I. OVERVIEW: The purpose of this amendment, Amendment No. 001 is to amend the solicitation in order to respond to questions received. See below.

Question No. 001: What will be the backgrounds of the people who will use the protocols (i.e., who will administer them in interviewing vision-impaired users)? Will they have experience in interviewing? Will they have experience in interacting with the vision-impaired?

Response No. 001: BEP personnel will be using the protocol to administer the questionnaires. These designated BEP personnel do have experience in interacting with blind and vision-impaired individuals, but do not necessarily have a science background.

Question No. 002: Should the protocol address soliciting or screening the participants as well as interviewing them about the prototype currency?

Response No. 002: Sections 2.0, 3.0, 4.0 and 5.0 of the Statement of Need outlines the BEP objective, scope of work, general requirement, and deliverables of the Protocol. The solicitation notice requests Offerors to proposed their approach for performing this effort; therefore it is the responsibility of the Offeror to include details on how it will achieve this these requirements. See Section III of the solicitation notice for what is required in terms of a response.

Question No. 003: Should this project include testing the protocol with representative "users" (i.e., interviewers)?

Response No. 003: See response to question No. 002 above.

Question No. 004: Do you envision a formal protocol, with interviews being administered in a somewhat controlled environment, or a more casual interview, administered perhaps in a hallway or at a booth in an exhibit hall?

Response No. 004: See response to question No. 002 above.

Question No. 005: Can you provide any guidance on the budget for this project - range or not-to-exceed amount?

Response No. 005: No, BEP cannot provide budget information.

Question No. 006: What is the period of performance?

Response No. 006: Offerors are to propose as part of their response their proposed schedule for performance of their proposed technical approach for completion of the scope of work required. See Section III of the solicitation notice for what is required in terms of a response.

Question No. 007: How soon does BEP anticipate this project starting?

Response No. 007: BEP hopes that Offerors's proposed technical approach will provide the overall best value to the Government and thereby demonstrates the Offeror's ability to perform the work within the timeframe proposed.

All other terms and conditions of this solicitation remain unchanged.