Terms of Reference (TOR) for Consulting Firm

For designing and establishing

Web Based Higher Education Management Information System (HEMIS)

I. Background

1.The Government of Bangladesh launched the Higher Education Quality Enhancement project (HEQEP) in April 2009. UGC is currently implementing the project. HEQEP aims to improve the quality and relevance of the teaching, learning and research environment in the higher education institutions in Bangladesh through encouraging both innovation and accountability within the institutions and by enhancing the technical and institutional capacity of the higher education sector of the country. The project consists of four components: (i) promoting academic innovation; (Component 1); (ii) building institutional capacity (Component 2); (iii) raising the connectivity capacity of the sector (Component 3); and (iv) project management (Component 4). The World Bank financially supports the government's effort to achieve the project objectives.

2.As part of the building institutional capacity of Universities and UGC, HEQEP has planned a series of activities which include development of a Higher Education Management Information System (HEMIS) at UGC. The Web based HEMIS will be a real-time, role-based, conditional access system with each institution entering the data on real-time basis using the web and the data getting stored and updated in designated central servers[1].

3.HEMIS is expected to increase the operational efficiency of UGC and increase the transparency in the operation and management of higher education system. The web-based application will allow timely, secure, and transparent storage of data, easy handling of storages, processing and retrieval of large quantities of data, flow of information, searching and sorting of specific information uniformly, accurately, quickly and easy generation of reports. It is expected that a fully operational HEMIS can become an invaluable tool to aid decision-making in the management and development of individual institutions and the sector as a whole.

4.UGC will hire a consulting firm which will design and establish HEMIS. The firm will work closely with the HEMIS and ICT units of UGC with guidance from the HEMIS Management Committee (HMC) of UGC.

5.This document states general Terms of Reference (ToR) for the services to be provided by the consultant in relation to the scope of work for the HEMIS.

II. Objectives

6.The specific objectives of the proposed consultancy are to:

  1. Create a web-enabled Monitoring and Evaluation Framework in consultation with UGC. This will include defining performance monitoring indicators and reporting formats.
  2. Develop, operationalize, implement and maintain a user-friendly, interactive, web-based HEMIS for monitoring higher education sector activities. This system should provide suitable flexible interactive user-friendly tools to allow collation of inputs from various institutions, produce standard reports and disseminate information to policy makers and stakeholders in a systematic way.
  3. Strengthen the capacity of UGC to monitor sector activities and outcomes through the use of the HEMIS.

7.The data content of the HEMIS may include but will not necessarily be limited to: student and faculty information, characteristics of courses and programs offered, accreditation, relevant administrative and financial information, academic and placement data pertaining to students, and research and development and consultancy activities of the institutions.

8.The system developed is envisioned to meet all the requirements of Management Information System from the central database, being updated regularly from various host stations online and also generate periodic reports required in unitized and aggregated forms. It will be developed as a web application with user-friendly Graphical User Interface (GUI) based front end, powerful retrievable database in compatible platform as back end. The software will be a menu driven easy to use system developed on self-help basis, guiding the users with appropriate help/ error messages.

9.Core information will be disseminated/exchanged in such a way that will have Intranet for UGC, universities shall have Extranet and common user will have access through Internet.

10.In addition to the Data centre and HEMIS software, at the end of the project, the consultant shall provide user’s guideline, design and technical guideline, training guideline, properly commented source code etc to UGC.

III. DETAILED SCOPE OF WORK

11.The consultants' duties and responsibilities will include but will not necessarily be limited to the following:

(i)Systems Requirement Specification (SRS)

(a)Identification of information need. The complete set of information to be captured by the HEMIS will be finalized during the SRS phase. The firm will arrange consultations with UGC, academia, researchers, policy makers and other stakeholders to identify the information need to be collected from institutions for tracking the development of the sector and making informed planning. What information will be disseminated through the intranet, extranet and internet will also be identified at this stage by the firm.

(b)Assessment of Capacity. The firm will assess the existing capacity both at the universities and at UGC and will develop a capacity building plan.

(c)Assessment of hardware, software and overall requirement for HEMIS data centre. The consultant will undertake a stocktaking exercise at UGC for existing hardware and software and will identify hardware and software requirement with exact specifications. UGC will procure the hardware and software using the specifications described by the firm.

