1. Is the district looking more for a solution to simply house their own curriculum and assessments? We need a system that would house our own district-created curriculum and assessments. 2. Will an alternative proof of concept would be acceptable (i.e. diagrams, documentation, client references with similar integrations)? We will review the concept(s) but in the end any alternative must be able to fully and completely integrated with Infinite Campus 3. Will the District consider a one week extension (April 26) so that we are able to present our best solution? Unfortunately, our timeline will not allow for an extension 4. Can you provide examples of how you might want your users to customize their analytics dashboards (p. 21, #2)? Users may choose with subgroups to see as a default, whether to see class averages or lists of student results, etc. 5. Could you describe the level of on-site involvement you would want from the vendor s project manager? Would they be required to be on-site for the entirety of phase 1 and phase 2 (August 2013-July 2014)? (p. 17) Yes, the project manager would be required to be on-site for the entirety of phase 1 and phase 2. 6. Does "end user" training mean teachers, or would you require training for students as well? (p.23, #1 under Training ) Yes, end user means teacher. 7. Could you describe the specific requirement for direct server and database access? (p. 22, #7 under Technical Requirements section) Our Systems Analyst need access to the direct server and data to make direct changes to the database, schedule jobs to run against the data, create files to and from the data from other applications. 8. General Required Section: Please provide an example of what exactly Des Moines Public Schools is looking for. We need a system in which content development is intuitive. This could be done by a wizard or template that takes users through the process of uploading content step-by-step. 9. General Required Section: What type of professional development modules do you require for your teachers and staff? Currently, we do not require any online professional development for staff. We would like the ability to provide videos, supporting documents, and discussion boards for teacher/staff professional development purposes. 10. Assessments Required: Please provide an example of what exactly Des Moines Public Schools is looking for. After a teacher creates an assessment, they can chose which user groups can view/use the assessment and its items. Private (only the creator), teacher team, building, or district 11. Do you expect content providers to respond to RFP 6731? No 12. Does RFP 6731 include content for student and teacher use? No 1
13. Do you have a preference between SAAS or onsite installation? We would be open to either of these solutions. 14. Regarding Customer Service: We understand that you want a 2 hour response time for the problems. Is there a requirement for the time to resolve the situation? This would depend on the situation and the urgency. 24 72 hours. 15. Does the application need to support translating multiple languages? If the UI has to be in multiple languages which ones? Needs to interface with text readers that can translate 16. Is bubble sheet assessments scored manually or do we need to scan the bubble sheet for scoring? Need to scan the bubble sheets for scoring. 17. Test item branching for online assessments (test questions depend on answer to previous question) --Is this calling for difficulty levels in questions and pose question depending on answers? Or is this adaptive assessment? Adaptive assessment 18. The system must be operable 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and 365 days a year what is the expectation for the end user support? Support email available at all times with 2 hr. response time. Support by phone available 7 A.M. to 6 PM CST. 19. Fully functional from smartphone platform Is the expectation for the entire application to work on a smart phone or critical functions for specific roles? Critical functions 20. The vendor must be able to provide 24/7/365 support for the system. --Who is the target for this 24/7/365 support? Is it end user? End user 21. The vendor must allow some kind of support for regular end users. -- What is the expectation for end user support? Support email available at all times with 2 hr. response time. Support by phone available 7 A.M. to 6 PM CST. 22. The vendor must have a response time of two (2) hours or less on reported problems. Does the 2 hour response time apply to all the problems or just critical ones? All inquiries/issues 23. The implementation must include training both for system administrators and end users. Indicate the length of time each training session would last and the recommended number of attendees per session. Does the training include all the students, teachers, and admin? Or would a train the trainer model work? Needs to include teachers and administrators. Train the trainer would be acceptable for student training. 24. The RFP mentions that the user interface can be translated into different languages. Can you clarify which languages you have in mind for the project? Predominately Spanish. Must interface with text readers for translation. 25. What is the desired length of training modules for the system administrators and end users? 15 minutes 26. Will there be Subject Matter Expert support for this project? Yes 2
27. Do you have a preferred LMS? Since you ve standardized on Microsoft environment, we would like to make sure that you would be OK with our open source LMS solution basing on Moodle. The Moodle LMS solution will be set up to run in Microsoft Windows 2008 Server environment. It will also be integrated with Active directory for single sign-on. But instead of MS SQL, we would want to use MySQL for the database. For the record, we can use MS SQL instead of MySQL if you really want it though we recommend MySQL for the database. The LMS will still integrate with your existing products with which it needs to be communicating eg. Live integration with all components of student information system (Infinite Campus), including rosters and grade book. We would prefer to stay away from an open source solution. 28. Do you expect the vendor to produce any video content, or will you provide it? No expectations for providing content 29. Are you able to share the budget allocated for this project? No 30. Need to understand the requirement: On-site project manager (1.0 FTE, vendor supplied). Would it be for the entire timeline period Aug 2013-Jan 2015. Please explain about our offsite PM model. Need 1 FTE for the entire period to provide expertise in managing the product/project and ensuring deliverables occur on time 31. Need to understand the requirement: The vendor must provide an onsite representative for development and deployment of the system. Can you explain them our development and deployment model and see if it works for them. Uncertain as to the question here 32. Need to understand the requirement: Comprehensive staff training. Would it have to be onsite? Could be a combination of on-site and remote/recorded 33. It looks like you would want to install the LMS on your own server rather than hosting it on the servers of a hosting service. Uncertain as to the question here 34. Need to understand the requirement: System is per-loaded with wizards and template for rapid content development. We need to understand what content they re talking about eg. quizzes or interactive activities, etc. Certain things, eg. Interactive activities will have to be produced outside the LMS using software like Articulate Storyline before it can be used in the LMS. Assignment, assessments are lesson plans are the content referred to. 35. Equation editor for content and assessment creation. We see this as a desired feature. We would want to understand how widely (as a percentage of the total content) you would be using this feature so that we determine on adding or not adding it to the final feature set. Estimate approximately 10%. 