Taken from https://buyandsell.gc.ca/procurement-data/tender-notice/PW-17-00804940 loi_no_24062-180181_e.pdf & attachment_3_e.pdf
LETTER OF INTEREST ACCESSIBILITY PROCUREMENT PILOT ON BEHALF OF TREASURY BOARD OF CANADA SECRETARIAT AND THE PUBLIC SERVICE COMMISSION OF CANADA
The purpose of this Letter of Interest is to notify industry, academia and other stakeholders of Canada’s intention to issue a Call for Proposals (CFP) in relation to the Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat’s Open by Default Pilot Portal and the Public Service Commission of Canada’s online recruitment system; to provide advance notice of the challenges (see section 3.1 for details of both challenges) for which Canada intends to seek proposals; and to provide industry the opportunity to give written feedback on the requirement and procurement strategy. The Rules of Engagement Participation Agreement for this activity are enclosed as Attachment 1 and the Industry Engagement Questions are enclosed as Attachment 2.
The Government of Canada (“Canada”) has made commitments to advance openness and transparency in government. Today, however, the government faces barriers to being completely open to all Canadians. About 14% of the population reports having a disability that limits day-to-day activities and this percentage is projected to grow. Many Canadians also live with invisible disabilities and/or disabilities they don’t wish to report. Canada faces a clear imperative: to be inclusive, and to benefit from the contributions of citizens seeking to participate, government must continue to be fully accessible to persons with disabilities, both within government and in society more broadly.
The accelerating pace of digital change means that new tools are constantly being developed to enhance web accessibility. Accessibility issues can be both varied and complex, as can be the efforts to address these issues; however, emerging technologies show promise in helping to promote accessibility and thereby advance user experiences, support inclusion and provide consistency with international and national equality and human rights instruments.
Canada is looking to partner more closely with leading innovators in Canada and abroad to help address accessibility issues specifically relating to:
- Documents on the Open by Default Pilot Portal, which is housed on the open government website, Open.canada.ca (“Open Government website”) as described in Attachment 3; and
- Searching for and applying to federal government jobs as described in Attachment 4.
For information, Canada uses the following resources to guide our web accessibility activities:
- Standard on Web Accessibility – Ensures the uniform application of a high level of web accessibility across Government of Canada websites and web applications.
- Guidance on Implementing the Standard on Web Accessibility – Assists Government of Canada departments by providing tools, solutions and guidance to advance Web accessibility.
- Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0 covers a wide range of recommendations for making Web content more accessible. Following these guidelines will make content accessible to a wider range of people with disabilities, including blindness and low vision, deafness and hearing loss, learning disabilities, cognitive limitations, limited movement, speech disabilities, photosensitivity and combinations of these.
- Authoring Tool Accessibility Guidelines (ATAG) 2.0 - Provides guidelines for designing web content authoring tools that are both more accessible to authors with disabilities and designed to enable, support, and promote the production of more accessible web content by all authors.
Beyond the guidance listed above, the Canada takes inspiration from internationally recognized standards that support an improved user experience for users with accessibility requirements. The following should also be considered when creating web experiences and content:
- EN 301 549 – Accessibility requirements suitable for public procurement of ICT products and services in Europe – Specifies the functional accessibility requirements applicable to ICT products and services, together with a description of the test procedures and evaluation methodology for each accessibility requirement in a form that is suitable for use in public procurement within Europe.
- Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1 W3C Working Draft 12 September 2017 - WCAG 2.1 extends Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0, which was published as a W3C Recommendation December 2008. Content that conforms to WCAG 2.1 also conforms to WCAG 2.0, and therefore to policies that reference WCAG 2.0.
The Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat (TBS) and the Public Service Commission of Canada (PSC) have separate requirements for proposals to address the long standing barrier of accessibility in support of the Open by Default Pilot Portal and of job seekers searching for and applying to government jobs, respectively. The two challenges for which an open source software solution (“Solution”) (existing or developmental but not proprietary) will be sought are identified below.
