Public procurement notice: Prior Information Notice Without Call For Competition
Published: 2019-08-12
Buyer: The Open University
Country: UK
Contract type: Services
CPV classification: 48000000 | 48190000 | 48500000

Technical requirements: The Open University (OU) would like to hear from suppliers about their software solutions for a student peer mentoring system.
The purpose of this Request for information (‘RFI’) is to gain a fuller understanding of the cost, benefits, timeframes and feasibility of providing a secure, one-to-one student peer mentoring system and/or supporting service and gaining feedback about your:
Suppliers that would like to respond to this pre-market engagement exercise must do so on In-Tend (https://in-tendhost.co.uk/openuniversity), details in communication above. A RFI pack is available to download on In-Tend. This prior information notice (PIN) is not a call for competition, for the purposes of Regulation 26(9) of the Public Contracts Regulations 2015.
The Open University (OU) is considering the procurement of a student peer mentoring solution. The project deliverables are:
(a) to provide a platform which allows (initially 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);
(b) to provide a process which facilitates the automated recruitment of mentors and the ‘matching’ of mentors to mentees, whilst also allowing for some manual matching as appropriate (Note: Mentors would be assigned more than one Mentee);
(d) 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 and Information Security to be at the forefront of any systems/data solutions;
(e) to provide expertise in the areas of student mentoring and work with the faculty to enhance support documents and safeguarding information for mentors and mentees;
(f) to provide a product or service which enables monitoring and evaluation of the schemes and measures success in terms of student completion, pass and return rates;
(g) to provide a system which, if successful, could be ‘rolled out’ to the wider OU at much larger scale.
This prior information notice (PIN) is not a call for competition, for the purposes of Regulation 26(9) of the Public Contracts Regulations 2015.
Suppliers are requested to respond to this PIN via The Open University's e-tendering website, In-Tend (https://in-tendhost.co.uk/openuniversity). Suppliers should complete and return a request for information response document by no later that noon on 13.8.2019. Submissions must be made via the In-Tend correspondence function.
Suppliers are requested to respond to this PIN via The Open University's e-tendering website, In-Tend (https://in-tendhost.co.uk/openuniversity). Suppliers should complete and return a request for information response document by no later that noon on 13.8.2019. Submissions must be made via the In-Tend correspondence function. Note that this is a market research exercise only and no contract will be awarded as part of this process. A separate procurement will take place at a later date at the Open University's discretion. The Open University reserves the right not to proceed with a procurement.