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GENERAL INVITATION TO TENDER
Nº 10246
Compilation and production of the Official Journal (L and C series) and other legal documents on DVD-ROM
SPECIFICATIONS
CONTENTS
1. Preliminary information concerning the invitation to tender 4
1.1. Presentation of the Publications Office 4
1.2. Nature of the contract 5
1.3. Subject and background of the contract 5
1.4. Starting date of the contract and duration of the tasks/contract 6
1.5. Price 6
1.6. Terms of payment 6
1.7. Financial Guarantees 6
1.8. Place of performance 7
1.9. General terms and conditions for the submission of tenders 7
1.10. Period of validity of the tender 7
1.11. Visit to the premises 7
1.12. Date and place of opening of the tenders 7
1.13. Specific conditions applicable to contracts for publications 8
2. The tender and the evaluation 9
2.1. Assessment and award of contract 9
2.2. Form and content of the tender 9
2.3. Structure of the tender 10
2.4. Section one: administrative information 10
2.5. Section two: exclusion criteria 12
2.5.1. Documents to be provided relating to the exclusion criteria 12
2.5.2. Grounds for exclusion 13
2.5.3. Administrative and financial penalties 13
2.6. Section three: selection criteria 14
2.6.1. Financial and economic capacity of the tenderer 14
2.6.2. Technical and professional capacity of the tenderer 15
2.7. Section four: award criteria – technical bid 16
2.7.1. Documents to provide concerning the technical award criteria 16
2.7.2. Evaluation of the technical award criteria 17
2.8. Section five: award criteria – financial bid 21
2.8.1. Documents to provide relating to the financial award criteria 21
2.8.2. Evaluation of the financial award criteria 22
2.9. Final evaluation 22
2.10. Information for tenderers 23
2.11. Award of the contract 23
3. Joint bid and subcontracting 24
3.1. Making a bid in collaboration with other companies 24
3.1.1. Joint bid 24
3.1.2. Subcontracting 24
3.2. Documents to submit – joint bid 25
3.3. Documents to submit – subcontracting 26
3.4. Evaluation of the bids in case of joint bids or subcontracting 27
3.4.1. Exclusion criteria 27
3.4.2. Selection criteria 27
3.4.3. Award criteria 28
4. Technical specifications 29
4.1. Introduction 29
4.1.1. Scope of this invitation to tender 29
4.1.2. Special nature of the Official Journal and other documents published on EUR-Lex 29
4.1.3. Frequency 30
4.1.4. Structure and content 30
4.1.5. Publication volume 31
4.1.6. Thematic DVD-ROMs 32
4.2. Development 33
4.2.1. Prototype 33
4.2.2. Software licences and development 33
4.2.3. Functional Requirements Specifications 34
4.2.4. User documentation 42
4.2.5. Accessibility 42
4.3. Production 43
4.3.1. Documents to be published on the DVD-ROM 43
4.3.2. Handover of contents (manuscripts) 44
4.3.3. Handover of proofs 44
4.3.4. “Passed for press” order 44
4.3.5. Quality assurance 45
4.3.6. Acceptance of deliverables 45
4.3.7. Documentation 47
4.3.8. Packaging and labelling 48
4.3.9. Progress indicators 48
4.3.10. Completion of work 49
4.3.11. Elements used to measure the contractor’s performance 49
4.3.12. Guarantee and hidden defects 49
4.3.13. Contact between parties involved in the work 50
4.3.14. Technical support and maintenance 50
4.4. Time limits 51
4.4.1. Time limits for the DEVELOPMENT phase 51
4.4.2. Time limits for the PRODUCTION phase (monthly DVD-ROM) 51
4.4.3. Time limits for production of THEMATIC DVD-ROMs 52
4.4.4. Time limits for acceptance of products and services 53
GLOSSARY 54
5. Annexes 57
1 financial bid, price schedule and estimation form 58
2A financial identification form 60
2B "legal entity" form 61
2C Agreement / Power of attorney 63
2D Guarantee -model 67
3 Form for identification of the tenderer 69
4 questionnaire for joint bids and subcontracting 71
5 list of documents to provide 74
6 declaration on the grounds for exclusion 76
7 Technical questionnaire regarding the selection criteria 78
8 Questionnaire regarding the award criteria 81
10 TECHNICAL ANNEXES 87
Preliminary information concerning the invitation to tender
These specifications follow the publication of the contract notice in OJ S 2009/S 203-291459 of 21/10/2009.
1 Presentation of the Publications Office
The Publications Office of the European Union, hereinafter referred to as “the Publications Office”, (2, rue Mercier, L-2985 Luxembourg) is the publishing house of the European institutions in the broadest sense, responsible for producing and distributing, on all media and by all means, all the publications of the European Union. The Publications Office, whose current organisation and operation are laid down by Decision 2000/459/EC, ECSC, Euratom (Official Journal of the European Communities, L 183, 22.7.2000, p. 12), is managed by a Management Committee in which each institution is represented by its Secretary-General. The Publications Office is administratively attached to the European Commission. More information can be found on the Publications Office website: .
As a publisher, the Publications Office has a duty to offer the highest quality service to its customers – the originating departments of the institutions and other bodies of the European Union and to its public – the people of the European Union and those throughout the world who are interested in European affairs. In the field of new technologies, the Publications Office must place itself in the forefront of the publishing profession.
Under the provisions of the Treaties establishing the European Communities, the publication of certain titles, such as the Official Journal of the European Union or the General Report on the Activities of the European Union, is a legal obligation.
Useful web sites
|Publications Office of the European Union | |
|EU-bookshop: the Union's online bookshop | |
|EUROVOC: multilingual thesaurus | |
|CORDIS: Community R&D Information Service | |
|Eur-Lex: the gateway to European Union law | |
|WHOISWHO: inter-institutional directory of the European Union | |
|TED: supplement to the Official Journal of the European Union | |
|SIMAP: EU-information for public procurement | |
|DG MARKT: DG Internal Market | |
|Other useful links | |
2 Nature of the contract
The contract is a cascading framework service contract entitled: ‘Compilation and production of the Official Journal (L and C series) and other legal documents on DVD-ROM’.
As exact implementing conditions, quantities and/or delivery times cannot be indicated in advance, the Commission intends to conclude framework contracts, which shall establish the basic terms for a series of order forms to be concluded over its duration. Framework contracts do not give rise to any direct obligation on the part of the Commission. Only their implementation by means of order forms is binding on the part of the Commission.
The framework contracts shall be concluded in a form of separate but identical contracts with no more than three (3) economical operators at most, provided that there are enough economic operators who satisfy the selection criteria and/or eligible tenders satisfying the award criteria.
After the evaluation the successful tenders will be ranked in descending order to establish a list of contractors and the sequence in which they will be offered work. Unless indicated otherwise (temporary exclusion) when placing an order, the Commission will firstly contact the contractor at the top of the list and, if he is unavailable for reasons which do not involve terminating the contract, the second contractor will be contacted and then, if necessary, and under the same conditions, the third one. For more detailed arrangements, please see Article I.4 of the contract.
The estimated volume of the contract is one million euros (EUR 1.000.000,00) over a maximal period of four (4) years.
3 Subject and background of the contract
The L and C series of the Official Journal of the European Union and other documents are currently distributed daily on paper and on-line by EUR-Lex, and monthly on optical discs.
The aim of this invitation to tender is the production of a monthly DVD-ROM with the compilation of series L and C of the Official Journal of the European Union and other documents. There will be 22 monthly editions, each language version being a separate edition[1]. The services will comprise the development and incorporation of application software, the upgrading and corrective maintenance, packaging and delivery. At the Publications Office’s request, thematic DVD-ROMs will also be produced, for example: Annual Collections, Annual Report of the Court of Auditors, COM documents and legislation.
For more details on the tasks to be performed, refer to section 4 (Technical Specifications).
4 Starting date of the contract and duration of the tasks/contract
The contracts are foreseen to be signed in February 2010.
The Contract shall be renewed automatically on up to three (3) occasions, each time for a period of twelve (12) months, under the same conditions, unless written notification to the contrary is sent by one of the contracting parties and received by the other no later than three (3) months before expiry of the Contract. Renewal does not imply any modification or deferment of existing obligations.
5 Price
• Prices must be all inclusive and expressed in euro. For tenderers in countries which are not part of the euro zone, the price quoted may not be revised in line with exchange rate movements;
• Prices may only be revised according to Article I.3 of the contract. Please note that the price revision is conditional to a request which must be put in place at the latest three months before the anniversary date of the entry into force of the contract. In case of a justified and timely request, the revised prices shall enter into force on the anniversary date of the entry into force of the contract. The price revisions will be calculated with the same number of decimals as was accepted in the initial original price schedule and also the revised prices will have the same number of decimals.
For details on how to present the financial bid in the price schedule and estimation form, see topic 2.8.1.
6 Terms of payment
Payments shall be made in accordance with Article I.5 of the draft contract.
7 Financial Guarantees
The first contractor shall be required to provide a guarantee for performance of fifty thousand euros (EUR 50.000,00) in compliance with Article I.5.2 of the draft contract before the contract is signed by the Publications Office. The other contractors shall be required to provide a guarantee before they receive an order form or specific contract. The guarantee, has to comply with the model in Annex 2D.
8 Place of performance
The place of performance of the tasks shall be the contractor's premises or any other place indicated in the tender, with the exception of the premises of the Publications Office. However, meetings between the Publications Office and the successful contractor may be held on the premises of the Publications Office.
9 General terms and conditions for the submission of tenders
Participation in the tendering procedure is open on equal terms to all natural and legal persons coming within the scope of the treaties and to all natural and legal persons in a third country which has a special agreement with the European Communities in the field of public procurement on the conditions laid down in that agreement.
Submission of a tender implies that the tenderer accepts all the terms and conditions set out in the invitation letter, in these specifications (including the annexes) and in the draft contract, where relevant, and waives all other terms of business. Submission of a tender binds the tenderer to whom the contract is awarded during performance of the contract.
Once the Publications Office has accepted the tender, it shall become the property of the Publications Office and the Publications Office shall treat it confidentially.
The Publications Office shall not reimburse any costs incurred in preparing and submitting tenders.
The Protocol on the Privileges and Immunities or, where appropriate, the Vienna Convention of 24 April 1963 on Consular Relations shall apply to this invitation to tender.
10 Period of validity of the tender
The offer must remain valid for a period of 9 months following the final date for submitting tenders (see invitation letter). During this period, tenderers must maintain all the conditions of their bids.
11 Visit to the premises
Not applicable.