Under the CFP, Bidders will be required to demonstrate how their proposed Solutions respond to and address one or both of the challenges.
The Challenge for which Solutions will be sought on behalf of TBS is described in Attachment 3, Statement of Work for Open by Default Pilot Portal Challenge. Please note Attachment 3 is a draft document and is subject to change.
The Challenge for which Solutions will be sought on behalf of PSC is described in Attachment 4, Statement of Work for Accessibility 10.0 Recruitment Challenge.
Please note Attachment 4 is a draft document and is subject to change.
It is anticipated t hat a CFP in French and English versions will be posted electronically on the Government Electronic Tendering Service (GETS), namely the Buy and Sell website (https://buyandsell.gc.ca/).
This requirement is subject to Canadian Free Trade Agreement (CFTA), Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA), North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), and the World Trade Organization’s Agreement on Government Procurement (WTO-AGP).
Proposals submitted under the CFP will be a ssessed against criteria tabled in the mandatory and point-rated evaluation criteria (to be detailed in the resulting CFP solicitation document). Proposals which meet all mandatory criteria and the minimum point-rated criteria score will be placed in a pool of pre-qualified proposals for each of the challenges, provided that the total evaluated price does not exceed the budget available for the requirements.
Following the evaluation process, Canada intends to award a contract to the three top ranked bidders from the pool of pre-qualified proposals for each of the challenges. The proposed contract will include three 3 Phases, Phases 2 and 3 will be optional. Under Phase 1 of the resulting contract, each contractor will be required to demonstrate a functional prototype of their Solution (defined as a minimum viable demonstration of capability) at a presentation to a panel anticipated to be held in Shawinigan, Quebec in mid-March 2018. The panel will observe the presentations and may recommend Contractor(s) to proceed to Phase 2.
The Contractor will be reimbursed its authorized travel and living expenses reasonably and properly incurred in the performance of the Work, at cost, without any allowance for profit and/or administrative overhead, in accordance with the meal, private vehicle and incidental expenses provided in Appendices B, C and D of the National Joint Council Travel Directive and with the other provisions of the directive referring to "travellers", rather than those referring to "employees".
All travel must have the prior authorization of the Technical Authority.
The maximum funding available for Phase 1 of any contract resulting from this CFP is $15,000.00, applicable Taxes excluded.
The maximum funding available for all phases of any contract resulting from this CFP is $320,000 for the Open by Default accessibility challenge and $115,000 for the Accessibility 10.0 Recruitment challenge, applicable taxes and travel and living expenses are excluded.
Suppliers interested in doing business with the federal government are encouraged to register in the Supplier Registration Information System (https://srisupplier.contractscanada.gc.ca) to be assigned a Procurement Business Number (PBN). Bidders responding to the resulting CFP must be in possession of a PBN.
The Canadian Content Policy does not apply to this requirement.
The Code of Conduct for Procurement and Public Services and Procurement Canada’s Integrity Provisions will apply. The Contractor will own Intellectual Property Rights in Foreground Information.
Solutions developed (not pre-existing) for either challenge must be licenced under the MIT Licence. Where Bidders are leveraging existing open source projects, adopting the parent licence of the open source software project is acceptable, where the licence is approved by the Open Source Institute. A list of approved licences is available at the following link: Open Source Licences (https://opensource.org/licenses/alphabetical).
Under any contract resulting from the CFP, the Contractor will be required to deposit the Solution’s source code in a public facing repository on the Git Hub platform (https://github.com) – under an open source license as specified above.
Canada reserves the right to request additional information for clarification during the review of the responses to this LOI.
No payment will be made for costs incurred in the preparation and submission of a response to the LOI. Costs associated with preparing and submitting a response, as well as any costs incurred by the respondent associated with the evaluation of the LOI, are the sole responsibility of the respondent.
The issuance of this LOI does not create an obligation for Canada to issue a subsequent solicitation and does not bind Canada legally or otherwise, to enter into any agreement or to accept any suggestions from industry.
