IT services: consulting, software development, Internet and support

Tender description

The Higher Education Statistics Agency Limited (‘HESA’) collects a range of data from approximately 260 higher education (‘HE’) providers across the UK and is regarded as a global leader in HE data collection and dissemination. HESA provides data to UK government and HE funding bodies to support their work in regulating and funding HE providers. In addition, information derived from the data is published as official statistics in many accessible formats for use by a wide range of organisations and individuals. This procurement will fundamentally redesign and transform HESA's student data collection and dissemination processes. HESA's vision is for a modernised and more efficient approach to collecting data that is able to respond to a wide range of data users. We want to create more relevant, reliable, comprehensive and timely information about HE for the benefit of the sector, and to deliver this in more efficient ways which reduce the burden on providers. HESA's Data Futures Programme will redesign the way HESA collects, stores, analyses and disseminates higher education data. Currently HESA operates 12 data collection streams which each have their own bespoke systems, processes and data model. HESA wishes to appoint a supplier to: i) Redesign the way HESA specifies, collects, stores, analyses and disseminates data relating to students undertaking higher education (including personal, subject, course and module data); and ii) Deliver the new collection system for HESA to operate (the ‘Part 1 Requirement’). The procurement also includes some ‘business as usual’ services which are specified below (the ‘Part 2 Requirement’). HESA is seeking a solution which is flexible and scalable so it can be configured in the future, by HESA, to support all HESA collection streams. The solution will need to be cloud based to provide sufficient scalability. Part 1: Requirement: The selected supplier will be required to provide the services set out below: Programme and project management including the management of any subcontractors it requires to deliver the Project; Data governance design — including the capabilities required to effectively govern the data language, data enrichment, quality assurance and master data; Data specification and system design — including the capability to design and manage specifications for data model definitions and interfaces (for Data Providers and Data Customers); Business process design for HESA's data collection and dissemination processes (including quality assurance and data enrichment). The new system will need to interact with HESA's business systems including HESA's new customer relationship management system and finance systems; Solution design and development including specification of the application, data and technical architectures, application and solution development, cloud infrastructure and data storage (including warehouse or an alternative methodology); Alpha piloting of initial concepts/prototypes in the academic year 2017/18; Beta piloting in the academic year 2018/19; Support to HESA led communication and stakeholder engagement work streams. Stakeholder engagement includes working with HE Providers and Data Customers to ensure that they are fully prepared to submit and receive data from HESA. Provision of a test environment in which HE Providers, student information system providers and Data Customers can test their data systems and processes; Implementation and integration of the solution with full handover to HESA at the end of the 2019/20 collection cycle. This will include extract and transferring data from HESA's existing systems into the new solution; At handover (i.e. following completion of the Part 1 Requirement), HESA reserves the right to require the transfer of any cloud hosting contracts to HESA from the supplier, together with any third party software or services required for the operation of the solution. Part 2 Requirement: As specified above the proposed solution is anticipated to be operated by HESA as part of its ‘business as usual activities. HESA envisages that the solution shall be hosted on its behalf/licensed to it (and any COTS products therein) by the supplier for a period following completion of the Part 1 Requirement, with an option for the contract to be extended for support and maintenance services in respect of the hosting solution from the supplier.