to improve the quality, speed and affordability of translation services by leveraging innovative uses of machine, professional and crowd sourced audience. The initial installment will limit itself to verified source Twitter activity and the attached rich media (video/audio) in Arabic and make that content available in English to BBG and its publishing partners; specifically to Voice of America, Middle East Broadcasting Network, Radio Free Asia, Office of Cuban Broadcasting, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. (See Option Section) (5) Performance objectives The primary objectives of the Trans Hub are the following nine (9) elements, with details of required results for each. 1. Provide an Active, Accessible Information System to Multiple Users The Contractor shall provide a hosted, managed and Trans Hubs that will be accessible by 100 plus users around the world accessible by current up-to-date browsers at no additional cost (IE6+, Firefox 3.5+, Safari 5+, Chrome, Opera). The Contractor shall upgrade the Trans Hub when application patches and revisions, modifications and other technical expansions are released. a) The information system (Translation Hub) shall have the following operational capabilities. i) Ingest (1) Provide a web service that is able to receive and send input data from a variety of 3rd party feeds and services. Shall include standards based HTTP(s) API commands ("GET" and "POST") as well as the ability to read and parse content feeds provided in standards-based languages including but not limited to XML and XML-based services (RSS, MRSS) and JSON ii) Database (1) Provide an interface for to export all stored data in a portable, standards-based format. (2) Provide documentation detailing database schematic including all content classifications and relationships. (3) Database shall be based on a proven, standards based query language. iii) Translate (1) Ability to manage the translation of multiple language pairs simultaneously, starting with Arabic to English. (2) Inclusion of a translation quality assurance process that enables multi-step review and verification of translation that meets performance measurements. iv) Software & Functionality (1) Ability to provide and display authorities’ different and multiple roles (admin, editor, publisher, translator.) (2) Ability to prioritize full translation of ingested content within a quality assurance process. (3) Provide ability to export/publish all ingested and translated content using standards based HTTP(s) API commands as well as established, standards based portable formats including but not limited to; XML, RSS, MRSS and JSON v) Display (1) Provide for user display(s) of ingested and translated content, sources, prioritized content through a customized view built for BBG journalists. vi) Search (1) Faceted search capabilities of ingested and fully-translated content, and sources. vii) Technical (1) Hosting and technical delivery and management of the service is provided as software as a service (SaaS) sufficient storage for up to one year. viii) Security (1) Administrative access for account management (account creation, user roles) (2) Authentication (3) Secure Login strong password enforcement (4) Self-service password reset with identity verification (5) Login Audit Trail (6) Server and database on secured network behind firewall (7) Infrastructure controls and solutions in place to protect against SQL injections, cross site scripting, and Session Hijacking (8) Infrastructure controls to mitigate or lessen impact of DDOS attack (9) Vendor Procedures and safeguards in place to prevent unauthorized user account and password changes specifically regarding socially engineered attacks. (10) Database layer protection (11) Clear security escalation procedures with vendor (12) Database and Server on Scheduled Backups 2. Ingest Twitter Content & Identify Rich Media Links from Selected Sources The Contractor shall ingest via API or other technical means digital content from a list of Arabic language sources provided by the BBG, initially limited to Twitter content. There shall be the technical means within the Trans Hub and without the need for additional programming for users to easily add or delete, print and download. The Trans Hub shall also be constructed to allow for the users to add and manage new content types, such as text or blog posts, other social media content and rich media content in the future shall be identified and published. The performance level for this task is that 100% of the Twitter content provided by the selected sources is ingested into the Trans Hub within 240 seconds the content of it being published to Twitter. The performance level for the identification of referenced or embedded rich media links is stated at 95% of links shall be identified and stored by the Trans Hub. 3. Provide Users to Review and Prioritize Content for Translation The Contractor shall ensure a customized prioritization system is installed into the system. This prioritization system shall ensure that identified (prioritized) content indicated by the BBG users will be fully translated in a timely manner. The required performance is stated as enabling users to identify and indicate prioritization of content within the translation quality assurance protocol 100% of the time. 4. Provide Transcription and Translation Management Services The Contractor shall provide machine and human means to provide full transcription (for rich media) and translation of ingested and prioritized content (tweets/rich media) from Arabic into English. 5. Enable a Filtered Display View of Translated Materials The Contractor shall provide a display and the ability for a BBG custom-developed display for users to search, filter and display raw and fully-translated content. This shall include key word, source, location (where available) and content type searching/filtering. The performance standard is stated that 100% of the machine translated and fully translated content will be searchable by functions. 6. Enable Publishing of Translated Materials The Contractor shall provide fully translated content viewed and easily be published by the users through social media accounts and websites through API and RSS. The performance standard is stated that content should be able to be published using one-click. (6) Any operating constraints · Government Furnished Information: Contracting Officer Representative (COR) will provide the Contractor with an initial approved list of Twitter sources before the commencement of the Translation Hub service. The Contractor will confirm receipt and working integration of the sources into the Translation Hub ingestion to the COR within 2 hours. The COR will provide the Contractor with additional Twitter sources during the operation of the service. The Contractor will confirm receipt receipt and working integration of the sources into the Translation Hub to the COR within 1 hour. · Deliverables and Schedule: The Contractor shall provide following results for review, approval and acceptance: Licenses: 1. Provision of software licenses and service level agreements of existing software being used for the Trans Hub. Within 7 days of contract award BBG Customization: (for COR Approval) 1. Wireframes of the final information and a schematic of the Trans Hub architecture and work flow Within 21 days of the contract award. 