12 Date and place of opening of the tenders
Tenders will be opened at 10h00 on 03/12/2009 at the following location:
|Address of the Publications Office: |
|Publications Office |
|2, rue Mercier |
|L-2985 Luxembourg |
One (1) authorised representative of each tenderer may attend the opening of the bids. Companies wishing to attend are requested to notify their intention by sending a fax or e-mail at least 48 hours in advance to the address below. This notification must be signed by an authorised officer of the tenderer and specify the name of the person who will attend the opening of the bids on the tenderer's behalf.
|Fax: (352) 2929-42672 |
|E-mail: opoce-appels-offres@publications.europa.eu |
13 Specific conditions applicable to contracts for publications
Where the Contract provides for the presentation of samples of materials and/or specimen products, these will be produced at the tenderer’s expense.
Failure to transmit the requested samples and specimens to the Publications Office by the required deadlines, or the transmission of faulty or poor quality samples or specimens, will entitle the Publications Office to regard the bid as incomplete and to reject it.
The tender and the evaluation
1 Assessment and award of contract
The assessment of tenderers and bids will take place in three main stages:
The aims of each of these stages are:
• to check, in the first stage (exclusion criteria), whether tenderers can take part in the tendering procedure and, where applicable, be awarded the contract;
• to check, in the second stage (selection criteria), the economic and financial capacity and the technical and professional capacity of each tenderer who has passed the first stage;
• to assess, on the basis of the award criteria, each bid which has passed the first and second stages.
The assessment procedure may end with the award of the contract.
The assessment will be based on the tenderer’s bid. Concerning the exclusion and selection criteria, the Publications Office reserves the right to request additional evidence in relation to the bid submitted for clarification or verification purposes within a time-limit stipulated in its request. All the information will be assessed against the criteria specified in this chapter.
Please note that concerning the award criteria, the Publications Office can contact the tenderer only if clarification is required or if obvious clerical errors must be corrected. This contact can only lead to clarification of points already mentioned in the bid and may not lead to an alteration of the terms of the bid. Only the tenders meeting the requirements of a stage will pass on to the next stage of the assessment.
2 Form and content of the tender
Tenders must be clear and concise and assembled in a coherent fashion (e.g. bound or stapled, etc.). The tenderer is also asked to provide a completed list indicating where to find the required documents (Annex 5). If the tender is divided into different files, it is advised to make a table of contents in each file.
Since tenderers will be judged on the content of their written bids, these must make it clear that they are able to meet the requirements of the specifications.
Information on the general requirements and on how to submit the bid is provided in the invitation letter.
Please pay attention to the fact, that the tender shall be signed by a person or persons who is/are entitled to represent the economic operator in accordance with its articles of association and/ or extract from the commercial register, or by a person(s) who received power of attorney to do so from (a) person(s) who is/are mentioned in those documents. The documents showing that the person is entitled to represent the economic operator must be submitted as explained in topic 2.4.
The same rule is applicable to the person(s) designated to sign the contract.
3 Structure of the tender
All tenders must be presented in the following five sections:
Section One: administrative information
Section Two: exclusion criteria
Section Three: selection criteria
Section Four: award criteria - technical bid
Section Five: award criteria - financial bid
Sections one to four (4) on the one hand and Section five (5) on the other hand must be submitted in two separate sealed envelopes, which together are placed in double sealed envelopes as described in the invitation letter. Each inner envelope must clearly indicate its contents (“technical” and “financial”).
Please observe that all documentation has to be provided in triplicate (original and two copies) and that this also applies to any supporting media that is part of the tender.
4 Section one: administrative information
In the first section, the tenderer must provide the following:
• A duly signed cover letter
• the completed form for identification of the tenderer, as provided in Annex 3, including the following information:
• the tenderer's name and/or business name;
• a clear description of the tenderer's legal form;
• the address of the tenderer's registered office;
• the tenderer's telephone and fax numbers, e-mail address and, where available, Internet address;
• the names of the legal representatives (directors, etc) of the tenderer, authorised to sign contracts with third parties;
• the name, address, telephone and fax numbers to a contact person in relation to the submission of the tender;
• the tenderer's VAT number and trade-register entry number;
• information concerning the bank account;
• contact persons;
• a signed declaration confirming the validity of the tender.
• a financial identification form filled in and signed by an authorised representative of the tenderer, stamped by the bank and signed by a bank representative. If you attach the copy of a recent bank statement, the stamp and signature of the bank's representative is not needed. A standard form is provided in Annex 2A and a specific form for each Member State is available at the following Internet address:
• the "Legal Entity" form, to be signed by a representative of the tenderer authorised to sign contracts with third parties. There is one form for individuals, one for private entities and one for public entities. A model is provided in Annex 2B. Specific forms in each Member state language are available at:
The Legal Entity Form must be supported by the following documents in order to prove the administrative information of the tenderer:
For private entities:
• a legible copy of the instrument of incorporation or constitution, and a copy of the statutes, if they are contained in a separate instrument, or a copy of the notices of such constitution or incorporation published in the national or other official journal, if the legislation which applies to the tenderer requires such publication;
• a legible copy of the most recent amendment to the instruments mentioned in the previous indent, including that involving any transfer of the registered office of the legal entity, or a copy of the notice published in the relevant national or other official journal of such amendment, if the legislation which applies to the tenderer requires such publication;
• if the above documents don’t show the registration number, a proof of registration, as prescribed in their country of establishment, on one of the professional or trade registers or any other official document showing the registration number;
If the most recent document submitted according to the above paragraph or one of the preceding two paragraphs is more than a year old when the bid is submitted, a written confirmation signed by a legal representative of the tenderer must be included, indicating that no changes have been made and that the registered office has not changed since the issue of the most recent document;
• if the above documents don’t show the VAT number, a copy of the VAT registration document, where applicable;
• a legible copy of the notice of appointment of the persons authorised to represent the tenderer in dealings with third parties and in legal proceedings, if it is not included in the abovementioned documents, or a copy of the publication of such appointment if the legislation which applies to the legal entity concerned requires such publication. If the person(s) signing the tender or the person designated to sign the contract is/are entitled to represent the economic operator by a Power of Attorney from the abovementioned authorised persons, the Power of Attorney must also be submitted;
For individuals:
• a legible copy of his or her identity card or passport must be produced;
• where applicable, a proof of registration, as prescribed in their country of establishment, on one of the professional or trade registers or any other official document showing the registration number;
• if the above documents don’t show the VAT number, a copy of the VAT registration document, where applicable.
For Public Entities:
• a copy of the resolution decree, law, decree or decision establishing the entity in question or failing that, any other official document attesting to the establishment of the entity;
• the names and functions of the legal representatives (directors, etc) of the tenderer, authorised to sign contracts with third parties (a copy of the appointment of the persons authorised to represent the tenderer must be produced);
• if the public entity has completed a VAT registration number in the Legal Entity Form, an official document showing the VAT number.
5 Section two: exclusion criteria
1 Documents to be provided relating to the exclusion criteria
In Section Two, the tenderer(s) must provide the declaration on grounds for exclusion (Annex 6) and the following related certificates or documents:
• a recent extract from the ‘judicial record’ or equivalent as evidence that they are not in one of the situations listed in paragraph (a), (b) or (e) of topic 2.5.2, or, failing this, of an equivalent recent document issued by a competent judicial or administrative authority in the country of origin or residence, showing that these requirements have been met;
• a recent certificate issued by the competent authorities of the state concerned stating that the tenderer has fulfilled obligations relating to the payment of social security contributions or equivalent;
• a recent certificate issued by the competent authorities of the state concerned stating that the tenderer has fulfilled obligations relating to the payment of taxes or equivalent.
Where no such documents or certificates are issued in the country concerned, they may be replaced by a sworn or failing that a solemn statement made by the tenderer before a judicial or administrative authority, a notary or a qualified professional body in his country of origin or provenance.
2 Grounds for exclusion
In accordance with Article 93 of the Financial Regulation No 1605/2002 (OJ L 248, page 1, of 16 September 2002, as amended), tenderers shall be excluded from the selection and award procedures if they:
a) 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; or
b) have been convicted of an offence concerning their professional conduct by a judgment which has the force of res judicata; or
c) have been guilty of grave professional misconduct proven by any means which the contracting authorities can justify; or
d) have not fulfilled their 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; or
e) have been the subject of a judgment which has the force of res judicata for fraud, corruption, involvement in a criminal organisation or any other illegal activity detrimental to the Communities' financial interests; or
f) are currently subject to an administrative penalty referred to in Article 96(1) of the Financial Regulation (Council Regulation N° 1605/2002 of 25/06/2002, as amended).
In addition, contracts may not, according to Article 94 of the Financial Regulation, be awarded to tenderers who, during the procurement procedure:
g) are subject to a conflict of interest;
h) are guilty of misrepresentation in supplying the information required by the contracting authority as a condition of participation in the contract procedure or fail to supply this information.
The Publications Office reserves the right to check the above information.
3 Administrative and financial penalties
The tenderers should also be aware of the following points:
• A central database shall be set up and operated by the Commission in compliance with Community rules on the protection of personal data. The database shall contain details of candidates and tenderers which is in one of the situations referred to in topic 2.5.2 above and candidates and tenderers which have been excluded from the contracts or grants financed by the budget of the European Communities.
• According to Article 96 of the Financial Regulation No 1605/2002 (OJ L 248, page 1 of 16.9.2002, as amended), administrative or financial penalties may be imposed by the Commission on tenderers who the situation in topic 2.5.2 (h) above or who have been declared to be in serious breach of their obligations under contracts covered by the budget of the European Communities after they have been given the opportunity to present their observations.
These penalties may consist:
a) in the exclusion of the tenderer or contractor concerned from contracts and grants financed by the budget of the European Communities, for a maximum period of ten years;
b) in the payment of financial penalties by the tenderer or contractor up to the value of the contract in question.
The penalties imposed will be in proportion to the importance of the contract and the seriousness of the misconduct.
The details of those penalties are laid down in Article 133a of the implementing rules to the Financial Regulation, Commission Regulation No 2342/2002 (OJ L 357, page 1 of 31 December 2002, as amended).
6 Section three: selection criteria
Selection of the tenderer suitable for attribution of the contract will be based on an assessment of the tenderer’s:
• economic and financial capacity, and
• technical and professional capacity.
A tenderer may, where appropriate, rely on the capacities of other entities, regardless of the legal nature of the links which it has with them. In that case, it must prove to the contracting authority that it will have at its disposal the resources necessary for performance of the contract, for example by producing an undertaking on the part of those entities to place those resources at its disposal.
