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TENDER DOCUMENT
FOR
THE CONDUCT OF COMPUTER BASED ONLINE
GATE/JAM EXAMINATIONS FOR THREE YEARS
(2016-2018)
YEAR
ORGANIZING INSTITUTES
2016 INDIAN INSTITUTE OF SCIENCE
BENGALURU –560012
and
INDIAN INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY MADRAS
CHENNAI – 600036
2017 INDIAN INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY ROORKEE
ROORKEE – 247667
and
INDIAN INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY DELHI
DELHI – 110016
2018 INDIAN INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY GUWAHATI
GUWAHATI – 781039
and
INDIAN INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY BOMBAY
MUMBAI – 400076
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Disclaimer
This Tender is not an offer by either the Indian Institute of Science,
Bengaluru or any of the Indian Institutes of Technology, but an invitation
to receive offer from vendors. The Tender is for conducting On-line
GATE / JAM examinations for a period of three years, i.e., for the years
2016, 2017 and 2018 by the concerned Institutes. While the pattern,
modalities and operations remain the same during these three years,
there could be minor changes in specific number of candidates, number
of sessions, dates of examinations, number of examination papers,
number of examination centres, etc.
No contractual obligation whatsoever shall arise from the tender process
unless and until a formal contract is signed and executed by duly
authorized office bearers of the GATE/JAM Organizing Committee or an
appointee thereof with the vendor.
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Table of Contents
Sr. no
Description
Pages
1.
About GATE/JAM
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2.
Brief scope of the work of the Company Partner (CP)
4
3.
General Instructions
5
4.
Submission of Bids
6
5.
Evaluation of the Proposals
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6.
Detailed Scope of Work of CP
10
7.
Time Frame
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Annexures 1 to 7
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Proposals should reach the undersigned by 4.30 P.M. on 06th July, 2015:
The Organizing Chairman,
GATE/JAM 2016, GATE/JAM Office, INDIAN INSTITUTE OF SCIENCE
BENGALURU - 560012
Date, Time and Venue of Opening of Technical bids:
06th July, 2015, 4.30 P.M. GATE/JAM OFFICE, INDIAN INSTITUTE OF SCIENCE,
BENGALURU - 560012
Date, Time and Venue of Opening of commercial bids:
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1. About GATE / JAM:
The Indian Institute of Science (IISc) and seven Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) at Bombay, Delhi, Guwahati, Kanpur, Kharagpur, Madras and Roorkee jointly administer the conduct of GATE/JAM (Graduate Aptitude Test in Engineering / Joint Admission test for M.Sc.) every year that serves as a means for admissions to graduate programmes in various engineering and science disciplines of IISc and the IITs in the country. The results of GATE are also used by several Public Sector Undertakings to short-list the candidates for their recruitment. The operations related to GATE/JAM in each of the 8 zones are managed by a zonal GATE/JAM Office at an IIT or IISc. The Organizing Institutes (OI) of each year are responsible for the end-to-end process and coordination amongst the administering institutes in that year.
GATE/JAM examinations are computer based Online Examinations in which the candidates will be required to answer the questions that appear on a computer connected to a Local Area Network (LAN). Answers would be recorded at a server that also keeps track of the time for the examination. We hereby seek a Company Partner (CP) to provide the technology and the operational solution for the conduct of online examination of GATE/JAM for three years, i.e., for the years 2016, 2017 and 2018.
The Organizing Institutes for GATE/JAM 2016 are IISc. Bengaluru and IIT Madras. The GATE/JAM 2016 examinations for all the papers will be conducted on computer based Online Examination mode in multiple sessions spread over the period from 30th January 2016 to 20th February 2016.
The GATE/JAM organizing institutes for 2017 are IIT Roorkee and IIT Delhi unless otherwise informed.
The GATE/JAM Organizing Institutes for 2018 are IIT Guwahati and IIT Bombay unless otherwise informed.
2. Brief scope of work of the Company Partner:
The Company Partner (CP) and GATE / JAM Committee will be required to work together to conduct the Online GATE/JAM Examination. The Company Partner (CP) shall provide the technology and the operational solutions for the conduct of online examination for GATE / JAM. The GATE/JAM committee will provide the question papers which is set for the GATE /JAM examination to be held for the year 2016 and question papers for the years 2017 and
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2018 will be provided at the relevant point of time. The total number of candidates taking the Online Examination in GATE / JAM is expected to be around one million for each year.
