The Utah Procurement Code provides that a procurement may be made without competition when the University determines that there is only one source that can reasonably meet the University’s need for the required supply or service, as described in Utah Code Ann. § 63G-6a-802.
The Purchasing Department has received the following request for sole source procurement
Product and/or Service to be purchased: Credit Transfer Guide Software
Sole Source Supplier: AcademyOne, Inc.
Earliest Proposed Purchase Date: April 06, 2024
Buyer Name: Matt Cooney
Sole Source Justification:
The Transfer Guide is a website that makes public a list of programs and courses being offered at the 8 participating colleges and universities (“institutions”) in Utah. The system is designed to pull information from the management systems used at each institution to import course work the student has completed and to allow students to view how imported course work will transfer to a participating institution. The current version of the Transfer Guide from AcademyOne has been in use since 2019. The development of the Transfer Guide took approximately two years to reach the majority of its capabilities. The cost of development and implementations during the first two years was approximately $100k. Since the start of the current agreement the Utah System of Higher Education has grown to include the technical colleges in Utah, doubling the number of institutions involved and requiring even more development. AcademyOne’s software is proprietary and switching to another vendor would require starting from scratch; development costs spent during the initial five-year contract will be wasted and new development and implementation costs would be incurred. Due to the significant cost and extensive employee time required to implement and train on a new system, transitioning to a new software is cost prohibitive.
This sole source will be valid for 5 years and will cost over $50k per year.