This industry consultation process is not a solicitation and a contract will not result from this request.
Potential respondents are advised that any information submitted to Canada in response to this industry consultation process may be used by Canada in the development of a subsequent competitive CFP. However, Canada is not bound to accept any expression of interest or to consider it further in any associated documents such as a CFP.
Responses to this LOI shall be submitted directly to the Contracting Authority on or before December 12, 2017 at 14h00 EST.
All enquiries and communication with the Government regarding Canada’s requirement under this LOI must be directed in writing to the Public Services and Procurement Canada Contracting Authority as detailed below. Any clarification or information received from other Government officials will not be considered as an official response.
Heather Wilson Supply Team Leader Public Services and Procurement Canada Telephone: 873-469-4791 E-mail: [email protected]
An overriding principle of the industry consultation is that it be conducted with the utmost of fairness and equity between all parties. No one person or organization will receive nor be perceived to have received any unusual or unfair advantage over the others.
The following terms and conditions apply to the Consultative Process. In order to encourage open dialogue, Participants agree to:
a. Discuss their views concerning the requirement and to provide positive resolutions to the issues in question. Everyone will have equal opportunity to share their ideas and suggestions;
b. NOT reveal or discuss any information to the MEDIA/NEWSPAPER regarding the requirement during this consultative process. Any Media questions will be directed to the PWGSC Media Relations Office at 819-956-2313;
c. Throughout the entire Consultative Process, all questions from industry, exchanges of information and all the industry feedback must be provided in writing to the Contracting Authority. In accordance with and subject to the Access to information Act, R.S., 1985, c. A-1, and any other legislative or legal requirement, all information which is provided by a Participant and which is clearly marked as “Proprietary” will not be released or disclosed;
d. Canada is not obligated to issue any CFP, or to negotiate any contract for the requirement;
e. If Canada does release a CFP, the terms and conditions of the CFP will be subject to Canada's absolute discretion;
f. The information gathered from the written responses will be summarized and provided to all Participants, with the exception of proprietary or confidential materials;
g. Canada will not reimburse any person or entity for any cost incurred in participating in this consultative process;
h. Participation in this Consultative Process will not be a mandatory requirement for any subsequent CFP. An entity will not be precluded from submitting an proposal under any subsequent CFP on account of they not being a Participant;
i. A Draft Statement of Work will be available to industry.
j. At any point within this process, a Participant may provide notice to the Contracting Authority that they no longer wish to participate in the Consultative Process.
k. Failure to agree to and sign the Rules of Engagement Participation Agreement will result in the exclusion from participation in the consultative process. This Rules of Engagement Participation Agreement must be signed by a duly authorized officer of the Participant in this respect;
l. A dispute resolution process to manage impasses throughout this Consultative Process must be adhered to as follows:
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By informal discussion and good faith negotiation, each of the parties must make all reasonable efforts to resolve any dispute, controversy or claim arising out of or in any way connected with this Consultative Process.
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Any dispute between the Parties of any nature arising out of or in connection with this Consultative Process must be resolved by the following process:
a. Any such dispute must first be referred to the Participant's Representative and the PWGSC Manager managing the Consultative Process. The parties will have 3 Business Days in which to resolve the dispute.
b. In the event the representatives of the Parties specified in Article 2.a. above are unable to resolve the dispute, it will be referred to the Participant's Project Director and the PWGSC Seni or Direct or of the Division responsible to manage the Consultative Process. The parties will have 3 Business Days to resolve the dispute.
c. In the event the representatives of the Parties specified in Article 2.b. above are unable to resolve the dispute, it will be referred to the Participant's President and the PWGSC Director General, who will have 3 Business Days to resolve the dispute.
d. In the event the representatives of the Parties specified in Article 2.c. above are unable to resolve the dispute, it will be referred to the Participant's CEO and the PWGSC Assistant Deputy Minister, Acquisitions Branch who will have 10 Business Days to resolve the dispute.
e. In the event the representatives of the Parties specified in Article 2.d. above are unable to resolve the dispute, the Contracting Authority will within 5 Business Days render a written decision which will include a detailed description of the dispute and the reasons supporting the Contracting Authority's decision. The Contracting Authority will deliver a signed copy thereof to the Participant.