3. Required
General Criteria to bid for the TenderIn this tender document, Vendor, Bidder, Bidding agency and Company Partner (CP) mean one and the same.
a) The bidding agency shall ensure a single point of contact with the GATE/JAM 2016 Committee for the three years, i.e., 2016, 2017 and 2018 and shall be solely responsible for the execution and delivery of the work.
b) The bidding agency should be based in India and operating in India for the last 5 years offering similar services. They should have a minimum turn-over of Rs. 50,00,00,000/- (Rupees Fifty crores only) in each of the last 2 financial years.
c) The bidding agency should own the copyright of the source code being used for conducting the computer based online examinations. The agency should be able to make changes as and when required in any of the components of the software/source code being utilized for the purpose of conducting the said computer based online examinations throughout the term of three years as required and indicated by the conducting Institutes in accordance to the requirements and/or changes made by the GATE/JAM Committee of each of the Organizing Institute for the GATE/JAM examination question paper or format of the examinations or in any other manner.
d) The agency should be certified for compliance with established Information Security Standards such as ISO 27001. Duly signed copy of ISO 27001 certificate should be submitted along with the technical bid. The bidding agency shall ensure that such certificate is valid through the subsistence of the term of three years as stated herein. Any renewal of such certificate shall be the sole responsibility of the bidding agency without any recourse to either of the Organizing Institutes in any manner whatsoever.
e) The agency should have an in-house quality assurance and product testing team with proven and robust quality management processes required for conducting the computer based online examinations.
f) The agency must employ multiple backup systems including offline backups to securely maintain the software and its corresponding source code.
g) The agency should design a high-performance system and conduct performance tests to verify successful achievement of high concurrency, fast response time, and long-stress duration requirements of the system used to conduct the examinations. Results of such performance tests should be made available to the GATE/JAM committee and each of the
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Organizing Institutes as and when required. Sometimes these tests may have to be conducted within short notice and with strict deadlines. These tests shall be conducted by the bidding agency prior to the each of the GATE/JAM online examinations each year, as may be requested by the respective Organizing Institute.
h) The agency should design a highly secure system and conduct security tests to verify that there are no vulnerabilities that can make the system susceptible to attacks. Comprehensive testing of source code and the infrastructure must be carried out. Results of such security tests should be made available to the GATE/JAM committee of the Organizing Institutes as may be requested from time to time.
i) There should be suitable emergency management plans towards any crisis situations/redundancy of servers, nodes, additional centre locations, students’ data. The vendor has to clearly indicate these plans in the technical proposal.
j) The agency should be able to support the entire solution (across India) on a 24 x 7 basis with a maximum response time of 3 hours.
k) At any time before the submission of bids, GATE/JAM Organizing Institutes may amend the tender by issuing an addendum in writing or by standard electronic means. The addenda, if any, as put on GATE website http://gate.iisc.ernet.in will be binding on them. If the amendments are substantial, Bidder(s) shall be given reasonable time to make amendments or to submit revised bid and the deadline for submission of bids will be extended by the GATE /JAM committee of the Organizing Institutes.
l) All disputes arising out of this process shall be subject to the jurisdiction of International Centre of Alternative Dispute Resolution, New Delhi.
m) The bidding agency should have authorized and globally accepted software certification, CMMi Level 5.
n) The GATE/JAM Committee of the Organizing Institutes shall award the tender to an agency that fulfils each of the criteria mentioned above and further set out more particularly in the Technical Proposal (Clause 4.1) and the Commercial Proposal.
4. Submission of bids
The Tender Document has to be downloaded from the website http://gate.iisc.ernet.in and submitted in proper form along with all relevant documents and a Tender Fee of Rs.
25,000/-(Rupees Twenty Five Thousand Only) in the form of a Demand Draft drawn in favour of The Registrar, IISc., Bengaluru. Offers without Tender Fee shall be rejected summarily.
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The Vendor (bidder) shall submit their offer in two parts: (1) Technical Proposal, and (2) Commercial proposal
a) The tender is a “2-Bid’ document. The technical proposal should contain all the relevant information along with all the relevant enclosures and the Earnest Money Deposit (EMD). The commercial proposal should contain only the price bid. If any bidder encloses the financial bid within technical bid, the same shall be rejected summarily.
b) All relevant information as specified in the Technical and Commercial Proposals including the contingency plans, and Annexures-1 to 6 should be furnished by the bidders. The bidder is advised to attach any information that is necessary in regard to the capabilities to establish that the bidder is capable in all respects to successfully complete the envisaged work. The bidders are cautioned that not giving complete information called for or deliberately suppressing the information may result in the bidder being summarily disqualified.
c) The Tenders should be printed. The name and signature of bidder’s authorized person should be recorded on each page of the application. All pages of the tender document shall be numbered and submitted as a package along with forwarding letter on agency’s letter head. A soft copy of the bid in a cd or pen drive may be supplied.
d) The offer will remain open for a minimum period of 90 days from the date of opening of the tender, within which the bidders cannot withdraw their offer.
e) Reference, information and certificates from the respective clients of each of the Vendor certifying technical, delivery and execution capability of the bidder should be signed and the contact numbers of all such clients should be mentioned. The GATE/JAM Organizing Committee of the respective Organizing Institutes may also independently seek information regarding the performance from the clients.
f) Even though bidder may satisfy the qualifying criteria, the bidder is liable to disqualification due to record of poor performance or not able to understand the scope of work, does not have experience in conducting online examination for more than one lakh candidates and for such other reasons which the GATE/JAM Organising Committee may consider relevant.
