The Capture of National Harvest Survey Data 2017-2020

OBJECTIVES

This work requires the data capturing of National Harvest Survey materials in digital format on and as and when required basis.

BACKGROUND

The National Harvest Survey is a Canadian Wildlife Service (CWS) program designed to provide estimates of the annual harvest of migratory game birds in Canada by sport hunters. To hunt migratory game birds, sport hunters are required to buy a migratory game bird hunting permit issued by Canadian Wildlife Service (CWS). Each permit has a detachable stub that contains information about the permit holder (i.e. hunter). Stubs are mailed back to the National Wildlife Research Centre for batching and sent for data capturing. Permit stubs must be captured in a form that can be loaded into an Oracle database. Once captured, records are used to conduct harvest surveys. Random samples of hunters are selected for the Harvest Questionnaire and the Species Composition surveys. These two surveys are used to obtain information on hunting activities and on the species harvested by hunters. Harvest Questionnaires are mailed in December and a second mailing to non-respondents takes place in early February of the following year. For the Species Composition Survey (also called Wing and Tail survey), hunters are asked to send samples of wings and tails of their kills. Samples are inserted into special container envelopes, mailed to regional wing centres, and are later identified by a team of experts at the national “WingBee”. Returned questionnaires and wing envelope data must be captured in a form that can be loaded into an Oracle database. These data are used in June each year for statistical analyses to produce estimates of harvest and hunting activity.

DESCRIPTION OF THE WORK, SCHEDULE AND DELIVERABLES

The Contractor must capture the data from the Migratory Game Bird Hunting Permit stubs, Harvest Questionnaire Survey forms and the Species Composition Survey wing envelopes according to the detailed specifications provided for each of the three data types. In total, up to 170,000 Permit forms, up to 7000 Harvest Questionnaire Survey forms and up to 17,000 Species Composition Survey records (approximately ~18,400,000 keystrokes) are involved to complete the contract on an annual basis. Actual numbers will depend on the numbers of hunters purchasing permits and the number of questionnaires returned. Price quotation should be expressed in cost per record. The contractor must verify that no duplicate records are submitted. The information to be captured is considered Protected A, and will come in a mixture of both official languages. The Contractor must attest that the data entry operators are fluently (French – English) bilingual and have appropriate security clearance (i.e., Reliability). A 99.5% accuracy in data capturing is required. The proposed contract is for one year, from September 1^st, 2017 to June 30^th, 2018, with the option to extend the contract two times for one additional year, for a total of 3 years.

The Contractor is responsible for arranging the pick-up and return of survey materials from and to the Canadian Wildlife Service office located in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. There are 2500 permit stubs per box, 2000 questionnaires per box and 1200 wing envelopes per box. Pick-up and delivery costs must be included in the proposal.

Detailed specifications for the capture of the migratory game bird hunting permit stubs, Harvest Questionnaire Survey forms and special wing envelopes.

The data capture of the permit stubs will be required during the period of September 1^st, 2017 to mid-May, 2018 and the data capture of the Harvest Questionnaire Survey forms and Species Composition Survey special wing envelopes must occur during the period of February 1^st to mid-May, 2018.

Records will be provided in batches of 100 and each record is identified with a unique sequence number. Batches must be returned in the same carton in which they were received. In addition, compact disks including all the captured data must be delivered with their corresponding boxes.

Compact disks with data files are to be provided by consignee and have the following characteristics:

Media: CD or DVD

File Format: MS Excel

Logical Record Length: see specifications

File name: XXXX####.yyyy, where #### is the first batch number in the box and “yyyy” is the year of the harvest season (these will be specified to the Contractor). File name and Date created must be specified on the CD/DVD label (Day-Month-Year). Use PERM####.yyyy for permit stubs, HARVEST####.yyyy for questionnaire forms, CALENDAR####.yyyy for questionnaire forms’ calendar and SPECIES####.yyyy for species composition survey wing envelope data.

Migratory Game Bird Hunting Permit Forms (i.e., permit stubs)

The Migratory Game Bird Hunting Permit stubs (stock: No. 1 Tag, White, 200M basis) are received folded and glued on three sides (uncut and unopened dimensions are ~ 178mm x 95mm). The glue band width (near the edge) is approximately 10mm. The glue and text are separated by a 10mm space to facilitate cutting and opening. The Contractor will need to cut open the permits (pre-batched by Environment Canada in bundles of 100 records) prior to capturing the data. The permit stub artwork is printed on a single page/side using 2 colours, black and one Pantone. There are 4 black anchor points on the permits to facilitate scanning, if necessary. The type of information to be captured includes the permit number which is printed (with matching barcode) as well as a series of hand-printed fields such as vendor identification code, date of sale, permit applicant name and mailing address, email and a series of checked boxes.

If the forms are scanned as part of the data capture process, the contractor should provide a copy of the scanned images in PDF format for each record, with the file naming format for each record that matches the permit number printed on the top right section of the form. As such, the file naming format for each record would be PERM_XXXXXX.yyyy.pdf, where “XXXXXX” is the permit number and unique to each form and “yyyy” is the year of the harvest season, to be specified to the Contractor

Deliverables: Approximate distribution of work and associated maximum volumes:

Period Completed Cumulative

September 1 to 15 November up to 150,000 150,000

November 16 to December 31 up to 10,000 160,000

January 1 to March 31 up to 5,000 165,000

April 1 to June 30 up to 5,000 170,000

Record Length: maximum of 203 characters, with an average of 110 characters per record (based on previous years).