2. Contractor provided user interface and display mock-ups and preliminary designs of a provided user interface of the Trans Hub for review and modification. The contractor shall provide the technical means for integrating translation services into the display meeting the agreed upon requirements. Within 21 days of the contract award. 3. Working prototype and ‘alpha’ of the Translation Hub, along with all technical customization documentation, such as code frameworks, and customizations Within 30 days of contract award 4. Working ‘beta’ of the Trans Hub, along with all technical documentation. Within 30 days of contract award 5. Technical documentation, including service level agreements with sub-contract technical partners. Within 120 days of contract award; approved of Beta 6. Working production-quality service that incorporates any final changes, improvements Within 120 days of contract award 7. Provision of on-site technical support for a minimum of one full-day for the full production launch of the Translation Hub Scheduled with the Contracting Officer for the planned launch of the service. Training: Training and on-boarding materials that will be used to train BBG journalists to use the Translation Hub. Within 30 days of Beta 1. Training of up to ten journalists and editors on the use of the system, including provision of final user documentation of the system at the offices of the BBG. Scheduled with the Contracting Officer within 1 week of the planned launch of the service. Communications: 1. A Kick-Off meeting at BBG. Scheduled with the Contracting Officer within 1 week after contract award. 2. Weekly call with the Contracting Office Representative (COR) on the status of the service. Scheduled with the COR each week 3. Monthly written reports on service status including monitored performance levels, trouble tickets, bugs or errors submitted and Contractor’s proposed resolution. On 5th day of each month for the month prior. 4. A final report at the completion of each of the 6 month period of performances, including statistical analysis of BBG usage with summarization and highlights of the monthly written reports. On 20th day of the last month of each period of performance as specified by the COR. (7) Option The following options represent BBG’s potential future growth and expansion of the service across the BBG enterprise to include many other language-specific newsrooms, new functionality and users. The Contractor should clearly present its availability and pricing for presenting the following options. 1. Translated Languages – provide availability for each of the additional languages for machine and human translation for the BBG broadcast languages and other COR approved languages. The contractor shall provide tier or similar pricing for each of these additional languages. 2. Content Types - provide availability of additional service to ingest multiple content types and links to multiple content types into the Trans Hub, including text (articles, blog posts, social media posts), video, and audio. 3. Functionality - provide availability and pricing approach (i.e. cost per hour) for these additional pieces of functionality: a. Data Ingestion - Ingest metadata of sources and content, including location of ingested source and location of the posted content (where available), user profile, timeline and other user objects. b. Alert - Provide alert notifications for user-defined terms, locations and sources. c. Automatic Transcription - Provide for automatic captioning of rich media (video and audio) content. d. Publishing - Post content directly from the Trans Hub to Twitter, Facebook or other social media platforms. e. Download Rich Media - Download of rich media file where available. f. User-Defined Favorites and Folders - Provide ‘favorite’ and save original and translated tweets to user-specific folders. g. Multiple Translation Communities - Manage multiple language translation communities. h. Display - Display original and translated content on a Internet map based on upload location (where available). i. Linked Content - Preserve “linked content” from a conversation between sources. j. Rich Media Preview - Provide review video content through thumbnail progression. k. In-Tool Editing - Utilize a simple video/audio editor to “mash-up” content by timeline and publish. 4. Customization & Design Services - Provide hourly pricing approach for additional programming and design services. 5. Hosting & Storage - provide pricing approach for expandable storage and hosting tiers. 6. Translation - provide pricing for the addition of translation services and for augmenting the Translation Hub software. The information should provide both per unit costs and/or pricing tiers for increasing the number of language pairs, as well as increasing the amount of raw content being translated. These costs should break out operational/translation cost increases from Translation Hub software augmentation and management. 7. Additional Licenses for BBG Publishing Partners - provide licensing costs to include additional partners to utilize the Translation Hub service as editors, journalists and publishers in association with BBG. (Note: this is not requiring another instance of the Translation Hub, nor separation of functions by user.) BBG Broadcasting Languages The BBG’s broadcast entities produce content in 59 languages. The list of languages follows. Global English Eastern & Central Europe Albanian Bosnian Croatian Greek Macedonian Montenegrin Romanian Serbian Eurasia Armenian Avar Azerbaijani Bashkir Belarusian Chechen Circassian Crimean Tatar Georgian Russian Tatar Ukrainian Central Asia Kazakh Kyrgyz Tajik Turkmen Uzbek East Asia Burmese Cantonese Indonesian Khmer Korean Lao Mandarin Thai Tibetan Uyghur Vietnamese South Asia Bangla Dari Pashto Persian Urdu Africa Afaan Oromoo Amharic French to Africa Hausa Kinyarwanda Kirundi Ndebele Portuguese to Africa Shona Somali Swahili Tigrigna Middle East/North Africa Arabic Kurdish Turkish Latin America Creole Spanish
- Web Link
-
FBO.gov Permalink
(https://www.fbo.gov/spg/BBG/ADM/MCONWASHDC/BBG50-SS-12-2323/listing.html)
- Place of Performance
- Address: Washingon, District of Columbia, United States
- Record
- SN02812451-W 20120725/120724000129-fa8303bfa33325e93a1bfa219ad199e6 (fbodaily.com)
- Source
-
FedBizOpps Link to This Notice
(may not be valid after Archive Date)
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