OPEN CALL FOR TENDERS

Reference N° EACEA/2012/01

Provision of Central Support Services (CSS) for the implementation of eTwinning and ancillary services to

support EU action for schools

TENDERING SPECIFICATIONS

1. INTRODUCTION.............................................................................................................41.1. General information...............................................................................................41.2. Management of the call for tenders and contract...............................................41.3. Duration of the contract........................................................................................4

2. GENERAL TERMS AND CONDITIONS APPLICABLE TO CALLS FOR TENDERS..........................................................................................................................52.1. Tenders....................................................................................................................52.2. Payment...................................................................................................................52.3. Financial guarantee for pre-financing.................................................................62.4. Penalties..................................................................................................................62.5. Period of validity of tenders..................................................................................62.6. Price.........................................................................................................................62.7. Joint offers/consortia.............................................................................................72.8. Subcontractors........................................................................................................82.9. Variants...................................................................................................................82.10. Data protection.......................................................................................................82.11. Contact point..........................................................................................................9

3. TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS.................................................................................93.1. Context of the contract..........................................................................................93.2. Objectives of the contract and expected results................................................12

3.2.1. Objectives of the contract....................................................................................123.2.2. Expected results...................................................................................................123.2.2.1. Central Support Service for eTwinning............................................................123.2.2.2. Support of EU action for schools.....................................................................143.2.3. Indicative time schedule and deliverables..........................................................14

3.3. Services..................................................................................................................143.3.1. Geographical area to be covered........................................................................143.3.2. Target groups......................................................................................................143.3.3. Specific activities.................................................................................................153.3.3.1. Central Support Service for eTwinning..........................................................153.3.3.2. Support of EU action for school.....................................................................38

3.4. Requirements........................................................................................................423.4.1. Personnel.............................................................................................................423.4.2. Resources to be provided by the contractor........................................................45

3.5. Location.................................................................................................................453.6. Reports..................................................................................................................45

3.6.1. Terms of preparation and submission of technical reports.................................453.6.2. Final progress report..........................................................................................45

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3.7. Budget....................................................................................................................46

4. EVALUATION AND AWARD OF THE CONTRACT.............................................464.1. Exclusion of tenderers..........................................................................................464.2. Selection of tenderers...........................................................................................48

4.2.1. Professional capacity..........................................................................................484.2.2. Economic and financial capacity........................................................................494.2.3. Technical capacity...............................................................................................49

4.3. Evaluation of tenders...........................................................................................504.3.1. Technical evaluation...........................................................................................504.3.1.1. The general quality, impact and creativity of the Tender and its relevance

to the objectives and results set out in these Tendering Specifications (60 points):..........................................................................................................50

4.3.1.2. The quality and adequacy of the proposed technical and organisational arrangements, including the appropriateness of the staff to the tasks (40 points):..........................................................................................................50

4.3.2. Financial evaluation...........................................................................................514.4. Award of the contract..........................................................................................52

5. GENERAL CONDITIONS FOR THE AWARD OF CONTRACTS........................525.1. Contract................................................................................................................525.2. No obligation to award the contract...................................................................52

6. PUBLICATION..............................................................................................................52

7. INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS...................................................................53

8. PLAGIARISM.................................................................................................................53

9. ANNEXES (PROVIDED SEPERATELY)...................................................................53Annex 1: Model contract (for information)...................................................................53Annex 2: Information on the tenderer/subcontractor (one copy must be completed

and signed by the tenderer and by each of the subcontractors, as appropriate).........................................................................................................53

Annex 3: Price and budget breakdown (to be completed and signed by the tenderer)...............................................................................................................53

Annex 4: Declaration on honour with respect to the exclusion criteria and absence of conflict of interest (to be completed and signed by the tenderer)....................53

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1. INTRODUCTION

1.1. General information

The Commission of the European Union has set up the Education, Audiovisual and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA – hereinafter “the Agency”) for the management of Union actions in the fields of education, audiovisual and culture in application of Council Regulation (EC) No 58/2003 (Official Journal L 11 of 16/01/2003). Its task is to manage certain aspects of more than 15 programmes and actions funded by the European Union in the fields of education, training, active European citizenship (civic participation), youth, audiovisual and culture.

The Agency is entrusted with the main management aspects of the programmes, including drawing up calls for proposals, selecting projects and signing grant agreements, financial management, monitoring projects, contacts with beneficiaries and on-the-spot checks.

The Agency also contracts studies, through public calls for tenders, on subjects relevant to the Education, Culture, Youth and Citizenship programmes.

The Agency has its own legal identity and is located in Brussels. The Agency wishes to conclude a service contract for the provision of central services for the implementation of eTwinning and ancillary services to support EU action for schools.

The services required are described in detail in section 3 of these Tendering Specifications.

1.2. Management of the call for tenders and contract

This call for tenders is managed by the Agency in cooperation with the European Commission. The European Commission, Directorate General for Education and Culture1 has the lead responsibility for the strategic direction and development of the eTwinning action of the Lifelong Learning Programme/future Erasmus for All Programme. The direct management of the tender process and the resulting management of the contract are delegated to the Agency. A Steering Committee comprising representatives of both the Agency and the Commission, will be in charge of, reviewing progress with the contractor, guiding the contractor in the implementation of the contract and defining priorities to be addressed. The ownership of the products and deliverables shall be vested in the Union.

1.3. Duration of the contract

The contract to be awarded will be the subject of an agreement in accordance with the model enclosed in Annex 1. The contract will be awarded for a duration of 1 year with effect from the date on which it is signed by the last contracting party.

The contract may be renewed up to seven times for further a period of 1 year each time, i.e. a maximum duration of 8 years (hereinafter referred to as “the maximum total period”), subject to satisfactory performance on the part of the contractor.

1 http://ec.europa.eu/dgs/education_culture/index_en.htm4

The annual renewal of the contract is subject to the entry into force in 2014 of the new Erasmus for All Programme (2014-2020) and to the availability of budget appropriations each year.

The Agency reserves the right to make use of a negotiated procedure without prior publication of a contract notice for additional contracts involving services similar to those assigned to the party awarded an initial contract by the same contracting authority. That procedure may only be used during the three years following conclusion of the original contract.

2. GENERAL TERMS AND CONDITIONS APPLICABLE TO CALLS FOR TENDERS

2.1. Tenders

Tenders must include all information and documentation required to enable the Agency to appraise tenders in accordance with the criteria set out in section 4.

All documents submitted by tenderers will become the property of the Agency and are to be deemed confidential.

Expenses incurred in preparing and submitting tenders shall not be reimbursed by the Agency.

The submission of a tender in response to a call for tenders issued by the Agency entails:

(a) acceptance of the terms and conditions set out in the invitation to tender, in these specifications and in the model contract (see Annex 1),

(b) where appropriate, waiver of the tenderer's own general or specific terms and conditions; the tender submitted is binding on the tenderer to whom the contract is awarded for the duration of the contract.

Tenders must be:

(a) submitted in triplicate: one clearly identified “Original”, and two copies marked “Copy 1” and “Copy 2” respectively. “Copy 2” should be unbound. An electronic version (CD ROM) should also be submitted;

(b) accompanied by the forms in Annexes 2 to 4, filled in and signed by the tenderer;

(c) accompanied by a covering letter signed by the tenderer or its duly authorised representative;

(d) perfectly legible in order to rule out any doubt whatsoever concerning the words or figures;

(e) submitted inside two sealed envelopes, as specified in the invitation to tender.

2.2. Payment

Payments will be made as follows:

Pre-financing:

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After the signature of the contract by the last contracting party and its reception by the Agency, within thirty days of the receipt by the Agency of a request for pre-financing, with a relevant invoice and a duly constituted financial guarantee equal to the amount of pre-financing, a pre-financing payment of an amount not exceeding 50% of the total amount of the contract shall be made.

Payment of the balance:

Within sixty days of completion of the tasks, the Contractor shall submit an invoice accompanied by the final progress report for payment of the balance.

The Agency shall have 90 days from receipt to approve or reject the final progress report and to pay the balance. The Contractor shall have 30 days in which to submit additional information or a new final progress report.

2.3. Financial guarantee for pre-financing

The contractor shall provide a financial guarantee in the form of a bank guarantee or equivalent supplied by a bank or an authorised financial institution (guarantor) equal to the pre-financing under the contract. It may be replaced by a joint and several guarantee by a third party.

2.4. Penalties

Should the contractor fail to perform his obligations under the contract within the time limits set by the contract (see model contract in Annex 1), then, without prejudice to the contractor's actual or potential liability incurred in relation to the contract or to the Agency's right to terminate the contract, the Agency may decide to impose liquidated damages per calendar day of delay according to the following formula: 0.3 x (V/d)

V is the amount specified in Article I.3.1 of the contract;

d is the duration specified in Article I.2.3 of the contract expressed in days.

2.5. Period of validity of tenders

Tenders shall be valid for nine months from the deadline for submitting tenders.

2.6. Price

The Agency awards contracts and makes payments in euro. Tenders must accordingly be expressed in euro. Tenders expressed in currencies other than euro will be eliminated.

For tenderers in countries not belonging to the euro zone, the price quoted may not be revised in line with exchange rate variations. It is for the tenderer to select an exchange rate and assume the risks or the benefits deriving from any variation.

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The tender should indicate the price for the first year only. The price shall be for a fixed amount and not subject to revision during the first year of performance of the contract. From the beginning of the second year of performance of the contract the price can be revised according to Article I.3.3. of the model contract. The price must cover all tasks, including all travel and subsistence expenses foreseen by the tenderer for the execution of the tasks. Such travel and subsistence costs will not be reimbursed separately, even if the costs prove to be different from the contractor’s initial estimate.

Prices must be clearly indicated and show all pricing elements and unit costs. They must be fixed and inclusive of all costs (project management, quality control, training of contractor’s employees, back-up resources, etc.) and expenses (company management, secretariat, social security, salaries, travel and office expenses, etc.) directly or indirectly connected with the service provision.

Tenderers must provide a full estimated breakdown of prices, by filling in the form in Annex 3, Price and budget breakdown. The purpose of this is to help the Agency to judge the realism of the offer. In the event that the tenderer is awarded the contract, only the total price will be binding.The tenderer must sign each page of the completed form in Annex 3, Price and budget breakdown. The signature of the tender commits the tenderer vis-à-vis the Agency.

All prices must be quoted free of all duties, taxes and other charges, including Value Added Tax (VAT). Under Articles 3 and 4 of the Protocol on the Privileges and Immunities of the European Union, the Union is exempt from all taxes and dues, including VAT, and accordingly these charges may not form part of the tender price. The amount of VAT should be shown separately if the tenderer believes that they are obliged to charge VAT. VAT will not be taken into account during the consideration of the prices of the different tenders.

In signing and submitting a tender, the tenderer or, in the case of consortia consisting of two or more firms, each member of the consortium, certifies on behalf of their firm that:

the prices indicated in the tender have been fixed independently, without any consultation or communication on any of the points relating to the price with another tenderer or competitor;

unless the law stipulates otherwise, the prices indicated in the tender have not been and will not be voluntarily communicated by the tenderer to any other tenderer or competitor, directly or indirectly, before the tenders are opened;

the tenderer has not attempted and will not attempt to induce other persons to submit a tender or to dissuade them from doing so with a view to restricting competition.

2.7. Joint offers/consortia

Joint tenders or offers from groups of economic operators, having or not having a legal existence will be accepted. The nature and organisation of such tenders is at the discretion of the tenderers. A leader must be clearly identified and appointed by all other members of the group to act with full authority to bind the grouping and each of its members. The composition and constitution of the grouping and the allocation of the scope of tasks amongst the members shall not be altered without prior written consent of the Agency which can be withheld at discretion.

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In case of contract awarding, in order to protect the contractual interest of the Agency, the Agency will sign a contract with the leader of the group, duly authorised by the other members (a power of attorney is to be attached to the offer). All the members of the group shall be jointly and severally liable to the Agency for the fulfilment of the terms and conditions of the contract.

