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Panoptic Enterprises' FEDERAL CONTRACTS DISPATCH

DATE: October 31, 2003

SUBJECT: National Aeronautics and Space Administration Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) Supplement (NFS); Research and Development Abstracts

SOURCE: Federal Register, October 31, 2003, Vol. 68, No. 211, page 62048

AGENCIES: National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)

ACTION: Proposed Rule

SYNOPSIS: NASA is proposing to add a new NFS 1835.003-70, NASA Research and Development (R&D) Abstracts, and NFS 1852.235-75, NASA Research and Development (R&D) Abstracts, to require the electronic submission of abstracts of the planned research to be conducted under contracts containing R&D effort valued at over $25,000.

DATES: Comments must be submitted no later than December 30, 2003.

ADDRESSES: Comments should be submitted to Thomas Sauret, NASA Headquarters, Office of Procurement, Contract Management Division (Code HK), Washington, DC 20546, or by e-mail to Thomas.E.Sauret@nasa.gov.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Thomas Sauret, Code HK, 202-358-1068; e-mail: Thomas.E.Sauret@nasa.gov.

SUPPLEMENTAL INFORMATION: Section 207(g) of the E-Government Act of 2002 (Public Law 107-347) mandates the development and maintenance of a repository of information on R&D funded by the government. To comply with that requirement, NASA has developed a web-based database system, the Abstract Collection and Transmittal System (ACTS) (http://proposals.hq.nasa.gov/acts/), to collect summaries or abstracts for all its procurements containing R&D effort valued over $25,000. ACTS will transfer submitted abstracts to a government-wide database sponsored by the National Science Foundation (NSF). The NSF sponsored government-wide database is available to other agencies and to the public.

This proposed rule would require contractors to enter into ACTS a summary or abstract of the R&D activity to be conducted under the contract by making the following changes to the NFS:

• New NFS 1835.003-70 would require contracting officers to check the ACTS web-site to determine if the contractor selected for award is listed as an entity already registered in the ACTS database. If the contractor is registered, then the contracting officer would not need to take any further action. If the selected contractor is not registered in ACTS, the contracting officer would be required to obtain from the ACTS point of contact a new ACTS user identification and password for the selected contractor.
  
  
• A paragraph (f) would be added to NFS 1835.070, NASA Contract Clauses and Solicitation Provision, to require the inclusion of NFS 1852.235-75 in all contracts that exceed $25,000 and include R&D effort. However, the requirement would not apply to intragovernmental transfers.
  
  
• NFS 1852.235-75 would be added. It would require the contractor to enter a 250 to 500 word-long summary or abstract of the R&D effort into the ACTS database within 60 days after award (or 30 days after the award information is entered into ACTS, whichever is later). The clause would warn, "The abstract will be made available to the public without restrictions; therefore, caution is advised against inclusion of any material for which dissemination in the public domain may be prohibited such as trade secrets, proprietary information or export controlled information."
  
  The clause would go on to explain that "the abstract and other pertinent award information will be included in a database of R&D abstracts from across the federal government. The government-wide database will include abstracts and other information concerning awards, such as the dollar value and estimated completion date. The government-wide database will be accessible to other government agencies and private organizations and will allow entities to search the database for a variety of information regarding current research awards. The NASA ACTS database will not be searchable by the general public." To ensure only authorized personnel may gain the access to the ACTS database and enter abstract information, the contractor must have user identification and a password. "The contracting officer will provide instructions regarding user identification and password access if the Contractor does not already possess an ACTS identification and password."

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Panoptic Enterprises at 703-451-5953 or by e-mail to Panoptic@FedGovContracts.com.

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