By signing this document, the individual represents that he/she has full authority to bind the company listed below and that the individual and the company agree to be bound by all the terms and conditions contained herein.
Name of Company (Print):
Name of individual (Print):
Title or Position (Print):
Telephone:
E-mail:
Signature:
(I have the authority to bind the Company) Date:
The questions contained in the Sections below are intended to elicit feedback of interest to Canada and provide guidance to industry in preparing written responses. It is not expected that all questions will elicit a response, neither should submissions be constrained by the questions.
Respondents are encouraged to submit a response to the Industry Engagement Questions in electronic format (MS Word or Adobe PDF preferable as long as copy/paste or printing of text functions are not restricted in any way) by the LOI closing date.
The Respondent’s name, company, address, and contact information and the LOI number should be clearly visible in the response. The response is to be submitted by e-mail to the Contracting Authority, at the following address : [email protected].
The inclusion of general marketing material is discouraged unless used to provide specific information relevant to a response. In this instance, it is requested that supporting text cross-reference the marketing material to the appropriate area of the LOI.
Oral presentations will not be entertained.
Responses will not be returned.
The number of pages of your response is not limited. However, the expected length should not exceed 3 pages double sided standard letter business format.
Responses may be in English or French, at the preference of the Respondent.
Respondents are reminded that this is an LOI and not a CFP and, in that regard, Respondents should feel free to provide their comments and concerns with their responses.
Canada reserves the right to seek clarifications from a Respondent for any information provided in response to this LOI, either by telephone, in writing or in person.
Respondents are requested to clearly identify those portions of their response that are company confidential or proprietary in nature. The confidentiality of each Respondent’s response will be maintained. Items that are identified as proprietary will be treated as such except where Canada determines that the enquiry is not of a proprietary nature. Canada may edit the questions or may request that the respondent do so, so that the proprietary nature of the question is eliminated, and the enquiry can be answered with copies to all interested parties.
- Identify your Legal Name and Procurement Business Number.
- As per Attachment 1, please provide a signed copy of the Rules of Engagement Participation Agreement.
- Currently, three weeks have been allotted between when the c ont rac t ors are invited to present and the date of presentation. At this time, the presentation is expected to include a demonstration of a working prototype of the proposed Solution (i.e., a preliminary version of the Solution with basic functionality).
a. We are seeking feedback from potential bidders as to whether three weeks is enough time to develop a working prototype for the presentation.
b. We are seeking feedback from potential bidders as to whether three weeks $15,000 is an appropriate amount to develop a working prototype as described above.
c. We are seeking feedback from potential bidders as to whether the description of the working prototype is sufficiently clear to prepare the demonstration?
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In your view, are the challenges presented in the Letter of Interest technically feasible?
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Do you have concerns with any of the proposed deliverables in either of the Statements of Work?
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Please provide any additional feedback that you have.
Common Footer:
Accessibility Procurement Pilot Letter of Interest Public Services and Procurement Canada LOI # 24062-180181/A
Statement of Work for Open by Default Pilot Portal Challenge
The Government of Canada has outlined commitments to advance openness and transparency through Action Plans on Open Government submitted to the Open Government Partnership since 2012. One of the core mandates expressed in these action plans is to advance openness through the open government website, open.canada.ca.
The Open Government website was initially launched as a pilot, data.gc.ca, in 2011. The pilot open data portal then expanded to include various information resources and to facilitate engagement on the open government initiative and associated activities. In keeping with Canada’s initial strategy on open government, the Open Government website’s architecture is built around the pillars of open data, open information and open dialogue, and its infrastructure is built on open source solutions: CKAN, Drupal and Solr. As Canada continues to advance the open government initiative and to release a growing number of resources, it has become apparent that the accessibility of content needs to be improved. There is also a desire to do more in terms of engaging with users and visitors through the Open Government website.