Each member of the group or a person duly authorised by them must complete and sign Annex 2, Information concerning the tenderer. It must be accompanied by all the supporting documents described in the form.

A declaration of honour with respect to the exclusion criteria and absence of conflict of interest and information on selection criteria of each member of the group must also be included in the offer (see points 4.1 and 4.2).

In any event, such tenders will be treated no differently from any other type of tender, each being assessed on its own merits in relation to the evaluation and award criteria contained in these specifications.

2.8. Subcontractors

Any intention to subcontract part of the contract must be clearly stated in the tender. Tenderers must indicate the share that they intend to subcontract, with the references of the proposed subcontractors and their agreement in writing.

In any case, the main contractor retains sole responsibility for the contract.

2.9. Variants

Tenderers may not submit bids for only part of the services required. Variants are not allowed.

2.10. Data protection

Processing your reply to the invitation to tender will involve the recording and processing of personal data (such as your name, address and CV). Such data will be processed pursuant to Regulation (EC) No 45/2001 on the protection of individuals with regard to the processing of personal data by the Community institutions and bodies and on the free movement of such data. Unless indicated otherwise, your replies to the questions and any personal data requested are required to evaluate your tender in accordance with the specifications of the invitation to tender and will be processed solely for that purpose by the Head of Unit P1 of the Agency.

You are entitled to obtain access to your personal data on request and to rectify any such data that is inaccurate or incomplete. You may address your request to the Head of Unit P1 of the Agency. If you have any queries concerning the processing of your personal data or in case of conflict on any Personal Data Protection issue you can address yourself to above mentioned Controller. You can also contact the EACEA Data Protection Officer at the following email address: eacea-data-protection@ec.europa.eu. Should the conflict not be resolved by the Controller or the EACEA Data Protection Officer you may lodge a complaint with the European Data Protection Supervisor at any time.

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You are informed that for the purposes of safeguarding the financial interests of the Union, your personal data may be transferred to the supervisory instances of EACEA (i.e. European Commission, Court of Auditors, European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF) etc.) and the judicial authorities (i.e. EU Courts, Ombudsman etc.).

Your personal data (name, given name if natural person, address, legal form, registration number and name and given name of the persons with powers of representation, decision-making or control, if legal person) may be registered in the Early Warning System (EWS) only or both in the EWS and Central Exclusion Database (CED) by the Accounting Officer of the Commission, should you be in one of the situations mentioned in:

the Commission Decision 2008/969 of 16.12.2008 on the Early Warning System (for more information see Privacy Statement or legal entity and bank account validation2)

the Commission Regulation 2008/1302 of 17.12.2008 on the Central Exclusion Database (for more information see Privacy Statement for the Central Exclusion Database3)

As detailed in the above mentioned Privacy statements, any party entered into the database has the right of access and rectification of the data concerning it, upon request to the Accounting Officer of the European Commission.

2.11. Contact point

The only contact point that may be used during the submission period, is the one indicated in the accompanying letter to this call for tenders. Tenderers are requested to put any questions in writing and to send them to the following functional mailbox:

EACEA-TENDERS@ec.europa.eu

For legal reasons, queries by telephone cannot be taken into consideration.

3. TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS

3.1. Context of the contract

In March 2002, the Barcelona European Council called on the European Commission to “undertake a feasibility study to identify options for helping secondary schools to establish or enhance an Internet twinning link with a partner school elsewhere in Europe”. The Commission submitted a report to the Seville European Council in June 2002 on using the Internet to develop twinning between European secondary schools.

“E-twinning of schools in Europe and promotion of teachers' training” (eTwinning) was subsequently integrated into the eLearning programme 2004-2006 as an action both for primary and secondary schools. The objective of the action was to strengthen and develop school networking via a European-wide scheme which would make it possible for all European schools to build pedagogical partnerships with a school elsewhere in Europe.

2 http://ec.europa.eu/budget/library/contracts_grants/info_contracts/privacy_statement_en.pdf

3 http://ec.europa.eu/budget/library/sound_fin_mgt/privacy_statement_ced_en.pdf9

eTwinning was officially launched in January 2005. Since then it has developed as a major school action in Europe with thousands of projects and more than 160,0004 school teachers registered.

eTwinning is now part of Comenius5, the sectoral programme for schools under the Lifelong Learning Programme6 (LLP). Its legal basis is Decision No 1720/2006/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 15 November 2006 establishing an action programme in the field of lifelong learning.

eTwinning7 is today open exclusively to teachers and other school staff from pre-primary to upper secondary schools. It offers them four main sets of services:

ideas, advice, and a safe online environment for setting up and carrying out pedagogical projects with partners in other European countries;

professional networking in a European context, including tools for finding partners for eTwinning projects and Comenius partnerships, forums and communities of practice ("Teachers rooms" and "eTwinning Groups");

further education opportunities both in face-to-face settings ("Professional Development Workshops", national, bilateral and multilateral seminars) and online ("Learning Events", courses for eTwinning ambassadors8, mentorships and peer learning activities);

recognition in the form of national and European quality labels and awards.

Support for participating teachers is provided at national and at European level.

At national level, the National Support Services9 (NSSs) have been assigned to organisations appointed by the ministries of education. The NSS are responsible in particular for promoting eTwinning in their countries, helping teachers to set up and carry out their projects, rewarding schools for their successful participation in eTwinning projects, organising specific training sessions for teachers and ensuring that eTwinning evolves in a way which fits the particular needs of local schools. They receive a grant from the European Commission that covers 80% of their operational costs. Reports of the NSS can be found under this link10.

4 See statistics on: http://www.etwinning.net/en/pub/news/press_corner/statistics.cfm

5 http://ec.europa.eu/education/lifelong-learning-programme/comenius_en.htm

6 http://ec.europa.eu/education/lifelong-learning-programme/doc78_en.htm

7 http://www.etwinning.net/fr/pub/index.htm

8 "eTwinning ambassadors" are experienced eTwinners working at local and national level to support other teachers and promote eTwinning. They are appointed by their National Support Services.

9 http://www.etwinning.net/en/pub/get_support/contact.htm

10 http://eacea.ec.europa.eu/llp/project_reports/project_reports_comenius_en.php10

At European level, the Central Support Service11 (CSS) is responsible in particular for the eTwinning platform, a fully multilingual12 website offering tools and services through which teachers can register, find partners and work together. The CSS also plays an active part in the strategic development of eTwinning, provides pedagogical and technical helpdesk services, organises specific training sessions for teachers13 on eTwinning, and coordinates, together with the European Commission and the EACEA14, the network of National Support Services.

The European Commission is negotiating the partial participation in eTwinning of certain neighbourhood countries: Eastern Partnership countries (Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine; Belarus may join at a later stage), Egypt and Tunisia. The Central Support Service is currently developing, under a separate contract, a sub-platform for those countries available also in Russian and Arabic. Similar functions to those of the NSSs will be performed by Partner Support Agencies (PSAs) co-funded by the European Commission.

In its proposal for Erasmus for All15, the new programme for education, youth, culture and sport for the period 2014-2020, the European Commission foresees an expanded role for eTwinning as the foundation of all European cooperation between schools. The following innovations are foreseen:

– a strengthened platform for cooperation between schools;

– integration of the eTwinning platform in a new, easy-to-use European School Education Gateway;

– specific collaborative environments for school policy actors and for other stakeholders;

– an external section allowing teachers to network and collaborate with teachers in other parts of the world;

- a significant expansion of professional development opportunities offered to teachers.

These functionalities will be developed during the second semester of 2013 in order to be in place for the start of the Erasmus for All Programme in 2014.

11 http://www.etwinning.net/en/pub/discover/support_services.htm

12 Available in Bulgarian, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Estonian, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hungarian, Italian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Maltese, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Slovak, Slovene, Spanish, Swedish and Turkish. 13 http://www.etwinning.net/en/pub/progress/european_workshops.htm

14 http://eacea.ec.europa.eu/index_en.php

15 http://ec.europa.eu/education/erasmus-for-all/11

3.2. Objectives of the contract and expected results

3.2.1. Objectives of the contract

The overall objectives to which this contract will contribute are:

– to improve the effectiveness and the visibility of EU policy and action for schools;

– to support and further develop the networking of schools and teachers in Europe;

– to promote innovative cooperation methods and transfer of quality educational approaches;

– to foster the development of teachers' professional skills;

– to increase the visibility of good and innovative practice developed in the context of EU action for schools.

The specific objectives of this contract are twofold:

(1) Central Support Service for eTwinning:

to provide improved and expanded central support services for the implementation of the eTwinning action.

(2) Support of EU action for schools :

to support and to increase the visibility of EU policy and action for schools and to facilitate the collaboration between relevant stakeholders. This includes the development, management and maintenance of a web gateway that should act as a single entry point for teachers, schools, experts and other players in the school education field, allowing them to access relevant information about EU policy and action for schools as well as specific areas for interaction.

3.2.2. Expected results

Tenderers shall commit themselves to achieving the expected results indicated below. They shall indicate the concrete actions they intend to implement in order to reach the expected results, how they intend to measure the success of their actions (indicators) and what they aim to achieve (targets).

3.2.2.1. Central Support Service for eTwinning

– the undisrupted provision of the services of the eTwinning platform (minimum 99,5% of uptime);

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– a significant increase in the number of visitors to the eTwinning portal and active users of the eTwinning platform16;

– a significant rise in the participation of schools in projects and other eTwinning activities;an improved, highly integrated, well-performing, accessible and scalable eTwinning platform, designed with a user centred perspective;

– an easy-to-use area on the eTwinning platform devoted to the involvement in eTwinning of teacher educators and student teachers;

– an area on the eTwinning platform devoted to facilitating the interaction and collaboration between schools from countries participating in the LLP or Erasmus for All17 programmes with schools in other countries;

– effective coordination of the eTwinning support network (eTwinning NSSs);

– a well-functioning, dedicated web interface allowing National Support Services to easily manage eTwinning at country level and to report on their activities;

– a well-functioning, dedicated web interface allowing the Steering Committee (see point 20) to follow activities that take place at European and national level and to retrieve relevant data in real time;

– high level of satisfaction with the training and helpdesk services provided by the Central Support Service to the staff of the eTwinning National Support Services (NSSs);

– well-moderated eTwinning online communities;

– well-designed and effectively implemented communication and promotion activities;

– continuous provision and scale-up of teachers’ professional development opportunities through eTwinning;

– high visibility for good eTwinning practice;

– an efficient system to give recognition to and reward teachers for their successful participation in eTwinning activities;

– relevant and readily available monitoring data on the take-up and impact of eTwinning;

– a high standard of editorial and linguistic quality in the content of online and paper publications on eTwinning;

– a high level of satisfaction of schools with eTwinning, including the eTwinning platform and other services provided by the Central Support Service.

3.2.2.2. Support of EU action for schools

– an easy to use, well-designed and maintained multilingual European web gateway on school education providing:

16 Data on visitors are available in the webpage: http://eacea.ec.europa.eu/about/call_tenders/2012/call_tenders_01_2012_en.php

17 From 2014 on, subject to the final adoption of the Erasmus for All programme. 13

– high visibility for European school education policy and action;

– a high standard of editorial and linguistic quality of content;

– effective coordination and collaboration with all actors involved in the development of EU school policy and the implementation of the LLP and Erasmus for All programmes (relevant services in DG EAC, National Agencies and EACEA);

– effective dissemination of good and innovative practice developed in the context of EU action for schools;

– well-designed and effective promotion activities to attract and retain users on the gateway for school education;

– a well-designed and maintained online collaboration area for policy makers and partners in large strategic multilateral projects in the field of school education.

3.2.3. Indicative time schedule and deliverables

The indicative intended commencement date is 1st July 2013. Actual commencement will take place after entry into force of the contract. The initial period of execution of the contract will be 12 months.

