August 20, 2001 – The BNSC is pleased to announce the release of a Statement of Work related to the setting up of a Near Earth Object (NEO) Information Centre. We would expect bids to cover the range of work described but do not necessarily expect a single site for all the work envisaged. Some of the detailed activities related to the www site may need one of the listed (or other) Universities to provide the service currently undertaken by BNSC and QinetiQ. The site www.nearearthobjects.co.uk is written in Cold Fusion and thus already set up for ease of update.

In the light of the agreed structure of the selected bid the contract placed by BNSC will contain text to make clear the relationship between the Centre and BNSC both during the time covered by the contract and afterwards. The contractor will accept some limitations on its freedom to promote views on space policy, and particularly on the hazard presented by NEOs, in particular if these should be in direct contradiction of those of the Government (sic).

The effectiveness criteria for the planned work will be based on the final mix of activities proposed but will involve target figures related to the different audiences addressed by the program of information transfer. For any www related aspects of the work we would expect a 50 to 100% increase in the base access rate from distinct internet addresses and for exhibit visitors clear evidence of an understanding of the NEO position either from general surveys and questionnaires that may be used by the institution from time to time or from the use of related audio visual resources where follow-up accesses and Q&A can be logged. For the teaching packs the audience would depend on the share of the funding devoted to the area which if internet based could be measured by the server statistics for that region of the site or if larger mixed media packs for non electronic distribution by the number dispatched and evidence of feedback from participating schools and colleges (possibly by integrating the pack with an internet based activity). During implementation and operation the relevant statistics will be monitored and analysed on a three monthly basis. Access to web server statistics should be made available to BNSC via password control.

While the Statement of Work makes a number of suggestions as to how the centre could operate we are open to bids that achieve the overall goal of information dissemination to a broad audience with the range of issues that need to be covered. Achieving the objectives in a cost-effective manner will form part of the bid assessment.

Bids should be returned to BNSC by Monday 1 October 2001.