Canada is committed to removing barriers to access for Government information and services. With that in mind, Canada is mandated to ensure that all websites and web applications adhere to the AA level of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0, developed by the World Wide Web Consortium. These requirements are more specifically spelled out for application to Canada in the Standard on Web Accessibility.
New resources of information are constantly being added to the Open Government website and the future vision is for it to become a hub of data, information and opportunities to participate and learn. Early research indicates that a majority of users are seeking data of one type or another, with a smaller but significant group looking for opportunities to participate or engage with government.
As Canada’s work on open government advances, there are opportunities to improve the user experience of its online tools, including improving access to digital publications and draft documents made available by the Government of Canada.
2.1 The Open by Default Pilot Portal (http://pilot.open.canada.ca/open-by-default-pilot)
The Open by Default Pilot Portal, launched in July 2017, is the newest component of the Open Government website. It is an online beta site where various types of non-sensitive federal-level documents in draft format (i.e. working documents) are made publicly available, providing users with insight into what Government of Canada employees are working on (e.g., presentations, speaking notes, infographics, annual reports, etc.). The Open by Default Pilot Portal leverages existing operational systems that are used to power open.canada.ca, including CKAN, Drupal and Solr. It also leverages GCDocs, an internal records management tool. The technical architecture of the Open by Default Pilot Portal, a separate, beta-stage instance within open.canada.ca, mirrors that of the Open Government Portal. All source code for the architecture is available on GitHub for reuse here : https://github.com/open-data.
The Open by Default Portal consolidates draft documents (“Digital Assets”) provided by four pilot departments: Natural Resources Canada, Canadian Heritage, Environment and Climate Change Canada, and the Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat. However, additional partner departments will be on-boarded in the future .The Open by Default Pilot Portal includes Digital Assets that are works in progress which have not necessarily been created or formatted for compliance with web accessibility standards.
Currently, the Open by Default Portal contains approximately 550 Digital Assets in common formats such as .doc, .docx, .xls, .xlsx, .ppt, .pptx, .pdf, and .png. The collection contains such Digital Assets as draft policies, internal draft documentation on systems, and presentations. It is expected that future Digital Assets holdings on the portal could be expanded to include audio and video formats. It is also expected that the volume on content could expand to include 100,000s of digital assets over the next few years, as departments are onboarded.
TBS has a requirement for an open source software solution (“Solution”) (existing or developmental but not proprietary) to enhance and improve the accessibility of both current and future Digital Assets housed on the Open by Default Pilot Portal. Proposed Solutions must also be compatible with the Open Government website’s existing digital infrastructure.
The following illustrative list provides examples of accessibility issues Solutions may address in responding to the challenge. This list is non-exhaustive; Solutions may address any of these accessibility issues or may address accessibility issues not listed below.
- Lack of ability within the system to automatically transform Digital Assets created in both official languages, into Digital Assets which conform to a minimum of WCAG 2.0 AA. Digital assets which additionally conform to WCAG 2.1 and/or EN 301 549 would be preferred.
- Lack of ability within the system to programmatically generate conforming alternate versions of Digital Assets available through the Open by Default Pilot Portal in a variety of formats, and in both official languages, such as PDF/UA, EPUB3, and ODF;
- Lack of ability within the system to programmatically generate alternate versions of Digital Assets available through the Open by Default Pilot Portal in a variety of braille formats such as .BRF and .BRL in both official languages;
- Lack of ability within the system to generate and embed within Digital Assets an accessibility compliance report for Digital Assets in both official languages, against at a minimum WGAC 2.0 AA standards, compliance to other web accessibility standards would be preferred;
- Lack of ability within the system to programmatically add system generated alt text / descriptive text in both official languages to images;
- Lack of ability within the system to programmatically generate transcripts of English and French voice audio recordings ;
- Lack of ability within the system to generate animated American Sign Language or Quebec Sign Language from spoken word audio or video;
- Lack of ability within the system to programmatically generate described video, transcripts, closed captioning for video content created in both official languages;
- The absence of the ability for the system to assign and display Flesch-Kincaid Reading grade level for English content or Scolarius score for French content;
- The absence of the ability for the system to programmatically reduce the reading grade level of the content to a target of grade 8, in accordance with WCAG 2.0 AAA; and,
- Lack of available document templates that force users to generate documents in a method that complies with, at a minimum WCAG 2.0 AA. Templates which additionally conform to WCAG 2.1 and/or EN 301 549 would be preferred.