3.3. Services

3.3.1. Geographical area to be covered

All 27 Member States of the European Union and Croatia; as well as Norway, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Turkey, Switzerland, and the countries of the Western Balkans18 subject to the signature of a Memorandum of Understanding for the participation of these countries in the Erasmus for All Programme.

3.3.2. Target groups

Policy makers and experts in the field of school education; teacher training institutions, teachers, headmasters and other school staff, general public interested in school education, LLP and Erasmus for All National Agencies and eTwinning National Support Services.

3.3.3. Specific activities

3.3.3.1. Central Support Service for eTwinning

In its role as Central Support Service for eTwinning (CSS) the contractor will perform the following tasks, which are described in more details below in the the following sections and which define the minimum requirements to be fulfilled under the contract:

18 Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia14

– A) Coordinating and moderating the eTwinning support network (see "Coordination of the eTwinning support network")

– B) Developing, enhancing, managing and maintaining the eTwinning platform (see "eTwinning platform")

– C) Facilitating, moderating and managing on-line communities (see "Community Management");

– D) Providing services aimed at the professional development of teachers (see "Teacher professional development");

– E) Promoting and giving visibility to eTwinning (see "Communication and promotion");

– F) Providing pedagogical support and monitoring the development and the impact of eTwinning (see "General monitoring of eTwinning and pedagogical steering of eTwinning").

Minimum requirements and ways of providing these services are given below, but tenderers should feel free to propose their own vision and methods, and any additional support services they may consider necessary for the successful development of eTwinning.

To make it easier to compare bids, such additional services not included in the minimum requirements, if any, should be clearly separated in the budget form and will not be taken into account for the financial evaluation of the bids.

In order to gain a better understanding of the nature of the services requested and the way in which some of them have been provided so far, Tenderers should refer to the current eTwinning portal19 and to this web page20, which contains links to the executive summaries of the final reports of the CSS, to a technical description of the current platform and to recommendations of an independent study on usability and technical scenarios for the future. From this webpage, the tenderer will be able to access restricted areas of the platform.

A) Coordination of the eTwinning support networkThe CSS shall coordinate the network of NSSs in close cooperation with the European Commission and the EACEA.

This coordination involves the following tasks:

– maintaining contact and exchanging information with NSSs staff on a day to day basis;

– planning, organising, hosting and moderating the periodic joint CSS/NSS meetings in Brussels (at least twice a year); this includes drawing up the agenda and chairing the meetings;

– planning, organising, hosting and moderating face-to-face and online meetings of the joint CSS/NSS working groups and task forces (as a reference, there are currently three working groups on European and national eTwinning portals, on communication and networking and on pedagogical issues; each working group meets three times a year);

19 http://www.etwinning.net/en/pub/index.htm

20 http://eacea.ec.europa.eu/about/call_tenders/2012/call_tenders_01_2012_en.php15

– making available and moderating a community platform devoted to the members of the support network accessible through the NSS desktop (see "B eTwinning Platform" below) for exchanging information, discussing common interest issues and collaborating in general;

– contributing to the training of new staff of NSSs, particularly when a new country joins eTwinning;

– gathering and disseminating good practice by the NSSs.

Tenderers are free to suggest their own vision for the coordination of the eTwinning support network, including alternative and/or additional tasks.

B) eTwinning platform

The eTwinning platform21 is a central feature of eTwinning. It allows teachers to get to know about this initiative and its benefits, register for participation, communicate with their peers in a professional environment, take part in teacher education activities, share resources, ideas and experiences, search for project ideas and examples, find suitable partners, communicate and plan their collaborative work and implement their projects with their pupils in a secure collaborative virtual space. In addition, it has restricted work areas for the Steering Committee (see under section 1.2. Management of the call for tenders) and the eTwinning support network (see under section 3.2.2.1.) with specific management and monitoring tools and applications. A detailed technical description of the platform can be found on this web page22. The platform currently consists of the following components:

– a public part (eTwinning portal) designed to inform all interested audiences about eTwinning and its benefits, to showcase good practice and project ideas and to allow teachers to register;

– a social web environment for registered users (Users' Desktop), where teachers can create and manage their profiles, look for partners among other registered teachers through a partner-finding tool and partner finding forums; communicate with them through an internal messaging system, set up and/or participate in online discussions (Teachers rooms), manage their projects and upload and download educational resources;

– a teachers professional development area (eTwinning Learning Lab) for users to take part in Learning Events and online courses;

– collaboration spaces for registered projects (TwinSpaces), i.e. private and secured areas allowing partners in a project (teachers and pupils) to communicate and share resources and offering them groupware and other tools for enhancing cooperation;

– a work area with groupware for structured and moderated communities of practice (eTwinning Groups), including a specific community area for the eTwinning support network;

21 http://www.etwinning.net/en/pub/index.htm

22 http://eacea.ec.europa.eu/about/call_tenders/2012/call_tenders_01_2012_en.php16

– a specific desktop for National Support Services (NSS Desktop), allowing them to manage data on the schools in their countries, to monitor the progress of projects, to handle quality labels and prize submissions;

– a specific desktop with monitoring tools for the Steering Committee (eTwinning SteerCom Desktop).

The following features are under development planned for the next few months, but are not part of the services to be provided by the contractor:

– a desktop similar to the NSS Desktop for Partner Support Agencies in Eastern Partnership and South Mediterranean countries (PSA Desktop);

– a specific environment in English, Russian and Arabic with adapted roles for teachers from the Eastern Partnership and South Mediterranean countries (planned).

The contractor will have to improve, update, and further develop or replace the current platform so that it serves in the best possible way its main purposes of facilitating the networking of schools, the participation of teachers and pupils in collaborative projects, and the professional development of teachers in Europe in an optimal way. In particular, they will have to improve the platform in order to make it more integrated, flexible, manageable and scalable, able to cope with a significantly higher number of users and to integrate relevant future developments in social and semantic web tools. The contractor will also be responsible for the hosting, management and maintenance of the platform. Tenderers may consult for reference the recommendations of the independent study on technical scenarios for the development of the platform accessible on this web page23.

The specifications of the various required components of the platform are listed below. The tender may refer to those components and to the main functionalities of the current platform and suggest concrete improvements and/or alternative solutions as well as further developments. On the basis of an analysis of needs, it should also identify new functionalities and services that could be offered to the users. The rationale and the approach concerning those improvements, alternative solutions, further developments and new functionalities shall be an integral part of the tender and an important element of comparison of the quality of the various offers.

The tender should contain a proposal for the general architecture and functions of the proposed platform, a detailed description of its main features and various tools and a time schedule for its development.

General and technical provisions

1. Hosting2. Takeover and handover of content and data3. Usability4. Accessibility5. Performance6. Traffic7. Prototyping and testing8. Multilinguism and translation23 http://eacea.ec.europa.eu/about/call_tenders/2012/call_tenders_01_2012_en.php

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9. Registration, databases, user profiles and data protection10. Intellectual property rights11. Privacy and data protection12. Helpdesk13. Platform updates and upgrading14. Quality assurance and control15. Components of the platform16. Public portal17. Desktop for registered users18. Collaboration platform for partners in projects (Twinspace)19. Desktop for NSSs20. Steering Committee Desktop

1. Hosting

The contractor will ensure that the eTwinning platform is hosted in a secure environment.

The platform should be accessible 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and 365 days a year and should be properly supervised. Its underlying databases, directories, middleware and tools must be protected against malicious access, viruses, worm propagation and other Internet threats using state of the art technology.

Every effort must be made to ensure the permanence of the site and the security, safety and continuity of the information it contains and the services it offers. This includes the requirement to make regular back-ups of the site, and to ensure speedy recovery in the event of system failure, with minimum loss of data. The tender should state clearly what security measures will be taken to protect the site from attacks and damage. It must also specify the level of availability of the platform that can be offered, the guaranteed recovery time following a system failure and how the Tenderer intends to measure and monitor such availability.

The level of supervision, as well as the backup frequency, recovery time after failure, response time and availability should be specified in a draft Service Level Agreement to be submitted by the Tenderer to the approval of EACEA not later than three months after the signature of the contract.

Specific cost for hosting shall be indicated separately as foreseen in the budget form in annex.

2. Takeover and handover of content and data

In close collaboration with the current contractor, the successful Tenderer will have to ensure the smooth uptake of the content and data of the current platform without disruption to the functioning of the action. This may require the extension of the current contract during a limited transitional period, not longer than six months after the signature of the new contract to be awarded through this open call (EACEA/2012/01). This transitional period should make it possible for the new contractor to take over or put in place the platform with all its data and main functionalities. In any case, the platform must be fully operational in January 2014.

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Tenderers will have to keep in mind that, during the contract's maximum total period, a decision might be made to integrate the platform into Europa.eu, the official portal of the European Union's institutions, or into the website of EACEA and to host it in the European Commission’s data centre. Should this be the case, and in any event at the end of the contract, the contractor will have to ensure the smooth handover of the necessary technical tools and all the data contained in the platform, together with complete technical documentation, and any other material connected with establishing and operating it, in an industry standard format to the EACEA or to its nominee. The contractor will also have to provide the necessary training for the takeover of the platform.

Throughout the contract's maximum total period, the contractor will have to keep at the disposal of EACEA complete and updated documentation of the platform and all its elements.

In order to facilitate the handover of the platform, Tenderers shall refer to the Information Providers Guide24, which gives an overview of the editorial, technical and graphic requirements of the Europa site.

3. Usability

User centeredness and usability should be a major concern in the design and development of the platform. The contractor will have to make sure that navigation, language style, information and interaction design are clear and do not constitute a barrier to full participation in eTwinning. Tools should be as intuitive and easy to use and to learn as possible. Contextual help should be made available to users to the extent necessary for them to interact smoothly with the platform. Special attention should be given to the fact that the target audience is formed by users having very different degrees of familiarity with ICT tools. The tenderer should specify the provisions they intend to take in order to ensure an optimum level of usability of all platform services. These should include:

– the periodic implementation of usability tests and feedback surveys among potential and actual users in order to better comprehend their expectations, the way they actually understand and use the platform and the problems they encounter, and to put in place the necessary improvements if needed. In particular, the launch of the new platform and of any major release should be preceded by usability tests that should look into the response in terms of performance, accuracy, recall and emotional reaction of representative users (both experienced and inexperienced eTwinners) when performing a set scenario with typical basic tasks;

– the drafting of a user interface style guide based on evidence gathered through usability tests and surveys that the contractor will comply with in order to ensure consistency in design and navigation across the complete platform.

4. Accessibility

The platform shall be created or gradually adapted to conform to the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.025, level AA. In case of justified technical or practical reasons for not complying with these guidelines, the exceptions should be explained in an accessibility page.

24 http://ec.europa.eu/ipg/19

5. Performance

The technologies used to create, administer, operate and maintain the eTwinning platform must be state-of-the-art, based on international technical standards, able to deal with an increasingly large amount of traffic, allow possible extensions, evolutions, further integration of new technologies, and be adjustable to new requirements that may emerge from new technological developments or from users’ feedback. In particular, they will include the most advanced operational tools to support group work.

The platform should be developed using standard-compliant codes in order to ensure that it works well on a wide variety of platforms and devices. In particular, it must be fully compatible with all web browsers that have a market share of more than 3% of the European market and be reasonably compatible with all major browsers for mobile platforms and for users with disabilities.

In view of the very large and steadily increasing number of users of the platform, its architecture and components should be highly scalable. The contractor will have to ensure that the platform is able to support without deterioration in its response time and performance:

– 600,000 registered users;

– 30,000 concurrent users;

– 20,000 simultaneous projects (and therefore, actively used TwinSpaces);

– 400,000 daily visits to the TwinSpaces;

– 100,000 daily visits to the eTwinning platform (portal and Desktop);

– a significant increase in the number of interactions among users (internal messaging, posts in forums and member profiles, chat-rooms);

– significant increase of tracking and processing of data relating to users' actions and behaviours in order to profile users and provide them with a rich experience in the usage of the platform;

– a rich set of filtering criteria to ensure a high degree of accuracy of searches generated by users;

– high level of sophistication and accuracy in statistical data and in the monitoring of users' behaviour on the platform.