1 Financial and economic capacity of the tenderer
1 Documents to provide concerning the financial and economic capacity
Section Three must include in its first part, the information on the financial and economic capacity of the tenderer. It must contain the following documents:
1. the balance sheets and profit-and-loss accounts for the past three (3) years,
2. the overall turnover and the turnover relating to the services involved in this contract carried out by the tenderer over the past three (3) years.
2 Evaluation of the financial and economic capacity
The tenderers’ financial and economic capacity will be evaluated on the basis of the above mentioned documents which the tenderers have to submit according to topic 2.6.1.1.
The minimum financial and economic capacity level is the following: the amount representing the estimated volume of the contract for one year must not exceed 60% of the annual overall turnover carried out by the tenderer over the last year, or the average annual turnover carried out by the tenderer over the past three (3) years. For the estimated volume of the contract for four (4) years see topic 1.2.
2 Technical and professional capacity of the tenderer
1 Documents to provide concerning the technical and professional capacity of the tenderer
In the second part of Section Three, the tenderer must provide information on the technical and professional capacity in the technical questionnaire (Annex 7). Please note that it is possible to make annexes to the different pages in the technical questionnaire up to the maximum number of pages indicated.
The tenderers attention is drawn to the fact that this contract is characterised by an important multilingual component (22 official languages of the EU). Tenderers must therefore provide all details which will allow this capacity to be judged[2].
Evidence of the technical and professional capacity of the providers involved in the tender will be furnished on the basis of the following documents (Annex 7):
• Form 7.1 - brief description of the tenderer’s economic activity relating to the kind of services involved in this invitation for tender (maximum 2 pages);
• Form 7.2 - Project/Activity Reference Form (maximum 3 pages per PARF),
|Expertise subject of this call for tender = Expertise of DVD-ROM development and production; multilingual |
|experience |
|Number PARF |Minimum |Maximum |
| |2 |5 |
By submitting a tender, each legal entity involved therein accepts the possibility of a check being carried out by the Publications Office on its technical capacities and, if necessary, on its research facilities and quality-control measures.
In addition, all tenderers are informed that they may be asked to prove that they are authorised to perform the contract under national law, as evidenced by inclusion in a professional or trade register or a sworn declaration or certificate, membership of a specific organisation, express authorisation, or entry in the VAT register.
Tenderers' attention is drawn to the fact that any total or partial omission of information for which one or more legal entities involved in the tender are responsible may lead the Publications Office to exclude the tender from the rest of the procedure.
2 Evaluation of the technical and professional capacity
The technical and professional capacity will be judged on the basis of the tenderer’s expertise relevant to the required services in particular with regard to their know-how, efficiency, experience and reliability.
The Project / Activity Reference Forms (PARFs) should include projects with relevant multilingual experience.
7 Section four: award criteria – technical bid
The contract will be awarded to the tenderer who submits the most economically advantageous bid on the basis of the criteria set out below.
1 Documents to provide concerning the technical award criteria
This part has to contain the documents showing the merits of the bid as well as a demonstration DVD-ROM (see topic 2.7.1.1), to make it possible to evaluate the technical award criteria.
Tenderers must submit answers to the questions of the technical questionnaire (see Annex 8) in the following format:
• Format: A4
• Font: Times New Roman
• Font size: 12
The length of the answer is specific for each question. In case the answer exceeds the allowed length, any content on the pages in excess of the limit will be ignored by the evaluators.
With the exception of a DVD-ROM containing demonstration materials (see topic 2.7.1.1. hereafter), no external sources such as books, publications, documents, websites, or even other sections of the same bid or the call for tender can be used as part of the answer.
The merits of the bid will be evaluated on the basis of the following documents (Annex 8).
Product Design
• Form 8.1 – Operational features regarding web browser and executable files' installation (maximum 1 page)
• Form 8.2 – Proposed software solution (maximum 4 pages)
• Form 8.3 – Proposed interface of the DVD-ROM product (maximum 4 pages)
Monthly production
• Form 8.4 – production workflow (maximum 4 pages)
• Form 8.5 – quality assurance during production (maximum 4 pages)
• Form 8.6 – security measures and contingency plans (maximum 4 pages)
1 DVD-ROM for demonstration purposes
The tenderer will submit a DVD-ROM with demonstration materials for Criterion 1.4 (form 8.3).
The contents of the DVD-ROM will be considered for evaluation only in relation to the functionalities described in the written part of the answer.
The following guidelines must be respected:
• The demonstration DVD-ROM shall only contain functional prototypes or proofs of concepts whose purpose is to demonstrate functionalities of the proposed user interface.
• The demonstration DVD-ROM may not contain any text, graphics, illustration, or other element that is not used strictly as a demonstration of a functionality described in the written answer to Criterion 1.4 (Annex 8, form 8.3).
• The demonstration DVD-ROM must be compatible with Internet Explorer 7.0.5730 or Firefox 3.0.5 or Windows XP, without an internet connection or a Flash plugin. The screen resolution of the computers to be used during the evaluation is 1280 x 1024.
• Upon insertion, the DVD-ROM shall present a simple screen only displaying the hyperlinks to the various demonstrations. These demonstrations should clearly reference specific parts of the text, and vice-versa.
2 Evaluation of the technical award criteria
The award criteria have the purpose to choose between the tenders which have been submitted by tenderers not subject to exclusion and which meet the selection criteria.
The award criteria are intended to assess the quality of the bid based on the proposal of the tenderer. The criteria concerning the ability or capacity of the tenderers such as previous experience, professional education and references, which are taken into account for the evaluation of the selection criteria, will not be taken into account for the evaluation of the award criteria.
The technical evaluation will be based on the following criteria.
1. Product design (38 points)
Criterion 1.1 Will the DVD-ROM software run entirely in the user's web browser? (5 points) Annex 8, Form 8.1
“Yes:” [3] 5 points
“No:” [4] 0 points
Criterion 1.2 Will the DVD-ROM software run entirely from the DVD?
(5 points) Annex 8, Form 8.1
“Yes:”[5] 5 points
“No:”[6] 0 points
Criterion 1.3 Describe the technical aspects of the software solutions that will enable the user's functionalities of the DVD-ROM (maximum 4 pages) Annex 8, Form 8.2
|Sub-criteria |Maximum points |Minimum points required |
|Technical approach |6,00 |1,50 |
|(compliance with the requirements, stability, | | |
|maturity and technical merit, cross-platform | | |
|capability) | | |
|Conformity with installation requirements |2,00 |0,50 |
|Search engine features, including index creation |6,00 |1,50 |
|(completeness towards mandatory and preferred | | |
|features) | | |
|Total criteria 1.3 |14 |3,50 |
Criterion 1.4 Describe the proposed user interface of the DVD-ROM (maximum 4 pages plus the demonstration DVD-ROM supplement) Annex 8, Form 8.3
|Sub-criteria |Maximum points |Minimum points required |
|Overall presentation of data, structure and feature set |3,00 |0,75 |
|of the user interface | | |
|(logical layout, exhaustiveness, intuitiveness, | | |
|aesthetical qualities, similarity to EUR-Lex, adequacy | | |
|as information dissemination tool, user-friendliness) | | |
|Navigation & Browsing |4,00 |1,00 |
|(logical layout, in-depth and quick navigation, | | |
|intuitiveness, adequacy of the information made | | |
|available, facility of browsing through a long list of | | |
|documents) | | |
|Searching |4,00 |1,00 |
|(power of search, intuitiveness of the interface, | | |
|completeness of the advanced search functionalities, | | |
|presentation of search results) | | |
|Accessibility |3,00 |0,75 |
|(degree of accessibility provided to user with several | | |
|types of disabilities) | | |
|Total criteria 1.4 |14,00 |3,50 |
2. Monthly production (52 points)
Criterion 2.1 Describe the proposed production workflow (maximum 4 pages) Annex 8, Form 8.4
|Sub-criteria |Maximum points |Minimum points required |
|Resource planning |4,00 |1,00 |
|(coherence of the workflow phases, adequacy of | | |
|resources, compliance with needs and deadlines) | | |
|Reception and control of manuscripts |5,00 |1,25 |
|(regularity of reception, control methodology, storage | | |
|accurateness) | | |
|Liaising with the Publications Office |5,00 |1,25 |
|(staff's availability, accessibility to information, | | |
|effectiveness of the communication strategy, initiative)| | |
|Assembly and creation of a publication, including text |6,00 |1,50 |
|for labels and stickers | | |
|(adequacy of methods and resources towards high quality | | |
|production, compliance with requirements and time | | |
|limits) | | |
|Physical production |6,00 |1,50 |
|(adequacy of methods and resources towards high quality | | |
|production, compliance with requirements and time | | |
|limits) | | |
|Delivery |4,00 |1,00 |
|(transport packaging protection, compliance with time | | |
|limits) | | |
|Total criteria 2.1 |30,00 |7,50 |
Criterion 2.2 Describe the proposed quality assurance plan (control and interventions) (maximum 3 pages) Annex 8, Form 8.5
|Sub-criteria |Maximum points |Minimum points required |
|Consistency of the quality assurance strategy to ensure | | |
|reliability and accuracy in relation to: | | |
|- Reception and control of manuscripts |3,00 |0,75 |
|- Assembly and creation of a publication, including text|3,00 |0,75 |
|for labels and stickers | | |
|- Physical production, storaging and delivery |3,00 |0,75 |
|Total criteria 2.2 |9,00 |2,25 |
Criterion 2.3 Describe the proposed security measures and contingency plans (maximum 3 pages) Annex 8, Form 8.6
|Sub-criteria |Maximum points |Minimum points required |
|Security and contingency planning for the IT |4,50 |1,125 |
|infrastructure, data and communications | | |
|(IT infrastructure security strategy, adequacy of | | |
|fallback solutions, data storage security, access | | |
|control, continuity of communications with the | | |
|Publications Office) | | |
|Security and contingency planning for production and |4,50 |1,125 |
|delivery | | |
|(security strategy, continuity safety measures, adequacy| | |
|of measures to comply with equipment malfunction or | | |
|loss, adequacy of anti-roadblock and anti-malfunction | | |
|solutions) | | |
|Total criteria 2.3 |9,00 |2,25 |
Criteron 3. General quality of The offer (4 points)
| |Maximum points |Minimum points required |
|Presentation |4 |1,00 |
| | | |
|Structure | | |
| | | |
|Readability | | |
| | | |
| | | |
| | | |
| | | |
TOTAL OF THE TECHNICAL AWARD CRITERIA: 100 POINTS
The result of the technical evaluation is the sum of the number of points obtained as a result of the evaluation of each criterion. Only those bids which are awarded, at least:
• The minimum points required for each criterion and sub-criterion,
• and a total score of 65 points,
will be considered for the award of the contract.
