Department of the Treasury, Internal Revenue Service, Midstates Procurement Operations Branch, 4050 Alpha Rd., 1800MSRO, Dallas, Texas 75244

U -- EDUCATION AND TRAINING SERVICES SOL TIRMS98R00009 DUE 030398 POC Contract Specialist, Mary Jo Holloway, 972-308-1962 This is a combined synopsis/solicitation for an IDIQ contract for commercial items prepared in accordance with the format in FAR Subpart 12.6 and Subpart 13.5, as supplemented with additional information included in this notice. This announcement constitutes the only solicitation; offers are being requested and A WRITTEN SOLICITATION WILL NOT BE ISSUED. Solicitation number TIRMS-98-R-00009 is a Request For Proposal (RFP) incorporating FAR provisions and clauses in effect through Federal Acquisition Circular (FAC) 97-03. The Standard Industrial Classification (SIC) is 7379; the applicable size standard is $10.0. Evaluation factors for award will include price and price-related factors and technical factors. Products sought in this solicitation will support PC users with 486 or faster microprocessors, Windows 95 or NT operating systems, and the more recent versions of PC-based software applications. Additionally, the products sought in this initiative will be diverse in their accessibility,including versions for stand-alone PC's, LAN-connected PC's, and PC's with connections to the IRS intranet where a copy of each course will be stored for either downloading or on-line execution. The contract shall be for one year and four one-year option periods. COURSE TOPICS will be faxed upon request or can be found on the IRS Homepage at www.treas.gov. The contractor may offer substitutions, but these courses must have the IRS' agreement. If proposals have different course titles and resulting course counts, the IRS may select other courses from the contractor's library. Each course shall be accompanied by a list of objectives for the student to be able to accomplish upon course completion. Each course shall be operable from PC's ranging from a 486/33 to a 200 megahertz Pentium Pro. Each course shall be provided for access by students in each of the methods listed below. Vendors may have a single product that accommodates more than one of the diverse needs expressed below, but each courseshall be available in each of these functional conditions. Stand-alone-PC versions shall reside and be executable from the students' hard drives, Stand-alone-PC versions shall reside and be executable from CD-ROM disks, LAN versions shall be transmittable to client workstations from Novell or Windows NT servers, encapsulated Stand-alone-PC hard drive-executable version accessible at the IRS Intranet site, encapsulated Stand-alone-PC disk-executable version accessible at the IRS Intranet site, encapsulated LAN version accessible at the IRS Intranet site, Interactive version for execution on Intranet Web Server. For these various delivery methods, the courses shall contain the same material and have the same course objectives, despite whether the course is delivered through a stand-alone PC, a LAN, or via the Intranet site. The vendor shall provide 200 copies of each Stand-alone PC hard drive-executable course individually loaded onto 200 CD-ROMs. The vendor shall provide 1000 copies of each Stand-alone PC disk-executable course individually loaded onto 1000 CD-ROMs. The vendor shall provide 200 copies of each LAN-based course individually loaded onto 200 CD-ROMs. The vendor shall provide one copy of each of the encapsulated Stand-alone PC version course individually loaded onto CD-ROM. The vendor shall provide one copy of each encapsulated LAN version course individually loaded onto CD-ROM. The vendor shall provide one copy of each Interactive version course individually loaded onto CD-ROM. The encapsulated versions intended for hard drive execution shall be executable by the employee following the download to the hard drive without additional commands (self-installing). These courses shall also be installed in such a manner that removal from the hard drive can be accomplished through an option accessible with a mouse click. All course versions intended for downloading from the IRS Intranet site will be modular to the extent that segments of the course no larger than three megabytes may be specified for downloading and executable in this modular capacity. Each course will have a pre-test or self-assessment. This pre-test will be separate from the other course files to allow for separate download or separate completion prior to installing the course. Each course will provide a test or quiz for each module. Each course will provide a cumulative test covering the topics of the entire course. The results of all tests will be provided to the student, including the questions answered wrong or not answered. Each course will provide for a review of information related to erroneously answered questions. Each course will provide for test-item analysis on the population of completed cumulative tests. Test results will not be associated with any student name. Each course will provide the student with the ability to mark his/her progress in the course when opting to exit the course prior to completion. Each course will provide for the