Research Online.

Descriptions

Skills Development Scotland (SDS) is the national skills body supporting the people and businesses of Scotland to develop and apply their skills. SDS was formed in 2008 as a non-departmental public body bringing together careers, skills, training and funding services.Employing circa 1 300 staff it plays an important role in supporting individuals reach their potential, helping make skills work for employers, and improving the skills and learning system.Research Online.A considerable volume of research and analysis is produced on a range of labour market topics, both within the UK and further afield. Rapid access to that body of work would be valuable to researchers, policy makers and others. It would help to ensure that their work is informed by previous research and that needless duplication of effort is minimised.The main purpose of Research Online — www.researchonline.org.uk — is to provide rapid and free access to a robust source of information about ‘labour market publications’ — including consultancy reports and material produced by economic development organisations, local authorities and other ‘grey’ literature.Research Online contains abstracts of books, reports and journal articles which address labour market issues such as skills, workforce development, demographics, employers' needs and barriers to employment. Most of the documents are also available in full text and can be downloaded directly from Research Online or via hyperlink.— Lot 1 — research online tool.Skills Development Scotland seeks to maintain and develop its Research Online tool to provide a more effective channel for the dissemination of labour market research. The current service can be seen at www.researchonline.org.ukThe maintenance, hosting, updating and development of this service is currently outsourced and the service should continue on this basis.Potential suppliers should structure their proposals around:— Developing a website for Research Online;— Process for maintaining and updating the Skills Development Scotland Research Online service;— Approaches towards the sourcing and updating of Research Online content;— Arrangements for external hosting, including security aspects, disaster recovery and expected levels of service.— Lot 2 — SDS is also looking to subscribe as an organisation to an online library service on a fixed price basis. The service would be available to all SDS staff. Subject coverage should include but is not limited to the labour market, economic development, employment, education and skills, equalities and diversity and regeneration. Users should be able to access content such as journal articles and online articles via the online library. Other materials such as books and other hard copy items should be made available to the user by post.In addition a request service should be available to users where they can submit a request for a researcher to do a literature search on their behalf. The results should be available by email and include links to documents/literature in the library and their abstracts.Company's may bid for 1 or both Lots.Note: to register your interest in this notice and obtain any additional information please visit the Public Contracts Scotland Web Site at http://www.publiccontractsscotland.gov.uk/Search/Search_Switch.aspx?ID=423357The buyer has indicated that it will accept electronic responses to this notice via the Postbox facility. A user guide is available at http://www.publiccontractsscotland.gov.uk/sitehelp/help_guides.aspx.Suppliers are advised to allow adequate time for uploading documents and to dispatch the electronic response well in advance of the closing time to avoid any last minute problems.