Since assessment of the tenders will focus on the quality of the proposed services, tenders should elaborate on all points addressed by these specifications in order to score as many points as possible. The mere repetition of mandatory requirements set out in these specifications, without going into details or without giving any added value, will only result in a very low score.
8 Section five: award criteria – financial bid
1 Documents to provide relating to the financial award criteria
For the financial bid, the tenderer must use the annexed price schedule and estimation form (Annex 1).
The financial bid must fulfil the following requirements:
• prices must be expressed in euro;
• prices should be expressed to a maximum of two (2) decimal places;
• prices should be quoted free of all duties, taxes and other charges, i.e. also free of VAT, as the Communities are exempt from such charges in the EU under Articles 3 and 4 of the Protocol on the Privileges and Immunities of the European Communities of 8 April 1965 (OJ L 152 of 13 July 1967). Exemption is granted to the Commission by the governments of the Member States, either through refunds upon presentation of documentary evidence or by direct exemption.
For those countries where national legislation provides an exemption by means of a reimbursement, the amount of VAT is to be shown separately. In case of doubt about the applicable VAT system, it is the tenderer's responsibility to contact his or her national authorities to clarify the way in which the European Community is exempt from VAT.
The following must be taken into consideration when completing the price schedule and estimation form.
- the price schedules must include the name of the firm and each page must be duly completed and signed by one of the duly authorised representatives of the company (Annex 1). No amendments to the price schedule will be permitted and a full reply must be given to each question.
If no answer is given, the response will be assumed to be negative. Any omission or amendment to the original price schedule will cause the bid to be considered null and void.
The price schedule shall include the costs of any software needed, including the search engine, whether it is the property of the contractor or of a third party.
- the estimation forms must be duly completed and signed (Annex 1). The content must be based on the unit prices given in the price schedule and the price schedule will take precedence over the estimation form if there is any discrepancy between them. However, the estimation form is intended as a rough guide only and may not be cited in the event of litigation, only the work actually carried out is to be invoiced, on the basis of the unit prices given in the price schedule.
The price schedule and the estimation form shall also be provided electronically as excel files. Please download the Excel file on the following electronic address:
In the case of a discrepancy between the paper version and the electronic file, the paper version will take precedence.
2 Evaluation of the financial award criteria
The evaluation of the financial award criteria will be based on the final total price in the estimation form ("Total quotation for four (4) years" in the estimation form).
9 Final evaluation
Only those offers that have passed the previous stages will be considered for this final evaluation.
The contract will be awarded to the three tenderers with the most economically advantageous bid. The tenders will be ranked in order of highest value for money. The most economically advantageous bid will be placed in first position, followed by the tender with second most economically advantageous bid, and so on.
In order to identify the offer presenting the best value for money, quality will be given a weighting of 50 % and price will be given a weighting of 50 % in accordance with the following formula, using only data from bids that have reached the final evaluation stage:
|R= |(50x |Q |) + (50x |Pmin |) |
| | |Qmax | |P | |
where:
|R |stands for value for money |
|Q |stands for quality score for the bid in question |
|Qmax |stands for quality score for the bid obtaining the highest quality mark |
|Pmin |stands for the total final amount of the specimen quotation for the lowest bid |
|P |stands for the total final amount of the specimen quotation of the bid in question |
10 Information for tenderers
The Publications Office will inform tenderers of decisions reached concerning the award of the contract, including the grounds for any decision not to award a contract or to recommence the procedure.
If a written request is received, the Publications Office will inform all rejected tenderers of the reasons for their rejection and all tenderers submitting an admissible tender of the characteristics and relative advantages of the selected tender and the name of the successful tenderer.
However, certain information may be withheld where its release would impede law enforcement or otherwise be contrary to the public interest, or would prejudice the legitimate commercial interests of economic operators, public or private, or might prejudice fair competition between them.
11 Award of the contract
The procurement procedure is concluded by a contract signed by the parties, or by a decision not to conclude the contract.
After the period of validity of the tender has expired, conclusion of the contract shall be subject to the tenderer's agreement in writing.
Joint bid and subcontracting
This section only applies for tenders involving joint bid or subcontracting. If this is not the case, please continue to the next section (4. Technical specifications).
1 Making a bid in collaboration with other companies
Where a tender involves several legal entities, they may choose between:
• making a joint bid, in which case all the economic operators must be considered as tenderers and, if theirs is the successful bid, as contractors (in this case, one of the tenderers must be put forward as co-ordinator to manage the contract); and
• making a bid in the name of only one tenderer, who is then the sole contractor if the bid is successful, the other legal entities being considered as subcontractors.
Whichever type of bid is chosen (joint bid or bid in the name of one tenderer), the tenderer(s) must stipulate the role, qualifications and experience of each legal entity and, where relevant, the monitoring arrangements that exist between them.
1 Joint bid
Tenderers in a joint bid assume joint and several liability towards the Publications Office for the performance of the contract as a whole. Statements saying, for instance:
• that one of the partners of the joint bid will be responsible for part of the contract and another one for the rest, or
• that more than one contract should be signed if the joint bid is successful,
are thus incompatible with the principle of joint and several liability.
The Publications Office will disregard any such statement contained in a joint bid, and reserves the right to reject such offers without further evaluation on the grounds that they do not comply with the tendering specifications.
In the case of a joint bid, one of the partners of the joint bid (co-ordinator) should be given power of attorney to represent the other parties to sign and administrate the contract.
If the joint bid is selected the tenderers may be required to adopt a given legal form after they have been awarded the contract if this change is necessary for proper performance of the contract.
2 Subcontracting
If certain tasks provided for in the contract are entrusted to subcontractors, the contractor retains full liability towards the Publications Office for performance of the contract as a whole. Accordingly:
• the Publications Office will treat all contractual matters (e.g. payment) exclusively with the contractor, whether or not the tasks are performed by a subcontractor;
• under no circumstances can the contractor avoid liability towards the Publications Office on the grounds that the subcontractor is at fault.
It is forbidden for a tenderer, who bids alone or as part of a consortium, to act as subcontractor for another tenderer or consortium bidding for the same contract. These bids will thus be excluded from participation by the Publications Office.
Tenderers must inform the subcontractor(s) that Article II.17 of the contract will be applied to them. Once the contract has been signed, Article II.13 of the above-mentioned service contract shall govern the subcontracting. During execution of the contract, the contractor will need the Publications Office’s express authorisation to replace a subcontractor with another and/or to subcontract tasks for which subcontracting was not envisaged in the original offer.
2 Documents to submit – joint bid
In the case of a joint bid, the following documents must be provided:
Section One: Administrative Information and evidence for access to the contract
1. A declaration based on the model agreement on the “Power of Attorney” attached in Annex 2C, signed by the legal representatives of all the partners of the joint bid including the following:
• recognising joint and several liability for all the partners of the joint bid for the performance of the contract;
• giving one of the partners of the joint bid (co-ordinator) power of attorney to represent the other parties to sign and administrate the contract.
2. If the tenderers have already set up a consortium or similar entity to that end, they should state this in their offer, together with any other relevant information and documentation in this connection.
3. The questionnaire for joint bids and subcontracting (Annex 4) must be provided signed by a legal representative of the co-ordinator.
4. The form for identification of the tenderer must be provided by each partner of the joint bid.
5. The "legal entity" form for each tenderer with all the abovementioned supporting documents as specified in topic 2.4.
Only the co-ordinator must return the financial identification form.
Section Two: Documents relating to the exclusion criteria
6. Each tenderer must fill in and return the declaration on grounds for exclusion (Annex 6) and provide the supporting documents as specified above in topic 2.5.
Section Three: Documents relating to the selection criteria
7. Each of the parties of a joint bid must provide the documents regarding the economic and financial capacity:
• the balance sheets and profit-and-loss accounts for the past three years,
• the overall turnover and the turnover relating to the services involved in this contract carried out by the tenderer over the past three years.
• evidence of professional risk indemnity insurance.
The technical questionnaire concerning the selection criteria only has to be completed once for all partners of a joint bid, but it must be indicated to which partner the described capacities belong.
Sections Four and Five: Documents relating to the award criteria
The documents relating to the award criteria shall be provided once by the co-ordinator representing the group of tenderers.
3 Documents to submit – subcontracting
If the offer envisages subcontracting, it must include the following.
Section One: Administrative Information and evidence for access to contract
1. the questionnaire for joint bids and subcontracting provided in Annex 4., signed by a legal representative of the tenderer. The third page of this questionnaire must be provided once for each subcontractor, including the following information:
• the reasons for subcontracting;
• the roles, activities and responsibilities of each subcontractor, and
• the volume / proportion for each subcontractor;
2. a letter of intent by each subcontractor stating its intention to collaborate with the tenderer if the contract is awarded to him.
Section Two: Documents relating to the exclusion criteria
3. subcontractors must provide the duly signed declaration on grounds for exclusion (Annex 6). Where, in a bid, the value of the subcontracting which is to be executed by a subcontractor is equal to or exceeds 20% of the value of the contract, the subcontractor must be prepared to provide all the supporting documents to the declaration as specified in topic 2.5. Where those services represent less than 20% of the contract, the subcontractor shall not be required to provide the supporting evidence. The Publications Office, however, reserves the right, to request the evidence if considered necessary.
Section Three: Documents relating to the selection criteria
4. Where, in a bid, the value of the subcontracting which is to be executed by a subcontractor is equal to or exceeds 20% of the value of the contract, the subcontractor must provide the documents related to the economic and financial capacity as specified in topic 2.6. Where those services represent less than 20%, the subcontractor does not have to provide the documents related to the economic and financial capacity. However, in case the tenderer relies on the capacities of subcontractors for fulfilling the selection criteria as he indicates in the questionnaire for joint bids and subcontracting the Publications Office will ask for those documents (Annex 4). The Publications Office also reserves the right to ask for those documents if considered necessary.
5. The subcontractor has to answer the questions in the technical questionnaire which concerns the services he or she is proposed to perform.
Sections Four and Five: Documents relating to the award criteria
The documents relating to the award criteria shall be provided only by the tenderer.
4 Evaluation of the bids in case of joint bids or subcontracting
1 Exclusion criteria
The exclusion criteria will be assessed in relation to each tenderer or subcontractor individually.