6. Traffic

The tender should specify the means and parameters they intend to use for measuring the quantity of traffic to the platform and its different components (unique visitors, visitors, demographics, referrals, time spent per visit, etc.) as well as the measures the Tenderer intends to take in order to promote traffic (see section E of this document: Communication and promotion). The EACEA reserves the right to require that information about the traffic be made highly visible to users.

7. Prototyping and testing

25 http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG/20

The development of the platform and its different functions should be undertaken in a staged approach, using prototypes and wireframes based on use cases and user scenarios to be discussed at the meetings between the contractor and the Steering Committee before final acceptance.

The tender must clearly specify the routines and scenarios that will be run to test usability, accessibility (including level AA WAI), security and technical performance (including volume, capacity and response time for 30 000 concurrent users).

8. Multilingualism and translation

Since the objective of eTwinning is to mainstream school collaboration and thus to reach the maximum number of schools and teachers, full multilingualism should remain an important feature of the eTwinning platform. The general and most stable information, such as navigation elements, articles, news, guidelines, description of features, contextual help and registration forms, must be made available in the following languages: Bulgarian, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Estonian, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hungarian, Italian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Maltese, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Slovak, Slovenian, Spanish, Swedish and Turkish. Specific and less stable information, such as national news and detailed information on individual projects may be published in a smaller number of languages. The languages to be used should be those most widely understood by the specific target audience of the information involved. Any practice of reducing the number of languages in which an item of information is posted on the portal should be the exception to the general rule of complete multilingualism. The total number of standard original pages (1.500 characters excluding spaces) to be translated into those languages every year by the CSS for the portal and for paper publications is estimated at 500.

As far as possible, languages should not be mixed on any given single page. In general, translations made available on the platform will be provided by the contractor and validated, if required, by the NSSs. This network could also be required to contribute to the translation and localisation of other texts for the platform, such as information on selected projects. Tenderers should set out what arrangements they intend to make for efficient and timely management of translations and to ensure the linguistic quality of the text published in the platform. The bid should include a sufficient budget for translations. Provision must be made for an increase in the number of language versions, should new countries join eTwinning. In order to facilitate the comparison of bids, the price of adding a new language should be indicated separately as an option in the budget form.

9. Registration, databases, user profiles

The platform should include relational multilingual databases of registered users and projects, and of other eTwinning activities performed by users such as the participation in professional development activities.

The following categories of users will be entitled to register in the eTwinning platform:

– teachers and other school staff (school heads, librarians, school psychologists, etc.) working in a school from the countries participating in the Lifelong Learning or Erasmus for all programmes;

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– people specifically authorised by the National Support Services to play the role of advisor;

– teacher educators working in a teacher training institution approved by the relevant National Support Service (access restrictions to be decided in agreement with the Steering Committee);

– on a temporary basis, student teachers registered in a teacher training institution approved by the relevant National Support Service (access restrictions to be decided in agreement with the Steering Committee);

– any other category at the request of the Steering Committee.

When logging in to the platform, each category of users should have access to a customised desktop with differentiated information, rights and restrictions. The tender should specify the provisions to be made for the online registration of users, for the definition of differentiated user profiles (in agreement with the Steering Committee) and for a suitable level of protection of user data to prevent abuse or inappropriate use. Registration should be made as simple as possible for the user, requiring only relevant information.

The database of registered users should allow partner-finding tools to operate effectively and offer well targeted and accurate results. It should contain all the relevant information for this purpose and for general reporting on the development of eTwinning. It should include, in particular, data on the school, profile of the person registered, their availability and preferences for an eTwinning project as well as regional data. Data fields will have to be agreed with the Steering Committee in order to ensure consistency with the data required in other actions of the Lifelong Learning or Erasmus for All programmes and the availability of all data needed for monitoring and reporting purposes.

The database of registered projects should allow information to be readily retrieved, such as the status, duration and themes of projects, partners (both founding and invited partners, including those from countries not covered by the programme), number of participating students, communication languages used, etc. Data should be input by teachers at the most appropriate stage (school or project registration, running project, closing projects). Partners should be encouraged and offered the possibility of updating their data.

10. Intellectual property rights

The contractor will take appropriate measures in order to ensure that intellectual property rights are duly taken into account by users of the platform. When linking to educational material and software, the portal should provide clear information on authors and their rights, on the status of resources and on the rights and responsibilities of users. In this regards, tenderers are invited to consult also section 7 of these Tendering Specifications, Intellectual Property Rights.

They should also provide help and assistance to users on the compliance with intellectual property right requirements.

11. Privacy and data protection

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The EACEA is subject to specific legal obligations concerning the protection of personal data and their processing. These obligations are described in Regulation (EC) No 45/200126 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 18 December 2000 on the protection of individuals with regard to the processing of personal data by the Community institutions and bodies and on the free movement of such data.

All data concerning registered users should be carefully protected and may only be used for the purposes of eTwinning. No personal data can be transferred to third parties without the consent of the data subject and the written agreement of the data controller of the Contracting Authority.The contractor shall act only on instructions from the data controller.

Data related to users’ behaviour within the various areas of the eTwinning platform may be used only for the purpose of carrying out research and monitoring by the Central Support Service, the National Support Services, national or regional school authorities and other third parties such as research centres and universities. All usage of data by the actors mentioned above must be communicated to the data controller of the Contracting Authority, who reserves the right to deny authorisation to such use.

Registration pages should clearly display a privacy statement to inform those registering of the processing of their personal data and of their rights relating to this processing. In particular, the privacy statement must identify what personal information is collected, for what purpose and through what technical means, who has access to the collected information and to whom it is disclosed, how data are protected and safeguarded, how information that concerns them can be verified, modified or deleted and for how long data is kept. The content of the privacy statement must be approved by the Contracting Authority.

The tenderer shall specify the measures that they intend to put in place in order to avoid unsuitable behaviour in the platform, such as infringements of intellectual property rights, the posting of inappropriate or misplaced comments, spamming or the usage of the platform for commercial purposes. Simple and robust reporting tools should be made available to users and efficient and quick reaction routines put in place.

Where personal data are processed by automated means, the tenderer shall specify the measures that they intend to put in place as appropriate in view of the risks in particular with the aim of:

(a) preventing any unauthorised person from gaining access to computer systems processing personal data;

(b) preventing any unauthorised reading, copying, alteration or removal of storage media;

(c) preventing any unauthorised memory inputs as well as any unauthorised disclosure, alteration or erasure of stored personal data;

(d) preventing unauthorised persons from using data-processing systems by means of data transmission facilities;

26 http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=OJ:L:2001:008:0001:0022:EN:PDF23

(e) ensuring that authorised users of a data-processing system can access no personal data other than those to which their access right refers;

(f) recording which personal data have been communicated, at what times and to whom;

(g) ensuring that it will subsequently be possible to check which personal data have been processed, at what times and by whom;

(h) ensuring that personal data being processed on behalf of third parties can be processed only in the manner prescribed by the contracting institution or body;

(i) ensuring that, during communication of personal data and during transport of storage media, the data cannot be read, copied or erased without authorisation;

(j) designing their organisational structure in such a way that it will meet the special requirements of data protection.

12. Helpdesk

The CSS shall provide a technical Help Desk service for users. Standard requests from schools and NSSs shall be answered within 48 hours. More complex questions shall be answered within one week.

13. Platform updates and upgrading

The platform and its various components shall be the subject of continuous debugging and regular adaptations in the hardware, software, information architecture and user interface in accordance with the evolution of the related technology.

In addition, during the maximum total period of the contract the eTwinning Steering Committee may require new features or different functionalities. These major changes would be the subject of additional contracts to be awarded to the contractor under a negotiated procedure.

14. Quality assurance and control

The offer must specify the quality standards to which the Tenderer will have to adhere and the proposed measures, resources and indicators to monitor and improve the quality of the portal. In particular, the provisions taken to guarantee usability, accessibility, function of the search engine and integrity of links and to monitor traffic and user satisfaction should be clearly stated.

Provision must also be made to proactively seek and implement user feedback, in order to correct technical faults and to streamline the site to users’ expectations.

15. Components of the platform

The eTwinning platform should contain at least the following components:

– a public portal;

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– a desktop for registered users, including a specific environment for teacher educators and teacher students as well as areas for collaboration and for the professional development of teachers;

– private collaboration areas for schools and teacher training institutions involved in projects;

– desktops for the National Support Services;

– a desktop for the Steering Committee.

The platform should be highly integrated and easy to navigate. Registered users should be able to access the various parts of the platform available to them with a single or a reduced sign-on. The graphical user interface and the navigation should be consistent across the platform.

The tender should include an outline of the general structures and functionalities of the eTwinning platform and its various elements.

16. Public portal

The main purpose of the public portal is to explain in clear terms to whom eTwinning is addressed and what it can offer to its target audiences, to allow access to the online registration form and to give high visibility to good eTwinning practice. The portal must include all relevant features, such as:

– general information about eTwinning (why and how to participate, general advice for successful participation, information about prizes and quality awards, contacts for support at national level, etc.);

– access to the registration form for teachers and other users interested in taking part in eTwinning and a login section allowing registered users to access the restricted parts of the platform available to them according to their specific profiles;

– a news section;

– interviews with teachers and other eTwinning stakeholders;

– a gallery of successful and inspiring eTwinning projects;

– an easily searchable gallery of project ideas, ready-made project kits and project modules based on successfully proven projects;

– access to private collaboration spaces of eTwinning projects whose partners have decided to make them partially public;

– access to public school profiles;

– access to electronic versions of paper publications on eTwinning;

– any other items of information that make for a better understanding of eTwinning and promote the participation of the maximum number of schools;

– restricted access to a dynamic and easily searchable database of registered schools and projects;

– access to an area informing European teachers about cooperation opportunities with schools in other parts of the world;

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– access to the school education portal (see point 3.3.3.2. B).

The Tenderer may propose other elements they deem appropriate. The contractor will have to decide in agreement with the eTwinning Steering Committee whether any of the elements listed above or proposed in the tender are only relevant for registered users and should be better placed in their desktop (see section below).

Tenderers should bear in mind the dynamic nature of the information, as eTwinning will evolve and progress from its present stage to increasingly more advanced applications and uses. Information and news must therefore be easily searchable and updated constantly and dynamically.

The public portal shall be available in Bulgarian, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Estonian, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hungarian, Italian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Maltese, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Slovak, Slovenian, Spanish, Swedish and Turkish.

17. Desktop for registered users

The desktop for registered users is a social web environment, where teachers and other users entitled to register in the eTwinning platform can create and manage their profiles, look for partners, communicate with each other, take part in forums, communities of practice and professional development activities, manage their projects and share educational resources.

The desktop should also feature information specifically targeted to registered users such as guidelines and tutorials on the use of eTwinning tools, announcements of professional development opportunities, country specific news generated by the National Support Services, etc.

The search for partners should be facilitated by means of a powerful and user-friendly search engine allowing registrants to make combined searches based on the data provided by users in their profiles.

Communication tools should also be made available in this area to enable teachers to communicate with each other, engage in professional discussions and plan their projects.

A powerful search engine should be made available to easily search forums in the desktop for registered users.

The desktop should include a section devoted to the professional development of eTwinning users and give access to the registration forms for projects.

The desktop should be customised to the specific categories of users (teachers and other educational staff, teacher trainers, advisors, etc) and offer them a customised view with access to the different features available to them according to their rights and restrictions agreed with the Steering Committee.

