VocBench Support and NALTerms Integration

Statement of Work (SOW) VocBench Technical Support, Maintenance, and Enhancement (Deployment-Ready Phase) Project: NALT for the Machine Age – VocBench Operational Support Program Office: National Agricultural Library (NAL), Indexing & Informatics Branch (DPD) Period of Performance: Base Year + Four (4) Option Years Background VocBench is used as the primary curation and editorial interface for NALTerms (NALT) and has been configured to support NAL’s unique, hybrid data model integrating traditional thesaurus concepts with tabular data structures developed under NALT for the Machine Age. The platform enables concept-level editing, bulk editing, and semantic alignment of textual subject indexing and research data attributes. The primary function of the system is semantic curation and workflow support. Requirements Technical Support (Ongoing) The contractor shall provide continued operational support for the VocBench open-source platform, including: Supporting NAL staff or contractors with the migration from the current Sandbox environment to NAL-managed cloud servers, including configuration, testing, data validation, and transition activities. This is the final effort of the VocBench portion NALT machine age program out of the sandbox and operational. This work should be completed within one year of award. Support for Maintenance of existing configurations for NALT and related vocabularies, and ultimately for NAL staff or contractors to perform this function. Troubleshooting user, workflow, or system issues. Evaluating the applicability of open-source updates and supporting safe implementation Supporting user access administration and multi-group editorial workflows. Providing guidance on best practices for vocabulary management and editorial governance. It is estimated that this would be considered a low-support environment with about 10 users and approximately 5-10 tickets be user per year. This will be on-going effort during the migration from the sandbox, and for four (1) one-year options after the migration. Responding to support requests within two (2) business days. Training (As Needed / Refresher) The contractor shall provide refresher or targeted training sessions as needed, including: Training on new VocBench features, workflows, or administrative options. As-needed onboarding for new staff or community editors. All training may be delivered virtually. Training sessions are typically about 4 hours in nature and can be all at once or over a few days as needed for the material. Deliverables Operational Support Ongoing technical support, configuration maintenance, and issue resolution beginning on Day 1 of contract. Training Materials and Sessions Refresher or targeted training delivered within mutually agreed timeframes as requested by the government and after modifications funding the optional items are approved by a contracting officer. Deliverable Schedule Deliverable Schedule Technical Support Upon award; ongoing Training (refresher/targeted) As needed when requested; within 6 months of request and annually as requested. Workflow Adjustments As needed, within mutually agreed timeframes Government Furnished Information (GFI) NAL will provide indirect access to the operational VocBench instance, ontology files, documentation, and necessary USDA systems required to perform support and development tasks. Performance Standards Response to support issues: within 2 business days. Availability for meetings: as scheduled or with 48 hours notice. All deliverables must meet accepted industry standards for ontology management and Semantic Web technologies. Acceptance Criteria Work products shall be considered acceptable when: They meet the functional requirements described in this SOW. They are delivered within agreed timelines. They operate effectively within the NAL workflow and technical environment. Option Items Each option year includes the same scope and deliverables as the base year, with: Continued operational support. As-needed training. This updated SOW reflects the deployment-ready status of the VocBench environment and transitions the contract from initial configuration and setup to operational support and enhancement.