Within 10 working days of the Contract being awarded, the Technical Authority will provide any comments electronically that it has regarding the draft design and implementation plan submitted by the Contractor as part of its bid. The Contractor must update its Design and Implementation Plan to reflect Technical Authority's comments and resubmit it electronically to Technical Authority for approval within 5 working days.
The Design and Implementation Plan must specify the delivery dates for all deliverables identified in Phases 2 and 3. Canada’s Open Government Portal team will use a public facing version control repository hosting service - GitHub.com. This will enable anyone to subscribe to notifications of changes while also allowing for conversations, issue tracking, and code reviews.
Due date: Within 15 working days of Contract award
The Contractor must demonstrate the basic functionality of Solution including at a minimum an early stage functional prototype (defined as a minimum viable demonstration of capability) to the Technical Authority and representatives of Canada, in person at a location to be determined by the Technical Authority.
At a minimum the presentation must include: a functionality demonstration of the prototype of the Solution and an overview of the Contractor’s proposed design and implementation plan for Phase 2 and 3. The presentation should also include an overview of the Innovati veness, Scalability, Accessibility and Functionality of the proposed Solution.
The prototype must demonstrate the ability to improve the accessibility of Digital Assets in relation to at least one of the accessibility issues proposed to be addressed in the Contractor’s draft Design and Implementation Plan.
An independent panel will observe the presentation and convene to determine whether to move forward with Phases 2 and 3 of the Contract.
1. Presentation to include .ppt format and a demonstration of the prototype delivered to the Technical Authority.
Due date: Within 15 working days of Contract award
The Contractor must provide a Financial Proposal for Phases 2 and 3 of the Work in accordance with Annex B, Basis of Payment. The Financial Proposal for Phases 2 and 3 will be subject to negotiation with Canada. Upon Canada’s request, the Contractor must provide Price Support for the Financial Proposal for Phases 2 and 3, which may include; a current published price list indicating the percentage discount available to Canada; or copies of paid invoices for the like quality and quantity of the goods, services or both sold to other customers; or price or rate certifications; or any other supporting documentation as requested by Canada.
The Financial Proposal for Phases 2 and 3 must include the following information, as applicable, for each element of the Work:
a) Labour: For each individual and (or) labour category to be assigned to the Work, indicate: i) the hourly rate, inclusive of overhead and profit; and ii) the estimated number of hours.
b) Materials and Supplies: Identify each category of materials and supplies required to complete the Work and provide the pricing basis.
c) Subcontracts: Identify any proposed subcontractor and provide for each one the same price breakdown information as contained in this article.
d) Other Direct Charges: Identify any other direct charges anticipated, such as long distance communications and rentals, and provide the pricing basis.
e) Profit: Identify proposed profit, if any, and the basis on which it is computed and applied.
f) Overhead: State the applicable overhead.
g) Applicable Tax: Identify any Applicable Tax separately.
1. Financial Proposal for Phases 2 and 3 of the challenge delivered to the Contracting Authority electronically in .pdf format.
Due date: Within 15 working days of Contract award
The Contractor must provide a Test Plan to the Technical Authority following commencement of Phase 2. The test plan must demonstrably exercise all new functionality of the Solution. The Test Plan must be in the form of a MS Excel spreadsheet that documents each test case, and include, at a minimum:
a. A test case number;
b. Step-by-step instructions for testers to complete each test case;
c. Success criteria for each test case;
d. Description of the functionality the test case addresses;
e. Fields next to each test case for testers to compile testing notes/results;
f. Test data;
g. Exit criteria; and
h. The test plan must be in a .pdf, .odf, or .docx document for addition to the Canadian Open Government CKAN.