g) The bidder should enclose an EMD for Rs. 50,00,000/- (Rupees Fifty Lakhs) in the form of a Demand Draft drawn in favour of The Registrar, IISc., Bengaluru. This total amount of EMD shall be for the grant of tender for the term of three years as stated herein. The tenders without EMD shall be summarily rejected. The EMD of the unsuccessful bidders shall be returned without any interest after the award of the contract to the successful bidder. The EMD of the successful bidder shall be returned only after signing of contract along with
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performance security deposit. The EMD stands forfeited in case the bidder withdraws or amends his bid after submission of tender document. Upon selection, the successful bidder shall submit a bank guarantee of 10 % of the total contract value in a bank account and in the form as may be mutually agreed upon by and between the GATE/JAM Committee of the Organizing Institutes for the term of three years as stated herein in this Tender Document and communicated to the successful bidder.
h) The sealed envelopes should be marked “Offer for GATE/JAM 2016 - 2018 ONLINE EXAMINATIONS” from “Vendor Name”, “Technical or Commercial”. The larger enclosing envelope should be marked “Offer for GATE/JAM 2016 - 2018 ONLINE EXAMINATIONS” from “Vendor Name”. The contents of Technical and Commercial proposals should be as follows:
4.1. Technical Proposal (including operational proposal)
• A technical proposal that details the capabilities of the Question Paper Authoring Software, the Examination Software (Client and Server) and the software that handles post examination operations (verification of the uploaded data). Please provide the feature list as an enumerated list or a table.
• An operational proposal that gives the following details:
• The number of nodes per city that the vendor has qualified as per their process for the list of cities indicated in Annexure-7. Please also indicate the number of nodes per city on which you have conducted an exam. Note that for the qualified nodes you MUST have in place an agreement with the institute/college providing the infrastructure.
• The projected capability in terms of the number of audited seats in each city that the vendor will be able to identify by the end of September 2015. The CP has to submit a complete finalized list of the centres latest by the 7th day of October 2015.
• The availability of adequate number of technical personnel for conducting the examination in the required number of test centres. The CP has to submit a complete list of such personnel latest by the 7th day of December 2015. • The process followed by the vendor for qualifying a test centre.
• The procedures followed for the pre-exam, exam and post-exam operations including the capability of the vendor to set up a secure Master Control facility for uploading post-exam data.
• A Standard Scientific Virtual Calculator must be made available as a built-in element of the examination conducting software.
• A statement that gives the following details of the examinations conducted by the vendor within the past 12 months prior to submitting the bids as per the terms set out herein: (a) Total number of candidates appeared for the examination, (b) Total
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number of candidates across all the cities in a single session, (c) Number of sessions on a day of examination and (d) Number of days of examination.
4.2. Commercial proposal
The commercial proposal should give the details of the charges per registered candidate AND the minimum number of candidates at this rate. If the vendor has slabs at which the rates change, the vendor should indicate such slabs. The charges per registered candidate should include the cost towards (a) charges paid to the technical personnel by the CP during vetting of test centres, (b) charges paid by the CP to the college for hiring the infrastructure at the college, (c) providing partitions between computers at the Test Centres, (d) development of question paper authoring software as per specification for GATE/JAM Online Examination, (e) development of Test Software for Online Examination, (f) deployment of the Company Personnel, i.e., the Test Administrators and Company Representatives at the Test Centres and the technical personnel at the Master Control Rooms, (g) administration of Test, and (h) other incidental expenses. A clear break-up as indicated in (a) to (h) should be provided. The applicable taxes should be indicated in the proposal. For the sake of uniformity across all the test centres, the CP is advised to maintain uniform rates for infrastructure for all the test centres and adhere to the same without any deviation.
In the event of any unforeseen circumstances, examinations may have to be held in the buffer sessions (tentatively 20th February 2016 for GATE/JAM 2016). Hence price should be quoted separately (a) for conducting the examinations in 8 sessions as mentioned in the examination schedule, and (b) for conducting examinations in 1 buffer session.
It may be noted that if any examination has to be conducted either on the buffer date or on any of the unused weekends due to any technical or non-technical problems from vendor’s side, the vendor has to bear the cost of the examination.
4.3. Demonstration and Presentation
The vendor will be required to give a demonstration of their client and server software for online examination using the AE, GG and XE papers of GATE 2015 and BL paper of JAM 2015. The vendors may be required to make a presentation on their capabilities to conduct the online examination as per the conditions specified above. The date and venue for demonstration and presentation will be announced by the GATE/JAM Committee of the Organizing Institutes after mutual decision at a suitable date.
4.4. Deviations
Any deviations from the scope of work as outlined above should be mentioned clearly with suitable justification by the vendor in a separate sheet under the heading ‘Deviations’. This sheet should be included in the technical proposal. If no deviations are mentioned, then
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it will be assumed that the vendor has accepted the scope of work in its entirety as mentioned in the tender document and is bound to deliver the same.
4.5. Mode of Payment and penalty clauses
The payment to the CP shall be made in Indian rupees and shall be paid only after the successful completion of the work set out for each year of the term of three years by the Organizing Institutes of that respective year without any delays or errors. No advance payment shall be made. The successful bidder has to sign an agreement for the term of three years as set out herein with each of the Organizing Institutes of GATE/JAM being party to such agreement. The agreements should be on non-judicial stamp paper which shall contain penalty clauses related to liquidated damages on account of delays,
errors, cost and time overruns etc. If the bidder fails to execute the contract, the GATE/JAM committee of the Organizing Institutes shall have the liberty to get the work done through any other agency with full cost recoverable from the bidder in addition to damages and penalty.
