Provision of e-Learning Content Authoring Services Including Educational Animations

Item Description:

The European Asylum Support Office (EASO) would like to contract an experienced company able to produce e-learning content authoring services to build the online part of EASO Training Curriculum modules, as well as educational animations and info graphics to be embedded in e-learning courses. The procurement documents consist of the contract notice, the invitation letter, the draft contract and tender specifications with their respective annexes. All documents are available in enclosed ZIP File below.

About EASO

EASO is an operational regulatory agency set up in Malta with a mandate to strengthen Member States’ practical cooperation on asylum, support Member States whose asylum systems are under particular pressure and enhance the implementation of the Common European Asylum System (CEAS).

Regulation 439/2010 of the European Parliament and the Council of 19 May 2010, establishing a European Asylum Support Office (hereinafter referred to as the “EASO Regulation”) foresees in Article 6 (2) that EASO shall manage and develop a European asylum curriculum taking into account the Union’s existing cooperation in that field. The EASO Training Curriculum includes number of training modules relying on a “blended learning” scenario.

A training module is defined as a component of the curriculum on a particular topic, training as the use of one module and session as the organisation of a training with specific instructors and trainees in a defined period.

More background information about the European Asylum Support Office may be found on the website https://easo.europa.eu

The EASO Training Curriculum is supported by an e-learning platform, which relies on the Learning Management System (LMS) Moodle latest version 3.7, with customisations based on EASO requirements.

EASO LMS is cloud based and offered via Azure App Service (Platform as a Service). EASO LMS is hosted in a Linux based Azure App Service plan which operates on a Dedicated Premium V2 (2 cores, 7 GB RAM, 250GB storage) compute tier, that can cater for the needs of the platform; available resources are shared only between apps within the same App Service plan.

The current Moodle installation comprises of the following components:

• Moodle 3.7
• Apache 2.4.41
• PHP 7.3
• MySQL 5.7

This App Service Plan is running in a single region, comprises of three deployment slots/environments (Production, Development and Acceptance). In 2017, a total of 30 services for content authoring have been implemented on LMS, of which 4 were building of the new online courses, 12 translations in the languages other than English, and 14 services for different updates of existing courses.

In 2018, a total of 94 services for content authoring have been implemented on LMS, of which 6 were for the building of new online courses, 67 translations in the languages other than English, and 21 services for different updates of existing courses. During the 1st semester of 2019, 17 services for content authoring have been implemented, of which 4 were for the building of new online courses, 10 were for building the translations, and 3 for implementing updates.

For each upgrade of existing module or creation of new ones, EASO has been organising working groups of subject matter experts and senior officers from Asylum institutions of EU Member States who were contributing to the drafting of the content part of the module. These working groups took place in EASO HQ in Malta, quarterly. The whole process of creation of one new module took on average 1.5 years. The lifecycle of the module is currently 5 years.

Additionally, specific multimedia content has been created internally or with external companies and integrated into several modules: animated videos with voice-over, films with actors reproducing professional situations and interview of stakeholders. In the period of 2017-2019, 26 animated videos with voice over have been created with external contractors. The duration of the animated videos is on average 3’ (minutes).

The current ongoing Framework Contract (FWC) for the LMS and related services is ending in 2020, therefore the overall objective of this procurement procedure is to ensure smooth continuation of online course authoring services and provision of the services of instructional designers for transforming manuscripts into highly interactive and visually appealing e-learning courses, built according to proven didactic methods. This new FWC will also include the services for the creation of high quality educational audio-visual content, such as animations and graphics, as well as tests, such as multiple choice questions with different type of marking possibilities such as weighted and/or negative marking.

EASO expects to provide strategic direction and leadership while the successful tenderers will be expected to contribute to and provide high quality support to EASO’s objectives. EASO is seeking a forward looking, reliable and technically skilled Contractor, which should underpin the EASO’s ability to reach its objectives with effectiveness, efficiency and security.

Download all available documents in: [ZIP]