Notice of Intent to Certify Sole Source

To: Interested Parties

From: Craig P. Orgeron, Ph.D.

Date: February 28, 2017

RE: Sole Source Notice Number 3978 to provide Dropout Detective™ and Instructor Insight™ for the Mississippi Community College Board

Contact Name: Patti Irgens

Contact Phone Number: 601-432-8223

Contact E-mail Address: Patti.Irgens@its.ms.gov

Sole Source Certification Award Details Regarding Information Technology Services (ITS) Sole Source Certification Number 3978 for Dropout Detective™ software to identify students who are at risk of dropping out or failing online classes and Instructor Insight™ software for instructor analytics for the Mississippi Community College Board, please be advised that ITS intends to award to AspirEDU as the sole source provider of Dropout Detective™ and Instructor Insight™ through May 19, 2020, at a total 3-year lifecycle cost of $520,800.00. For an explanation regarding Mississippi state law, policies, and procedures for sole source procurements, refer to Attachment C: Sole Source Procurement Overview.

Sole Source Criteria 1. The product or services being purchased must perform a function for which no other

product or source of services exist:

Dropout Detective™ from AspirEDU, Inc. is a software solution that identifies students that are at risk of dropping out of or failing online classes. Dropout Detective™ is a propriety algorithm that reviews the data elements and calculates a single Risk Index Score for each student. This Risk Index Score takes into account the student’s performance across ALL courses in which they are enrolled. There are no other retention solutions on the market today that risk-rate students on a fully automated basis; all others require manual input from instructors or administrators. Dropout Detective™ is the only solution that allows schools to view all of their students on a single dashboard. Other solutions (including functionality inside Canvas) only give views on a student-by-student basis or on a course-by-course basis. Instructor Insight™ analyzes the behaviors and performance of instructors. At this time, there are no solutions being offered by other vendors that can report statistics about the activities of instructors in their online courses. The customer's sole source certification request is included as Attachment A.

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2. The purchaser must be able to show specific business objectives that can be met only through the unique product or services:

Dropout Detective™ and Instructor Insight™ are software solutions that fully integrate with Canvas and identify students who are most at risk of dropping out of or failing a course allowing instructors and administrators to devote immediate resources to those students. The solution also monitors and reports instructors activities. The customer's sole source certification request is included as Attachment A.

3. The product or services must be available only from the manufacturer and not through resellers who could submit competitive pricing for the product or services:

The Dropout Detective™ solution for student retention analytics and Instructor Insight™ solution for instructor analytics are single source products, sold and distributed only by AspirEDU, Inc. This solution must be purchased directly by institutions from AspirEDU, Inc.. The Vendor’s Sole Source Certification is included as Attachment B.

Schedule Task Date

First Advertisement Date 02/28/2017 Second Advertisement Date 03/07/2017 Response Deadline From Objectors 03/14/17,at 3:00 P.M. Central Time

Notice of Award/No Award Posted Not before 03/15/17 Project Details Dropout Detective™ was purchased in 2014 via a sole source procurement for $240,000.00. A Contract Amendment in 2015 added reporting features and purchased Instructor Insight™ at an additional $127,625.00. Dropout Detective™ is the only fully automated solution in the market that can identify students that are at risk of dropping out or failing online courses. No other product has the built in integration to the Canvas learning management system for data retrieval and can support the integration back into Canvas for dashboard display. With this addition, the 6-year lifecycle cost of the project to date is $884,425.00.

Submission Instructions and Format of Response from Objecting Parties Interested parties who have reason to believe that Dropout Detective™ and Instructor Insight™ software should not be certified as a sole source should provide information in the following format for the state to use in determining whether or not to proceed with awarding the Sole Source contract with AspireEDU. 1.1 Interested Party Information

1.1.1 Contact Name, Phone Number and email address

1.1.2 Company Website URL, if applicable

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1.2 Objection to Sole Source Certification

1.2.1 Interested parties must present specific objections to the Sole Source certification using the criteria listed above.

1.2.2 A statement regarding the Interested Party's capabilities as related to this Sole Source Certification Request.

1.3 Comments will be accepted at any time prior to Tuesday, March 14, 2017, at 3:00 p.m.

(Central Time) to Patti Irgens at Patti.Irgens@its.ms.gov or at the Mississippi Department of Information Technology Services, 3771 Eastwood Drive, Jackson, Mississippi 39211. Responses may be delivered by hand, via regular mail, overnight delivery, e-mail, or by fax. Fax number is (601) 713-6380. ITS WILL NOT BE RESPONSIBLE FOR DELAYS IN THE DELIVERY OF RESPONSES. It is solely the responsibility of the Interested Parties that responses reach ITS on time. Interested Parties may contact Patti Irgens to verify the receipt of their Responses. Responses received after the deadline will be rejected.

