Support Business Glossary applications - VocBench and SKosmos

Tender description

Summary of the work The ONS have developed a business glossary solution using the SKOS (Simple knowledge Organisation System) framework and opensource software VocBench and Skosmos. A third party is required to set up and support 3 environments with the required software, provide ongoing support including data uploads and diagnosis, resolution of any issues. Expected Contract Length 2 years Latest start date Monday 11 October 2021 Why the Work is Being Done The ONS have developed the ONS Business Glossary to support the ONS data strategy. The business glossary will provide a single maintainable glossary containing a comprehensive reliable source of definitions of the main terms, concepts and acronyms used allowing for common understanding across the organisation. ONS is utilising the SKOS framework and the tools VocBench and Skosmos. VocBench to manage and edit the content and Skosmos to present the content to glossary users. Using this framework/tools will allow us to create a solution which is flexible and uses machine-readable solutions, allowing easier maintenance and processing. Using a solution based on a Resource Description Framework (RDF) will allow for the development of a glossary where terms are not only defined by their definition but by their relationship to other terms. These tools also allow us to incorporate other formal vocabularies as required, such as Dublin Core. Using these tools will also allow us to apply maintenance mechanisms and assign roles to each glossary entry, a Subject Matter Expert (SME) and a term owner. The REST API functionality will ensure the content of the glossary is maintained as the single source of the truth and share content to other applications as required Problem to Be Solved The publication of the ONS business glossary will solve the following problems: • No single managed business glossary across the ONS. • No master repository for terminology and associated information. • Duplication of work across the organisation – in creating isolated solitary glossaries. • Development of glossaries without maintenance mechanisms that become redundant. • Ambiguity and confusion in meaning of terms. • No single location where people/business areas can disseminate terminology specific to their expertise/project/business area with the wider ONS. In addition, the involvement of the third-party supplier will solve the following problems: • No internal resource to set up the required environments. • No internal resource to install and maintain the required software to ONS requirements, specification, and configuration. • No internal resource to manage access and support with monthly data uploads and back up of system. This requirement is split into 2; Build and publish Ongoing Support Who Are the Users 3 ONS user groups: • Group 1: Business Glossary team (approx. 5 members) • Group 2: SME’s, Term Owners (approx. 400) • Group 3: Wider ONS, approx. 100 concurrent users (includes group 1 & 2) Access and usage dependent on environment and software Production environment Skosmos: Group 3 (read only access) View, navigate glossary VocBench: Group 1 (read only access) Review, export content (all formats) [Third party upload content from test environment to VocBench and Skosmos in production environment] Test environment Skosmos: Groups 1 & 2 (read only access) Review, approve content. VocBench: Group 1 & 2 (read only access) Review. Data prep environment Skosmos: Group 1 & 2 (read and write access) Upload & delete content (as per instructions from third-party) VocBench: Group 1 & 2 (read and write access) Create separate project areas within VocBench, upload content (held outside of hosted env.), use Sheet2RDF & PEARL to convert content. Quality check using SPARQL, delete/amend as required. Export and upload content between projects. Third party upload content to test environment. Sandbox Environment Skosmos & VocBench: Group 1 (read and write access) Test updates/new versions. Group 1 require functionality to upload and download Metadata from VocBench and use rest API’s Work Already Done • Both Skosmos and VocBench have been installed on a virtual machine on an off-network laptop where testing and development has been completed • Tools have been tested against FR’s and NFR’s • Content has been converted and uploaded in VocBench exported and uploaded to Apache Jena and Skosmos Existing Team (Senior Data Architect) – Project Owner – overseas project and provides support and recommendations (Data Architect) – Project Lead – Development of glossary, quality checks of content (work carried out to date includes uploading of content) (Data Engineer) – Development and testing of tools (work carried out to date includes installation of software on off network laptop) (Senior Delivery Manager) – Project co-ordinator (Data Architect) - Content lead – Manages content Current Phase Beta Skills & Experience • Demonstrate experience and technical competence in setting up Cloud environment with resilient Architecture for Application and Database (Graph) backup and recovery. • Demonstrate experience and technical competence in setting up Cloud environment with performance Architecture with ability to Scale up and down based on demand • Demonstrate experience and technical competence in setting up Cloud environment with cost Optimized Provision Compute appropriate instance types • Demonstrate experience and technical competence in setting up secure Virtual private network, applications and web servers with SSL (https) • Demonstrate experience and technical competence in managing backup of files storage in Cloud Environment • Demonstrate experience and technical competence in configuring network adapters that are efficient for the