If a majority of the Chairpersons of all 8 Institutes do not give a satisfactory performance certificate for 2016, extension for the years 2017 and 2018 shall be re-evaluated.
It is hereby clarified that the terms set out in this Tender Document shall not be a binding contract either on the Organizing Institutes for the term of three years as stated herein or on the CP. Further, after accepting the offer made by the successful bidder, the Organizing Institutes for the term of three years as stated herein shall execute an agreement stating the scope of work for the CP in detail, the consideration payable by each of the Organizing Institutes as stated herein, the events of termination of the agreement/arrangement between the Organizing Institutes and the CP, the consequences of such termination and such other terms and conditions as may be required to execute the scope of work set out for the CP as per this Tender Document. It is hereby clarified that the terms set out in the agreement to be executed by and between the Organizing Institutes for the term of three years as stated herein shall be binding on all the parties executing the said agreement.
5. Evaluation of the Proposals
Selection of the vendor shall be based on Quality and Cost Based Selection (QCBS). The proposals submitted by the vendors will be evaluated by taking the following factors into consideration:
5.1. Technical evaluation
Technical evaluation will be based on the criteria given below (Total 100 points):
• Prior experience of the vendor in conducting online examinations. • Capability of the vendor to develop the required software
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Date, Time and Venue of Opening of Technical bids:
06th July, 2015, 4.30 P.M, GATE/JAM Office, IISc. Bengaluru -560012
Date, Time and Venue of Opening of commercial bids:
13thJuly, 2015, 10.30 A.M, GATE/JAM Office, IIT Madras, Chennai – 600036
6. Detailed scope of work
6.1. Tentative Schedule of Examinations
Examination for GATE/JAM 2016 will be conducted for 23 GATE papers and 7 JAM papers
in 8 sessions with 1 buffer session as shown in the table given below. The number of papers may vary for 2017 & 2018. The complete schedule with details regarding the papers and the respective sessions will be notified to the successful Company Partner at a suitable date.
Session Time Day and date
1 9.00 AM to 12.00 noon Saturday, 30th January 2016
2 2.00 PM to 5.00 PM Saturday, 30th January 2016
3 9.00 AM to 12.00 noon Sunday, 31st January 2016
4 2.00 PM to 5.00 PM Sunday, 31st January 2016
5 9.00 AM to 12.00 noon Saturday, 6th February 2016
6 2.00 PM to 5.00 PM Saturday, 6th February 2016
7 9.00 AM to 12.00 noon Sunday, 7th February 2016
8 2.00 PM to 5.00 PM Sunday, 7th February 2016
Buffer for GATE/ JAM
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In the event of any unforeseen circumstances, examinations may have to be held in the buffer session (20th February 2016 for GATE/JAM 2016). Dates for 2017 & 2018 will be
notified in due course.
6.2. Detailed description of the features and scope of work:
The following sections list the features in the Online Examination that the CP is expected to provide through their technology and operations, and the capabilities of the CP needed for delivery of the Online Examination:
6.2.1. Content Creation
• The CP would provide the Question Paper Authoring software and train the GATE/ JAM personnel authorized by the Organizing Chairpersons, GATE/JAM 2016 - 2018, on Question Paper Authoring and Question Pack Generation.
• The CP should be willing to modify the Question Paper Authoring Software as per the requirements of the GATE/JAM 2016, GATE/JAM 2017 and GATE/JAM 2018 committees. These requirements of the GATE/JAM committees will be communicated to the CP as and when required, but well before the beginning of the actual authoring processes.
• Question Paper authoring will be carried out by a bonafide representative of one of the administering institutes as designated by the GATE/JAM Committee of the Organizing Institutes for each of the three years of the term at the premises of GATE /JAM offices of the respective Organizing Institute. The necessary infrastructure required for Question Paper Authoring will be provided by GATE/JAM. However, the CP has to provide the infrastructure requirement and set up a model test facility that will be tested with dummy question papers.
• The authoring software must support the following features in the question papers: A. Two compulsory sections and two or more optional sections in GG, XE
and XL papers.
B. Numerical answer type questions for which the answer is a signed real number with a maximum of 10 digits.
C. A Standard Scientific Virtual On-line Calculator should be made available built into the software.
D. Multiple choice type questions with single correct answer or multiple correct answers.
• The Question Paper Authoring software must allow for creating multiple versions of a question paper by jumbling the questions and the choices for a question.
• Authoring software must allow for encryption and password protection of the question paper following appropriate standards. The CP should provide the certificate of confidentiality with regards to contents of all the question papers.
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• Examination Cities - The tentative list of cities in which the GATE/JAM 2016 Online Examination for the term of three years may be conducted is given in Annexure-7. The final list of cities will be identified by the GATE/JAM Committee at a suitable date for each of the three years of the term.