18. Collaboration platform for partners in projects ( TwinSpace )

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The TwinSpace shall be a safe private platform for project partners to communicate and work together. It should be password protected; access should be restricted to the members (teachers and pupils, or teacher educators and student teachers) of the corresponding registered project. As far as possible, the TwinSpace and the desktop should be accessed by teachers and other registered users through a single sign on.

The TwinSpace shall be available in Bulgarian, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Estonian, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hungarian, Italian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Maltese, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Slovak, Slovenian, Spanish, Swedish and Turkish. It shall be intuitive and appealing both to teachers and pupils in order to prevent as far as possible losing track of eTwinning projects implemented through alternative tools available outside the eTwinning platform.

The TwinSpace should have at least the following standard components: messaging (email, calendaring and contacts), team collaboration and real-time collaboration tools (instant messaging and web conferencing), file sharing, podcasting and web publishing tools, including blogs and wikis.

The Tenderer should consider the possibility of making available different versions of the TwinSpace, adapted to different types of users (experienced and inexperienced teachers, primary and secondary school projects, projects between teacher training institutions, etc.)

The TwinSpace should be kept state of the art and up to date with the developments in ICT, both in terms of software releases and new functionalities which become standard (see point 13 above, Platform updates and upgrading). The Tenderer should consider the integration of commonly used free or proprietary software into the platform.

The TwinSpace should offer sufficient capacity for uploading texts, audio files, images and videos, while ensuring normal performance.

19. Desktop for NSSs

The specific desktop for National Support Services should include functionalities for two types of tasks:

– Managing eTwinning at country level: easily retrieving data concerning registered schools and partnerships from the country; accepting, commenting on or rejecting partnership registrations; monitoring project progress; assessing quality labels and prize applications and any other useful functions for the everyday work of NSS staff members.

– Day to day reporting by NSSs on their work and the evolution of eTwinning in their countries. NSSs should be provided with tools for up to date reporting on events, training sessions and workshops run at national level- including number of participants -, promotional activities, publications, activities of "eTwinning ambassadors", contacts with national and regional authorities, media coverage of eTwinning, etc.

20. Steering Committee Desktop27

The Steering Committee desktop is a restricted desktop allowing the members of the Steering Committee (EACEA and European Commission) and the CSS to retrieve for monitoring purposes statistical data about the participation and the activities of users in the eTwinning platform and about the activities reported by the NSSs through their own desktops.

C) Community management

eTwinning aims to facilitate the networking of European schools and to promote the professional development of teachers and other school stakeholders through the sharing of ideas, knowledge, experience, know-how and resources among them. The services under this heading should contribute to these goals by creating opportunities for interaction and encouraging the active and effective participation of eTwinning users in discussion forums and communities of practice.

Given the growing number of such forums and communities (currently “Teachers Rooms”, “eTwinning Groups” and “Learning Events” on the eTwinning Portal27) and the multilingual nature of eTwinning, the Central Support Service will not be expected to moderate all of them directly but rather to monitor them, to set up, train and support a network of moderators, tutors and online leaders and to promote a culture of online collaboration among eTwinning users.

In particular the CSS shall:

– design the community engagement plan, define the moderation policy of the eTwinning platform and monitor its implementation;

– make available appropriate tools for community engagement and interaction among users in the eTwinning platform;

– identify and disseminate emerging good practice in community management and online moderation;

– organise Learning Events and courses, and produce self-teaching materials on online facilitation and netiquette;

– include online facilitation among the subjects dealt with in the training course for ambassadors;

– put in place efficient procedures and tools to protect users against spam and inappropriate user behaviour;

– put in place efficient mechanisms to promote peer moderation, including the possibility for users to flag and report inappropriate behaviour and routines for the CSS to react quickly and efficiently to user reporting;

– create incentives to promote the active and relevant participation of users in communities of practice and forums;

– make available contextual information on online facilitation and on netiquette in the eTwinning platform;

– encourage and support the active participation of NSS staff, eTwinning ambassadors and on line leaders in the moderation of forums and communities of practice;

27 http://www.etwinning.net/en/pub/index.htm28

– directly moderate those forums in which it is most involved (for instance, those concerning services provided by the CSS and the use of the eTwinning tools).

D) Teacher professional development

The CSS shall contribute to the professional development of eTwinning users and provide them with the necessary training to fully exploit the potential of European school collaboration and ICT for pedagogical innovation. This part of the services should be provided in close cooperation with the NSSs which will also offer online and face-to-face professional development opportunities to eTwinning registrants. The Central Support Service shall provide guidance to the NSSs, create specific training materials and resources to be adapted and used by the NSSs, as well as locate, collect, adapt and share with the entire support network information, educational materials and ideas from the relevant teacher training activities carried out at national level.

The CSS is required to monitor and assess all teacher training activities and to suggest how this area should develop, with the input of its pedagogical team and the collaboration of the NSSs.

The CSS should strive to allocate in a fair way the opportunities offered to eTwinning registrants to take part in professional development activities. The contractor will be expected to keep a record of participants in Learning Events, professional development workshops and online conferences and courses.

The training offered by the CSS should cover areas such as:

– innovative and collaborative teaching approaches;

– internationalisation strategies of schools;

– school subject related collaboration;

– cross-curricular collaboration inside schools;

– pedagogical use of information and communication technologies;

– online collaboration and moderation;

– specific training for eTwinning ambassadors;

– use of tools provided by the eTwinning portal;

– internet awareness (Internet safety, netiquette and intellectual property right issues);

– any other issues relevant for the implementation of eTwinning projects or for the successful participation in other activities for schools under the Erasmus for All programme (e.g. intercultural communication, project-based pedagogy, project planning and management, etc.)

The tender should foresee at least the following five professional development activities: 1. Learning events2. Online lectures3. Online courses4. Self-teaching materials5. Professional development workshops

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1. Learning events

The CSS shall run short intensive online events or webinars conducted by education experts that offer an introduction to a topic, stimulate ideas and interaction among participants and help to develop skills. Currently, each Learning Event lasts four to five days of active work and discussion followed by four to five days of reflection and personal work. The materials are presented in a multimedia way, including, audio, video, podcast, and text. The events include both synchronous and asynchronous interaction. A series of activities to be carried out by the participants is proposed and the outcomes are posted online or discussed. The average number of participants is around one hundred. Successful participants receive a certificate that proves that they have completed a sufficient number of the tasks proposed. The Tenderer is free to propose an alternative format for the Learning Events if they deem it more appropriate. To facilitate the comparison of bids, such an alternative format, if any, should refer to the format described above and offer equivalent impact. Learning Events should be offered in the most widely spoken languages in the eTwinning community.

The tasks of the CSS shall consist of organising the programme of Learning Events, hiring the experts and moderators (depending on the number of participants, one expert and one assistant moderator per Learning Event) training and supporting them in the use of the relevant tools, managing the registration of participants, establishing the criteria for their acceptance, keeping track of participants, gathering their feedback and issuing the certificates.

The financial offer should indicate the price for these services in the form of packages of ten Learning Events under the current format or the equivalent number of Learning Events under the proposed alternative format. The Steering Committee will decide the number of packages to include in each annual contract. For 2013, between one and three packages are foreseen.

2. Online lectures

The CSS should organise online lectures in the languages most widely spoken among the eTwinning users on subjects relevant to eTwinning, European school collaboration in general and school policy issues. The online lectures will involve one or more experts and, as far as possible, allow for interaction with the participants.

The tasks of the CSS shall consist of organising the programme of online lectures, hiring the experts, training and supporting them in the use of the relevant tools, managing the registration of participants and gathering their feedback. The issuing of certificates of attendance should also be considered.

The financial offer should indicate the prize for this service in the form of packages of five online lectures. The Steering Committee will decide the number of packages to include in each annual contract. For 2013, between one and two packages are foreseen.

3. Online courses

The CSS will organise and run online training courses for specific categories of users (for instance: eTwinning ambassadors, online facilitators and tutors, newcomers, etc.) on subjects relevant to European school collaboration. The web environment used for online courses should provide opportunities for both synchronous and asynchronous communication.

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The tasks of the CSS will consist of organising the programme of online courses, hiring the tutors, training and supporting them in the use of the relevant tools, managing the registration of participants, establishing the criteria for their acceptance, keeping track of participants, gathering their feedback and issuing certificates.

As a reference, online courses (or course modules) shall have a duration of six weeks. The tender should indicate the unit cost of developing and running an online course. For 2013, one online course is foreseen. For the following years, the number of such courses or modules to be offered each year will be decided by the Steering Committee.

4. Self-teaching materials

The professional development section of the desktop should include a well-structured and easily searchable sub-section featuring self-teaching resources for teachers and other eTwinning users, such as presentations, guidelines, tutorials, videos and podcasts. This section can also be fed with resources produced by eTwinning communities of practice, by the NSSs and resources generated in the context of other professional development services such as the Learning Events, online lectures and courses and of other actions and projects under the Lifelong Learning and Erasmus for All programmes.

The tasks of the CSS as regards this service shall consist of gathering, locating, and, if needed, formatting and editing relevant materials. This will require a close and proactive collaboration with all relevant actors (NSS, teachers in communities of practice, EACEA, partners in large projects carried out under the Lifelong Learning and Erasmus for All programmes, etc.) Tenderers are expected to explain their approach to the presentation and/or exploitation of self-teaching materials for eTwinning registrants.

5. Professional development workshops

The CSS shall organise face-to-face thematic workshops aimed at different categories of teachers and other eTwinning users which, in turn, should take place in different European locations. These workshops shall bring together around 25 teachers from the hosting country and 75 teachers from other countries for two full days (or equivalent).

They must be organised in collaboration with the relevant NSS, which will be responsible for hosting them. The selection of people attending these workshops will be made by their National Support Services, which will also cover their travel and subsistence costs. The tasks of the CSS shall consist of designing, together with the NSS, the workshops, tailoring them to the relevant target audiences (for instance, head teachers, science, maths, geography or language teachers, etc.) and providing trainers.

The number of workshops scheduled to take place during the first year is five; this number will be adjusted according the development of eTwinning at the beginning of each of the following years (up to twelve each year). Merging two or more workshops into a longer event, such as a thematic conference or a longer workshop taking place during school holidays (eTwinning summer academy), could be considered. The Steering Committee may also decide to discontinue the face-to-face professional development workshops.

The Tenderer is required to specify the unit costs of the workshops in the budget.31

E) Communication and promotion

Since the main objective of eTwinning is to contribute to the mainstreaming of cooperation between schools in Europe, the involvement of the maximum number of schools is of paramount importance for its success, as is a balanced distribution of schools and projects in terms of geographical coverage, types of school, age ranges, subject areas and communication languages used in projects. The CSS is expected to develop a dynamic and well-targeted communication strategy designed to publicise eTwinning at a European level and to coordinate the activities of the NSSs in this field.

The contractor will have to engage in diverse activities to promote eTwinning. Tenderers are required to submit a draft communication plan describing activities, target groups and information relays. The communication action plan of the successful Tenderer will have to be approved by the Steering Committee and be in line with the communication strategy of the Directorate-General for Education and Culture of the European Commission.

Promotional activities should clearly identify eTwinning as a action of the Lifelong Learning or Erasmus for All programme. Any eTwinning web page or publication must clearly display the relevant programme logo, which can be found on the Graphic Identity page of DG Education and Culture28.

The CSS shall coordinate its promotional activities with the NSSs. The CSS shall be expected to lead a joint NSSs/CSS working group on communication and promotion. Apart from the online communication activities through the eTwinning portal and the linkage with other relevant websites, the communication strategy should include the following elements:

- 1. Communication campaigns

- 2. Paper publications

- 3. Promotional videos

- 4. Prizes

- 5. Annual eTwinning Conference

- 6. Networking and media relations

Tenderers should feel free to propose any additional communication activities, such as online events, partner finding fairs or any other activities they may consider necessary or appropriate for the successful promotion of eTwinning. To facilitate the comparison of bids, such additional services, if any, should be clearly separated in the budget form.

