Project Information

Bid Title

Closed Captioning and Transcription for A/V Content Addendum 1

Issuing Agency

Cleveland State University

Location

Ohio

Published Date

Apr 21, 2026

Closing Date

May 1, 2026

Government Level

State & Local

Status

Closed

Ref. #

RFP 5063DT

Original Source

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Project Description

Document	Description	link
RFP 5063DT	Addendum 1	5063dt-addendum-1.pdf

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REQUEST FOR PROPOSAL (“RFP”) #5063DT

Closed Captioning And Transcription For A/V Content

RFP Issued Date: 4/3/2026

ADDENDUM #1, Questions and Answers

Questions due by: 4/17/2026 by 2:00pm ET via email with the RFP #5063DT in

the subject line

Proposal Due Date /Time: 5/1/2026 by 2:00pm ET via email with the RFP

#5063DT in the subject line

Contact:

Debbie Thomas

Purchasing Analyst

bids@csuohio.edu

Proposals must be received by the due date/time specified above. Proposals received

after the due date/time will be returned unopened to the supplier

Please refer to the attached sheets for Instructions & Information. Proposals must be

submitted on the form(s) provided and signed by an authorized representative in ink in the

proper spaces. Vendors are cautioned to read this entire document carefully and to prepare

and submit their Proposal providing all requested information in accordance with the terms

and conditions set forth herein.

CSU Office of Disability and Testing Services

#5063DT-Questions and Answers

1) Will CSU accept a secure vendor-hosted web portal with department-level logins for

manual upload and download of files as the primary submission workflow?

• We would need a portal to manually upload some content, but we would expect

integration as the primary method of transferring content from some A/V hosting

platforms.

2) Are native integrations with platforms such as Panopto, Zoom, YouTube, and others

mandatory requirements, or are they evaluation preferences?

• We would need a vendor that would directly integrate with Panopto Blackboard

Collaborate or VoiceThread, but we have not been using the integration for some

other platforms like YouTube and Zoom.

3) Would CSU accept file-based or link-based submission (e.g., URLs from Panopto,

Zoom, YouTube) in lieu of direct system-to-system integration?

• We do this currently for YouTube videos administrated by a third party. For

Panopto, no.

4) Is email-based submission acceptable for certain departments or low-volume

requests as a secondary method?

• Could be, but we typically upload any files we are submitting manually or submit

the link through the hosting platform.

5) Approximately how many departments are expected to require separate logins in the

first year?

• We currently have three departments with logins to place requests for CC.

6) What were the actual media-hour totals for the past two academic years?

• Roughly 19 hours

• We didn’t have as many requests as we had in past years.

• More classes provided students with prepackaged content that included caption

videos.

7) May proposers include minimum order charges or minimum billable increments in

their pricing structure?

• We are looking to do pay as you go for the service we contract with. If you have

minimum order charges, we will want to know that in the submitted pricing for the

service. There are typically minimum billing increments. For example, the current

vendor has a minimum of 1 minute per submission.

8) Who is the University's current provider for closed captioning and transcription

services?

• 3Play Media

9) What rates does the University currently pay for closed captioning and transcription

services?

• 10 day turn around $1.30 per minute

• 4 day turn around $1.40 per minute

• 2 day turn around $1.80 per minute

• 1 day turn around $2.20 per minute

10) Which of the listed video hosting platforms is the University's most used?

• Panopto and YouTube are the most frequently used. Panopto needs direct

integration. YouTube we submit video links and then either distribute the SRT file

to the host or use an application provided by our current contractor to overlay the

CC and transcript through a player on a webpage and distribute the provided link.

11) Will the University require captioning and transcription in any language other than

English?

• Not typically, but it is possible

12) Is the University interested in captioning and transcription by Automatic Speech

Recognition systems, or human-generated captions only?

• We are interested in ASR generated captions, but only if the end product is

reviewed and edited by a human.

13) Is the University interested in the direct exchange of A/V and caption files with vendors

(through services like Citrix ShareFile), or is integration A/V hosting platforms

required?

• Integration with our video hosting platforms is required. Because of the additional

steps in the workflow without integration, a service would not be as useful to us

unless there is a significant cost advantage.

14) How many vendors does the University intend to award?

• We typically only contract with one service, but if one service does not meet all

needs, we may contract with additional services to meet those needs.

15) Does CSU require the Panopto integration to support two-way transfer (i.e., pushing

completed caption files back to Panopto automatically), or only inbound video

submission to the captioning vendor?