hosted applications • Knowledge and understanding of Linux Operating Systems specifically Linux shell • Knowledge and understanding of Linux Operating Systems specifically SSH setup. • Knowledge and experience of providing support Nice to Haves • Demonstrate knowledge and experience of Angular JS and Java • Demonstrate knowledge and experience of CSS and HTML • Demonstrate knowledge and experience in managing the following file formats; Turtle, RDF, SPARQL, JSON, CSV-w • Demonstrate knowledge and experience delivering new services and components which are integrated into existing digital services, particularly including API integrations. • Demonstrate knowledge and experience of VocBench and Skosmos • Demonstrate knowledge and experience of SKOS framework. Work Location All work is to be completed in the UK. Remote working will be available, therefore one single location is not required. ONS site relating to this work is Newport South Wales Working Arrangments Monday – Friday (excl. Bank holidays) Initial work – Set up of environments and installation of software BAU – business support availability between Monday and Friday 9am – 5pm via email ticket service. Expenses will be approved on a case basis and will adhere to ONS Travel and Subsistence Policy Security Clearance BPSS Clearance No. of Suppliers to Evaluate 5 Proposal Criteria • Create a delivery plan for the project, including time frames (in a Gantt chart) for set up of environments and installation of software. • Describe the approach and methodology, explain how this meets our needs. • Explain how the supplier will to support the project going forward (BAU). • Explain the approach to identify risks and dependencies and approaches to manage them Cultural Fit Criteria • Explain how you will work and communicate with multiple teams, ONS and third-party hosting company. • Explain how you will share Knowledge and experience with the ONS TEAM • Explain how you will provide support, run diagnosis of any issues and find resolutions • Explain how you will work with clients with low technical expertise Payment Approach Time and materials Evaluation Weighting Technical competence 70% Cultural fit 10% Price 20% Questions from Suppliers 1. ONS has added corrected information from a typo in the description. The ONS have developed a business glossary solution using the SKOS (Simple knowledge Organisation System) framework and opensource software VocBench and Skosmos. A third party is required to set up and support 4 environments with the required software, provide ongoing support including data uploads and diagnosis, resolution of any issues.4 environments:1) Sandbox Environment. 2) Data Prep Environment. 3) Test Environment. 4) Production Environment. 2. Is there an incumbent supplier? No 3. What is the rough budget range for this work? As DOS has provided an optional field for budget, ONS has decided to refrain from providing a budget or indicative costs for this requirement. 4. As the response date for questions is the 8th and the closing data is the 9th that does not leave much time to adjust proposals. Is the deadline flexible? As with the DOS framework guidance (https://www.gov.uk/guidance/how-to-answer-supplier-questions-about-your-digital-outcomes-and-specialists-requirements), ONS will try to answer all questions within 2-3 working days, however DOS framework stipulates that all questions must be answered by the day before closure, this allows time for further advice such as legal. Dates are pre-populated by the framework and not by the buying organisation. No extension to the deadline should be required. 5. The proposed solution seems to require manual export and import of data for publishing via SKOSMOS. Is this correct? If a solution is able to automate the route to publish the data (controlled by a taxonomist) is this desirable? Yes (MB) 6. Is the decision to use VocBench final or are other alternative SKOS compliant SaaS taxonomy management systems permitted to be proposed? Our solution Graphology (https://graphologi.com) provides this. This approach would remove the cost and burden of managing infrastructure just for VocBench. Right now we have been using VocBench and know it can meet our needs so would like to push ahead with this. Any alternative solution would have to undergo technical and user testing which would delay our first beta. Alternatives recommendation can be reviewed as part of our ongoing development of the glossary. 7. The requirement is focused on deployment but asks for experience of the technical stacks that make up the components (Angular and Java)? Do you anticipate a need for the supplier to extend, tweak or contribute in any way to the projects making this up? Or deployment only? We currently have an engineer in-house that supports extending, tweaking and contributing to the projects. If issues are found we are likely going to require a small degree of support working with said engineer to test fixes for minor bugs. the projects release system will manage large scale updates 8. Is there a preferred Cloud environment? (AWS, Google)Who owns the cloud account – ONS or supplier?Has Government PaaS been considered? Preferred cloud environment of AWS or Google. Cloud account will be owned by suppler but we can look to own it within our cloud if this is an issue.We have already spoken to GDS about PaaS and they did not think the vocbench/skosmos solution was suitable to run on it as it does require a degree of independent storage. 9. What is the preferred data store for Semantic Turkey? If commercial what are the licensing arrangements? We have tested GraphDB as external triple store. However we would like the vendor to choose appropriate graph store in their preferred cloud platform that would meet ACIDAll data will have to be held within the UK.