Questions for Captioning and Transcription Vendors During Procurement Process

Introduction & Overview

Types of Captioning

Be clear about what type(s) of captioning is needed and ask questions about each. Four basic categories are:

• Human captions for recorded video
• Human captions for live video
• Auto-captions for recorded video
• Auto-captions for live video

Platform Issues

Understand how captions integrate with your video conferencing platform

• Consider all platforms on which the video will appear (including YouTube, corporate intranet, etc.)
• Does each platform offer built-in auto-captions? (i.e. Teams / Google Meet)
• Does each platform require / allow for external captions? (human or auto)
• If video is being recorded and then posted, do the captions from a live (virtual) event travel with the saved video? (If not, transcript or second set of captions needed for posted recorded video)
• Disability:IN resource: Purchasing and Licensing Accessible Video Conferencing Platforms that Work for Everyone

Caption Quality Issues

• Caption quality relates to:
  • Accuracy
  • Synchronicity
  • Completeness
  • Placement
• Vendor resource from 3Play Media: FCC’s Quality Standards for Captioning Video (See also 3Play Media’s RFP questions related to Caption Quality.)
• Resource from National Association of the Deaf: Closed Captioning Quality

Accessibility Issues

• Ensure that platform, integration systems, caption controls and profile settings, etc. are accessible to and usable by people with disabilities who may be
  • Relying on captions
  • Arranging, setting up, or trouble shooting captioning for the organization
• Web Content Accessibility Guidelines relating to captioning (note: other success criteria apply to the platforms, video controls, etc.)
  • Pre-recorded captions, Success Criteria 1.2.2
  • Audio-only and Video-only (Prerecorded), Success Criteria 1.2.1
  • Captions Live, Success Criteria 1.2.4

Logistics Issues

• Turn-around time for captions / transcripts on recorded video
• Hours of operation for emergency services / tech support / help desk
• Details for uploading files for captioning / transcription (See 3Play Media RFP questions below related to online account systems and process and deliverables.)
• Ability to correct captions/transcripts

Other Video Accessibility and Inclusion Elements Related to Transcripts and Captions

• Audio description (providing audio information about video elements for blind people)
  • Can captioning /transcript vendor provide?
  • Resource: Audio Description Project of the American Council of the Blind
  • WCAG accessibility requirements: Audio Description (pre-recorded), Success Criteria 1.2.5
• Sign language interpreter
  • Can captioning /transcript vendor provide?
• Language support / translation
  • What language/s are available for captions / transcription?
  • How does translation integrate with captions?

Additional Resources

• Harvard / National Association of the Deaf captioning settlement (p.3, definition of captioning)
• Disability:IN resource: COVID-19 Response: Digital Accessibility and Other Best Practices for Remote Work
• Disability:IN resource: Accessible Technology Procurement Toolkit

Suggested RFP Questions (focus on human captions for recorded video)

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Company

• Company background and qualifications.
• Experience providing the services requested in the RFP.

Process and Deliverables

• Describe the methods you support for submitting media files for transcription/captioning.
• Describe the output formats you provide for transcripts and caption/subtitle files.
• Describe your turnaround options and SLA.
• Ability to create captions by synchronizing an existing transcript with the video.
• Ability to output a video with encoded captions or open captions.
• Interactive transcript that is compatible with multiple video players and LMS systems.
• Ability to caption YouTube videos owned by a third party.

Quality

• Transcripts and captions must be at least 99% accurate. Describe your accuracy guaranty.
• Explain how you measure accuracy.
• Expertise transcribing technical and academic content. Describe tools and processes to address this.
• Speakers should be clearly identified.
• Must include sound effects and non-speech elements.
• A single transcriptionist must work on a file from beginning to end. Files should not be split up and worked on by numerous transcriptionists. Please explain your process.
• What countries or geographic region does your work take place in? Please provide percentages of work completed by country/region. Do you have the ability to exclude certain countries or regions from an engagement?

Online Account System

• Allows for delivery of transcripts and caption files.
• Upload approval: allows an authorized person to approve files before processing begins.
• Provides notifications of completed files.
• Stores all past work.
• Allows for a technical vocabulary with product names, people, or special instructions to be submitted for each file or a group of files.
• Ability to cancel files that were submitted erroneously.
• Detects if duplicate files were submitted by mistake.
• Provides the ability to preview captions on a video.
• Allows admin users to make edits to captions or the transcript.
• Allows the caption frame to be configured (e.g. number of lines, max characters per line, minimum display duration, and max characters per second). Supports multiple users and access control.
• Allows multiple departments to compartmentalize content, users, and billing.
• Provides usage reports of all account activity.
• Allows non-admins to make edits to captions/transcripts in a secure manner without logging in?

Billing

• Line item detail for each submitted file.
• Access to past invoices and payment status.
• Ability to aggregate invoices across multiple departments.

Integrations

• Describe your integrations with video platforms.
• Describe your integrations with cloud storage systems.
• Describe your Application Programming Interface (API).

Pricing

• Price for creating captions and transcripts for different turnarounds.
• Price for creating a caption file from an existing transcript.
• Minimum charges for any services.
• Additional charges for speaker identification.
• Bulk discounts.

Other Features

• Audio description.
• Languages supported for captioning/transcription.
• Translation to other languages.
• Live captioning.
• Customer support, including phone support and a ticketing system.
• Knowledge center with support articles and video tutorials.
• Caption placement service that adjusts the position of captions to avoid obstructing existing onscreen text.