2 Selection criteria
Joint bid
If several tenderers are involved in the bid as partners of a joint bid, each of them must prove that they have the required economic and financial capacity. However if the criteria are to be achieved above a certain level, a consolidated assessment shall be made.
The selection criteria concerning the technical and professional capacity will be assessed in relation to the group as a whole.
Subcontracting
The selection criteria concerning the economic and financial capacity will be assessed in relation to the tenderer and each proposed subcontractor individually if the Publications Office finds it necessary due to the role of the subcontractor and volume of the subcontracting. However if the criteria are to be achieved above a certain level, a consolidated assessment shall be made to the extent that the subcontractor puts its resources at the disposal of the tenderer for the performance of the contract.
The selection criteria concerning the technical and professional capacity will be assessed in relation to each proposed subcontractor only as regards the subcontracted services.
Only in the case where the tenderer intends to rely on capacities from the subcontractor in order to fulfil the selection criteria, as he indicates in the questionnaire for joint bids and subcontracting (Annex 4), the selection criteria for technical and professional capacity will be assessed in relation to the combined capacities of the tenderer and the subcontractor as a whole, to the extent that the subcontractor puts its resources at the disposal of the tenderer for the performance of the contract.
3 Award criteria
The evaluation (award) criteria will be assessed in relation to the tender as a whole.
Technical specifications
1 Introduction
The Publications Office of the European Union has for several years developed multimedia publications and Internet sites for the European Institutions.
The multimedia publishing is a feature of the interinstitutional publishing policy. It is intended that an increasing proportion of publications will not systematically appear in paper form, but will initially be made available to readers in electronic form, either on DVD-ROM or on the Internet. It is also planned to produce composite publications where the same contents are published simultaneously on various media (e.g.: paper, DVD-ROM and Internet).
1 Scope of this invitation to tender
The L and C series of the Official Journal of the European Union and other documents are currently distributed daily on paper and on-line by EUR-Lex, and monthly on optical discs. From 2010, the Publications Office intends to improve the distribution of optical discs, introducing a new generation to replace the existing version. The L series and the C series will be published together on one monthly DVD-ROM per language version, including any other documents published on EUR-Lex. The new DVD-ROMs will have equivalent search features. The interface will be similar to that of EUR-Lex website.
The publication deadlines must be adhered to, and the quality and completeness of the publication must be guaranteed. They will be subject to technical approval by the Publications Office. The Publications Office cannot therefore agree with any shortcomings in the production system. The deadline and scheduling constraints on the contractor are particularly tight. He must give full priority to the production of these DVD-ROMs. The contract foresees liquidated damages related to production delays.
The following are all the tasks involved in compiling and producing the L and C series of the Official Journal and other legal documents on DVD-ROM:
• development and/or licensing and integration of software components required for navigating the DVD-ROM. Production of a prototype;
• processing of the data for the Official Journal and other legal documents, supplied in the form of electronic files;
• production of a master and duplication of DVD-ROM's;
• packaging and delivery of DVD-ROMs;
• Technical support, up-grading and corrective maintenance.
2 Special nature of the Official Journal and other documents published on EUR-Lex
The publication of the L and C series Official Journals on DVD-ROM is crucial to the Publications Office. What is more, the full text of a number of other documents is no longer published in the Official Journal and is only available on EUR-Lex. Making these documents available is as important as making the Official Journal available. The current situation may change in the way that other documents may also have their full text versions published only on EUR-Lex.
The contractor must therefore demonstrate a high degree of flexibility in the production of the DVD-ROMs.
In this sense, the Publications Office would like to emphasise that the intermediary deadlines listed below (see topic 4.4) may be changed with prior notice. Any delayed delivery will have to be duly justified (see article I.12.3 of the draft contract). Meeting the delivery times is one of the prime objectives.
3 Frequency
The OJ collection (L and C series) with other documents is produced monthly. There will be 22 monthly editions, each language version being a separate edition.
4 Structure and content
Each monthly DVD-ROM publication will contain all the issues of the OJ L or OJ C, together with other documents published on EUR-Lex going back to a maximum of five (5) months as appropriate, in one language version, together with the various reference classifications, user manuals and on-line help functions. The C series includes all the CA issues (competitions and catalogues) and CE issues (electronic C series of the Official Journal).
The indices of the documents will cover all the months included on the DVD-ROM. There will also be a link to the EUR-Lex Web portal for any documents unavailable on the DVD-ROM, if any. The specifications for the URL to be created will be provided when the contract is signed.
The Official Journal of the European Union (regular issues) and other documents currently comprises 22 language versions (Bulgarian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Estonian, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hungarian, Italian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Maltese, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Slovak, Slovenian, Spanish and Swedish). These documents are available in the 22 languages. The other documents published on EUR-Lex to be included on the DVD-ROM will not necessarily be available in all the languages. In those cases, unless otherwise specified, the English-language version of the document is to be included. Some issues of the Official Journal are also published in Irish, but these do not belong to a monthly collection on DVD-ROM.
In the event of an enlargement or otherwise a decision of the European Union, other language versions may be added during the contract period and will also have to be covered by the contractor.
5 Publication volume
Volume per issue
The following figures representing L and C, CA, CE series Official Journals (PDF files only) are given as a guide and may vary from month to month.
|Month in |Number of L series Official Journals |Number of files/size in megabytes |
|2008 | |OJ L |
|2006 |926 |171 |
Print runs
Currently, the quantity per month is 3.930 discs for each series, all language versions together. The breakdown on the different language versions is as follows:
|Language version |Print run |% |
|BG |85 |2% |
|CS |270 |7% |
|DA |115 |3% |
|DE |360 |9% |
|EL |140 |4% |
|EN |585 |15% |
|ES |260 |7% |
|ET |80 |2% |
|FI |95 |2% |
|FR |445 |11% |
|HU |110 |3% |
|IT |255 |6% |
|LT |80 |2% |
|LV |75 |2% |
|MT |30 |1% |
|NL |140 |4% |
|PT |195 |5% |
|PL |145 |4% |
|RO |80 |2% |
|SK |190 |5% |
|SL |100 |3% |
|SV |95 |2% |
|Total |3.930 |100% |
Print runs might be higher or lower for some editions (e.g. thematic DVD-ROM editions at the Publications Office’s request).
6 Thematic DVD-ROMs
Production of thematic DVD-ROMs on an irregular basis at the request of the Publications Office (placement of order forms) is also covered by the contract. It will involve publishing texts, sorted either by the classification in the Directory of Legislation in Force, by a list of legislative text or OJ numbers, by date, or by type of document, using the same procedures as for the monthly DVD-ROMs. In each instance the Publications Office will define the content, while the structure will be more or less the same as that of the monthly DVD-ROMs. The production deadlines will be set on a case-by-case basis (see topic 4.4).
2 Development
1 Prototype
During the development phase of the project, the contractor is to create a fully functional prototype of the DVD-ROM conforming to the functional requirements specifications (see topic 4.2.3). The Publications Office will provide typical examples of contents (manuscripts) as a basis for the construction of the prototype.
The protorype must include the user's manual and help file, as well as the labelling and packaging design.
The prototype must be approved by the Publications Office not later than three (3) months after the contract is signed.
After the prototype has been supplied and approved, the first monthly DVD-ROM is to be published. This shall occur not later than one (1) month after the approval of the prototype (for further details see topic 4.4).
2 Software licences and development
The contractor is responsible for specifying in his bid the software he intends to use (including the search engine) and stating the licence operating terms. He shall demonstrate its benefits in terms of cost and effectiveness.
The price schedule must include the costs of any software needed to produce the DVD-ROM prototype (including the search engine) whether it is the property of the contractor or of a third party. This will include the costs of acquisition, installation on the project's platforms, backup and training of staff. No other surcharges may be claimed.
The use of open source software is encouraged, provided that the quality of the software as well as its licence terms are suitable for the needs of the DVD-ROM. The contractor is to prove that the specific licencing options are suitable for the Publications Office's needs.
The Publications Office may ask the contractor to supply licences for software used in the composition of DVD-ROMS.
The contractor is to stipulate the recommended version of the software chosen and the potential for development of software produced with that version.
The users of the DVD-ROMs shall be able to use this software as they see fit to the extent permitted by laws and licences, within the context of and for the purposes of the contract.
1 Further product development
The Publications Office reserves the right to order further development of the product, on one hand. On the other hand, the contractor is free to propose further developments, namely those which concern new technologies (see topic 4.3.14).
The contractor may be required to modify or further develop the software in order to provide all functions described under the topic 4.2.3 «Functional Requirements Specifications».
Any additional software developed under this contract will remain the property of the Publications Office.
2 Copyright and rights of use
If it is considered essential for the project, the cost of elements which give rise to the payment of fees must be included in the price schedule under «creation of the DVD-ROM prototype».
The contractor must accept responsibility for the conditions of use of information, its return or destruction after use, and the payment of fees in respect of the rights that he has acquired.
3 Functional Requirements Specifications
1 Usage mode
All users’ features of the DVD-ROM application must be accessible from a standard web browser via a web interface, preferably without installing anything on the user’s computer. Solutions which rely exclusively on technologies running within web browsers (JavaScript, Java, etc.) are greatly encouraged.
The standard configuration shall be a single-user environment where the user has full authority over the hardware and software, their configuration and their use. It allows full access to the operating system without exiting.
The user must have full access to setup/installation features (specified elsewhere) including alteration of default values.
The user must be able to quit the application quickly and easily, with all of the application’s windows closing automatically.
The option for a shared mode allowing the DVD-ROM to function in a multi-user environment (LAN) may be offered. When used in shared mode the user shall be asked for User ID and Password. In this case, the ID will be displayed on screen throughout the use of the application.
2 General features
Basic
Required features include:
• menu management;
• search masks with display of possible values for each search field;
• whole-text search engine;
• saving and narrowing down of searches;
• assistance with Eurovoc and other classifications;
• display of results: hit list (intermediate list), document;
• printing;
• module for saving search criteria (profiles) and hit lists;
• definition of help screens and integration into the search process.
DVD insertion
On insertion of the DVD, the following should happen:
• If the user's operating system allows it, the application should launch immediately; the default browser must open or be brought forward automatically, displaying the welcome screen for the product in a new window. If the system performs other tasks before opening the welcome page (not recommended), that must take place automatically as well.
• Otherwise, if the user's operating system allows it, a folder containing an icon with a file name shall open automatically, marking clearly the starting point for the user to click on. Clicking on that icon should launch the application as described above.