(d)Review of the initial HEMIS design and finalize the design in consultation with HEMIS and ICT unit at UGC and HMC. The firm will be responsible for assessing all the needs and developing a final design for HEMIS in consultation and agreement with HEMIS and ICT unit and HMC.

(ii) Establishment of a Separate Data Centre for HEMIS

The selected consultant is responsible for transferring fully established HEMIS to appropriate servers that will be established by UGC during the project period.The existing servers in the UGC would initially be used for operating HEMIS. However, a fully operational data centreis expected tol be established byUGC. The consultant required to assess hardware and software needs for the Data Centre at the initial stage of the assignment which would include disaster recovery centre (DRC), access control and physical and logical security of information.

(iii)Technology Architecture

The consultant is expected to maintain consistency in technology standards chosen for the design and development of HEMIS to ensure consistencyand compatibility.

(iv)Establishment of a SecuredWeb-Based HEMIS:

The consultant will develop an interactive web-based Higher Education Management Information System (HEMIS), which will allow the flow and collation of data from all the institutions and UGC to the central servers on real time basis.

(a) A broad indicative list of the desirable features of HEMIS includes:

i.The HEMIS will be developed as web-based application with Graphic User Interface (GUI) based user interface.

ii.The software should have multiple data entry point. For example, data from a particular university may be entered at the individual departments or at the register building or at the UGC. While in most cases the registraroffice will be used as the entry point for the time being, at least two universities will test the department level entry point.

iii.HEMIS will have a limited interface for access by the general public, anyone can access limited data on a need to know and access rights basis from HEMIS website (extranet). The website will also allow the site visitors to generatean agreed set of cross-tabulations.

iv.HEMIS will be designed in an evolutionary mode to accommodate the possible future expansion of the system or meet future requirements arising. The design should be completely modular to take care of the affirmation expansions.

v.The system should be able to generate reports and performance indictors in a text as well as graphic form (such as bar chart, pie charts or line graphs etc.) to aid decision makers' effectively. This implies that the system should include an easy to use report generator to satisfy various needs arising. The design should be completely modular to take care of affirmation expansion.

vi.The system should have complete embedded security measures against the data hacking/ tampering, data access, and data in transit etc.

vii.The system will have conditional access to the nominated persons within UGC with defined level of access and appropriate security (intranet).

viii.The system should be able to capture data at source and must ensure enough validation checks and crosscheck to prevent spurious data to be entered.

ix.The system must incorporate general utilities like e-mail,various search options, number of hits, feedback etc.

x.Web interface and data will be both in English and Bangla language (unicode)

(b) Initial data will be entered by the consulting firm.

(v) Maintenance and Support

  1. The consultant will maintain/update the software developed for a period of one year under warranty after final acceptance by UGC and also expected to maintain the system for one post-warranty year.
  2. The consultant is expected to clearly bring out the yearly cost implications for maintenance and constant (quarterly/ half yearly) modification/ up- gradation of the developed software in the financial proposal.
  3. The consultant will be expected to establish a dedicated help desk to provide the timely and necessary operational support to all users across the country. The help desk will be at the UGC and will be run by the consulting firm till the end of maintenance period. The firm will ensure smooth transition of the helpdesk to UGC at the end of the maintenance period.
  4. Specific Service Level Agreement (SLA) covering maintenance and support activities and also query resolution time, and proposed penalties for non-compliance will be designed by the consultant and submitted along with the proposal. The SLA parameters will be a part of the evaluation scheme.

(vi)Training and CapacityBuilding

i.Training on the functional as well as technical aspects of the software developed is an integral component of the HEMIS development.

ii.The front users (one from each university and UGC staff, approximately 100 in total) shall be trained on the functional aspects of the HEMIS and selected administrative users from UGC (approximately 10) shall be trained on technical aspects of HEMIS.

iii.The consultant shall develop two separate "Manuals" each for training and reference purpose for functional as well as technical training. The user manual shall be prepared in Bangla and the technical manual shall be prepared in English. There should be also some video tools for easy learning.

iv.The functional training program shall involve Day-to-day functionality of HEMIS and resolving the general functional issues arising with the help of the users' manual etc.

v.The implementing officials from UGC (approx. 10 users) will be trained first on "train the trainer" basis at UGC identified location,

vi.The technical training program shall expose the trainees on technical know-how of the system developed in order to equip the trainees for providing first level support and be able to maximize the utilization of HEMIS. Officials from ICT and HEMIS unit of UGC should be involved at every stage so that UGC develops enough expertise for maintaining and upgrading the HEMIS and the Data Centre after the firm finally handovers the system to UGC.

vii.Specific Service Level Agreement (SLA) will be designed by consultant and submitted along with the proposal. The SLA parameters will be part of the evaluation criteria.

