Answers to questions submitted by tenderers
Brussels (Belgium). 7 February 2023.
Question 1: In case of applying in a consortium, does the leading organisation applying have to have more than 5 years of experience, or is it enough if the employees of the organisation have this experience as well as the other organisations of the consortium?
Answer 1: When applying in a consortium, the same requirement applies: the senior members of the team must have more than 5 years of experience in the field.
Q2: Will the servers be provided by the REAL DEAL consortium, or should we include them in the financial plan?
A2: The REAL DEAL consortium does not have a preference for the web hosting service to be used. All the additional external expenses that the REAL DEAL consortium needs to consider, such as this type of licenses, need to be listed separately in the proposal.
Q3: Would it be possible to get a test account for eTranslation to test the quality of the translations? Is there any developer’s documentation freely available on how to integrate it into other technical platforms?
A:3 The REAL DEAL consortium does not have special access to eTranslation or technical documents about it. We mentioned this tool as an example of the translation services available, but we do not have preference for a specific tool or service.
Q4: What would be the preferred format for the trainings: online, in-person or a combination of both?
A4: The trainings should be provided online, as members of the consortium are based in different EU countries.
Q5: Regarding the “Integrative” functional requirement: What type of integrations in the REAL DEAL environment are needed and should be calculated? Does this concern user account integration? Should technical components of the participation platform be integrated with the existing Content Management System of realdeal.eu website?
A5: The integration of the platform into the REAL DEAL environment concerns more the integration of our brand (colours, logos, branding guidelines, etc..) than the functionalities. To be more specific, we do not envisage an integration between the deliberation platform and other system in the near future.
Q6: Regarding the “Multilingual” functional requirement: what does “simultaneous interpretation” refer to in the specifications? This normally is part of live video calls. Is live video call functionality supposed be part of the platform?
A:6 Simultaneous interpretation (SI) is when an interpreter translates the message from the source language to the target language in real-time.
We only envisage translation of written text for the purpose of this contract. As specificized in the Contract Notice, the possibility to include simultaneous interpretation in the platform, via live video calls, as a potential add-on will be considered as an asset, but is not mandatory.
Q7: Regarding the “Adaptable” functional requirement: The time frame scheduled for extending or adapting the platform after the user testing/feedback is from 25.04.2023 to 25.05.2023. Is this correct?
A7: This is correct. At least a first iteration needs to be delivered by the end of May. Further developments and adaptations can be done at a later stage as long as they are properly justified and agreed with the consortium.
Q8: Privacy: The specifications mention a “unified authentication process” that participants should use to register. Does this refer to any existing authentication system used by the realdeal.eu website or any other service that should be integrated with the participation platform?
A8: We do not have an existing authentication system to be integrated with the deliberation platform.
Q9: Should the costs for translation of the participation platform into the 24 EU languages as well as Serbian, Macedonian and Ukrainian be included in the offer or does the consortium provide translators or additional funds to translate the platform?
A9: The consortium does not provide translators. Additional external costs that need to be considered by the consortium, such as licenses for translation tools or translation services, can be listed separately in the proposal.
Q10: Does the manual to use platform for the consortium need to be provided in any other language than English?
A10: No, only in English.