• Otherwise, if the user opens manually the DVD-ROM file system, its root folder must contain an icon with a file name marking clearly the starting point for the user to click on. Clicking on that icon should launch the application as described above.
• The welcome screen must contain the copyright formula.
User settings
User’s settings should preferably be saved as web browser cookies, with easy ways for the user to change them at any time. Any alternative method for saving settings must be detailed and fully justified, and it must be equally easy to use and non-intrusive.
Printing
In general, all elements displayed on screen must also be printable.
• Display and print auxiliary files (EUROVOC) as trees.
• Display the table of contents of a given “edition” as a tree and display and print it as a sequence.
• Print all selected documents without having to open them one by one.
• Name, save, recall and edit search statements for future execution by name (search profiles). The maximum number of search profiles that can be kept in parallel shall be fixed to the user but easy to change during product development requested by the Publications Office. Currently the number of search profiles is set at five (5).
Tool tips, abbreviations
• If abbreviations are used, for example, to identify search fields, they must be easy to understand avoiding confusion, and must be approved by the Publications Office. An explanation of contents and usage is to be displayed as “tool tips” when hovering the mouse pointer over such fields.
3 Browsing
Various options must be available to the user for consulting and printing documents, mostly based on the existing functionalities of the EUR-Lex website:
• access by navigating in the hierarchical table of contents;
• access by selecting directly from the sequential table of contents;
• access via a chronological list of the available Official Journals;
• access by navigating in the Directory of Legislation in Force;
• access through searching;
• access by key words (EUROVOC), i.e. to view and peruse the text and to select several items in a given list simultaneously.
4 Searching
The application must provide the following search functionalities.
• AND, OR, NOT operators for combining search terms within the same search field or between different search fields;
• “(”, “=”, “(” (greater than, equal to, smaller than) operators for limiting the scope of search terms in specific fields such as “date” or “number”;
• NULL for finding records for which the specified field is empty;
• Left, right, and internal truncation for any number of characters, or a specified number of characters (use of wildcards);
• No stemming, that is: full-text searching will not extend to all words derived from the word(s) entered by the user (optional);
• Proximity and co-existence operators for searching for terms in a document with n words’ distance (number specified by the user);
• Function for displaying an “abstract” file, i.e. a table of contents of the disc(s) in the drive(s) in accordance with ISO Standard 9660;
• Response to a simple, single-criterion search must be effective within two seconds, once the DVD-ROM has been loaded;
• If a more complex search is undertaken, the system must advise the user of the progress made;
• The user must be able to abort the requested search immediately. At no time shall the system become unresponsive to user actions; at least a “Cancel” button or link must remain available and responsive at all times;
• If the search relates to a field whose values are governed by a list (such as countries or languages), the list of choices offered to the user must contain only those values which have at least one related document on the DVD-ROM. The possible values not represented on the DVD-ROM are to be visible but inaccessible to the user (e.g. greyed out or magnifying glass displayed/not displayed).
The application software shall comprise the following search output display functions:
• If a search finds more than one record, a “hit list“ of number and title will be displayed; otherwise, display the record as specified by the user; in either case, show the total number of records found and the ordinal number of the current record (e.g. “25 of 252”). The number of results per page is a parameter to which users will have access each time they execute a search and a software option for setting the default value. It must be possible to choose to display 5, 10, 15 or more results per page.
• By default, the documents in the “hit list” will be sorted in reverse (descending) order of notice number. It should also display some or all of the information used for searching as specified above in “types of search“. The display of the additional information must be configurable by the user.
• Users must be able to jump to a specified page (e.g., jump to page 20 of 400), or to the first, next, previous or last page.
• Highlight search terms in full-text display.
• In a full record display, browse the record screen by screen.
• Save and/or print the currently displayed record.
• Stamp all prints with date and time of printing.
• After consulting a record, jump to its position in the hit list and not to the beginning of the list.
• Highlight in the hit list all items already visited.
• Notify the user that, for example, a syntax error was made, etc., by displaying a meaningful message, e.g. that there is no further record, that the last record has been shown.
5 Tables of contents
The tables of contents may be generated interactively (on the fly) or compiled and recorded as separate files according to the method which gives the best performance. The contractor will compile the Directory of Legislation in Force from secondary data provided by the Publications Office.
6 User interface design
The DVD-ROM user interface must remain consistent with developments in the electronic publications of the Publications Office; mainly it must be similar to EUR-Lex.
It may be necessary to adapt the user interface during the duration of the contract. The EUR-Lex website may undergo significant changes during the course of this contract, and the contractor may be requested to implement similar changes on the DVD-ROM product.
The user interface graphic design must be approved by the Publications Office. It shall be developed according to the Commission’s Guidelines for GUIs, which will be provided once the contract has been signed. Graphical elements of EUR-Lex shall be used as much as possible.
The HTML files used in the product must use CSS [8] for formatting purposes, separating content from presentation. Document character set (preferably UTF-8) must be explicitly declared in the header. The design will anticipate and accommodate any screen sizes between the minimum size specified in the system requirements and the ultra-high resolutions and large sizes of more recent displays.
The graphics are to be based on the EUR-Lex website () and must use the Publications Office logo. The contractor’s name and logo may be mentioned only in an information section of the Help system and, if necessary, in the copyright formula for software owned by the contractor.
7 Installation
The product should not install anything, least of all executable files, on the user's computer, and unless absolutely necessary it should not run any platform-dependent code from the DVD-ROM either. Solutions where the entire functionality is produced using technologies that run in the user's web browser (using HTML, JavaScript, cookies, or other freely available cross-platform technologies accessible in web browsers) will be favoured.
Any technologies that require software installations to the user's computer must be justified justified, and any compatibility issues or restrictions to the system requirements set forth by the Publications Office must be mentioned and duly justified. Solutions where no such restrictions or compatibility issues apply will be favoured.
If any software installation is required, the following requirements must be met.
• The product is to contain the software installation module. The installation must cause a very low interference to the computer system.
• The installation program is to check whether the installation has already been carried out and if so to bypass it. If a difference between the installed version and the DVD-ROM version is discovered, the user should be asked to reinstall the software.
• The product is also to contain an uninstallation module. The uninstallation program is to delete all the files created during installation.
• Installation must not require administrator privileges, and it must not be disabled by any known antivirus software.
• System files must be updated non-destructively; installation needs to be reversible by a single command
It is assumed that the computers that will run the DVD will meet the system requirements set forth in 4.2.3.9, which will be printed on the sleeve of the disk. If the product detects that some of these requirements are not met, it should inform the user about such problems. It may also offer brief and helpful advice about solving these compatibility problems, but may not intervene directly or attempt to solve them automatically (e.g. by installing or upgrading user software or changing system settings).
8 Search engine
The application software must use a search engine, either developed by the contractor or licensed from a third party (with a preference to suitable open source solutions if they exist) that fulfils the following mandatory features:
• Full support for Unicode (UTF-8), including any language-specific implementation details, such as possible character substitutions or variations, in any of the required languages.
• Full support for any language-specific details or conventions, such as the use of punctuation within words (tokenisation), the omission of diacritics from capital letters (character normalisation), etc.
• Full support for all the computing platforms listed under system requirements.
• Full integration with an indexer that will be used to create the index of each DVD-ROM during production.
• Wildcard and boolean searches.
• Any other features needed for the operations listed under the following sections.
While the following points are not required, they will be preferred solutions:
• The search engine runs within the web browser as a JavaScript application, a Java applet, or other similar cross-platform technology that requires no other task to run apart from the web browser (highly preferred solution); or
• The search engine runs directly from the DVD-ROM, without installing anything on the user’s computer.
The search engine should contain as many of the following recommended features as possible:
• Lemmatisation or stemming, by reduction and/or by expansion, both at index time and at query time;
• Synonym expansion (at index time);
• Character normalisation;
• Phonetic normalisation;
• Spell checking and error correction at query time.
The application software must be able to efficiently perform on the hardware mentioned as target equipment, the following types of search:
• Search by Official Journal number;
• Search by page number in the Official Journal;
• Search by publication date;
• Search by document number and by date of adoption for COM documents or other EUR-Lex documents which are to be included in the DVD-ROM;
• Search by classification in the Directory (browse);
• Search by type of document;
• Search by EUROVOC classification (browse).
Additionally, a simultaneous full text search for all information in the documents themselves must be provided. This search will be limited to a string of one or more words as entered by the user. The only exception will be the special characters * and ?, which will be permitted. If support for lemmatisation or stemming is present, these features should be easy to disable for the user for this type of search on a case-by-case basis.
A multi-functional research box should be present on every navigational page, creating an intuitive search experience, optionally offering a list of categorised search results dynamically as the user completes typing in the search expression. The tenderer is to propose the technical as well as detailed functional specifications of this search box, with intuitive and effective search functionality in mind.
Error correction and phonetic search is recommended. The search engine should take into account common misspellings and offer to correct them (proposing several selectable options in case of ambiguity).
Where appropriate, the search engine should auto-complete words as typed, based on EUROVOC keywords and on search history or other references.
Searches may also combine these different criteria by means of Boolean operators.
The user must be able to refine searches step by step. The validity of the format of a search must be checked and examples of the format(s) to be used must be displayed.
During the development phase of the project, once the working model has been analysed, new search criteria may be added, or the existing criteria may be modified.
9 User system requirements and compatibility
For the purpose of operating with DVD-ROM, the minimum system requirements are defined as:
• Web browsers:
o Internet Explorer 6.x, 7.x or 8
o Firefox 2.x or 3.0
o Safari 3.x, or
o Chrome 1.0.
• Adobe Acrobat version 5.0 or higher.
• Screen resolution: a screen resolution of 1024 x 768 shall be assumed. It is highly convenient that the product operates with higher screen resolutions.
• Operating systems:
o Windows operating systems:
• Windows 98, Windows 98 SE, Windows ME,
• Windows NT 4.0, Windows 2000, Windows XP,
• Windows Server 2003, Windows Vista, or later
o Hardware:
• Pentium 500 MHz
• 1284 MB RAM (Recommended: 256 MB RAM or greater)
• Optical drive that reads DVD-ROM media
o Macintosh operating systems:
• Mac OS X 10.2.x and later
o Hardware:
• Apple Macintosh computer with an Intel x86 or PowerPC G3, G4, or G5 processor. (Recommended: Intel or PowerPC G5)
• 128 MB RAM (Recommended: 256 MB RAM or more)
• Optical drive that reads DVD-ROM media
o Linux:
• Linux distribution running any of the required web browsers
o Hardware:
• Intel Pentium II or AMD K6-III+ 500 MHz CPU (Recommended: 1GHz or greater)
• 128 MB RAM (Recommended: 256 MB RAM or greater)
• Optical drive that reads DVD-ROM media
The DVD-ROM must be compatible with any of the above-mentioned system requirements. Performance shall be acceptable on minimum configurations and excellent on recommended configurations. The contractor is expected to test the product with all of the web browsers and all of the platforms listed above, and guarantee full functionality with all systems conforming to the specifications listed above.
