University of Edinburgh issues tender for next-gen personal response system

University looking to move to a more flexible solution than that currently provided by eInstruction

The University of Edinburgh has issued a tender for the provision of a next-generation personal response system.

The university is currently operating a radio frequency system and hardware and software from educational IT services firm eInstruction that has about 5,000 student users.

In a tender notice published in the Official Journal of the European Union (OJEU), the academic institute said that it was looking to update to a system that could work with students' own devices.

It believes this will allow for "expansion and flexibility" in the use of a personal response system, as well as being able to offer new features.

The solution has to be a flexible system that can be picked up and used as needed by staff. It also has to offer a cost-effective route to expansion of numbers of users over time, the university said.

The university said it has to operate with the same functions on Windows 7 and Mac OS X 10.7 and above, which are Edinburgh's main computing platforms.

Of the benefits that it expects from a new system, the university notes:

• New pedagogies through an expanded question set
• No reliance on handsets because of the use of student-owned web-enabled devices
• One system for the whole university, which would enable a high level of support and service
• The ability to monitor system usage centrally

The university wants to award a contract by the close of the year and have a contract signed with the successful supplier by January 2015. It hopes to have some early adopter trials with the system in the first half of 2015, and it expects the system to go live by August 2015.

The contract, which is covered by the Government Procurement Agreement (GPA), is for an initial two-year period with the option to extend up to a maximum of four years, subject to performance of the supplier.

Financial terms were not disclosed.