RFP QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS FOR LEARNING MANAGEMENT SYSTEM FOR SCS 1. Specifically, for "Customizable, user friendly data dashboards", is there particular data that must be produced within the data dashboards? If so, could you provide examples of what data needs to be available within the dashboards? For the requirement of "Customized data reporting", are there particular reports and data that must be available? If so, could you provide examples of what data you are interested in writing customized reports against? Answer: SCS needs a dash board for students, teachers, administrators and principals. In dash board, we need grades, log in activities, proficiency level (with color coding of students mastery level). These dash board reports should contain the data for the particular domain. For example, principals should be able to see their students course wise or teacher wise. They should be able to see the mastery level /progress of individual student or all students. Besides dash board, it should be able to provide at least the following detail reports in excel and pdf output: a. List of enrollments created in the system b. User s activity report for the system with user s name, last login, date of account created, course name, teacher name, school, grades, availability, email, telephone. c. Report of users who never logged in the system d. Report for individual student s progress which can be pulled by an administrator or teacher/parent e. Reports on system activity/who has done it. f. Reports on teacher s activities in a course for a specific time period. g. User friendly guy h. End user customizable i. Creating of automatic reports, set with time aspects 2. Is it the sole responsibility of the bidder to upload all currently owned course content curriculum into the identified LMS? Yes 3. Are the course content curriculum to be migrated SCORM compliant? Yes 4. Please clarify further what is the zero audience based video training recordings? No recorded mass audience involved presentations where the speaker/presenter is recorded providing trainings to large groups of people as the recording is taking place. 5. Please identify what are the main features required for the virtual classes (white board, video/audio conference..)? Student devices, teacher device, interactive whiteboard with audio and video capabilities 6. What is the size of the existing SCORM content that will be imported to the new LMS: 600 courses 7. What is the current SIS system in place? Pearson s PowerSchool platform
8. Regarding the integration with the current SIS system, please identify what type of interface will be used. Question requires clarity. 9. Please identify when is the go-live date? May 1, 2014 10. Please provide us with further details of the software/ version and technology used in the existing application that will be integrated with the proposed application? Blackboard Learn Release 9.1.130093.0 11. Please confirm if the application provides web service integration? Question requires clarity. 12. Please identify what is the current SCS network architecture? Shelby County Schools currently provides wired and wireless connectivity to all schools and work locations including a 1500Mb egress to the Internet. School LAN bandwidth capabilities fall within a range of 100Mb 1000Mbwired and 11Mb 130Mb wireless. The Internet connection is funded, in part, with E-Rate monies and provided by Education Networks of America (ENA). Increased Internet and network use generated by applications, web resources, online assessments, and potential BYOD initiatives will require greater network bandwidth. 13. Please inform us if there is a backup solution within SCS? Question needs clarity regarding back up in terms of data. Currently SCS IT does have a Data Warehouse in place. 14. As per pages (5, 7) Enroll and maintain enrollment for approximately 10,000 students who will be enrolled in courses beginning July 1st and ending the 3rd week of June, SCS expects to award a contract to the successful contractor not later than May 2014 please identify if you need the whole system to go live in one month after the contract is awarded, or it is just the enrollment process? Go Live Date is May 1, 2014 15. Please identify the number of users; in the pricing schedule you asked for 10k students, are those for the online courses? While SCS has more than 150,000, PreK-12 students are served in 257 schools, the unified school district has approximately 24,000 full-time and part-time employees, so please provide us with the exact number of users. Please refer to the RFP s numbers in the pricing schedule. 16. What is the scope of the Memphis virtual component? Is this a complete virtual schooling system with assessments, scheduling, GradeBook, online resources/content? Yes And do students attend lessons physically or virtually? Both 17. Please identify the number of trainees who will attend the training (System Admin and End User)? Currently 25 18. What is the preferred training model; online/virtual or onsite? Blended with onsite as a preference 19. Page xx, Scope of services Application requirements - Provide IT infrastructure that supports the requester needs: can you please clarify what is requested here? Do you need us to supply HW/SW so
the solution would be physically installed/hosted at the SCS data center? No hosting on SCS side. We want hosting reflected on vendor side. 20. What is preferred hosting model; on-premise or vendor hosted? Vendor hosted 21. Is it a requirement for the vendor to have a Dunn & Bradstreet number? i.e if we do not have Dunn & Bradstreet number we cannot participate in the RFP and our proposal will not be accepted? No, it is not a requirement to have a D&B number. Please submit sales information as requested in the RFP on page 12 -- 3.2.d. 22. Are we requested to register at the SchoolMall website in order to participate in this RFP? No 23. Regarding the fair program; is complying with program mandatory requirement for this RFP? No 24. We are not a minority organization, is it a must to comply with this program and therefore subcontract a minority organization? No 25. What is the minimum acceptable percentage for subcontracting a minority in order to comply with the fair program? There is no required percentage. SCS encourages minority participation, but it is not a requirement. 26. Can you please provide us with a list of Tennessee/Memphis registered/licensed minority businesses in the IT sector? Please see the list on our website. 27. What is the version of SCORM that you have used to build your content? Currently we are using SCORM Engine Version: 2010.1.407 28. In the RFP it is requested to Enroll and maintain enrollment for approximately 10,000 students (page 5), however Shelby County Schools (SCS) serves approximately 100,000 students (Page 5). Please advise why you are requesting an enrollment for 10,000 only students. Also, are these 10,000 onsite students or online students only? This specific RFP is for our Memphis Virtual School component, and the students would be a mix of full and part time virtual school students. 29. RFP Submission Date: Would SCS consider an extension to the submission date, since the RFP was released so close to the holiday break? SCS is not able to accommodate. 30. Bonding (Section 10.21): Will SCS waive the bonding requirement, since this RFP will be for a software and not new construction or maintenance? Bonding requirement is not applicable for software. 31. LSBE Partnership Requirements: Would SCS allow for us to state within our RFP response, that should we be the selected vendor we will make a Good Faith Effort to include an LSBE in the procurement process as a requirement to an eventual contract? Given the tight RFP response window, we do not have sufficient time to select a specific minority contractor that we can include in our response (with sufficient documentation). SCS encourages minority participation, but it is not a requirement.