1. Communication campaigns

Each year the CSS will have to design, coordinate and run an awareness-raising campaign in the first term of the school year ("back to school campaign").

The main objectives of the awareness-raising campaign at the beginning of the school year are to draw the attention of teachers, students and other stakeholders in school education to the pedagogical benefits of European school collaboration, to re-launch the registration of teachers of

28 http://ec.europa.eu/dgs/education_culture/publ/graphics/identity_en.htm32

schools and projects in eTwinning and to nurture the engagement of the eTwinning community. The tasks of the CSS include the organisation and moderation of the campaign activities at European level, the coordination of national activities and the creation of dedicated campaign web pages. The campaign could include short activities allowing teachers and pupils to meet and try out European school collaboration together, and/or a contest.

As an optional service that could be requested by the Steering Committee, the tender should include separately an additional thematic campaign. The subject of the campaign could be related to the theme of the European Year or to a priority policy area to which eTwinning could contribute, such as the prevention of early school leaving, the promotion of literacy and numeracy, science education, promotion of healthy lifestyles, sustainable development, etc. The tasks of the CSS include the organisation and moderation of the campaign activities at European level, the coordination of the national activities and the creation of dedicated campaign web pages.

2. Paper publications

In order to maximise the number of participants to eTwinning, to showcase good practice emerging from it and to increase the overall visibility of the action among all those involved in school education, the CSS shall produce a number of publications to complement the information made available on line.

As a minimum, the following publications shall be issued over the maximum total period of the contract:

– each year, a publication targeted at teachers, featuring a selection of outstanding eTwinning projects from the previous school year and/or any other content that could inspire teachers in their European collaboration activities and make them aware of the benefits and possibilities of eTwinning and other actions for schools under the Lifelong Learning and/or the Erasmus for All programmes. Depending on what decisions are taken by the Steering Committee for the following year, the publication could focus on thematic issues, while retaining its main function of giving visibility to good eTwinning practice. The role of the CSS shall consist of drafting, translating into all languages, creating the graphic design and layout, printing and distributing an adequate number of copies across Europe. The distribution plan should be prepared in cooperation with the National Support Services. The tender should take as a reference a 60 page publication in 25 languages distributed in a total of 40,000 copies. Unit costs for reprinting annual publications which run out of stock should be indicated separately The Steering Committee may agree with the contractor to replace this by equivalent services with the same value for money (for instance, replacing the single publication by one or several shorter publications, adapting the number of copies to be distributed, reducing or increasing the number of languages, etc.). The Steering Committee may decide in agreement with the contractor not to require this service for the first contract year.

– each year, at least one publication on the educational impacts of European school collaboration and eTwinning targeting policy-makers, school authorities, head teachers and other stakeholders in education. These publications must be printed in the 6 most widespread European languages, so as to reach the maximum number of interested people while keeping the cost at a reasonable level (for instance, in German, English, French, Italian, Polish and Spanish). The role of the CSS shall consist of drafting, translating into all relevant languages,

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creating the graphic design and layout, printing and distributing an adequate number of copies across Europe. The tender should take as a reference a 60 pages publication distributed in a total of 2000 copies in six languages. Unit costs for reprinting annual publication which run out of stock should be indicated separately. Alternative solutions with the same value for money may be agreed with the Steering Committee.

– promotional leaflets: this should be indicated separately in the tender as an additional service that could be requested by the Steering Committee. The services required from the CSS shall consist of drafting, translating into all relevant languages, creating the graphic design and layout, printing and distributing an adequate number of copies across Europe. The tender should take as a reference a folded A4 leaflet in six languages distributed in a total of 12.000 copies and indicate the price of 500 copies in one additional language. Alternative solutions with the same value for money may be agreed with the Steering Committee. Unit costs for reprinting should also be indicated separately.

– posters: this should be indicated separately in the tender as an additional service that could be requested by the Steering Committee. The tender should indicate the cost of designing, printing and distributing a total of 20,000 copies of a poster in 25 languages and the cost of adding 500 copies in an additional language. Unit costs for reprinting should also be indicated separately.

3. Promotional videos

The CSS shall produce good quality promotional videos every year. The videos should be subtitled in all languages. They could feature award winning projects or projects that clearly convey the pedagogical benefits of teachers' and pupils' participation in eTwinning activities. The contractor should actively seek ways to give the maximum visibility to the videos through the eTwinning platform and other relevant media and websites.

As a reference, the total duration of videos produced every year should be 30 minutes (credits not included).

4. Prizes

The contractor shall organise and run one or more European annual competition designed to reward the best eTwinning projects and give them maximum visibility. Prizes should be offered for at least six categories of projects based on age of the pupils, subject matters and for projects in the field of vocational education. The Tenderer may suggest additional prizes to reward outstanding projects. External sponsors for specific categories of projects can be accepted but will have to be approved by the Steering Committee. The prizes could consist of offering some of the winners (teachers and pupils) the opportunity to meet in person in an attractive location and to participate together in learning and leisure activities (cf. current "eTwinning camp29"). The price indicated for an eTwinning camp should include travel and accommodation for 100 prize winners during 5 days. A package for additional participants shall be indicated as additional service which will not form part of the financial evaluation of the bids. Tenderers are free to suggest other prizes they deem more appropriate. Specific prizes should be offered as an award to pre-school and very young primary pupils. Under the current contract, runners-up are given the possibility of 29 http://old-conference.etwinning.net/web/etwinning-camp-2010/home

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taking part in professional development workshops, but the Tenderer can consider similar or alternative prizes. All expenses related to the annual competition and award shall be covered by the contract.

Winning projects will be selected by the pedagogical team of the CSS (see 3.3.3.1.F) and/or by an external jury in collaboration with the National Support Services and the Steering Committee. The totality or part of the prizes should be awarded at the annual eTwinning conference (see below).

5. Annual eTwinning Conference

The CSS shall organise an annual eTwinning conference and prize award ceremony for a duration of 2 full days (or equivalent time): this will bring together a minimum of 400 participants, including teachers selected by the National Support Services, representatives of those services, the finalists of the annual eTwinning prizes and other school stakeholders. The conference should open up opportunities for the National Support Services and for the prize finalists to showcase the results achieved through eTwinning and for teachers to take part in workshops and to network and form new projects partnerships. The services to be provided include overall organisation and coordination, the design of the agenda, the hire of the premises, the remuneration of speakers along with the travel and subsistence costs for finalists and other relevant participants (for instance, representatives of teachers' unions or associations, journalists and other multipliers) for a total of 40 guests. The National Support Services will cover the travel and subsistence costs of the respective participating teachers.

The Steering Committee may decide not to require this service for the first contract year.

6. Networking and media relations

The CSS should actively seek and promote appropriate networking between eTwinning and other relevant initiatives and programmes, so as to take on board good practice developed elsewhere. It should also aim to maintain good working relationships with school authorities and opinion makers in schools in Europe and with the relevant media and other multipliers.

The tender shall include the costs of meetings with multipliers and eTwinning partners.

The CSS should also strive to establish good relations with the relevant media. In particular, it should issue press releases on eTwinning events and news that might be of media interest.

The tender should suggest ways of ensuring that eTwinning is represented with high visibility at relevant events, in particular exhibitions and conferences related to school education.

F) General monitoring and pedagogical steering of eTwinning

The CSS should work in close collaboration with the National Support Services to analyse and filter all information related to eTwinning projects in order to identify and promote good practice, teachers' professional development and pedagogical improvements. It should also help the EACEA and the European Commission to monitor and assess the success of eTwinning by producing qualitative and quantitative data of user involvement in the various eTwinning activities.

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The tender should suggest ways of following up on the direct impact of eTwinning and the trends emerging in its implementation, along with a set of parameters for monitoring and evaluation purposes. It should also produce indicators on the use of the support services offered by the CSS. It should define a methodology for collecting data with a minimum workload for users.

The CSS shall produce annotated statistics at least every three months and, at the request of the Steering Committee, will provide all the necessary information for reporting to the Lifelong Learning or Erasmus for All Programme Committee.

The monitoring, assessment and conceptual tasks of the Central Support Service shall be performed with the active involvement of a multinational team of experts in school development and school collaboration projects (hereafter "pedagogical team"). This team will be composed of permanent staff of the contractor and, if appropriate, external consultants. Their main tasks shall consist of:

– analysing teacher practice in European school projects;

– identifying teacher professional development needs;

– monitoring teacher training activities organised by NSSs and identifying best practices in this field;

– advising, where appropriate, the NSSs on teacher training;

– contributing to the design and running of professional development workshops, learning events, online lectures and courses;

– producing and/or locating self-teaching materials to be made available for eTwinning users in the professional development area of the desktop;

– participating in the design and running of workshops at the annual conference and the eTwinning camp;

– designing online training modules and project kits, based on existing good practice;

– drafting pedagogical guidelines for teachers;

– promoting the creation of communities of eTwinning practitioners and playing a role in their moderation;

– selecting eTwinning good practice projects to be showcased on the eTwinning platform;

– setting the award criteria for the European eTwinning prizes;

– on the basis of a shortlist established by the NSSs, selecting projects for the award of eTwinning prizes;

– setting criteria for the award of quality labels;

– designing pedagogical activities for the promotion campaigns;36

– assisting NSSs and teachers on pedagogy-related issues (helpdesk function);

– taking part in the production of publications;

– analysing external good practice relevant for eTwinning and liaising with the promoters of other projects that could be linked to eTwinning (in particular, projects funded by other Lifelong Learning and Erasmus for All programme actions).

3.3.3.2. Support of EU action for school

This section covers a set of services aimed at giving visibility and supporting EU policy and programme for schools. The contractor is expected to make available information as well as partner–finding and matching tools to facilitate the participation of the different categories of potential beneficiaries (schools, teachers, regional authorities, teacher education institutions, student teachers, school experts, policy makers, etc.) in the various actions of the future Erasmus for All programme related to school education. The precise nature of the services covered under this section will depend on the final form of the programme.

The contractor shall perform the following tasks which are the minimum requirements to be fulfilled under the contract:

A) Liaising with stakeholders

The contractor will be expected to take a proactive approach to the provision of the services covered by this section. This will require in particular a close coordination with EACEA and the the European Commission's Directorate General for Education and Culture and the establishment of appropriate working relations with other relevant stakeholders such as the LLP and Erasmus for All National Agencies and the partners in EU-funded multilateral projects.

B) European gateway on school education

The contractor shall conceive, develop, manage and maintain an EU gateway on school education. This should act as an easy to use single entry point to information relevant for schools and for all those interested in the school sector. In particular, it should give access through commented links to:

– news about European school policy and action;

– information about the Erasmus for All programme30, such as description of actions relevant to schools, funding opportunities, call for proposals, calendar of deadlines, etc.

– relevant school policy documents;

30 From 2014 on, subject to final adoption of the programme37

– sources of information on school systems such as Eurydice31, Eurypedia32 ;

– deep links to particularly relevant publications such as Key Data on Education in Europe33;

– resources for schools produced by the European Commission, such as Europa Teachers' Corner34 and Kids' Corner35 and from other sources;

– existing or newly created databases, repositories of products and galleries of good practice from EU funded projects, such as EVE36, European Shared Treasure37, Comenius maps38 or any other that could be created in the future.

The gateway should also feature a news section with timely information about European school policy and action, a section on events related to school education as well as a section to disseminate good practice emerging from the current LLP programme and the future Erasmus for All programme.

General and technical provisionsThe same general requirements concerning hosting, accessibility, usability, measuring of traffic, updates and upgrading, performance, prototyping and testing apply to the European gateway for school education as for the eTwinning platform, mutatis mutandis (see section 3.3.3.1.B) eTwinning Platform).

The level of supervision, as well as the backup frequency, recovery time after failure, response time and availability should be specified in the draft Service Level Agreement referred to in section 4.3.1 on page 51.

The tender must clearly specify the routines and scenarios provided for, as regards testing usability, accessibility and technical performance of the gateway.

