IT services: consulting, software development, Internet and support

Tender description

The One Ocean Hub is a collaborative research for sustainable development programme, funded by United Kingdom Research and Innovation (UKRI) through the Global Challenges Research Fund (GCRF). GCRF is a key component in delivering the UK aid strategy and puts UK-led research at the heart of efforts to tackle the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. The One Ocean Hub is funded for an initial 5 years from 12 February 2019 to 12 February 2024. The One Ocean Hub is guided by 4 overarching objectives: 1) To connect norms across sectors at all levels, to enhance the implementation of international law; protect the rights of, and empower, vulnerable communities, women and youth to shape ocean governance at different levels; and strengthen the voice of Low- and Middle-Income Countries in international fora; 2) to integrate knowledge systems across sectors and scales to collaboratively advance ocean stewardship, science and governance to predict, prevent and manage negative environmental, economic and socio-cultural impacts, including in data- and technology-constrained contexts; 3) To enable dialogue across sectors and communities on the basis of improved understanding of ‘hidden’ tradeoffs across competing sectors and different values and (world)views, and through emotional (re)engagement of diverse actors with the ocean; and 4) To empower sustainable and fair partnerships, so that decisions regarding the conservation of the ocean and its uses support fair and equitable sharing of benefits that enhance the wellbeing, resilience and livelihoods of vulnerable groups. Under objective 2, the Hub seeks to develop an online Knowledge Translation Platform (KTP). This contract covers the phased development and maintenance of the KTP. The KTP will provide a learning environment to support knowledge brokering and collaboration in the sphere of ocean governance. The objectives of the KTP are to: 1) Provide a web portal with the functionality to bring together and navigate existing websites and other online digital resources, related to the oceans and links to the development knowledge ecology. 2) Create and host an online learning environment which will provide access to microlearning with short 15-20 minute self-standing learning events which will seek to build skills in navigating existing ocean knowledge. The supplier will be providing the structure for the content to be uploaded but will not be developing the content or uploading it. 3) Enable communities of practice to support participants to learn together and ask questions about the challenges they are facing. It is proposed that these should be groups on Dgroups.io of the Dgroups Foundation which are seen as a best practice in the international knowledge management community (Cummings et al 2019). The contracting authority requires a contractor to undertake the development of the knowledge translation platform (KTP) on the oceans and oceans governance. The KTP is designed to: 1) Serve audiences in Low and Middle Income countries (LMIC) with limited bandwidth; 2) Be GDPR-compliant; and 3) Compliant with the KM4Dev guidelines for websites and portals in international development. The KTP will comprise three main components and will be developed in three phases. Components: 1) A web portal linking to other websites and digital content on this theme; 2) A learning environment for users situated across the globe; and 3) Access to communities of practices on the Dgroups Foundation Dgroups.io platform. Phases: 1) In Phase 1, the contractor will develop the web portal and the initial learning environment, suitable for micro-learnings and quizzes, potentially using Articulate™ or equivalent software. 2) In the second phase, the Dgroups.io groups will be made accessible via the platform. 3) In the third phase, a learning management system will be developed to provide a more complex learning environment, linking to the other components. The project runs until February 2024, with a soft launch of Phase 1 planned for mid-2021. The contractor will be asked to undertake Phases 2 and 3 at the entire discretion of the contracting authority.