Draft Performance Work Statement- Common Nominations Portal

Section I – Description of Services

General
Section 575 of the Fiscal Year 2021 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) requires the Secretary of Defense and the Superintendents of the U.S. Military Academy, the U.S. Naval Academy, and the U.S. Air Force Academy to create an online portal to support the Service Academy nominations process, which all applicants must complete to receive an appointment to a Service Academy. The portal must facilitate the nominations selection process for Congressional and non-Congressional nomination sources and provide streamlined data analytics capabilities to support Congressional reporting requirements outlined in Section 575. Additionally, the law requires an annual report to be made publicly available. Agile software development methodologies will be used to rapidly prototype and develop the portal and report creation using software specified by the government.

Scope
This action is for the acquisition of non-personal support services to manage, build, and maintain a fully operational online portal that addresses the statutory requirements defined in Section 575 of the FY21 NDAA. Data visualization and data analytics professional support services are required to address Congressional reporting requirements defined in Section 575. The portal will only support the nomination process and corresponding reporting requirements for the U.S. Military Academy, U.S. Naval Academy, and U.S. Air Force Academy.

Background
To attend a Military Service Academy (MSA), applicants must apply for admission and receive a nomination from a “nominating source,” an authority that is authorized by law to grant a nomination. Nominating sources include Members of Congress (“Congressional nomination sources”) as well as the Service Secretaries, Service Academy Superintendents, President, and Vice President, among others (“non-Congressional nomination sources”). Prospective applicants to the Service Academies complete separate application processes for admissions and nominations.

Each MSA has its own process and information technology system for collecting nomination information from Congressional and non-Congressional nomination sources. One of the objectives of Section 575 of the FY21 NDAA, titled “Information on Nominations and Applications for Military Service Academies,” is to provide a single online entry point for Congressional and non-Congressional sources to record their nomination decisions. Section 575 details the specific data points that the portal must collect from each nominating source, including demographic information as consistent with Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Directive No. 15.