1.4 Interested Party responses should include the following information:

SUBMITTED IN RESPONSE TO

Sole Source Certification No. 3978- 43355 Accepted until March 14, 2017 @ 3:00 p.m.,

ATTENTION: Patti Irgens If you have any questions concerning the information above or if we can be of further assistance, please contact Patti Irgens at 601-432-8223 or via email at Patti.Irgens@its.ms.gov. Attachment A: Customer Sole Source Certification Request Attachment B: Vendor Correspondence Attachment C: Sole Source Procurement Overview cc: ITS Project File Number 43355

Attachment A: Customer’s Sole Source Certification

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Sole Source Certification Request

Project Title: Mississippi Community College Board Stimulus (ARRA) Funds? Yes__ No _X_ Customer Contact Information Agency/Public University: MS Community College Board Address: E & R Center, Room 519, Jackson, MS 39211

Contact Person: Dr. Krista LeBrun Phone: 601-432-6106 Fax: Email Address: klebrun@mccb.edu

MAGIC Customer Number (only required from state agencies): 7000000104

Division/Dept: Handmail: Yes No

Project Summary Narrative Description of Project (include details of original acquisition if applicable): ITS Acquisition Approval (CP-1) should be effective through this date (Please allow time for all vendor invoices to be paid):

Cost Estimates Fiscal Year

Initial Costs

Ongoing Costs

Time Constraints Item Needed by:

Funds Expire:

Anticipated Lifecycle of Products/System (i.e. estimated years of effective use):

FY ’17 – FY ‘19 $173,600.00 Discuss Funding (e.g. how much of needed funding is definite; total project budget; any matching or other non state funds) MCCB budget from the MSVCC assessments to the colleges.

Total $520,800.00

Acquisition Details Items Requested Quantity Description Building Location(s)

Describe platform & infrastructure (connectivity; software/hardware platforms; utilization of State Data Center resources: mainframe, eGovernment portal, payment engine, document management, hosting). For equipment or hosting outside the State Data Center, attach justification: Progress to Date: What has been done related to this project, including any communication with ITS staff (data/voice/procurement/other)? Colleges are already utilizing services by AspirEDU including Dropout Detective, Instructor Insight, and Reports/Analytics and would like to continue services for an additional 3 years.

Sole Source Certification Note: Certification must be renewed for each revision or continuation of previous Sole Source Approvals.

Specific business requirements to be met by the requested products or services: 1) An interface to Canvas to retrieve the data elements necessary for evaluating a student’s behavior in online courses.2) Requires no manual intervention by instructors to input data for the system to generate the necessary reports. 3) Data elements that are retrieved at a minimum on a nightly basis and refreshes results every day.4) Algorithm that reviews the data elements and calculates a single Risk Index Score for each student. Risk Index should take into account the student’s performance across ALL courses in which they are enrolled.5) Risk Index should reflect the student’s entire body of work instead of that work in one class. 6) There should not be any manual integration on our part to generate this algorithm or the risk index. 7) Creates a Student Profile that gives schools an overview of all of the student’s courses and their performance in all courses – all on a single screen. 8) Should be fully automated and require no manual input from instructors or administrators. 9) Presents in dashboard the accurate Last Date of Attendance (LDA) for a student which can be exported to a file and uploaded to other systems. Instructor Insight, which offers analytics of instructors. There are no solutions being offered by any vendors that can report statistics about the activities of instructors. Instructor Insight uses data from the learning management system to provide an overview of an instructor's behavior and performance in each course. Explain why these products or services are the only ones that can meet your needs (include unique features/special functionality): Dropout Detective is the only solution that allows schools to view all of their students on a single dashboard. Other solutions (including functionality inside Canvas) give views on a student-by-student basis or on a course-by-course basis. Dropout Detective is a propriety algorithm that reviews the data elements and calculates a single Risk Index Score for each student. This Risk Index Score takes into account the student’s performance across ALL courses in which they are enrolled. (This is analogous to a person’s credit score.) So the single score reflects the student’s entire body of work instead of that work in just one class.

Explain why the source is the only entity that can provide the products or services (Include other products/vendors researched or evaluated): Dropout Detective is the only fully automated solution in the market that can identify students that are at risk of dropping out of or failing online courses. No other product has built integration to the Canvas learning management system for data retrieval and can support LTI integration back into Canvas for dashboard display. A full listing of our unique attributes can be found on the attached document.

Explain why the amount to be expended for the services is reasonable: N/A

Explain what your agency did to obtain the best possible price for the services: N/A

Vendor’s Certification of Sole Source attached: Yes No Vendor’s proposal attached: Yes No MAGIC Vendor Code(s) Vendor must be in MAGIC before a CP-1 can be issued.

3771 Eastwood Drive Jackson, Mississippi 39211

Phone 601-432-8000 Fax 601-713-6380