Public procurement notice: Contract Notice
Published: 2020-02-27
Buyer: The Open University
Country: UK
Contract type: Supplies
Procedure: Open procedure
CPV classification: 48000000 | 48190000
Submission deadline: 2020-03-26
Award criteria: The most economic tender

Technical requirements: The Open University (OU) are tendering for a student peer mentoring solution to be delivered as a software as a service (Saas)/cloud based solution, including support and maintenance. The solution is to facilitate online 1:1 vertical peer mentoring for the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences (FASS) students. The platform should allow (initial pilot up to 5 000) students to communicate on a one to one basis at a distance – experienced students will act as mentors for newer students (mentees). OU students have expressed a desire for pastoral support. Student peer mentoring has been identified as one mechanism to deliver that support. The solution may be rolled out further across the OU subject to a successful pilot and further funding becoming available.
The contract is for an initial period of 3 years and may be extended by the OU for further periods up to a maximum of 10 years in total at its discretion.
The Open University (OU) are tendering for a student peer mentoring solution to be delivered as a software as a service (Saas)/cloud based solution, including support and maintenance. The solution is to facilitate online 1:1 vertical peer mentoring for FASS students. The platform should allow (initially up to 5000) students to communicate on a one to one basis at a distance – experienced students will act as mentors for newer students (mentees). OU students have expressed a desire for pastoral support. Student peer mentoring has been identified as one mechanism to deliver that support.
Small scale faculty pilots have been run manually and are providing small scale data, in terms of assignment submission, attainment and retention, along with positive student sentiment being expressed.
The online solution should be able to provide a product or service which enables monitoring and evaluation of the schemes and provides management information to help the OU measure success in terms of student completion, pass and return rates, if successful, could be ‘rolled out’ to the wider OU at much larger scale.
The OU is looking for a supplier to work in partnership with the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences and the OU IT and Data teams in order to deliver a product/service of the highest standard to our students, and for GDPR compliance, safeguarding and information security to be at the forefront of any systems/data solutions. The solution should also provide expertise in the areas of student mentoring and work with the faculty to enhance support documents and safeguarding information for mentors and mentees.
The contract is for an initial period of 3 years and may be extended by the OU for further periods up to a maximum of 10 years in total at its discretion. The solution may be rolled out further across the OU subject to a successful pilot and further funding becoming available.
The contract is for an initial period of 3 years and may be extended by the OU for further periods up to a maximum of 10 years in total at its discretion.
The solution may be rolled out further across the OU subject to a successful pilot and further funding becoming available.
License volumes may vary up or down over the term of the contract and additional modules offered or introduced by the supplier in the future may be purchased as part of this contract following the initial implementation. Any additional purchases relating to this solution will be made with the successful supplier under this contract to ensure technical compatibility, consistency and continuation of supplier support. There is no restriction on the spend value of additional purchases as this will be governed by the OU’s available budget. Any options are set out in the ITT.