The Contractor must execute the test plan, in order to establish a performance baseline of the functionality of the Solution, and update and resubmit the Design and Implementation Plan to the Technical Authority for approval as necessary.
The Contractor must correct software defects identified during the baseline testing and update the Solution source code. The Contractor must provide a Defect Debugging Report to Technical Authority documenting the defects, and their corrections.
The Solution must comply with Government of Canada Standards for Web Accessibility and Web Security. Canada will test the Solution for compliance with these standards. The Technical Authority will provide detailed feedback to the Contractor on any issues revealed by compliance testing. The Contractor must resolve the issues in the source code revealed by compliance testing and update the Solution source code.
Evidence of user testing, debugging, testing for accessibility and security, and an updated Design and Implementation Plan (if applicable) must be provided to the Technical Authority for approval.
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Test Plan,
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Defect Debugging Report,
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Evidence of baseline testing, debugging, and resolution of compliance testing issues,
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Updated Design and Implementation Plan (if applicable),
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Updated Source Code (if applicable).
Due date: To be determined in accordance with the Contractor’s Design and Implementation Plan.
The Contractor must perform unit testing and integration testing of the Solution with the Open Government website infrastructure and update the Design and Implementation Plan. The Contractor must perform all unit and integration testing in their own environment.
The Contractor must conduct automated unit tests for all python based software modules. The Contractor must resolve any issues revealed by the automated unit tests and update Solution source code. The Contractor must provide a report electronically in .pdf format to the Technical Authority detailing the results of all automated unit testing.
The Contractor must perform integration testing on its own system, resolve any issues revealed through integration testing and update the Solution source code. Canada will provide the Contractor with a downloadable virtualbox image of the Open by Default Portal configuration allowing the Contractor to configure their environment for integration testing.
As a final test the Contractor must provide instructions and the updated source code for Canada to install and test the code on an open.canada.ca development environment. The Contractor must provide a report to the Technical Authority detailing the results of their internal integration testing and the instructions for Canada to install and test the source code in the development environment.
In accordance with timelines to be established in the Design and Implementation Plan, The Technical Authority will provide detailed feedback to the Contractor on any issues revealed by its own integration testing. The Contractor must resolve the issues revealed and resubmit the updated source code to the Technical Authority for re-testing.
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Automated Unit Testing Report,
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Contractor’s Integrated Testing Results Report,
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Installation and Testing Instructions,
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Evidence of unit testing and integration testing;
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Updated Design and Implementation Plan (if applicable),
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Updated source code (if applicable)
Due Date: To be determined in accordance with the Contractor’s Design and Implementation Plan.
The Contractor must be attend weekly progress review meetings by teleconference and provide updates to the Technical Authority on progress towards completion of the deliverables. Progress review meetings shall be scheduled by the Technical Authority, and all pertinent details such as teleconferencing information shall be provided to the Contractor by the Technical Authority not less than 24 hours in advance. The Contractor must respond to inquiries pertaining to the completion of deliverables on an ad hoc basis.
The Contractor must prepare a Record of Discussion for each progress review meeting in .doc, .odf, or .pdf format and provide it to the Technical Authority electronically within 48 hours of the progress review meeting.
Record of Discussion
Due Date: within 48 hours of the progress review meeting
The Contractor will provide technical support to Canada, as the Solution is implemented on the production environment. The Contractor must make resources with the knowledge required to implement the Solution on Canada’s production environment available via telephone and email to Canada during the implementation of the Solution.
Professional services in the form of technical support to Canada during the implementation of the Solution.
Due Date: To be determined in accordance with the Contractor’s Design and Implementation Plan.
