About Vera
The Vera Institute of Justice (Vera) works to drive change and urgently build and improve justice systems that ensure fairness, promote safety, and strengthen communities. Through our Center on Victimization and Safety (CVS), we enhance efforts to prevent and address violence. We connect professionals, break down systemic barriers to collaboration, and track performance to ensure access to safety and healing for victims and survivors of crime. Our work includes initiatives focused on communities at elevated risk of harm who are often marginalized by mainstream victim services and systems.
Purpose of Request for Qualifications
At Vera in the Center on Victimization and Safety, we host a variety of webinars, virtual and in-person meetings, virtual learning communities, and training and technical assistance events about accessibility, community engagement, marginalization, violence, victimization, and other related topics.
For our work at the Center on Victimization and Safety (CVS), Vera seeks a qualified, real-time live caption provider to provide:
- Communication Access Realtime Translation (CART) for in-person meetings and events;
- Live, open captions for virtual meetings and webinars (remote CART);
- Captioning files and transcripts from all captioned meetings and events.
Anticipated Scope of Work
Vera seeks a live captioning vendor who will work collaboratively with us to provide captions for our variety of virtual and in-person meetings and events. We expect to need captions for over 300 hours of live webinar, virtual, and in-person meeting and event content in the next 5 years.
We use Zoom Meeting and Zoom Webinar for all virtual meetings and events. We are hoping to resume hosting in-person trainings, meetings, and other events nationwide in 2022. We include live, open captions in all webinars proactively. We include live captions in other virtual and in-person meetings and events by request from participants. For some webinars and events, we will want to include live captioning in languages other than English. For many events, including all webinars and many virtual meetings, we will include American Sign Language (ASL). We will need to be able to access multiple formats of transcripts and caption files, including STL, SCC, CAP, WebVTT, SRT, XML, as well as others.
Minimum Qualifications
Interested and qualified Vendors that meet the following minimum qualifications are invited to submit a response to this RFP. Vendors who are debarred, suspended, or otherwise excluded from or ineligible for participation in federal assistance programs or activities will not be considered.
Accuracy:
- Be at least 98% accurate
- Contain all words in the order spoken, without paraphrasing or substitutions;
- Identify speakers by name;
- Include the original language even when words and phrases are unfamiliar or in a language other than English;
- Mirror the speaker’s intentional use of slang and errors;
- Have accurate capitalization and tense;
- Have proper representation of numbers.
Consistency and synchronization:
- Captions must be synchronized with the audio;
- Caption features must be uniform in style and presentation.
Clarity:
- Captions must include and specify all non-speech and unobservable information, such as:
- speaker identification (including when speakers change, and when speakers are not visible on the screen);
- music and song lyrics (if appropriate);
- non-speech sounds;
- no audio;
- audience reaction;
- sound effects;
- stuttering, hesitation, false starts, and utterances (“um”); and
- interruptions.
- Captions must use square brackets or parentheses indicate a song title or sound effect description.
Readability:
For virtual meetings and webinars, we often share PowerPoint presentations and other documents on the screen. Captions must not block other important visual elements that appear in the on the screen, including:
- ASL Interpreters;
- featured text,
- graphics, or
- other information that is essential to understanding content.
For in-person meetings, we typically display captions on a screen with a projector. Captions must:
- Be displayed with enough time to be read completely;
- Not exceed 32 characters per line;
- Break caption lines at natural language and phrasing breaks;
- Be at least 14 point, using mixed-case and sans-serif font;
- Be legible, with appropriate spacing between words.
Equality:
- Be present from beginning to end of the video;
- Include use of accented letters, non-Latin letters, and any special symbols.
Selection Criteria
During the review process, we will focus primarily on the following criteria to evaluate responses from Vendors that meet the Minimum Qualifications:
- Supplier Diversity
- Human translators (not robotic or automated translations)
- Quality and accuracy of captions;
- Qualifications and experience of vendor in providing virtual and in-person captioning (CART) services;
- Project approach
- Cost
- Familiarity with subject matter of underlying Vera project(s) and/or Vera’s organizational approach
- Responsiveness to the RFP proposal requirements.
- Vendor’s commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion
- Flexibility
- Availability, timing
- Have access to a computer and reliable internet connection
Vera seeks to ensure the maximum practicable inclusion of diverse partners in our work. Vera encourages submission of proposals from disadvantaged business enterprises and companies owned by people with disabilities, Deaf people, people of color, women, immigrants, people who identify as members of the LGBTQ communities, and veterans. Vera does notdiscriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, creed, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, age, ancestry, national origin, disability, or veteran status in consideration of this award. We encourage our partners that qualify to include self-certification or third-party agency certification as part of their application to work with Vera. We also encourage all ourpartners to include a description of their commitment to diversity and inclusion, as well as how this commitment strengthens their work product.
Timeline
- Submission deadline: Accepting continual applications throughout the year.
- Submission review: Vera will be reviewing applications as they are submitted.
- Applicants notified: Applicants will be notified within three to four weeks of submission.
- Term of Engagement: Two and a half years
Terms of RFP
Vera has the right to amend or cancel this RFP at any time. Vera reserves the right, at the time of evaluation of any Response, to request any additional information that it deems necessary. Vera further reserves the right to reject any or all Responses after evaluation, and to be the sole judge of the merits of those received. Vera will not be responsible for late or incomplete responses. Any Response which does not comply with this RFP may not be considered. Vera will not return any materials it receives, and will not reimburse applicants for any costs incurred in developing a Response. Any proprietary material submitted with the proposal that is considered confidential by the bidder must identified as such. Submission of quote does not constitute any type of binding agreement or contract. Master agreements will have a term of two years or less, as determined by Vera.
Please note:
- Vera's cancellation policy: All assigned hours remain billable unless a written notice of cancellation is presented no fewer than 2 business days prior to the start time of the assignment. This may be waived in specific circumstances outlined in the Usked task order.
- Vera's billing policy: For interpreters and captioners, all assigned hours all billed in 15 minute increments with a one hour minimum. Invoices will be submitted via the uSked scheduling system and processed within 20-45 days.
Contact Information
Any questions regarding this RFP should be directed to:
Vera Institute of Justice, Inc.
34 35th Street, Suite 4-2-A
Brooklyn, NY 11232