collection of administrative information on the students, including their identifications and profiles. Test scores, modular or end-of-course, will not be stored with the identifying information. When the course has been successfully completed, the student identification data will be provided in ASCII for use in another IRS application. Special consideration will be given on Quality Features of the technical evaluation for the provision of a software application with the library, which allows for the tracking of students for registration, testing, and course completion and for the provision of a software application which provides generated reports on student progress; course accesses; test questions asked; answered; and answered correctly; and time needed to complete courses by the students. The IRS has the option to renew the lease contract for these courses, the IRS may select up to fifty-percent different courses from among courses the contractor has available for lease/purchase. The IRS shall select the courses to be returned to the contractor and select the courses to receive in exchange for those returned. The contractor without additional charge shall provide all plug-in software required for full course operation. Courses shall be constructed to allow the students to take the segments or modules in the order of their choosing. A minimum of twenty percent of courses must use multimedia (both audio and video) for instruction. Courses shall be constructed to provide a help screen accessible from any screen in the course to assist the student with what actions are needed to satisfy the current course prompt(s). The contractor shall make all courses available for complete use by students with complete visual impairments, partial visual impairments, and hearing impairments. These adaptations will include, but not be limited to: ASCII text for any course content displayed through visual means by those with total sight disabilities; Text magnification or enlargement for those with partial sight disabilities; Text in lieu of audio-presented course material for those with hearing disabilities. Special consideration will be given on Quality Features of the technical evaluation for products/vendors using "Microsoft Active Accessibility" functionality. All courses shall be constructed to operate on the Windows NT 32-bit operating system and should also be able to operate on a Windows 95 operating system. Course topics must address mutiple levels, versions, and providers of spreadsheet, desktop publishing, wordprocessor, operating system, mail, and database software. The provisions at FAR 52.212-1, Instructions to offerors-Commercial Items, is incorporated in this solicitation. Addenda to FAR 52.212-1: Offerors are reminded to submit signed and dated proposals. Contract line items shall be shown 0001, for base year, 1001, 2001, 3001, 4001. The preferred form for submitting proposals is the Standard Form 1449. If this form is not used, proposals are required to include a statement with their quotes specifying the extent of agreement with all terms, conditions, and provisions included in this solicitation. Contractors may be requested to submit several types of products for benchmark evaluation or a demonstration. Proposals shall be in accordance with contractors commercial practice and include limited and unlimited licenses. Technical evaluation factors other than cost or price, when combined, are significantly more important than cost or price. Criteria for value judgements will include the following of equal importance: (1) Past performance, (2) Ease of use (including installation and de-installation), (3) Ease of understanding the material presented, (4) Thoroughness of topic coverage, (5) Level of interaction with the student, (6) Quality features of the product. The provision at FAR 52.212-2, Evaluation-Commercial Items is incorporated. The provision at FAR 52.212-3, Offerers Representations and Certifications-Commercial Items, is incorporated in this solicitation, and OFFERORS SHALL INCLUDE A COMPLETED COPY OF THIS PROVISION WITH THEIR PROPOSAL. FAR 52.212-4, Contract Terms and Conditions-Commercial Items, is incorporated in this solicitation. FAR 52.212-5, Contract Terms and Conditions Required to Implement Statutes of Executive Orders-Commercial Items, is incorporated in this solicitation (including 52.203-6 [Alternate I]; 52.203-10; 52.219-8; 52.219-9; 52.222-26; 52.222-35; 52.222-36; 52.222-37; 52.225-19; 52.239-1. The additional FAR clauses applicable to this acquisition are 52.216-18, Ordering, 52.216-22, Indefinite Quantity, 52.216-27, Single or Multiple Awards, 52.217-9, Option to Extend Term of Contract, 52.216-19, Minimum Order (none) -- Maximum Order $250,000. Original copies of the Proposal must be received at the address indicated by 4:00 p.m.CST on 03/03/98. Submit Proposal, clearly marked as such on the outside of the package, to Internal Revenue Service, Midstates Procurement Branch, Attention: Mary Jo Holloway, Contract Specialist, M/C 1800-MSRO, 4050 Alpha Road, 9th Floor, Dallas, TX 75244. All questions must be confirmed in writing and faxed to Mary Jo Holloway at 972/308-1928. (0043)

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