The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) invites interested and reputable consultancy firm(s) to tender RFQ documents for the following works:
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) is a specialised agency of the United Nations aimed at promoting world peace and security through international cooperation in education, the arts, the sciences, and culture.
Applications are invited for:
Title: Request for Quotation (RFQ) – FramerSpace Maintenance & Development
Background
The UNESCO Mahatma Gandhi Institute of Education for Peace and Sustainable Development (MGIEP) is UNESCO’s category 1 Research Institute that focuses on Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 4.7 towards education for building peaceful and sustainable societies across the world. In line with its vision of ‘Transforming Education for Humanity’, the Institute employs the whole-brain approach to education with programmes that are designed to mainstream Social and Emotional Learning in education systems, innovate digital pedagogies and put youth as global citizens at the centre of the 2030 agenda for Sustainable Development.
Scope of Services
FramerSpace is UNESCO MGIEP’s indigenously designed, artificial intelligence (AI) powered digital cocreation platform that helps draw learnings from the tasks that AI does well, the ‘HOW’ to teach and consequently learn (https://mgiep.unesco.org/framerspace). Under the overall authority of the Director and direct supervision of the Chief Information Technology Officer, the contracting firm will be required to maintain and enhance FramerSpace specifically utilizing the software programming languages/technology stack used to develop FramerSpace.
MGIEP will be assessing quotations that demonstrate long-standing expertise in the deployment of learning management systems, high-level certificate qualifications/experience in the required software programming languages, and expertise/experience in taking over existing source code/libraries. MGIEP will not consider Quotations that are proposing alternate learning management systems. MGIEP Framerspace Learning Platform (https://framerspace.com)
The contracting firm will need to study in detail to understand the needs of the courses being developed and the digital pedagogy experience envisaged by UNESCO MGIEP. The UNESCO MGIEP Framerspace teams will serve as the internal focal point for the contracting firm and provide a comprehensive brief of the learning experience, definition of key target audiences.
MGIEP wants to establish an agreement to receive a range of high-quality services related to maintenance and development of Framerspace used by the staff and partners. In short, contracting firm shall be required to provide maintenance, bug fixes and new features updation for the MGIEP FramerSpace Learning Platform. These services will be facilitated through a contract for services which will be signed between UNESCO MGIEP and the successful bidder to this request for quotation advertisement.
The details of services that the contracting firm shall be required to undertake are as under:
1). Framerspace Maintenance:
- Understand in detail the FramerSpace code / structure and thereafter overtake / manage the FramerSpace code.
- The FramerSpace learning platform is developed in Node.js server Language, Mongo DB database and Backbone.js and Marionette.js on the front end.
- Ensure security of FramerSpace:
- Monitor for malware, viruses, hackers and errors daily
- Update / apply security patches as required
- Ensure regular backup of FramerSpace:
- Perform weekly backup of all FramerSpace course blocks and learner data.
- Restore from back-ups every quarter to ensure the backups are valid.
- This check must be carried out in conjunction with a technical / communications staff from MGIEP.
- Provide backup information storage details to the Programme teams of MGIEP.
- Quality checks:
- Follow up on bugs and broken links reported by MGIEP as required, and resolve them. Run tests and ensure that there are no broken links in the FramerSpace codebase.
- Resolve website-speed issues as reported by MGIEP as required. Run tests to identify and rectify any issues that may be slowing down the FramerSpace website
- Resolve issues related to the responsiveness of FramerSpace on different devices/browsers, as and when required.
- Upgrade any software that is required
- Search Engine Optimization:
- Provide SEO recommendations to the MGIEP communication and Programme teams and ensure the FramerSpace Learning Platform is optimized for relevant searches.
- Analyze visitor traffic and check for new referrals.
- Rename files or optimize file names for search engine on weekly basis.
- Provide any other technical support to the MGIEP Programme teams as required to ensure the website is fully functional.
2). Bug Fixes:
- Create a Bug Tracking System to record bugs reported by the MGIEP.
- Implement a mutually agreed Response Time Framework for bugs from very urgent (24 hours) to non-urgent (72 hours).
- The Scope of Work for new features is listed below but is not limited to the mentioned feature set:
- Ensure that all features are compatible for all digital devices
- Web based reporting dashboards for course completion metrics and learner/
- Optimizing the DB and Queries based on performance analysis for a million active users.
- Data Logging for the user behavior/actions and clickstream data.
- Personalized recommendations for the learners/teachers.
- Feature to link Badges to ‘milestones’ as decided by creators
- UI improvement to display registered courses and course navigation experiences.
- Ability to offer courses in additional languages as well as to select multiple language interfaces for FramerSpace
- Ability to translate courses as private courses using Translate API’s.
- Feature to upload files in multiple formats on discussion board
- Feature to pair learners in order to support peer assessment//review
- Add feature to add feedback to subjective answers
- Any other requirements as brought upon by the Framerspace Product team.
3). New Features for Farmerspace (to be completed in the first 6 months from the contract issue date):Qualification / Experience Requirements
- The Contracting firm is required to demonstrate their capacity and expertise to execute the activities including availability of equipment, industry contacts and experience in undertaking similar assignments.
- The Contracting firm must show experience in relevant projects to indicate understanding of issues relating to sustainable development and outreach to local and international audiences.
Application Closing Date
6th May, 2022.
Submission of Documents
Please send your (Technical and Financial proposal separately) via email (PDF password-protected for financials) with quotes and company profile to: [email protected] with subject line as “FramerSpace Maintenance & Development”.
Note
- UNESCO MGIEP has the right to meet with the selected bidders and negotiate the final financial amount before signing the contract.
- A two-stage procedure will be used in evaluating the proposals, with evaluation of the technical component being completed prior to any price component being opened and compared. The Price Component will be opened only for submissions that passed the technical evaluation.
- Any Proposal received by UNESCO MGIEP after the deadline for submission of proposals shall be rejected.
- Only shortlisted firms would be contacted. The quotations will be evaluated based on the methodology containing strategy for risk management, quality management, structure of team deployed to render support services, communication management and plan of activity. UNESCO MGIEP is expecting proposals less than or up to USD 40,000. Proposals exceeding USD 40,000 will not be considered.
- All quotations/price breakups to be provided in INR.
Click Here (PDF) for a detailed description of the RFQ.