AI Roadmap

The AI Roadmap is a multi-year programme for the Open University (OU) that will enable the development and deployment of a series of AI based services. These services will be primarily developed using Microsoft's Azure cloud platform. To achieve this, the OU will at times require external support to supplement the skills and capabilities of the existing AI Roadmap team. Support will be required in the next 6 months for MLOps implementation and web application development support, and potentially for other initiatives at some point over the next 2 years. The ML Ops implementation, known as Project 1, will be the realisation of our newly defined MLOps framework. This will see the development and deployment of all new ML models built using this framework, whilst existing ML models will be retrospectively adapted to ensure overall operational efficiencies, increased automation, and a reduction in overall risk to the development and use of AI capabilities. The application development support, known as Project 2, will cover the Student Performance Tracker (SPT) development. This will involve the development of a pilot data application built on MS Azure and aimed at the operational use of AI solutions in supporting student outcomes. As part of the SPT development process, the .NET framework will be used for development of the application's backend. To bring our QME application in line with SPT development, Project 3 will be undertaken to retrospectively change that application's backend to .NET framework as well. .NET is the Buyer's preferred backend development framework for all application development.

The OU require a single supplier with the appropriate expertise across MLOps, AI, ML Models, Data Engineering, BI, Application Development and Cloud Support over the next 2 years.