• We need the integration to return the file back to Panopto. That is the more

prevalent service for providing A/V content to our students for courses. If a service

does not return the caption file back to Panopto, it would limit the usefulness of

the service to us.

16) Are there any hosting platforms beyond those listed in Attachment F (Panopto, BB

Collaborate, Twitch, VoiceThread, Zoom, Facebook, and YouTube) that may need to be

supported during the contract term?

• Nothing that we would be setting up direct integration with. Some faculty may be

using Vimeo, but we have not had requests for captioning videos on that one yet.

In those cases we would be manually uploading content for CC or if your service

offers the service providing the link for the video to have the service CC. We would

then either provide the vtt or srt file to the faculty to add to the video in the

platform. Some vendors we have worked with have a platform for overlaying the

video and displaying the closed caption through a link and webpage provided by

the service. That has been helpful for YouTube content that we do not own.

17) What level of administrative access will departmental users have — will different

department contacts or faculty orders independently, or will all orders route through

Disability Services for approval?

• At this time all orders are going through Disability Services or eLearning for

approval. We have had some departments get accounts where they can submit

content, but all the purchasing goes through our office. Because of the Title II

requirements for online content this is potentially going to change and we would

be either having other programs setting up accounts or logins tied directly to our

office account for submission.

18) Is the estimated 50–120 media hours per year inclusive of all departments, or does it

reflect only content currently managed by Disability Services? Given the planned

transition to a departmental submission model, is a volume increase anticipated in

year one of the contract?

• That is the volume that has been submitted by Disability Services in past years

which included the videos that our office did for other departments. I would say

there is potential for the number to go up or down depending on the workflows

that are worked out for our Title II compliance plans. At this time, the only videos

being sent out are the ones going through us and are typically related to projects

our office becomes involved in or related to students connected with our office.

Our faculty are also at this time being trained for editing the auto transcription

available in platforms like Panopto and YouTube as the primary offering of CC to

our students. That typically only results in subtitles and not CC, which is why our

office would be processing requests for our connected students specifically.

19) What is CSU's standard required turnaround time for non-expedited captioning

orders?

• When we are not expediting we typically look for a 4-day turn around.

20) Are there peak periods during the academic year where volume is expected to spike

significantly (e.g., start of semester, finals period)?

• Yes, late August and Early January are when we are more likely to have higher

volume which corresponds to beginning of fall and spring terms.

21) Will vendors have the opportunity to provide a platform demonstration as part of the

evaluation process?

• We are not requiring demonstration for this RFP. However if a link is provided to a

product demonstration it would be viewed. We typically do look for online

resources that show how the product works when considering the products when

the scoring is close.

22) Does the scope of services include any need for live captioning (e.g., for campus

events, lectures, or virtual programming), or is the requirement limited to post-

production captioning of pre-recorded media?

• This RFP is limited to postproduction, but we have used other services of vendors

outside of the scope of the RFP when we saw fit. We do have other contracted

services for live captioning.

23) Do you intend to establish contracts with one or multiple vendors?

• It is undetermined if we will establish contracts with multiple vendors. We

typically have not in the past, but it would depend on if one services can meet all

needs.

24) Can we use our existing contract with CSU?

• Feel free to recycle any submission previously made whether it is terms you have

previously used with Cleveland State University or terms that you have used with

other institutions in the state of Ohio.

• There are terms that in any contract we are not permitted to enter into as

employees of the state of Ohio. These can be found on our Terms we cannot agree

to because of state law page.

25) Can we submit suggested supplemental terms and hold off incorporating as tracked

changes until after award?

• Yes, submitted requests for changes would be considered when reviewing the

submission because it can effect if we are able to contract with a vendor

depending on the changes. Be explicit with the requested changes. All contracts

entered into by CSU staff need to be reviewed by our General Counsel. If changes

are made to the terms in the RFP, those changes would need to be reviewed by

CSU general Counsel before we are able to contract with the vendor. .

• There are terms that in any contract we are not permitted to enter into as

employees of the state of Ohio. These can be found on our Terms we cannot agree

to because of state law page.

26) Would you like information and pricing for audio description?

• We are always happy to get pricing on available services, but Audio Description is

not part of this RFP and would not be considered in the evaluation. That being said

we have used such services that were listed as available services for vendors

Commodity Codes

• NAICS 561410Document Preparation Services
• NAICS 561492Court Reporting and Stenotype Services

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