The Contractor must prepare all Software Documentation for the Solution and provide it electronically to the Technical Authority in .pdf format.
Software Documentation, consisting of, at a minimum, a technical specification for the Solution documenting the system architecture, subsystem design, and required configuration, in .pdf format.
Due Date: To be determined in accordance with the Contractor’s Design and Implementation Plan.
The Contractor must be attend weekly progress review meetings by teleconference and provide updates to the Technical Authority on progress towards completion of the deliverables. Progress review meetings will be scheduled by the Technical Authority, and all pertinent details such as teleconferencing information will be provided to the Contractor by the Technical Authority not less than 24 hours in advance. The Contractor must respond to inquiries pertaining to the completion of deliverables on an ad hoc basis.
The Contractor will prepare a Record of Discussion for each progress review meeting in .doc, .odf, or .pdf format and provide it to the Technical Authority electronically within 48 hours of the progress review meeting.
Record of Discussion
Due Date: within 48 hours of the progress review meeting.
The Solution must be compatible with the Open Government website’s existing digital infrastructure. See Appendix 1 to Attachment 3 attached.
The Open Government website operates using the following open source tools, in compliance with the listed policies relating to websites for Canada.
- CKAN (Data Catalogue) – Licensed under the Affero GNU GPL v3.0 License;
- Solr (Search Engine)
- Licensed under the Apache License 2.0;
- Drupal (Content Management System) - Licensed under the GPL v2 License;
- PostgreSQL (Relational Database Management System - Licensed under the Postgresql License.
Government of Canada’s Web Experience Toolkit Relevant Policies to Canada’s Web Presence (available at https://www.tbs-sct.gc.ca/pol/index-eng.aspx):
- Directive on the Management of Communications
- Directive on Official Languages for Communications and Services
- Standard on Web Accessibility
- Standard on Web Interoperability
- Standard on Web Usability
- Standard on Optimizing Websites and Applications for Mobile Devices
- Guidance on Implementing the Standard on Web Accessibility
The Open Government website is currently housed on a mix of cloud and on premise infrastructure. Solutions must be compatible with infrastructure hosted on the Microsoft (MS) Azure cloud in the Canada Central or Canada East availability regions.
The Contractor must create and maintain a public repository for the project on GitHub during the period of the Contract. All updates to the Solution source code must be deposited on GitHub, as well as, the final Solution source code.
Updates to the Design and Implementation Plan must be approved by the Technical Authority.
Solutions developed (not pre-existing) for the challenge must be licenced under the MIT Licence. Where Contractors are leveraging an existing open source projects, adopting the parent licence of the open source software project is acceptable, where the licence is approved by the Open Source Institute. A list of approved licences is available at the following link: https://opensource.org/licenses/alphabetical
English or French
The Work must be performed at the Contractor’s site and Shawinigan, Quebec (Phase 1, article 4.1.2).
Travel will be required to attend the presentation event at the expense to Canada (Phase 1, article 4.1.2).
Final acceptance of the software Solution will occur when all discrepancies, errors or other deficiencies identified in writing by the Technical Authority have been resolved, either through documentation updates, program correction or other methods approved by the Technical Authority.
Reports and documentation deliverables will be accepted when all discrepancies, errors or other deficiencies identified in writing by the Technical Authority have been corrected.
The Contractor must provide drafts all Reports and Documentation deliverables to the Technical Authority for review 10 business days prior to the specified due date. The Technical Authority will provide comments to the Contractor 5 business days prior to the due date.
All of the Technical Authority's comments to deliverables must either be incorporated in the succeeding version of the deliverable or the Contractor must demonstrate to the Technical Authority’s satisfaction why such comments should not be incorporated.
If the Contractor requires additional guidance to produce an acceptable deliverable, the Contractor must arrange a meeting with the Technical Authority.
Current Infrastructure The Open by Default pilot is built on an infrastructure as described by the diagram below.
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Accessibility Procurement Pilot Attachment 3 Public Services and Procurement Canada LOI # 24062-180181/