• Test Centres– The CP would arrange to identify Test Centres that have been
certified and audited by the CP. A College may have one or more Test Centres. Offices of the CP must not be considered for Test Centres. However, the Internal Training Facilities (ITF) of the CP may be used as test centres. All the Test Centres identified by the CP must be approved by GATE/JAM Committee as per the norms of GATE/JAM. No service charges shall be paid to the test centres by IISc/IITs. The minimum requirements for the candidate system and centre server are given below:
Minimum requirements for the candidate system
Screen resolution 1024 X 768 Operating System
(only licensed versions)
Windows XP Professional Service Pack 3 or higher Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Enterprise Edition Service Pack 2, Windows Vista Enterprise Edition Browser Internet Explorer 6.0 or above
Browser Settings Internet Explorer (IE) Java Script enabled Pop-up blocker disabled
Paste operations via script enabled Proxy disabled
USB disabled
Minimum requirements for the Examination Centre Server
Processor CPU Speed: 1.5 GHz or more
RAM 2048 MB or more
Screen Resolution 1024 X 768 Operating System
(licensed version)
Windows XP Professional Service Pack 3 or higher Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Enterprise Edition Service Pack 2, Windows Vista Enterprise Edition Browser Internet Explorer (IE) 6.0 or above
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Browser Settings IE Java Script enabled Pop-up blocker disabled
Paste operations via script enabled Proxy disabled
USB disabled Other software Net 2.0 Framework
Microsoft Office Excel 2003 or above
• Personnel
• Personnel of Company Partner: The CP would provide adequately trained Test Administrators (TAs) in every Test Centre. The TAs should be the staff of the CP, temporary staffs are not acceptable. There will be
one TA for every 100 candidates and part thereof at a Test Centre. There will be a minimum of two TAs in a Test Centre. The TAs will administer the conduct of test and provide the technical support for maintaining the servers used in the conduct of examination at a Test Center. The CP will also ensure availability of at least one adequately trained Network Maintenance Engineer at each Center. The CP would identify a senior staff member of the Company as the Centre Head (CH) at each College or ITF. The CH will be responsible for supervising the Technical Personnel of the CP at all the Test Centers in the College or ITF. The CH will be the contact person of the CP for the College Personnel and the GATE/JAM Personnel to interact regarding the conduct of Online Examination at the College or ITF.
• College or ITF Personnel: A senior faculty member from the College or a senior staff member of the ITF will be identified as the Presiding Officer (PO). A faculty member from the College or a staff member from the ITF will be identified as the Deputy Presiding Officer (DPO) for each Test Center. The PO and DPO for a Test Centre will be responsible for the availability of facilities to assist the CP in conduct of the Online exam. Invigilators (Proctors) of the exam will be from the faculty members of the College or from the permanent staff members of the ITF. There will be one invigilator for every 20 candidates and part thereof at a Test Center. At a Test Centre with less than 20 registered candidates, there will be a minimum of 2 Invigilators. The CP should train the Invigilators for invigilating the Online Examination. There will be two Technical Staff from the College or the ITF at each Test Center to assist the TAs from the CP. The PO will be responsible for identifying the DPOs, Invigilators and Technical Staff for all the Test Centers at the College or the ITF. The honorarium for PO, DPOs, Invigilators and Technical Staff of the
16 College or the ITF will be paid by GATE/JAM Committee of the Organizing Institutes for their respective years. The PO will also be responsible for ensuring the availability of infrastructure for the conduct of examination at all the Test Centers in the College or the ITF.
• GATE/JAM Personnel: GATE/JAM would provide at least 2 Institute Representatives (IRs) at each Test Center. The conduct of examination at a Test Center will be monitored and overseen by the IRs. The IRs shall carry the examination material to the respective centres, ensure that all the arrangements as mentioned in the specifications are made for smooth conduct of examinations, conduct a mock test with the help of CP/ITF personnel on the day before the examination and verify the adequacy of the arrangements, load the question paper into the server before the examination, as and when required take decisions in consultation with the PO regarding the timing of the examination, ensure that the responses are properly uploaded and copied onto the pen drives and bring the material safely back to the GATE/JAM zonal offices.
The IRs, PO and DPOs at the Test Centers in a College or an ITF will interact with the CH for resolving any issues regarding the Technical Personnel of the CP and any technical problems that may arise during the dry run and during the conduct of examination at any of the Test Centers in the College or ITF.
• Infrastructure
The CP would arrange for the servers necessary to conduct the examination at each Test Center. One main server and one backup server will be available for every 200 candidates and part thereof at a Test Center.
The College or the ITF would arrange for the client systems necessary to conduct the examination at each Test Center. One client system will be available for every candidate registered at each Test Centre. There will be a reserve pool of client systems. The number of systems in the reserve pool will be at least 10% of total number of registered candidates in a session at a Test Center. However, there will be a minimum of 10 client systems in the reserve pool at a Test Center with less than 100 candidates in a session. The client system should have at least 1GB of main memory. The LCD monitors are preferred over the CRT monitors.
There must be adequate spacing (of at least 2 ft.) between two adjacent seats, in addition the CP must arrange for providing partitions of appropriate size between the adjacent seats.