The contractor may not change any part of the minimum system requirements at any time during the fulfilment of the contract. Should such a need arise for any reason, all proposed changes must be submitted in writing, fully detailed, justified, and approved beforehand by the Publications Office.
The Publications Office may ask the contractor to support, or investigate the possibility to support a broader scope of configurations.
4 User documentation
User guide
The contractor will be responsible for designing and drafting the user’s manual for the DVD-ROM in one language (English, French or German). These instructions must fit on the sleeve of the DVD-ROM. If necessary, the text in the 21 other languages will be supplied by the Publications Office.
Help file
The contractor will be responsible for designing and drafting in one language (English, French or German) a help function comprising all the user instructions for the DVD-ROM. The help file produced must be capable of being printed out in part or in full. Translation into the 21 other languages will be carried out by the Publications Office. Incorporation of the other languages is to be carried out by the contractor. In addition, the contractor must design and draft a context-sensitive Help function.
The Publications Office will supply files in word-processing format for the headings “latest news”, “frequently asked questions”, etc., which are to be incorporated by the contractor. These files will be updated (generally one month before their publication), and the contractor must incorporate them.
5 Accessibility
The DVD-ROM should be usable by everyone including people with disabilities. In that sense:
• The design must ensure that all users have equal access to information and functionalities;
• HTML code should be semantically clear, and links should be named in a clear way, in order to enable blind users to use text-to-speech software and/or text-to-Braille hardware;
• All text ought to be enlargeable in order to allow users with reduced visual perception to read and understand contents;
• Links must be detectable by colour blind users;
• “Clickable” links and areas should be large, in order to make them easy to use by those who cannot control a mouse with precision;
• Navigation throughout contents must be allowed with the use of the keyboard alone, or a single switch access device alone, in order to make it possible for those who cannot operate a mouse or a standard keyboard.
3 Production
1 Documents to be published on the DVD-ROM
In the DVD-ROM, the following electronic files are to be made available:
• the complete document files including all annexes;
• the table of contents;
• the chronological list of planned publication dates for the Official Journal;
• the Directory of Legislation in Force;
• the EUROVOC reference file;
• the prior notice/notice file.
The documents published in the L and C series Official Journals will be supplied by the Publications Office as PDF files (PDF/A-1a) or other file format. The Publications Office reserves the right to supply files in a later version of PDF, in which case it will give two months’ notice of any change.
The tables of contents of the L and C series Official Journals will be supplied by the Publications Office as XML. If PDF is later used for the tables of contents, XML will be replaced by PDF.
For the other documents published on the EUR-Lex site, tables of contents will, where applicable, need to be created from lists, such as numbered or chronological lists of the documents. By submitting a bid, the contractor undertakes to comply with the specifications set out in the schema (see ).
The files of secondary data on the documents published in the L and C series Official Journals and other documents published on EUR-Lex will be supplied by the Publications Office. They will include the data needed to create a list of the legislation in force, and will be supplied as XML files or equivalent. By submitting a bid, the future contractor undertakes to comply with the specifications set out in the schema (see ).
The Publications Office reserves the right to supply files structured in a format other than XML and to modify the structure of the files supplied by providing new schema after giving two months’ notice regarding any change.
Except for the document files (which are delivered in PDF format) and the Table of Contents (which will be in XML and possibly in PDF format), all data for these files will be provided by the Publications Office in Formex V4/XML or an equivalent structured format.
All chosen software must be able to manage all the official languages of the EU immediately, with no exception, as well as the languages of the new accession countries or of other European countries. As the interface must be available in all 22 EU languages, Unicode (UTF-8) must be supported.
The contractor will be responsible for sorting the Official Journals and other EUR-Lex documents to be put on a DVD-ROM according to criteria to be specified by the Publications Office. The contractor must have a database management system for managing the Official Journals and other documents.
The Publications Office may ask the contractor to produce thematic DVD-ROMs for large-scale publications in the Official Journal (e.g. Budget, TARIC, Combined Nomenclature), or for other documents which may or may not appear on the monthly DVD-ROMs.
The nomenclatures (Eurovoc + directory of Legislation in force) are periodically updated. The cost of subsequent incorporation of these updates shall be included in the price schedule under «Technical support, up-grading and corrective maintenance».
The documents published in the Official Journal are indexed according to the Eurovoc classification and classified under the headings of the Directory of Legislation in Force. This information is kept together with the bibliographical data (secondary data) in the Publications Office’s internal PROCAT database and will be sent to the contractor in electronic form (XML).
2 Handover of contents (manuscripts)
The production process will be based on the exchange of electronic files using formats strictly specified by the Publications Office. The files containing the contents (manuscripts) will be supplied according to the procedures and methods described in Annex 10 - Technical annexes.
A complete set of test files will be sent to the contractor after the contract is signed. This set will also serve to check the 'smoothness' of the contractor’s production system.
A production test consisting of one monthly production will be carried out in real time, if necessary. The contract may be cancelled if production deadlines are not adhered to. This test, if carried out, will be paid in the same way as normal production.
3 Handover of proofs
Each delivery of proofs (for all hard copies: in triplicate unless otherwise specified) will be the subject of a delivery sheet (see topic 4.3.7. Documentation) dated and signed by the contractor and the Publications Office. The costs of this work shall be included in the price schedule.
4 “Passed for press” order
The “passed for press” order will be given by the Publications Office.
5 Quality assurance
Quality assurance is the responsibility of the contractor, who must draw up a quality assurance plan. This plan shall be approved by the Publications Office and if and when necessary, adapted by the contractor according to the instructions of the Publications Office. The Publications Office will focus on the editorial and technical aspects of the quality assurance.
Quality control with respect to all work performed by the contractor or its subcontractor, will be carried out by the Publications Office, according to the next topic (4.3.6 - Acceptance of deliverables). The Publications Office may also contract a third party to conduct a quality control study of the work performed by the contractor.
6 Acceptance of deliverables
The supply of one or more DVD-ROMs containing all deliverables shall include the entire set of elements, directories, files, documentation, etc., that enable the installation and the operation of the multimedia publication.
The qualitative acceptance of deliverables will be based on:
• compliance with the technical and functional specifications of the deliverable;
• quality management system in force at the contractor's.
Each delivery of DVD-ROMs is subject to the following phases:
• Physical reception: a delivery sheet shall be signed by an official of the Publications Office, attesting the receipt of the deliverable in a physical medium and in good conditions.
The delivery sheet must be issued by the contractor and will have to incorporate a certification of the contractor’s Quality Control Manager confirming that the deliverable has under gone an accurate quality control.
• Qualitative verification and acceptance: an acceptance sheet shall be signed by an official of the Publications Office, attesting that the deliverable corresponds to the specifications and its main functions and operations have been tested and accepted.
The acceptance sheet will be issued by the Publications Office and will incorporate a summary check-list of the tests performed on the product as well as the result of the verification according to the qualitative acceptance criteria described hereafter.
A copy of the acceptance sheet duly completed and signed by the Publications Office will be made available to the contractor if requested.
For each qualitative acceptance criterion, the results of the verification tests will be classified according to the following categories:
• Unacceptable defect (fatal error):
If at least one of the following is true:
o the DVD cannot be mounted/opened/accessed on a supported platform;
o major browsing or search functionalities are inaccessible or seriously flawed on a supported platform, making meaningful browsing or searching tasks impossible;
o more than 5% of the documents are unusable (missing, corrupted, or unreadable);
o performance of the software is so slow on a supported platform that the user perceives it to be unresponsive and non-functional;
o the DVD or its packaging contains serious typographical or graphical errors or omissions which hinder usability, or are deemed unacceptable by the Publications Office for other reasons;
o the product or its packaging has any serious cosmetic issues that render it unfit for distribution.
• Major defect;
If at least one of the following is true
o some browsing or search functionalities are inaccessible or seriously flawed on a supported platform, with obvious workarounds available, somewhat limiting meaningful browsing or searching tasks;
o some, but not more than 5% of the documents are unusable (missing, corrupted, or unreadable);
o performance of the software is somewhat below the requirements, but the average user would not perceive it to be unresponsive or non-functional;
o the DVD contains noticeable typographical or graphical errors or omissions which do not hinder usability and are not deemed unacceptable by the Publications Office.
o the product or its packaging has any cosmetic issues that are noticeable but do not render it unfit for distribution in the opinion of the Publications Office.
• Minor defect;
o the DVD contains minor typographical or graphical errors or omissions which do not hinder usability and are not deemed significant by the Publications Office;
o the product or its packaging has any minor cosmetic issue.
o the product contains any minor errors not specified above.
• Accepted.
A delivery shall be deemed to be of poor quality (which is a reason not to accept it and to apply Article I.12 of the contract will apply):
• if there is any unacceptable defect (fatal error);
• whereas three (3) major defects are considered as one fatal error; or
• if the percentage of major and minor defects exceeds 25% of the tests performed before the deliverable is accepted.
Acceptance of deliverables is subject to the time limits specified under topic 4.4.
The contractual guarantee period commences when a deliverable is accepted, and is of six (6) months’ duration (see topic 4.10.12). Refusal to accept a deliverable shall be justified and communicated in writing. In the event of refusal, the deliverables will be returned to the contractor, who must correct the errors and malfunctions within a set deadline.
7 Documentation
• Technical documentation: the contractor is to produce the technical documentation necessary for maintaining the multimedia publication and for installing and managing it in the various technical environments. The technical documentation is subject to approval and editing by the Publications Office.
• Minutes and reports of meetings: the contractor will produce the minutes of the meetings. These minutes must be approved by the Publications Office before distribution.
• Activity reports: the contractor will be required to produce frequent activity reports describing the work completed, the work programme and the use of resources. These reports are to be submitted to the Publications Office for prior approval.
• Deliverable reports: the contractor will be required to produce delivery sheets describing the contents of each deliverable. A delivery sheet shall incorporate a certification of the Quality Control. A delivery sheet will obligatorily be part of each deliverable. For further details, see article I.10.11.6 of the contract.
