Colorado Mountain College’s Central Services located at 802 Grand Ave., Glenwood Springs, CO 81601 is requesting quotes from qualified firms and/or individuals to provide online tutoring services to currently enrolled college-level students at all campuses across the College District, including online students.
SPECIFICATIONS
Objective
Vendor’s platform should have the capability of providing live, interactive, one-on-one interactions with a verified tutor or certified teacher, or through uploaded written work for review and comments. Online tutoring must allow for sequential display of problems and steps between the tutor and student to reach a solution. Each session should be able to be recalled at a later date during the semester by the student for use as a review.
Tutors are expected to:
• Guide the student to the discovery and ultimate understanding of the solution to questions.
• Guide the student in the development of formal writing appropriate for academic assignments.
• Guide the student in learning to recognize and correct grammar and editing errors.
NOTE: Tutor expectations are much more than stated in this RFP. CMC tutoring is not focused only on math and writing but on all disciplines. Tutoring is interactive – with the student and tutor working at the same time. Tutors do not just give students the answers to a question, but work with the student to understand how the student can understand the concepts necessary to solve a problem. Students do not just submit work or essays and wait for a response.
This product should integrate with Learning Management Systems, including Canvas which is currently utilized by CMC.
The licensing shall include the following: 24/7 end-user technical support, all product upgrades and enhancements during the license period, designated Professional Services manager, unlimited archive storage on ASP servers, and access to all online resources, training materials, and user guides.
CMC must have online, on-demand access to usage reports, student reports and student archives of sessions.
PROPOSAL CONTENT
The information provided herein is intended to assist Bidders with a proper response to this RFP. CMC believes that this RFP provides interested Bidders with sufficient information to submit proposals that meet minimum requirements. However, the RFP is not intended to limit a proposal’s content or to exclude any relevant or essential data. Bidders are encouraged to include additional information that will substantiate their service capabilities, product quality, and commitment to support your product or service. Any exceptions or alternate offerings to this request must be communicated. CMC reserves the sole right to determine what is considered to be “equivalent” or “equal”. CMC also reserves the right to request samples for testing and evaluation.
Additionally, CMC recognizes you as the expert in this industry and we appreciate ideas that may improve the design or implementation of our project. Please submit your bid to the specifications provided and include information or ideas you may have that CMC should consider to improve our project. Our selection committee will carefully review these ideas and we will contact you with questions.
CMC requests submittal of the following information:
1. Demonstrate at least three years’ experience in providing online tutorial services at the collegiate level and supply names of at least three higher education institutions, preferably community colleges that are or have been clients.
2. List of qualifications of the vendor’s tutors.
3. List of subject areas and topics for which tutoring is available 24/7.
4. Provide information about the ability to offer group tutoring.
5. The vendor must offer a writing lab where student papers can be uploaded to tutors for critique with a 24-hour response/wait time. Please indicate in proposal how this will be provided.
6. What methods are used to instruct students of wait times for synchronous tutoring, papers submitted to a writing lab, and questions asked through a question portal.
7. The vendor must provide pedagogical training in addition to technical training for tutors. Please indicate in the proposal how tutors will:
• guide the student to the discovery and ultimate understanding of the solution to questions.
• guide the student in the development of formal writing appropriate for academic assignments.
• guide the student in learning to recognize and correct grammar and editing errors.
8. Only authorized students will have access to online tutoring and a predetermined ceiling on the number of hours of access per semester. Indicate how access will be controlled and this ceiling per student will be achieved. Indicate if it is possible to set an auto warning. And, is it possible to provide additional hours to students when requested and necessary?
9. CMC requires online, on-demand access to usage reports, student reports and archives of student sessions. Indicate how CMC would gain access to reports that will allow monitoring of usage by each student as follows:
• Student ID (name, unique ID, email, class/section)
• Date, time and duration of service
• Type of services
• Subject area of session
• Course/schedule
• Tutor’s name or unique ID
10. Explain how system availability (uptime/downtime) is determined. What has the system availability been for the past month, six months, and year?
11. How are system patches, updated and upgrades handled / scheduled? How much notice will be given to CMC. What is the typical length of downtime required for patches, updates and upgrades?
12. What is the level of guaranteed availability and the repercussions is the Service Level Agreement is not met? Please include a sample SLA in your proposal.
13. Describe and include data breach policies and procedures.
14. The system will require the following features and capabilities:
• Integration through Canvas
• Available by phone, online link through Canvas, e-mail and chat.
• 24/7 drop-in, on-demand tutoring on a variety of subjects.
• Essay review services with no more than a 24-hour response/wait time.
• Ability for student to submit a question for a response or schedule a tutoring session for the future.
• Meets ADA compliance.
Please describe how your system provides these features.
15. Describe the implementation process and whether or not it would disrupt our students’ success.
16. Cost Proposal. In addition to answering the following questions, indicate if any items are optional and specify then in a separate section(s).
• Provide sample pricing options that would fit the needs for a College with _____ FTE per year.
• Do you offer bulk purchase of hours? How does that differ from hourly billing?
• Describe any implementation, administrative, startup, and training costs.
• Describe hour you bill per events for services (scheduled tutoring, writing assignment, etc.). Do you bill actual time spent in a session? When does that actual time start?
• If the sessions are recorded and achieved, how is that tracked and billed?
CMC expects that all costs are included in the overall fee for services proposed, and that there will be no additional expenses billed to the College for any reason.
Statewide