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The CP shall ensure that during the course of conducting the GATE/JAM Online Examination, the systems engaged by the CP do not become non-functional due to any reason whatsoever. The College or the ITF would also ensure the availability of a functional local area network and a power backup generator so as to ensure the continuous access to the systems made available to each candidate during the course of the Online Examination. The main server, backup server and client systems at each test centre would be provided with functional UPS. Uninterrupted power should be made available for the period of each session and for 30 minutes prior to and after each session on the day of examination.
Test Delivery – Test will be delivered over the intranet at a Test Centre. A
maximum of 250 client systems will be connected to a main server and a backup server. The proposal submitted by the vendor should indicate the limits to which the server has been tested in terms of number of client systems connected simultaneously without loss of performance in the examination environment.
Distribution of Question Packs to the Test Centers – The Online Examination
Software developed and used by the CP must support the following two modes of loading the Question Packs (QPs): (i) Locally at the server via a CD or a pen drive collected from IRs and (ii) Over the network from Master Control Room. In the former mode, the authoring software must ensure that encrypted and password protected content is generated which can be loaded onto a CD or a pen drive. In the latter mode, the CP must ensure confidentiality and protection of the QP content both at the Master Control Room as well as during transfer over a network. The loading of a QP into the Online Examination Software on the servers at a Test Centre must be password protected.
Invigilation – Announcement of instructions to the candidates, admit card check,
candidate identity verification, attendance recording and collection of undertaking given by candidates will be carried out by Invigilators. Attendance sheets, Instruction sheets and other relevant documents would be provided by IRs. Invigilators should also ensure proper conduct of examination and ensure that candidates use no unfair means.
Zero Loss of Data – The CP will ensure that there is no loss of response related
data for any candidate or any other data related to the examination either from the client systems or from the main and backup servers.
Generation of Event based Log(Audit Trail) – The CP will ensure that the
event (click) based log (audit trail) for every candidate will be generated and saved on the servers.The audit trail for every candidate would be provided at the end of session in the format agreed upon. The CP would not keep/have any audit trail data with them post handover.
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Saving of Response- The CP will ensure that the click-based activity of every candidate will be saved on servers. This means that the answer responses for each question at that click time will be only saved/updated. The question clicks by candidates without a response is also recorded in the database. The final response data in a format specified by GATE/JAM should be uploaded to the server in the Master Control Room and should also be copied in a pen drive within 30 minutes of the completion of each session of examination. The pen drive will be handed over to the IRs. The CP will not keep/have any response data with them post handover.
Security - The computers administering the examinations shall be disconnected from the Internet and any other network other than the one on which the examinations is being conducted. No computers other than the client systems used for the examination shall be on this network during the examination. The computers shall be sanitized (during pre-examination preparations) by booting a trusted image of the Operating System (OS) that the examination is to be conducted on.
Monitoring - The server shall have the capability to start the examination for all candidates, monitor the status of each candidate (whether logged in, examination started, idle/active, disconnected, submitted, etc.), award additional time for candidates based on the instruction of the IRs, and close the examination. The server MUST maintain an audit trail of every operation on the server. All server-side audit trails are also the property of GATE/JAM and shall be handed over to the IR at the end of the examination.
• Master Control Facility – There will be a Master Control Facility consisting of Master Control Rooms in the premises of GATE/JAM offices in multiple zones. The activities at each Test Center will be monitored in the Master Control Facility. At each Master Control Room, the CP should provide at least 2 technical personnel who are well versed with the Online Examination Software. These personnel will interact with the TAs in each of the Test Centers. A secure and highly available server should be set up in each Master Control Room. At the end of examination in a session, the candidate response data and audit trail data from each of the Test Centers will be uploaded to the servers at the Master Control Facility.
• Post-Examination Operations- Individual candidate-wise, item-wise responses and audit trail will be captured and loaded into a physical storage medium such as CDs or pen drives in the presence of IRs. The CDs or pen drives will be handed over to the IRs. The data will also be uploaded to a server at the Master Control Facility. After the confirmation of proper transfer of data to the server at the Master Control Facility, the TAs in the presence of IRs will delete the responses and audit trails in the hard disks of the main and backup servers, and
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post which the CP will not be responsible for any data in the context of non-availability of data.
• Process Manual - The detailed Standard Process Manual (SPM) will be prepared by the CP and submitted to GATE/JAM Committee for approval latest by the 15th day of October 2015.
• Mock Tests
• The CP must make arrangements so that static mock tests can be conducted by the interested applicants using old question papers loaded on the respective zonal websites of GATE/JAM 2016 for each of the three years of the term as set out herein. The question papers should be available to all the applicants well before the actual examination so that the applicants can have practice sessions.
• The CP must conduct mock tests a day before each exam day in addition to any unscheduled mocks conducted prior to this. The CP also has to make arrangements to upload the results of one of the mock tests conducted onto the server so that the Organizing Institute can make observations of the results from the Master Control Facility.
• Conduct of Examination and Security of Examination Centers
• White labeling of the service: The entire operations of the GATE/JAM online examination will be under the Brand name of GATE/JAM, and its designated logo. At no point of time and location will the identity of CP be displayed in public domain.