Specific cost for gateway hosting shall be indicated separately in the budget form.

1. Information architecture2. Language versions and translations

31 http://eacea.ec.europa.eu/education/eurydice/index_en.php

32 https://webgate.ec.europa.eu/fpfis/mwikis/eurydice/index.php?title=Home

33 http://eacea.ec.europa.eu/education/eurydice/documents/key_data_series/134EN.pdf

34 http://europa.eu/teachers-corner/index_en.htm

35 http://europa.eu/kids-corner/index_en.htm

36 http://ec.europa.eu/dgs/education_culture/eve/

37 http://www.europeansharedtreasure.eu/

38 http://www.comeniusmaps.eu/en/pub/index.htm38

3. Production of content 4. News section 5. Identification, selection and disply of good practice in EU action for schools 6. Promotion

1. Information architecture

Given the diversity of target groups and sources of the gateway, it is of paramount importance that its content is well organised and presented in a coherent structure that the various categories of users can understand and navigate easily. The navigation of the gateway should also be facilitated through an efficient search engine. The tender should include a proposal of information architecture and components of the gateway, as well as wireframes of its various suggested sections.

2. Language versions and translations

The gateway shall be multilingual. Navigation and static elements should be available in Bulgarian, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Estonian, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hungarian, Italian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Maltese, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Slovak, Slovene, Spanish and Swedish. Provision must be made for an increase in the number of language versions, should new countries join the European Union.

In order to facilitate the comparison of bids, the price of adding a new language should be indicated separately as an option in the budget form and will not be taken into account for the financial evaluation of the bids.

Official documents and websites should be linked in all the languages in which they exist.

Dynamic information such as news, interviews and best practice examples may be published in a smaller number of languages: French, English, German, Italian, Spanish and Polish. Pages should display an embedded widget enabling machine translation into other languages.

The number of original pages (1.500 characters without spaces) to be translated into those languages every year by the contractor for the school education gateway is estimated at 100.

3. Production of content

The success of the gateway will be very much dependent on the relevance, accuracy, timeliness and conciseness of its content. Editorial work will constitute an important part of the contractor's tasks. In close collaboration with the relevant stakeholders (EACEA, European Commission services, National Agencies responsible for the implementation of the programme at country level, National Support Services for eTwinning), the contractor is expected to be proactive in the search for relevant information (including the information to be provided by EACEA and the European Commission).

4. News section

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The gateway should include a section featuring news items about European policy and action. News may concern the publication of important policy documents and reports. The selection of news to be published on the gateway will be performed in cooperation with the relevant sources and agreed with the EACEA's officer responsible for the contract. As a reference the gateway should be updated with a minimum of three news items per month.

5. Identification, selection and display of good practice in EU action for schools

This constitutes an important part of the services to be provided. In close collaboration with the relevant services of the European Commission, the EACEA, the Erasmus for All National Agencies and the eTwinning NSSs, the contractor shall identify good practice developed under the programme. This good practice should be processed and displayed on the gateway in an attractive way which facilitate its dissemination, for instance in the form of interviews, videos, project ideas and "project kits" or any appropriate other means the contractor may suggest. As a reference, the contractor will be expected to publish at least one item containing an example of good practice every month. Old items which are still relevant should remain accessible in an archive section.

Tenderers are free to suggest their own vision and methods for the successful dissemination of good practice.

6. Promotion

The success of the gateway will depend on its ability to attract a vast number of users. The contractor shall therefore engage in diverse promotional activities to effectively target the gateway’s broad potential audience and measures to monitor and report increased audience participation. These activities must aim to build the gateway’s reputation as a reliable and essential source of information on school education in Europe.

The promotional strategy should combine online and offline measures, such as: – search engine optimisation;

– keeping the gateway useful, alive and up to date through on-going content generation, including news information, good practice, updated links and newsletters;

– alerting users of events and deadlines;

– encouraging users to send portal information to their personal networks;

– establishing a suitable presence at conferences and events (for instance, through the distribution of promotional leaflets);

– maximising the web presence of the gateway through links in other relevant websites (regional and national school websites, websites of ministries of education, Erasmus for All National Agencies, eTwinning NSSs, teachers' associations, etc.)

The tender should specify which concrete means the Tenderer intends to put in place in order to promote the gateway. The contractor will submit to the approval of the Steering Committee a detailed communication plan not later than 9 months after the signature of the contract.

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C) Collaboration area for policy makers and other stakeholders

The gateway on school education should give access to password protected environments specifically designed for the online collaboration of the various policy and research groups on school education created, promoted or supported by the European Commission, including the partners in large multilateral projects. These environments should be easy to navigate and to use, and offer up-to-date tools for collaboration. Contextual help must be made available to facilitate its use.

At least the following functionalities should be available: file upload, messaging, conferencing, message boards, file sharing, file archives and calendar.

Group moderators of the collaboration areas should be given the possibility to make public the totality or part of the areas to members of other groups, to eTwinning users or to the wider public. Provision should be made for enabling policy makers to interact with the teaching community.

The tender should include a proposal for the general structure and functionalities of the collaboration area for policy makers.

3.4. Requirements

3.4.1. Personnel

The Contracting Authority estimates that between 1800 and 2400 person-days will be required to execute the tasks satisfactorily. It is expected that, of this total, the equivalent of a full time position will need to be provided for each of the key experts listed below. The Tenderer remains free to propose any allocation of resources which they believe will best achieve the desired results. The team proposed by the Tenderer must have the necessary language skills for the performance of the tasks. The languages of communication with EACEA about the contract will be English and/or French.

Key experts

All experts who have a crucial role in implementing the Contract are referred to as key experts. The profiles of the key experts for this Contract are set out below. It is not necessary that each of these profiles correspond to a single individual. One expert may have the skills and experience required to cover more than one role in the Contract. Equally, one role may be divided between two or more experts if the Tenderer believes that this will be the most effective way to achieve the desired results. They shall be assisted by as many experts as the contractor deem necessary to cover all the issues and all the countries involved in the contract. The team proposed by the Tenderer must have all the skills and experience described below:

Key expert 1: Project team leader

The project team leader shall ensure the general coordination of the project in close cooperation with the EACEA and the Steering Committee. (S)he will play an important role in the coordination of the eTwinning support network, manage the team working in the performance of

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the contract, be responsible for general organisation, follow-up and quality assurance, and assist and monitor subcontractors.

(S)he should be experienced in managing different strands of complex projects related to the school sector.

Qualifications and skills

– University degree.

– Team and project management skills, in particular with regard to the organisation of international projects in school education.

– Good conceptual, communication, language and interpersonal skills.

– Good knowledge of EU policy and action in the field of school education.

Professional experience

At least 7 years of proven experience in managing large scale cross-national projects in the field of school education.

Key expert 2: Pedagogical Manager

(S)he shall supervise the pedagogical team referred to under 3.3.3.1.F and coordinate the pedagogical tasks of the contract, including the identification and selection of good practice to be highlighted in the school portal and in the eTwinning platform.

Qualifications and skills

– University degree in education science or pedagogy or alternatively university degree in any other area and at least 15 years of teaching or school management experience.

– Team and project management skills.

– Good communication, language and interpersonal skills.

– Excellent knowledge of school issues in Europe and of EU policy and action in the field of school education.

Professional experience

At least 5 years of proven experience in large international projects in the field of school education. Direct work experience in a school environment is highly desirable.

Key expert 3: Community Manager

The community manager shall design and implement the online community strategy and promote engagement and interaction among the audiences targeted by the project. (S)he will also

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contribute to the definition of the moderation policy, collate user feedback and actively participate in the moderation of relevant forums, blogs and online events.

Qualifications and skills

Social media expert with university degree possessing excellent communication and interpersonal skills, ability to encourage and motivate people and good knowledge of the field of school education in Europe.

Professional experience

At least three years of proven experience in the management of online communities. Direct work experience in a school environment is highly desirable.

Key expert 4: Training and Development Manager

The training and development manager shall contribute to the identification of teachers' professional development needs, draw up a training plan, organise and manage the various teacher education opportunities provided under the contract, select and support the expert and trainers as well as evaluate success and participants' satisfaction.

Qualifications and skills

University degree and good organisational, communication, language and interpersonal skills. Good social media skills.

Professional experience

At least three years of proven experience in a relevant field (for instance, as online trainer, teacher trainer, teacher or training officer). Direct work experience in a school environment is highly desirable.

Key expert 5: Web editor

The web editor shall be responsible for the content and the implementation of the editorial policy of the eTwinning portal and the European portal on school education.

Qualifications and skills

University degree and excellent writing skills. (S)he should have a good understanding of best practices in writing for the web, and be comfortable with using web-based content management systems. Good knowledge of the field of school education in Europe.

Professional experience

At least five years of proven experience in a relevant field (for instance, as web editor, journalist, writer, online trainer, teacher trainer, teacher or training officer). Direct work experience in a school environment is highly desirable.

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Key expert 6: Web developer

(S)he shall be responsible for the design, layout and coding of the websites, the development of web tools and the general maintenance, debugging and continuous improvement of the technical platform with a user centred perspective.

Qualifications and skills

University degree and excellent knowledge of the web platform technologies (hardware and software). Sound understanding of web usability and information architecture.

Professional experience

At least seven years of proven experience in the field of IT development.

Other experts

The performance of the contract will also require further expertise in the following fields: pedagogy, online course management, educational design, web development, information architecture, database administration, graphic design, user interface and user experience, search engine optimisation, effective writing, edition, event organisation, translation and translation management. The tender must foresee sufficient resources devoted to IT development and maintenance, and to the administration of databases.

3.4.2. Resources to be provided by the contractor

The contractor shall ensure that the experts have the necessary support and resources, especially as regards administration, secretariat, translation and interpretation, to allow them to devote themselves fully to their task.

3.5. Location

The place of performance of the tasks shall be the Contractor's home office and any other locations where the key experts have their main place of work or where it may be appropriate for short-term inputs to be provided, subject to the approval of the Contracting Authority.

3.6. Reports

3.6.1. Terms of preparation and submission of technical reports

All reports shall be submitted to the Agency in 2 hard copies and 2 electronic versions in English. Electronic files shall be in Microsoft® Word for Windows format.

3.6.2. Final progress report

The final progress report shall be submitted within 60 days after the completion of the tasks covered by the Contract.

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The Agency shall have 90 days from receipt to approve or reject the final progress report and to pay the balance. In the absence of observations from the Agency within the deadline provided, the report shall be considered to be approved.

The Contractor shall have 30 days in which to submit additional information or a new final progress report, taking full account of the observations of the Agency, either by following them precisely, or by explaining clearly why not. Should the Agency still not consider the report acceptable, the contractor will be invited to amend the report until the Agency is satisfied.

The report must include at least the following:

a detailed and exhaustive description of all the services provided and the results obtained in performance of all contractual provisions;

a summary of the main results, including a description of difficulties encountered, solutions found and key recommendations;

all the annexes needed to justify the services provided as compared with the schedule drawn up and the tasks covered by the contract.

3.7. Budget

The maximum budget available is EUR 2.000.000. Should the contract be renewed, the maximum budget available for the first three potential renewals would be EUR 2.000.000 per year. For the subsequent four potential renewals the maximum budget available may be increased to EUR 2.500.000 per year.

4. EVALUATION AND AWARD OF THE CONTRACT

The evaluation will be based on the information provided by the tenderer in the tender submitted in reply to this call for tenders.

The Agency reserves the right to use any other information from public or specialist sources. All the information will be assessed in the light of the criteria set out in these specifications.

The evaluation will proceed in stages, as described below. Only the tenders meeting the requirements of each stage will pass on to the next stage of the evaluation. The final stage involves the award of the contract.

