2025-2026 MELA Minutes

comply with the contract, because she is going to be letting them know that we are going to be piggybacking off the RFP with Grand Rapids. It did come back and give us a third alternative, which is using the Omnia contract, which is basically still doing that competitive bid. It's where they already have a pool of about ten vendors, and none of them seem to be the same. I'm not quite sure how they end up in this pool together, but Turnitin is one of them, and so we could use that option as well. Dr. LeBrun mentioned that she has a call with ITS this week, and she is going to ask them if she could still concurrently try to do the RFP as well as the Omnia contract. For full transparency, she would have to do a vote if the group wants to do both. If the group is willing to try and use both solutions right now, ITS feels pretty confident they can get us CopyLeaks by July 1st. Dr. LeBrun mentioned that they are shooting to have something in place for June 30th. Dr. LeBrun mentioned that she would like to proceed, but would leave that up to the association. She stated that they have given us a third solution. She said she doesn’t know how long it would take to try to do the Omnia. She mentioned that it's a condensed competitive bid type process, and that the group still has to come up with criteria. Dr. LeBrun doesn’t have any guarantees that we would have that awarded, nor would she have any guarantees that it would be awarded by July 1st. Dr. LeBrun mentioned that she was confident, based on what ITS shared, that she thinks we will be able to proceed with the CopyLeaks contract, piggybacking off the RFP, and have something in place for July 1st. She mentioned that there is some flexibility, if the group wants to, say, do it. She stated that we can't do a one-year contract with CopyLeaks, but if the group wants to do a condensed contract, maybe two years with CopyLeaks while we try to explore opportunities with Turnitin. She mentioned that the group just needs to keep in mind CopyLeaks is $2.05, and Turnitin is sitting at around $3.75. She mentioned that because we would be using it based on an RFP being awarded to CopyLeaks, she would have to get permission from Turnitin and ITS to even see if we'd be able to do that. Because using the piggybacking off the RFP, we're basically saying that CopyLeaks beat out Turnitin in that RFP. Shalon Farris, Holmes, mentioned concerns to Dr. LeBrun, stating that this process will open the door to seeing the challenge of having a July 1st start date. She mentioned that, out of concern, she is bothered by the contract ending mid-semester and a contract starting mid-semester. Shalon mentioned that we can’t expect our instructors or our students to either not have a contract for part of the semester or have to learn two different