• The CP and the College or the ITF shall ensure that the Test Centres are kept in examination-friendly environments with no disturbances from external sources. The CP will also ensure the secrecy of the examination material and will support GATE/JAM in maintaining the secrecy of the examination material. Any decision by the GATE/JAM appointed Institute Representatives (IRs) in this regard shall be final. The CP will also ensure that the examination is held in a candidate-friendly environment and enough security arrangements have been made to ensure the safety of examination material and the people involved in the conduct of examination.
• Features to be Provided in Online Examination Test Software
The Online Examination Test taking Software developed by the CP should be demonstrated for the AE, GG and XE papers of GATE 2015 and BL paper of JAM 2015 which are available on the GATE/JAM websites of the zones (e.g. http://gate.iisc.ernet.in).
The Online Examination Test Software should include the following features:
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• Keyboard should be disabled • Login using a virtual keypad
• Display of details of candidate (including a photograph) upon login for verification by the candidate.
• Display of instructions to candidates upon login and before start of examination. The candidate must be able to retrieve instructions at any time during the examination as well. The software must obtain concurrence of the candidate having read the instructions before start of examination.
• Start and closure of the examination at scheduled time (candidates must not be able to start their examination even if they login before the scheduled time).
• Display of remaining time available.
• Display of candidate details on the screen (including a photograph if available) during the examination.
• Viewing the complete question paper or a section in the case of sectional papers. • Display of a selected question with choices of answers for multiple choice type
questions.
• Display of a selected question and a virtual numeric keypad for numerical answer type questions.
• Marking/unmarking a question (answered or unanswered) for review.
• Display of status of questions using different colours and symbols for all questions of the paper.
• Switching between sections in the question paper for the GG, XE and XL papers. • Disabling of exit from test software for the period of examination, i.e., the candidate
cannot exit at any point of time during the entire duration of the test. •
7. Time Frame:
A tentative schedule of the activities for GATE/JAM 2016 is given below. However, there may be minor variations in the schedule.
Sl.no Activity Date Responsibility
1. Initiation of the project and 1st meeting 01-08-2015 GATE/ JAM 2016
Committee & CP 2. Tentative list of centers with no. of nodes
to GATE / JAM 2016
15-08-2015 CP
3. Auditing and Vetting of test centers 15-08-2015 to 01-10-2015
GATE/ JAM 2016 Committee & CP
4. Final list of test centers for GATE / JAM 2016
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5. Submission of Standard Operating Manual to GATE/JAM committee
15-10-2015 CP
6. Vetting and finalization of Standard Operating Manual
22-10-2015 GATE/ JAM 2016 Committee & CP 7. Testing of vetted test centers as per SOM
(e.g. testing of examination software, server capability, network security)
01-11-2015 to 15-11-2015
CP
8. Tentative list of TAs, CHs, POs, DPOs 28-11-2015 CP
9. Final list of TAs, CHs, POs, DPOs 5-12-2015 CP
10. Setting-up of Servers for Master Control Facility at GATE/JAM Zonal offices
15-12-2015 to 26-12-2015
CP
11. Custody of exam centres and security arrangements
25-01-2016 CP
12. Mock tests at all centres selected for GATE/JAM 2016
23-01-2016 to 27-01-2016
CP
13. Review Meeting 23-01-2016 GATE/ JAM 2016
Committee & CP 14. GATE/JAM 2016 Online Examinations 30-01-2016
to 13-02-2016
GATE/ JAM 2016 Committee & CP
15. Handing over of raw data to GATE/JAM Committee
13-02-2016 CP
16. Handing over of final data and other examination related documents
14-02-2016 CP
The tentative schedule for the activities of the GATE/JAM 2017 and GATE/JAM 2018 shall be provided by the respective Organizing Institutes at appropriate times in 2016 and 2017 respectively.
22 Annexure - 1: Financial Information
Details furnished below are to be supported duly by figures in Balance Sheet, Profit & Loss Account for the last 5 years as certified by the Chartered Accountant and submitted by the bidder to the Income Tax Department
Details 2010-2011 2011-2012 2012-2013 2013-2014 2014-2015
1) Gross annual turnover for works of similar nature 2) Profit/Loss 3) Financial position • Cash • Current assets • Current liabilities • Working capital • Current Assets to Liabilities Ratio
Documents to be attached along with the above statement:
• Up-to-date Income Tax Clearance Certificate
• Certificate of Financial soundness from the bankers of the Bidders • Financial Arrangements for carrying out the proposed work
• Any other relevant documents
23 Annexure-2: Details regarding works of similar nature executed in the past 2 years
Sr. no Name of the work Client’s
organization Cost of work (in Crores) Starting date Ending date Details of officer to whom reference can
be made
Remarks
24 Annexure-3: Projects of similar nature currently under execution
Sr. no Name of the work Client’s
organization Cost of work (in Crores) Starting date Expected date of completion Details of officer to whom reference can
be made
Remarks
25 Annexure-4: Performance Report for works referred in Annexure-2 and 3
(Please furnish the following details for each individual project from the Client)
1. Name and location of project:
2. Agreement No.: 3. Estimated Cost 4. Tendered Cost: 5. Date of Start: 6. Date of Completion a) Stipulated date: b) Actual date:
7. Performance report by client:
a) Quality of Work: (Excellent/Very Good/Good/Fair/Poor)
b) Approach to problem solving: (Excellent/Very Good/Good/Fair/Poor)
c) Resourcefulness: (Excellent/Very Good/Good/Fair/Poor)