IV. Schedule for completion of tasks

The HEMIS should be designed, developed and implemented within nine months (270 days) from the date of effectivenessof contract, and ready for user acceptance test. A detailed road map (270 days) for development of complete HEMIS system must be submitted along with the proposal, which will be used as progress assessment tool.

V. Data, services and facilities to be provided by the client

The selected consultant will be provided with the following:

  1. An orientation about the project
  2. Place for Data centre and helpdesk
  3. Hardware required for establishing Data Centre according to specification provided (and agreed with UGC) by the firm.
  4. Access to currently collected data
  5. Users' requirement specifications (URS).
  6. Any other relevant data/ information etc.

VI. Final outputs required of the consultant

The key outputs of the consultant are listed below:

  1. An assessment report on Hardware and Software requirement for Data Centre for a functional HEMIS.
  2. A fully functional web-based Higher Education Management Information System (HEMIS) at UGC.
  3. A detailed User Assessment Test (UAT) plan for the project.
  4. Master data-entry (first time base-line) into the system and provide training and capacity building for transaction data-entry.
  5. Soft and print copies of "Users' Manuals", "Analysis Document", "Design Document", and properly documented source code.
  6. Training report on the user, master trainers, UGC staff and institutional personnel at UGC specified different locations (approximately 4).

VII. Procedure for review of progress reports, inception, status, final draft and final reports

The following is the procedure for review of progress reports, inception status, final draft and final reports:

i.The consultant is expected to keep the client informed of all the activities under taken, progress made therein and future plans.

ii.The consultant and client can decide the format(s) of report writing mutually. The consultant will be under obligation to change/ alter the format (s) as and when desired by the Client.

iii.The consultant shall prepare a Monthly Report mentioning gist of all the activities under taken, progress made, corrective action taken, if any, during the month.

iv.The Report Writing shall start from the first week of commencement of the contract with the consultant.

VIII.The consultant should have the following qualifications, at the minimum:

  1. The consultant should be experienced in designing hardware and software for a web-based information management system.
  2. At least 5 years experience (individual contract, non-cumulative) in designing and developing software and hardware for similar activities.
  3. At least three such software developed in last 5 years.
  4. Proven record of financial and institutional soundness of the firm.
  5. Proven record of maintaining software development professional in the regular payroll of the firm.

IX. List of key professional positions whose CV and experience would be evaluated

Sl. / Key Professionals / Specific Expertise Desired / Minimum Qualification and Professional Experience Desired
1 / Project Manager / Having headed minimum three end-to-end software development projects with similar level of intricacies. / BSc/ BSc Eng/MSc/M Eng/MSc Eng in Computer Science + MBA with minimum 3+ years of experience in heading the projects of similar nature and overall experience of 8 years.
2 / System Architect / Having designed minimum two end-to-end software systems, preferably for web application. / BSc/ BSc Eng/MSc/M Eng/MSc Eng in Computer Science with minimum 5+ years of experience in the relevant field.
3 / Data Base Specialist / Having experience in designing and managing the database for minimum two projects, preferably for web application. / BSc/ BSc Eng/MSc/M Eng/MSc Eng in Computer Science with minimum 5+ years of experience in the relevant field.
4 / SoftwareDevelopers / Having developed minimum three software systems with similar level of intricacies, preferably web application development. / BSc/ BSc Eng/MSc/M Eng/MSc Eng in Computer Science with minimum 4+ years of experience in the relevant field.
5 / Testing Engineer / Having relevant experience in minimum two projects, preferably web application development. / BSc/ BSc Eng/MSc/M Eng/MSc Eng in Computer Science with minimum 2+ years of experience in handling the relevant
Field
6 / Training Managers / Having relevant experience in minimum two projects / BSc/ BSc Eng/MSc/M Eng/MSc Eng in Computer Science with minimum 2+ years of experience in handling the relevant field.

[1]A pictorial description of the proposed HEMIS is presented in the annex 1. This is an initial idea. The firm is expected to review it and improve it, if necessary, in consultation with the HEMIS unit and HMC.