• Acceptance reports: acceptance sheets will be issued by the Publications Office attesting the compliance with the technical specifications and the qualitative recognition of the product.
• Contract consumption annual report.
Delivery reports and acceptance reports shall be annexed to invoices after being aknowledge and signed by both parties.
The contractor will regularly supply statistics on the space available for each edition of the DVD-ROMs in order to guarantee a safety margin in the event of significant changes. Monthly statistics on receipt of all types of files (PDF, HTML and XML) must also be provided.
For thematic DVD-ROMs, the contractor will supply estimates of the space required to contain the documents requested by the Publications Office on DVD-ROM well before production.
8 Packaging and labelling
The DVD-ROMs are to be delivered in crystal cases, jewel boxes or card sleeves (two or more DVDs), protected by plastic film (polyethylene or polypropylene) or card or soft plastic sleeves[9], or in any other holder proposed by the tenderer as an option, to protect them against dust. If there is more than one DVD-ROM per edition, the packaging must contain all the DVD-ROMs of that edition. For transportation, the DVD-ROMs will be packed in boxes containing 100 units.
The labelling and wrapping of the DVD-ROMs for each language version will be based on the design of the EUR-Lex website () in four colours, with an additional film in one colour for the variable parts. The Publications Office will either provide the complete graphic design, or request the contractor to create it. In the latter case, it will be subject to prior approval by the Publications Office.
9 Progress indicators
To measure the progress of the project, an assessment will be made of the contractor’s capacity to deliver products in accordance with established procedures and within the completion periods (topic 4.4) and on order forms (production of thematic DVD-ROMs on an irregular basis).
The progress indicators will include:
• a timetable for the supply of the various elements listed in the order form (production of thematic DVD-ROMs);
• approval of intermediate and final reports;
• meetings: minutes drawn up by the contractor and approved by the Publications Office and the originating department;
• delivery: delivery sheets signed by the Publications Office at each stage in the life of the multimedia publication and when a deliverable is due;
• acceptance of a product: acceptance is confirmed after assessment of the qualitative acceptance criteria (topic 4.3.6), by the Publications Office and the originating department, in accordance with quality control procedures and results of tests performed in-house. The functional and operational guarantee for the publication begins on the date of the signature of the acceptance sheet.
In the case of complex projects, additional progress indicators may be used to measure activity, satisfaction and the contractor’s value added. These progress indicators and their impact on the project will be assessed at the follow-up meetings.
10 Completion of work
When all the work has been completed and paid for, the file will be closed. The contractor will return to the Publications Office all source files and documentation with which he was provided to perform the work.
At the request of the Publications Office will file the multimedia project (source files and final product) for later re-use.
The contractor will be required to supply the necessary documentation for the later updating of the project.
11 Elements used to measure the contractor’s performance
The elements which will be the basis to measure the contractor’s performance are:
• deliverables (except for icons and navigation elements);
• re-usable software components;
• size of the file or multimedia publication in Kbytes or Mbytes;
• number of pages (equivalent DIN A4 -1500 characters per page);
• processing operation (see below);
• frequency of services (daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, annual);
• deadlines for delivery (day, week, month);
• person/day;
• contract consumption annual report.
Other elements may also come into play.
The contractor must make available to the Publications Office detailed log files that will provide a basis for assessing the number of operations performed, its results and the associated workload. A summary presentation shall be attached when the items will be submitted for acceptance.
12 Guarantee and hidden defects
After acceptance of a multimedia publication by the Publications Office, the product will be covered by a guarantee lasting six (6) calendar months, during which users will be able to demonstrate hidden or formal defects which were not detected at the testing stage. These defects will be communicated by the Publications Office to the contractor, who is to correct them within a prescribed period and to deliver new products. The Publications Office will calculate the seriousness of the malfunctions and the time required to eliminate them, which will be then subjetc of corrective maintenance.
The guarantee coverage includes corrective maintenance.
The satisfaction indices may also be applied during the guarantee period.
13 Contact between parties involved in the work
The Publications Office is the only party authorised to negotiate with the contractor.
Only the project leader nominated by the Publications Office is authorised to give production instructions to the contractor.
The Publications Office will organise regular follow-up meetings with the contractor and the other parties involved in the project: originating department and project leader.
If the project leader is unable to take part in a meeting between the originating department and the contractor, a detailed draft agenda must be communicated beforehand for approval by the project leader. The conformity of the decisions in relation to placement of orders must be validated by the project leader. All instructions having an impact on resources, the timetable and criteria for acceptance of deliverables will be given by the project leader.
14 Technical support and maintenance
The contractor is to provide technical support and assistance in all aspects of the DVD-ROM as well as upgrading and corrective maintenance of the DVD-ROM software (standard and/or specific).
An annual fee (see price schedule) will cover all kinds of technical support and assistance, as well as upgrading and corrective maintenance (see the price schedule).
A first level helpdesk for users of the DVD-ROMs will be provided by the Publications Office.
The Contractor will be in charge of a second level helpdesk which will give assistance to the Publications Office and its first level helpdesk on technical issues directly linked to the products realised as part of this contract.
The contractor shall have a technical support service on call from 9:00 to 17:00 to deal with any questions from the Publications Office or its first level helpdesk.
The normal follow-up will consist of:
• within 4 hours: acknowledgement of the reception of the question;
• within 24 hours: either full answer or initial diagnostic if a full answer can’t be provided;
• within 48 hours: either full answer or a workaround to the question, for complex issues a first analysis with an indication of the delay needed for finalising the investigation.
The monthly reports must give a synthesis of encountered problems, proposals for enhancements of the products to improve the service quality and users satisfaction.
The contractor will perform upgrading and/or corrective maintenance on the product after the request and/or the agreement of the Publications Office.
4 Time limits
Delivery time limits are per order, irrespective of other orders being processed, and apply to each multimedia publication and language version, even if several publications in several language versions are submitted simultaneously. They shall run independently for each multimedia publication.
Liquidated damages for delays shall be applied in the event of failure to meet the deadlines specified in the order (see special conditions to the contract – Articles I.4 and I.12).
The time limits may be revised by common agreement with the contractor in the perspective of productivity gains or actual delivery times.
1 Time limits for the DEVELOPMENT phase
In order to ensure the proper progress of the work a final prototype including all screens and result lists is to be delivered for approval by the Publications Office no later than six (6) to eight (8) weeks following the signature of the contract.
Three copies of the prototype of the completed DVD-ROMs are to be delivered for testing by the Publications Office, afterwhich all the necessary corrections must be carried out.
The final version of the prototype will then be submitted to the Publications Office for approval.
The contractor shall be ready to produce the DVD-ROMs after the prototype has been approved by the Publications Office.
|Who |Events |Time limits |
|Both parties |Signature of the contract |X (February 2010) |
|Both parties |Start-up meeting. |X + 1 week |
|Contractor |Submission of the prototype for analysis |X + 6 weeks |
|Publications Office |Testing and validation of the prototype (proposal for |X + 8 weeks |
| |improvements) | |
|Contractor |Submission of the prototype for approval (after corrections)|X + 10 weeks |
|Publications Office |Testing and approval of the prototype |X + 12 weeks |
| | |(May 2010) |
2 Time limits for the PRODUCTION phase (monthly DVD-ROM)
During each month, the Publications Office will supply the contractor with the electronic files of the Official Journals on the day of their publication.
Three (3) working days after their publication, the Publications Office will supply the contractor with the electronic files of the secondary data (notices) on the Official Journals. These notices/prior notices may not be produced, or may be produced after a delay. In such cases, the contractor will be specifically asked to create a “pseudo notice”.
For other legislative documents, the timetable for the Publications Office to make data available will be drawn up on a case-by-case basis.
The L and C series Official Journals must be supplied on DVD-ROMs before 3 p.m. on the tenth (10th) calendar day of the month. The DVD-ROMs are to be delivered to the Publications Office in Luxembourg.
The contractor shall provide a detailed production workflow in which he shows compliance with the timetable prescribed below.
|Who |Events |Time limits |
|Publications Office |Handover of content files |Y = end of the month |
| | |(May 2010) |
| | |OJ - the day of publication; |
| | |Notices - 3 days after publication |
| | |(June 2010) |
|Contractor |Start-off of production |After Y |
| | |(June 2010) |
|Contractor |Delivery of the monthly DVD-ROM |10th calendar day of the month, before 3 pm|
| | |(June 2010) |
The Publications Office must receive the deliverables 10 working days after handover of contents (manuscripts) or, at the latest on the 10th day of the following month, unless written instructions by the Publications Office explicitly state otherwise.
3 Time limits for production of THEMATIC DVD-ROMs
The procedures until the “passed for press” order as well as the relevant time limits are the following, unless indicated differently in the order form[10]:
|Who? |Events |Time limit |
|Publications Office |Handover of content files |Z |
|Contractor |Composition of the publication and submission of first proofs|Z + 2 weeks |
|Publications Office |Validation and proposal of corrections |Z + 3 weeks |
|Contractor |Incorporation of corrections |Z + 4 weeks |
| |and submission of second proofs | |
|Publications Office |Acceptance and production of the acceptance form |Z + 5 weeks |
|Contractor |Production and delivery of master DVD-ROM |Z + 6 weeks |
4 Time limits for acceptance of products and services
The Publications Office shall have five (5) working days after receipt to perform the qualitative verification and acceptance of the DVD-ROMs. The Contractor might be required to submit new deliverables within a given deadline prescribed by the Publication Office.
In the case of the technical development of a multimedia publication, the Publications Office should accept the deliverables by no later than ten (10) working days after receipt, unless written instructions by the Publications Office explicitly state otherwise.
GLOSSARY
|{0>NomNameDescriptionDescriptionBlurbBlurbA blurb is just a short written piece about something.Blurb is just a short written piece |
| |about something.Usually it's in reference to a newspaper article that briefly mentions a |
| |barely newsworthy item.Usually it's a reference to a newspaper article that briefly mentions |
| |a barely newsworthy item.CD-ROMCD-ROMDisque compact de 12 cm de diamètre, enregistrement simple face, supportant des données |
| |numérisées (textes, sons, images) et de grande capacité.Compact disc, 12 cm in diameter, high|
| |capacity, carrying digital data (texts, images) recorded on one side only.Son format est |
| |normalisé (ISO 9660) Standardised format (ISO 9660).ClassificationClassificatio|{0>La classification se définit, au sens documentaire, comme l'organisation des connaissances en |
|nIndexing Préparation et activation d'une chaîne de traitement automatisée portant sur un ensemble |
| ................
................
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