36. Need to understand the requirement: User interface can support or be translated into different languages. Would the system have to be programmed such that through a menu of language options, users can choose a language menu? No, but must interface with text readers for translation. 3
37. Need to understand the requirement: Multiple administration types including, but not limited to: online, bubble sheet entered with webcam, and teacher-entered I would like to understand the bubble sheet entered with webcam requirement in detail and how the client envisions it to function. Teachers take pictures of completed bubble sheets with computer webcam. Product is able to read the picture and score the bubble sheet. 38. The LMS solution needs to integrate live with Des Moines student information system for attendance. We would like to understand in detail on how the attendance aspect will be used in the LMS or would it have to be for simple reporting on the admin side? Used for rosters and teacher/administrator reports. 39. Are you envisioning graphical representations for any admin reports? Yes, dashboards are expected to have graphics. 40. Could you tell us how many concurrent users the system would have to support? We have the potential of over 2600 teachers using this system at any given time. 41. Need to understand the requirement: Fully functional from tablet platforms. Would like to understand the targeted tablet platforms eg. ios, Android, etc. All the above. 42. Need to understand the requirement: Phase 3: Maintenance - February 2015 beyond. We would like to understand how would the client us to plan the maintenance costs? Would they be needing an annual costs with a fixed number of hours that they could use up in that year or a monthly maintenance contract with a fixed set of hours; the unused hours from the monthly maintenance contract can be carried forward for a couple of months before they expire. Cost could be flat fee by school year or per student or a combination of the two. 43. In your request for a live interface with your SIS system, do you want a solution that interacts with the SIS real time, or do you want an interface where data movement is frequent and automated (near real time)? Real time 44. Can you please provide more context around the requirement for workflow functionality to ensure prerequisite steps and reviews are taking place before users go to the next stage. Workflows with steps in creating assessments and assignments to ensure that assessments and assignments function properly. 45. Please provide more specific details around the webcam requirements. Teachers take pictures of completed bubble sheets with computer webcam. Product is able to read the picture and score the bubble sheet. 46. Considering the detailed requirements, would DMPS consider providing an extension on the deadline? No 47. If a seamless user interface is delivered to meet all requirements except those involved in the facilitation of the Response to Intervention (RtI) process through student intervention tracking and progress monitoring as part of an integrated system that meets all requirements including the facilitation the Response to Intervention (RtI) process through student intervention tracking and progress monitoring, will DMPS consider this integrated system as a viable option? Yes 4
48. Please defined your expectations around the Pilot and full scale rollout phases. Pilot 1 Middle school building only; Full-scale all buildings 49. Please clarify how DMPS envisions the timeline considering your plan to phase in the school levels (i.e., Middle Schools 1st, High Schools 2nd and Elementary Schools 3rd). Pilot 1 middle school building Jan 2014; Phase in middle schools April May 2014. Elementary and high schools (all buildings) July 2014 50. Please define your expectations around Intensive product implementation monitoring as related to both Phase 2 and Phase 3. Phase 2 - Intensive providing frequent (monthly) product click count results and analysis. Phase 3 semi-annual product click count results and analysis. 51. Is there a defined list of the types that are needed to be supported? If so, can you please provide the list? No 52. Can you please elaborate what kind of Dashboards, reports and corresponding data are expected? Assessment results, grade monitoring, credit accrual for high school 53. Can you please provide the source and format in which the standards are available to be imported into the system? Word/excel documents. 54. Also can you elaborate at which level(s) Grades K through 12 55. What standards, in addition to CCSS and Iowa Core, have been adopted by DMPS? Career and technical standards, fine arts standards, physical education standards 56. Has DMPS modified Iowa Core standards? If so, how granular are these standards and how many levels are important to DMPS? No 57. Can you provide a list of all the modules that are expected to be integrated with Infinite Campus? Attendance, scheduling, student information, assessment, grade book 58. How important is it that all user requirements be met through a single user interface? Highly important 59. Please define assignments that student would submit. Word documents, videos, multi-media 60. How does DMPS plan to report on clusters through IC s grade book? This is yet to be determined 61. Can you please provide more information on the simulations on the file types and if there will be links pointing to a different website? Simulations- slideshows (such as PPT), yes 62. Which languages must be supported? Spanish 63. Can you please elaborate 'mobile students'? Students who move and attend different schools within the district 5
64. Please define what you mean by track Monitoring click counts 65. Please define the level of integration required Live, real-time integration 66. Would DMPS consider integration on some of the requirements, or is the requirement FULL integration? Full integration only 67. Our standard support provides support during specific hours to a specific set of users. Would DMPS consider the required onsite support along with our described model, sufficient? This depends of the defined hours and users. 68. How many years is this deal? Five with an opportunity for renewal 69. What is DMPS budget for this project? This has not been established at this time 6