26 Annexure-5: Structure of the Organization
1. Name and address of bidder:
2. Telephone No./Fax No./Email address :
3. Legal status (Attach copies of original document defining the legal status).
a) An Individual/ Consortium:
b) A Proprietary/ Partnership agency: c) A Trust:
d) A Limited Company or Corporation:
4. Particulars of Registration with various Government bodies & Statutory Tax Authorities (attach attested photocopy)
a. Registration Number:
b. Organization/Place of registration: c. Date of validity:
5. Names and titles of Directors & Officers with designation to be concerned with this work with designation of individuals authorized to act for the organization.
6. Were you or your company ever required to suspend the work for a period of more
than six months continuously after you commenced the works? If so, give the name of the project and reasons for not completing the work.
7. Have you or your constituent partner(s) ever left the work awarded to you incomplete? If so, give name of the project and reasons for not completing the work.
8. Have you or your constituent partner(s) been debarred/black listed for tendering in any organization at any time? If so, give details.
9. Area of specialization and Interest
10 Any other information considered necessary but not included above.
27 Annexure-6: Details of Technical and Administrative Personnel to be employed for
this work
Sr. no
Designation Total No. of
employees in this category Number available for this project
Name Qualification Professional
experience Capacity in which the employee was involved in this work
28 Annexure–7:
Tentative List of Cities for GATE/JAM 2016
IISc Bengaluru Zone
Alappuzha, Aluva, Ananthapur, Attingal, Bagalkot, Bangalore, Belgaum, Bellary, Bidar, Chengannur, Davengere, Gulbarga, Hassan, Hubli, Idukki, Kannur, Kanjirapally, Kasaragod, Kolar, Kollam, Kothamangalam, Kottayam, Kozhikode, Kurnool, Malappuram, Mangalore, Manipal, Muvattupuzha, Mysore, Nedumangad, Pala, Palakkad, Payyannur, Punalur, Shimoga, Thrissur , Tumkur and Vadakara.
IIT Bombay Zone
Ahmedabad, Ahmednagar, Amravati, Anand, Aurangabad, Bhavnagar, Bhuj, Gandhinagar, Goa, Hyderabad, Jalgaon, Kolhapur, Lonavala, Mahabubnagar, Mehsana, Mumbai, Nagpur, Nanded, Nashik, Navi Mumbai, Pune, Rajkot, Ratnagiri, Sangli, Satara, Secunderabad, Solapur, Surat, Thane and Vadodara.
IIT Delhi Zone
Alwar, Bahadurgarh (Haryana), Bikaner, Delhi, Faridabad, Gurgaon, Hisar, Indore, Jammu, Jaipur, Jodhpur, Karnal, Kota, Mathura, Palwal (Haryana), Shimla, Sikar, Udaipur-Chittorgarh and Ujjain.
IIT Kanpur Zone
Agra, Aligarh, Allahabad, Bareilly, Bhopal, Gorakhpur, Gwalior, Jabalpur, Jhansi, Kanpur, Lucknow, Saugar (Sagar, MP), Sultanpur and Varanasi.
IIT Kharagpur Zone
Balasore, Berhampur (Orissa), Bhilai, Bhimavaram, Bhubaneswar, Bilaspur (CG), Cuttack, Eluru, Jamshedpur, Kakinada (AP), Kharagpur, Kolkata, Raipur, Rajahmundry, Ranchi, Rourkela, Sambalpur, Srikakulam-Vizianagaram, Tadepalligudem, Vijayawada and Visakhapatnam.
IIT Guwahati Zone
Agartala, Asansol, Dhanbad, Durgapur, Gangtok, Guwahati, Imphal, Jorhat, Kalyani, Patna, Shillong, Silchar, Siliguri and Tezpur.
IIT Madras Zone
Angamaly, Bapatla, Chennai North, Chennai South, Chittoor, Coimbatore, Cuddalore, Dindigul, Ernakulam, Erode, Gudur, Guntur, Kadapa, Kanyakumari, Karimnagar, Karur, Khammam, Madurai, Nagercoil, Nalgonda, Namakkal, Nellore, Ongole, Puducherry (Pondicherry), Salem, Thanjavur, Thiruvananthapuram, Tiruchirapalli, Tirunelveli, Tirupati, Tuticorin, Vellore, Virudhunagar and Warangal.
IIT Roorkee Zone
Ambala, Amritsar, Bathinda, Dehradun, Ghaziabad, Haldwani-Bhimtal, Hamirpur (HP)-Una, Jalandhar-Phagwara, Kurukshetra, Ludhiana-Moga, Meerut, Mohali-Rupnagar-Fatehgarh Sahib, Moradabad, Noida, Panipat, Pathankot, Patiala-Sangrur, Roorkee-Muzaffarnagar, Sirmaur, Solan, Sonepat and Yamunanagar.