A turnaround time of five (5) calendar days on volumes of up to 25,000 permits is required. Weekly pickups and delivery of material will be required during the initial period.

A batch control listing must be created for each box, in sequence by batch number. The list will contain the following information:

a) Date created

b) File name

c) Batch Identification

d) Record count per batch

e) Total record count per file

Rejected stubs: Permits that cannot be read should be rejected. Rejected stubs are to be pulled from their respective batches and returned as a separate batch in each box and labelled REJECTS. The control forms that accompany each batch must indicate the number of permits that were removed from that batch as a result of errors. The error count must be entered in a red circle on the batch control form. The total number of errors indicated on the batch control forms should equal the number of permits of the REJECT batch.

The details of the file structure to use for migratory game bird hunting permits stubs will be provided upon contract award.

Harvest Questionnaire Survey Forms:

The Harvest Questionnaire Survey form is printed on one double-sided legal sheet. A small number of the forms (i.e., <300) will also contain a third legal page. Survey participants are asked to report on their current year’s hunting effort and success of migratory game birds in Canada. The type of information to be captured includes hunter identification and permit numbers, hunting place name, and several numeric values associated with hunting activity.

If the forms are scanned as part of the data capture process, the contractor should provide a copy of the scanned images in PDF format for each record, with the file naming format for each record that matches the hunter identification number printed on the top left section of the form. As such, the file naming format for each record would be HQS_XXXXXXXXXXX.yyyy.pdf, where “XXXXXXXXXXX” is unique to each questionnaire and “yyyy” is the year of the harvest season, to be specified to the Contractor

Volume: 7,000 forms (maximum)

Time frame: data capture from February 1^st to mid-May, 2018.

Deliverables: Distribution of work (approximately):

• 5,500 captured by mid-March, 2018 (weekly return of CD/DVD and boxes),
•  1,500 captured by mid-May, 2018.

  Record Length: 126 characters for questionnaires, on average 150 characters for the calendar portion of questionnaires

  Disk must contain 2 files (Harvest, sorted by Year, Permit, Mail fields; Calendar sorted by Year, Permit, Mail and Type fields)

  Data file structure: provided upon contract award.

  Species Composition Survey special wing envelopes:

  Wings and tails are sent by hunters using a double envelope system. Parts are first placed in a paper envelope, which in turn is inserted in a double-sealed plastic envelope (48ga Polyester/3.5mil). Hunters are asked to write directly on the back side of the plastic wing envelope the information specific to the hunting event, such as date and location. The wing envelopes are sent to one of four reception centers across Canada, where they are pre-sorted. The wings and tails are processed in late January by CWS technicians and biologists during a week-long workshop, referred to as the wingbee. A label with a unique identification number is affixed to the envelope and the age and sex is noted by the technician. The contractor will be provided with wing envelopes that include the species record information. The majority of envelopes (approximately 90%) have a single species record per envelope, while the remainder may have 2 or more records. The information that requires data capturing includes the part identification number, hunter identification and permit number, hunting location, hunting date, age and sex.

  If the forms are scanned as part of the data capture process, the contractor should provide a copy of the scanned images in PDF format for each record, using a file naming format for each record that matches the number printed on the identification labels (located at top right corner of the wing envelope). As such, the file name would be SCS_SSSSQQQQQLLLL.YYYY.pdf, where “SSSS” is the species code, “QQQQQ” is the sequence number, “LLLL” is the label year and “YYYY” is the harvest year.

  Volume: 17,000 records (maximum)

  Time frame: data capture from February 1^st to mid-May, 2018.

  Deliverables: Distribution of work (approximately):

• 13,000 captured by mid-March, 2018 (bimonthly return of disk and boxes)
•  4,000 captured by mid-May, 2018 (return of disk and boxes bimonthly)

  Record Length: 132 characters

  Disk returned with only one file (Species)

  Data file structure: provided upon contract award.

  SUMMARY OF DELIVERABLES

  Approximate distribution of work and associated maximum volumes:

Period

Completed

Total

1) Migratory Game Bird Hunting Permits

September 1 to 15 November

up to 150,000

November 16 to December 31

up to 10,000

January 1 to March 31

up to 5,000

April 1 to June 30

up to 5,000

170,000

2) Harvest Questionnaire Survey forms

February 1 to mid-March

up to 5,500

April 1 to mid-May

up to 1,500

7,000

3) Species Composition Survey forms

February 1 to mid-March

up to 13,000

April 1 to mid-May 

up to 4,000

17,000

ACCEPTANCE CRITERIA

The deliverables identified in the section "Description of the work, schedule and deliverables" are subject to the acceptance of the Departmental Representative and must meet the specifications and requirements stated within the same section.

CROWN INPUT

Permit stubs, questionnaire forms and wing envelopes will be provided to the Contractor for their data capture. They must be returned to the Departmental Representative after processing.