The stages of the evaluation procedure will be as follows:

1. Exclusion of tenderers

2. Selection of tenderers

3. Evaluation of tenders Technical evaluation on the basis of the award criteria Financial evaluation

4. Award of the contract45

4.1. Exclusion of tenderers

The purpose of these criteria is to determine whether a tenderer is authorised to participate in the tendering procedure according to Articles 93 and 94 of the Financial Regulation (Council Regulation 1605/2002 of 25/06/2002, as amended). Tenderers shall be excluded from participation in a procurement procedure if:

(a) they are bankrupt or being wound up, are having their affairs administered by the courts, have entered into an arrangement with creditors, have suspended business activities, are the subject of proceedings concerning those matters, or are in any analogous situation arising from a similar procedure provided for in national legislation or regulations;

(b) they have been convicted of an offence concerning their professional conduct by a judgement which has the force of res judicata;

(c) they have been guilty of grave professional misconduct proven by any means which the contracting authority can justify;

(d) they have not fulfilled obligations relating to the payment of social security contributions or the payment of taxes in accordance with the legal provisions of the country in which they are established or with those of the country of the contracting authority or those of the country where the contract is to be performed;

(e) they have been the subject of a judgement which has the force of res judicata for fraud, corruption, involvement in a criminal organisation or any other illegal activity detrimental to the Union's financial interests;

(f) they are currently subject to an administrative penalty referred to in Article 96 (1) of the Financial Regulation (Council Regulation 1605/2002 of 25/06/2002, as amended).

Contracts may not be awarded to candidates or tenderers who, during the procurement procedure: are subject to a conflict of interest;

are guilty of misrepresentation in supplying the information required by the contracting authority as a condition of participation in the tender procedure or fail to supply this information.

Tenderers must certify that they are not in one of the situations listed above, by completing and signing the form in Annex 4, Declaration on honour with respect to the exclusion criteria and absence of conflict of interest.

For joint tenders (consortia), each member of the consortium must submit the required documents. The exclusion criteria will be applied to each of the members of the group individually, and to the group as a whole.

(1) The winning tenderer will also provide evidence that they are not in any of the situations described in points (a), (b), (d) and (e) above. This evidence must be in one of the forms described in (2), (3) and (4) below and must be provided within two weeks from the receipt of the communication of the result of the evaluation. If the requested evidence is not submitted in due time, the contracting authority can award the contract to the tenderer evaluated as the next-best.

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(2) For situations described in (a), (b) and (e), production of a recent extract from the judicial record is required or, failing that, a recent equivalent document issued by a judicial or administrative authority in the country of origin or provenance showing that those requirements are satisfied. Where the tenderer is a legal person and the national legislation of the country in which the tenderer is established does not allow the provision of such documents for legal persons, the documents should be provided for natural persons, such as the company directors or any person with powers of representation, decision making or control in relation to the tenderer.

(3) For the situation described in point (d) above, recent certificates or letters issued by the competent authorities of the State concerned are required. These documents must provide evidence covering all taxes and social security contributions for which the tenderer is liable, including for example, VAT, income tax (natural persons only), company tax (legal persons only) and social security contributions.

(4) For any of the situations (a), (b), (d) or (e), where any document described in (2) or (3) above is not issued in the country concerned, it may be replaced by a sworn or, failing that, a solemn statement made by the interested party before a judicial or administrative authority, a notary or a qualified professional body in his country of origin or provenance.

(5) The contracting authority may waive the obligation of a candidate or tenderer to submit the documentary evidence referred to in paragraphs (1) to (4) if such evidence has already been submitted to it for the purposes of another procurement procedure and provided that the issuing date of the documents does not exceed one year and that they are still valid. In such a case, the candidate or tenderer shall declare on his honour that the documentary evidence has already been provided in a previous procurement procedure and confirm that no changes in his situation have occurred.

Administrative or financial penalties may be imposed by the contracting authority on tenderers who are in one of the cases of exclusion provided for above, in accordance with Articles 93, 94 and 96 of the Financial Regulation (Council Regulation 1605/2002 of 25/6/02, as amended) and Article 134 b of the Implementing Rules (Commission Regulation 2342/2002 of 23/12/2002, as amended).

4.2. Selection of tenderers

4.2.1. Professional capacity

In order to assess the professional capacity of the tenderer, the following information must be supplied:

name of the legal entity submitting the offer;

date of foundation of the legal entity submitting the offer;

copy of articles of association;

copy of enrolment in trade register (if applicable);

VAT number (if applicable);

Legal entity’s activities;47

composition of the board of directors (if applicable);

certificate dated less than 90 days previously, issued by the competent authority of the tenderer’s country showing that it has fulfilled all obligations concerning the payment of tax and social security contributions.

In the case of a consortium, all partners must provide the information required.

4.2.2. Economic and financial capacity

The tenderer must demonstrate sufficient economic and financial resources to be able to execute the tasks within the time schedule specified in these Tendering Specifications and according to the payment schedule specified in the model contract in Annex 1.

In order to assess the financial capacity of the tenderer the two following pieces of information must be supplied:

the presentation of balance sheets including the profit and loss accounts for the last two years for which accounts have been closed, where publication of the balance sheet is required under the company law of the country in which the economic operator is established;

the statement of overall turnover and turnover concerning the services covered by the contract during a period which may be no more than the last three financial years.

In the case of a consortium, all partners must provide the information required.

4.2.3. Technical capacity

The tenderer must comply with the following criteria:

1. have proven experience in coordinating, managing and running international and multilingual projects in the school education field;

2. have a proven experience of minimum 3 years in the provision of pedagogical services in the school education field at international level;

3. have a proven experience of minimum 3 years in the hosting of web services and in the development, running and maintenance of portals and databases in the field of school education. The Tenderer must provide evidence of having successfully completed projects involving diverse data source integration, hosting of web services (or control of hosting service provider) and large-scale public web applications;

4. have proven experience in the provision of communication and promotion services in the field of school education;

5. have at their disposal the required experts indicated in section 3.4.1 of these Tender Specifications;

6. have at their disposal the necessary technical equipment for performing the contract;

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7. have a quality assurance system in place.In order to assess the technical capacity of the tenderer, the following information must be supplied:

the educational and professional qualifications (CV's) of the Tenderer and/or those of the firm's managerial staff and, in particular, those of persons responsible for providing the services;

a list of the principal services provided in the past three years, with the sums, dates and recipients, public or private;

an activity report covering the past three years a description of the technical equipment to be employed by the firm for performing the

contract; an indication of the technicians or technical bodies involved, whether or not belonging

directly to the firm, especially those responsible for quality control.In the case of a consortium, all partners must provide the information required.

4.3. Evaluation of tenders

Tenders will be evaluated in relation to the criteria listed below.

The technical and financial evaluations will each be graded out of 100. The contract will be awarded to the tenderer whose offer represents the best value for money.

4.3.1. Technical evaluation

The following two qualitative criteria will be evaluated:

4.3.1.1. The general quality, impact and creativity of the Tender and its relevance to the objectives and results set out in these Tendering Specifications (60 points):

a) understanding of the objectives of the contract and the work to be carried out (10 points);

b) creativity and own contribution to the achievement of the objectives of the contract (10 points);

c) relevance and quality of the methodology proposed for the provision of the central support services for eTwinning (20 points);

d) relevance and quality of the methodology proposed for the provision of services for the support of EU action for schools (20 points);

4.3.1.2. The quality and adequacy of the proposed technical and organisational arrangements, including the appropriateness of the staff to the tasks (40 points):

a) quality and adequacy of the technical infrastructure allocated to the performance of the contract (20 points);

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b) appropriateness of the organisation of the team executing the required tasks (20 points).

Criterion 4.3.1.1. will be assessed on the basis of:

a methodology which the tenderer must provide, which will set out how the tenderer intends to achieve the objective and results set out in section 3, covering points such as: understanding of the purpose and nature of the tasks to be undertaken, time schedule, organisation of work, allocation of staff to different tasks, preliminary assessment of likely difficulties and likely results;

a policy paper prepared by the tenderer, setting out the tenderer’s approach to the issue of opportunities and challenges of the eTwinning action, its improvement and expansion;

a policy paper prepared by the tenderer, setting out the tenderer’s approach to the issue of support of EU policy and action for schools;

a detailed explanation of the main features of the proposed web platforms and portals and of their planned architecture with an example of the proposed designs;

a description of the ways of making the proposed web services attractive to target audiences as well as the ways of increasing the number of visitors and their return rate;

a methodology for content creation and management as well as for gathering relevant, accurate and timely information to be posted on the portals;

a description of the resources and procedures for ensuring effective multilingualism and a high standard of editorial and linguistic quality of the portal;

a communication and promotion plan including a summary of activities designed to promote eTwinning and EU action for schools;

a description of how the Tenderer intends to coordinate the eTwinning support network;

a description of how the Tenderer intends to manage online communities and to provide Teachers professional development services.

Criterion 4.3.1.2. will be assessed on the basis of:

a description of the technical infrastructure the Tenderer intends to allocate to the project;

a list of the software the Tenderer proposes to use for the project;

a draft Service Level Agreement in which the Tenderer will specify the level of security and availability of the proposed web services they intend to ensure;

specifications of the role to be performed by each member of the staff.

Offers which score a total of fewer than 65 points for the qualitative criteria will be rejected.

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In addition, any offer which scores below 50% of the maximum number of points available for any of the two qualitative criteria will be rejected.

4.3.2. Financial evaluation

Points will be awarded to the tenders eligible to participate in the financial evaluation on the basis of the following formula:

100 points will be awarded to the lowest-priced tender;

the following formula will be applied to the other tenders:(lowest-price tender/price of the tender in question) x 100.

4.4. Award of the contract

The contract will be awarded to the tenderer offering the best value for money:

This will be achieved by multiplying:

the result of the technical evaluation (number of points) by 0.65;

the result of the financial evaluation (number of points) by 0.35.

5. GENERAL CONDITIONS FOR THE AWARD OF CONTRACTS

1. Contract

The contract shall take the form of a service contract based on the model contract annexed to these specifications, amended and completed on the basis of the selected tender to which the general terms and conditions set out in the enclosed model contract shall apply. The contract shall be signed by the authorised representatives of the Agency and the tenderer.

In the case of a consortium, each contract shall be signed by the leader of the consortium in the name of all the consortium’s members. Each member of the consortium must sign a mandate acknowledging the signature of the contract by the consortium leader.

2. No obligation to award the contract

Initiation of a tendering procedure imposes no obligation on the Agency to award the contract.

The invitation to tender is in no way binding on the Agency. The Agency's contractual obligation commences only upon signature of the contract with the successful tenderer.

Up to the point of signature, the Agency may either abandon the procurement or cancel the award procedure, without the tenderers being entitled to claim any compensation. This decision must be substantiated and the tenderers notified.

6. PUBLICATION

Rights concerning the reports and those relating to their reproduction and publication will remain the property of the Agency. No document based, in whole or in part, upon the work undertaken in

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the context of the contract awarded following this tender may be published except with the prior formal written approval of the Agency.

7. INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS

The tenderers are invited to carefully read the Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) special provisions provided in the model Contract (Annex 1), in particular Article I.9, Article I.10 and Article II.10 therein.

If the result is not to be fully created for the purpose of the contract it is to be clearly pointed out in the tender. There should be information provided about the scope of pre-existing materials, their source and when and how rights to them have been acquired.

8. PLAGIARISM

In the tender all quotations or information originating from the sources and to which third parties may claim rights have to be clearly marked (source publication including date and place, creator, number full title etc.) in a way allowing easy identification.

9. ANNEXES (PROVIDED SEPERATELY)

The following documents are annexed to these Tendering Specifications, and form an integral part of them:

Annex 1: Model contract (for information)

Annex 2: Information on the tenderer/subcontractor (one copy must be completed and signed by the tenderer and by each of the subcontractors, as appropriate)

Annex 3: Price and budget breakdown (to be completed and signed by the tenderer)

Annex 4: Declaration on honour with respect to the exclusion criteria and absence of conflict of interest (to be completed and signed by the tenderer)

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