The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) issued a request for information (RFI) seeking a cloud-based online meeting, event, and training platform.
NOAA issued the RFI on behalf of its National Ocean Service, Office for Coastal Management (OCM). According to the RFI, OCM is tasked with delivering technically reliable, high-quality online training opportunities, workshops, meetings, and conference events to coastal managers across the country.
To deliver on its mission, OCM needs a hosted, cloud-based app that provides real-time access for participants across devices and operating systems, as well as the ability to share media, integrate audio, set up multiple virtual meeting and breakout rooms, and designate multiple hosts and presenters within a single meeting.
The platform also needs to function as an event management portal, including both event promotion and registration, as well as analytics on the management of events and engagement of participants, and online course creation and management.
Specific technical requirements for the platform include:
- Licenses for 12 hosts for live meetings;
- Each meeting room/virtual classroom accommodates at least 200 participants;
- Ability to split primary classroom into up to 20 breakout rooms, with either predetermined groupings or random/automatic splits;
- Collaborative whiteboards;
- Q&A moderated chat functionality;
- Ability to share and play videos and PDFs with live participants;
- User controls to include hand raising and others such as current status;
- Full functionality for event participants with no app or download required;
- Accessible by users on desktops, laptops, tablets and phones, Android or Apple;
- On-demand technical support for administrators to address performance and connectivity issues; and
- Administrator-support interface, such as in-meeting analytics, real-time user/server performance metrics, and/or troubleshooting tools; and
NOAA said that the anticipated North American Industrial Classification System (NAICS) code for this requirement is 511210, Software Publishers, and that the size standard for this NAICS is $41.5M.
