Software package and information systems

Tender description

Newcastle University requires a digital assessment system to support high stakes secure online exams at the University. This PIN is designed to alert the market to our future intent to tender for this requirement and to give prospective bidders the opportunity to indicate if they have an existing off-the-shelf solution that could meet our requirements and has been installed and running for at least 2 years in an educational establishment of equivalent size and scale. We may request some product presentations as part of this market research stage. Newcastle University requires a digital assessment system which is capable of meeting these high level objectives: 1) Fit for purpose and easy to use; 2) Integrate easily with existing University IT systems (student systems, authentication systems and other technology enhanced learning (TEL) systems including the institutional VLE). 3) Essay/written exam functionality that allows students to: (a) type their response; (b) use word processing tools to format text; (c) create diagrams; (d) either view and revert to earlier versions, and/or undo/redo actions; (e) use spellcheck if specified by exam administrator. 4) Supports a combination of question types including essay questions (with the functionality listed above) and system-marked questions in the same exam; 5) Locks down exam environment to prevent students using the computer to access any other material during the exam; 6) Supports Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) on laptop and tablet devices. Newcastle University has in the region of 28 000 students and 5 500 staff, who may use the digital assessment system. In 2018/19 the University’s centrally supported digital exams service delivered 190 exams, with 16345 individual student sittings. The largest cohort sitting an individual exam exceeds 400 students. Demand for digital exams exceeds the scale of existing provision, and increasing both capability and capacity is a strategic priority. This PIN is designed to alert the market to our future intent to tender for this requirement and to give prospective bidders the opportunity to evidence that they have an existing off-the-shelf solution that is scalable to handle as a minimum the volume of student and staff users noted above, and that has been installed and running for at least 2 years in an Educational establishment of equivalent size and scale. These are the preconditions set for the University to follow up expressions of interest. Bespoke (custom-made) solutions will not be considered. There may be an opportunity for presentations/visits to be arranged as part of this market research stage. The digital assessment system may be used across 4 campuses (Newcastle, London, Malaysia and Singapore) and we expect one solution to be provided to cater for all users. Suppliers that demonstrate they are capable of meeting our requirements may be invited to present virtually or in person at the University in January/February 2020. Sandbox accounts for independent investigation/testing of system functionality may also be requested. Expressions of interest in this project can be made by registering via the University's e-tendering portal at: https://procontract.due-north.com/Advert/Index?advertId=7b29563c-4210-ea11-80fb-005056b64545. The contract reference is NU/1539. The deadline for expressing an interest is 6.1.2020 at 16.00 GMT. ‘You must use the above portal's messages facility to follow up your interest — it is this that will be used to communicate. Do not upload a response to the PIN Stage event itself, as this will be sealed until after the expression of interest deadline’