Recommendation from the RFP reviewers - epubcheck

Hello SC,

The epubcheck RFP reviewers have written a recommendation based on the
proposals that were sent for epubcheck updating. I've included the
recommendation below for discussion either over email or in our next
meeting.

Our goal is to complete the selection process by August 27th.

Thanks,
Rachel


Dear Steering Committee Members,

The RFP review committee has met to discuss our recommendations on how to
proceed with the EpubCheck proposals. We have all reviewed the proposals
separately, and discussed our findings as a group. Given limited guidance
from the steering committee, we discussed what we felt was important for
the ongoing effort and how the proposals fit those goals, in addition to
their technical details.

Although the group received 3 proposals, we decided to consider the
proposal from Suberic as two distinct offerings, one a complete rewrite,
the other a continuation of the existing code. After lengthy discussion,
the group rejected the idea of a rewrite in Python. While there was some
support for a Javascript version, there were no proposals for that, and
even then there was no consensus. For these reasons, we rejected the Python
proposal.

There was significant concern around the Evident Point proposal. Consensus
was that the time estimates were extremely aggressive and that either they
would not be able to deliver on time, or were not planning on making as
significant changes as the reviewers felt were needed. Specific examples of
difficult to deliver items were one week for the API work, and two weeks
for the test suite refactor. Given that, the group felt this was the
weakest of the three remaining proposals, and the reviewers can not
recommend accepting it.

Given the two remaining proposals, DAISY and the Java-based Suberic one,
the reviewers felt that the DAISY proposal’s long time frame—with an EPUB
3.2 release front-loaded and comparable to the other proposals—was a
feature, as it would provide better direction for the project over that
time. Also, DAISY has an institutionally vested interest in the success of
EPUB. Their proposal also explicitly addresses Nu HTML Checker work, and
overall had the most detailed milestones. For these reasons we feel it is a
stronger proposal than the one from Suberic. However, the reviewers also
noted the strong EPUB experience available to Suberic and their immediate
availability, and would like to urge that DAISY consider subcontracting
some or all of the work to Suberic in the interest of creating a larger
developer base for EpubCheck, meeting a timely release date for 3.2 support
and shortening the overall development time frame.


Rachel Comerford | Senior Director of Content Standards and Accessibility |
T 212.576.9433

*Macmillan Learning*