32. LSBE Listing: It is mentioned that SCS has a list of LSBE contractors that could be included in the procurement process. Can you share that list, or direct us to its location? Please see the list on our website. 33. Is the learning management system (LMS) procured through this RFP equivalent to the LMS that is identified in SCS recently released Request for Information for Digital Curriculum with a Learning Management System? Is the expectation that both LMS are the same? (ref. Background of Request and General Information) No, the two are not the same. One is for the current virtual school (RFP), and the other (RFI) is for a district initiative for Blended Learning. 34. Page 5 of the RFP indicates that the services sought are to Provide quality online virtual learning courseware to SCS students. Are we to submit courseware programs along with the LMS? If so, what specific courseware is SCS desiring (ref. introductory paragraph)? We currently have and are using courses from various vendors in our current virtual school initiative. 35. What level of SCORM compatibility does SCS require (ref. Background of Request)? Currently we are using SCORM Engine Version: 2010.1.407 36. With regard to the RFP requirement: Grade book with various exportable formats; please provide clarity on the various formats desired (ref. section 1.1, bullet 8, sub-bullet 1). PDF, CSV, Excel, XLS, doc-word formats 37. Does the Customized data reporting requirement need to be fulfilled by the LMS? Can SCS provide an example or a use-case scenario that articulates how a user would do customized data reporting (ref. section 1.1, bullet 8, sub-bullet 3). a. List of enrollments created in the system b. User s activity report for the system with user s name, last login, date of account created, course name, teacher name, school, grades, availability, email, telephone c. Report of users who never logged in the system d. Report for individual student s progress which can be pulled by an administrator or teacher/parent- student s grades e. Reports on system activity/who has done course work f. Reports on teacher s activities in a course for a specific time period g. User friendly user interface h. End user customizable I. Creating of automatic reports, set with time aspects 38. With regard to the RFP requirement: Ability to transfer grades to a delaminated format; please clarify if this is intended to mean delimited, e.g., csv (ref. section 1.1, bullet 8, subbullet 6). Yes, Delimited- CSV, Excel, XLS
39. What is the expectation for the nature of Home-School communication : one-way, mobilepush, email, discussion boards, etc. (ref. section 1.1, bullet 8, sub-bullet 7)? Yes, all that was listed, one-way, two-way, mobile-push, email, discussion boards, etc. 40. With regard to the RFP requirement: Post course calendar announcements; Please clarify whether the expectation is to create an announcement from an internal calendar or to populate a student s calendar with anointments, reminders, etc. (ref. section 1.1, bullet 8, sub-bullet 9). The ability to broadcast as well as post to students individually in regards to upcoming assignments, tests, due dates- lack of time on task. 41. With regard to the RFP requirement: Automatically grade and re-grade with grades automatically transferred to delaminated grade book system; is the expectation for all assignment grades to be exported, etc. into SCS PowerTeacher Gradebook, or just the end-ofcourse grade (ref. section 1.1, bullet 8, sub-bullet 11)? All assignment grades needs to be transferred from LMS to district current district grade book: Pearson s PowerTeacher Grade book- LMS must be able to communicate (two-way)with district s SIS program. 42. With regard to the RFP requirement: Must upload all currently owned course content curriculum into the identified LMS; what is the current format (and version) for this content curriculum? Is this content in.pdf,.doc, SCORM, BlackBoard, etc.? How many courses are there and at which grade levels? Does the district own licenses to upload content (ref. section 1.1, bullet 8, sub-bullet 13)? Currently we are using Florida Virtual School and K-12 courses. All courses are SCORM compliant, and the district owns said courses. We have around 100+ courses which are offered to students from 6-12. 43. Related to the above, will any of the content uploaded to the new LMS need to be migrated from an existing LMS? If yes, what is the format or host system for the content that needs to be migrated (ref. section 1.1, bullet 8, sub-bullet 13)? Yes, migration will be from our current LMS as well as possible courseware providers. 44. This RFP is on a similar condensed timeline as the aforementioned RFI and three other similar RFIs. To give vendors who are contemplating responding to all five solicitations adequate time to prepare comprehensive responses to each, would SCS consider extending the due date for this and/or any of the other open solicitations (general)? No extensions of time will be allotted.