RFI_31701-03681-ADA_Closed_Captioning_CART_Solution-7-16-25.pdf

STATE OF TENNESSEE

FINANCE AND ADMINISTRATION, STRATEGIC TECHNOLOGY SOLUTIONS

REQUEST FOR INFORMATION

FOR

ADA CLOSED CAPTIONING & CART SOLUTION

RFI # 31701-03681

07/16/2025

1. STATEMENT OF PURPOSE:

The State of Tennessee, Department of Finance and Administration, Strategic Technology Solutions (“State”) issues this Request for Information (“RFI”) for the purpose of ADA Closed Captioning & CART Solution. We appreciate your input and participation in this process.

2. BACKGROUND:

In 2024, the DOJ affirmed that the ADA applies to web content and requires state and local governments (Title II entities) to ensure their websites and digital content are accessible to individuals with disabilities. Closed captioning is a core requirement for accessibility in multimedia, specifically for individuals who are deaf or hard of hearing. WCAG 2.1 AA provides internationally recognized guidelines, with Success Criterion 1.2.2 and 1.2.4 explicitly requiring captions for prerecorded and live video content, respectively.

The State of Tennessee seeks to discover the foremost WCAG2.1 AA mitigation solution for its prerecorded video inventory as well as closed captioning tools to aid in ADA compliant video creation going forward. This research will produce a number of prominent products within the marketplace that exhibit the necessary capabilities to effectively satisfy the State’s WCAG 2.1 AA

1.2.2 and 1.2.4 Success Criterion requirements.

3. COMMUNICATIONS:

3.1. Please submit your response to this RFI to:

Rebekah Jenkins, Enterprise IT Business Program Support Lead Finance and Administration, Strategic Technology Solutions 901 Rep. John Lewis Way North, Nashville, TN 37243 Cell: 615-906-4840 rebekah.w.jenkins@tn.gov

3.2. Please feel free to contact Strategic Technology Solutions with any questions regarding this

RFI. The main point of contact will be:

mailto:rebekah.w.jenkins@tn.gov

Rebekah Jenkins, Enterprise IT Business Program Support Lead Finance and Administration, Strategic Technology Solutions 901 Rep. John Lewis Way North, Nashville, TN 37243 Cell: 615-906-4840 rebekah.w.jenkins@tn.gov

3.3. Please reference RFI # 31701-03681 with all communications to this RFI.

4. RFI SCHEDULE OF EVENTS:

EVENT

TIME

(Central Time Zone)

DATE

(all dates are State business days)

1. RFI Issued July 16, 2025

2. RFI Vendor Questions Deadline 2:00 PM July 23, 2025

3. State Response to Vendor Questions July 30, 2025

4. RFI Response Deadline 2:00 PM August 13, 2025

5. GENERAL INFORMATION:

5.1. Please note that responding to this RFI is not a prerequisite for responding to any future solicitations related to this project and a response to this RFI will not create any contract rights. Responses to this RFI will become property of the State.

5.2. The information gathered during this RFI is part of an ongoing procurement. In order to prevent an unfair advantage among potential respondents, the RFI responses will not be available until after the completion of evaluation of any responses, proposals, or bids resulting from a Request for Qualifications, Request for Proposals, Invitation to Bid or other procurement method. In the event that the state chooses not to go further in the procurement process and responses are never evaluated, the responses to the procurement including the responses to the RFI, will be considered confidential by the State.

5.3. The State will not pay for any costs associated with responding to this RFI.

5.4. Responses should be prepared, with emphasis on completeness and clarity, and should NOT exceed ten (10) pages in length. Attachment 1 is not counted towards the page count.

Responses exceeding 10 pages may be disqualified or may not be fully reviewed.

Responses, as well as any reference material presented, must be written in English, and must be written on standard 8 ½” x 11” pages and all text must be at least a 12-point font.

All pages must be numbered.

mailto:rebekah.w.jenkins@tn.gov

5.5. Any services or products proposed in this RFI, must be in compliance with the following security policy: all State data must remain in the United States, regardless of whether the data is processed, stored, in-transit, or at rest. Access to State data shall be limited to US-based (onshore) resources only. Configuration or development of software and code is permitted outside of the United States, however, software applications designed, developed, manufactured, or supplied by persons owned or controlled by, or subject to the jurisdiction or direction of, a foreign adversary, which the U.S. Secretary of Commerce acting pursuant to 15 C.F.R. 7 has defined to include the People's Republic of China, among others are prohibited. Any testing of code outside of the United States must use fake data. A copy of production data may not be transmitted or used outside the United States.

6. INFORMATIONAL FORMS:

The State is requesting the following information from all interested parties. Please fill out the following forms:

RFI # 31701-03681

TECHNICAL INFORMATIONAL FORM

1. RESPONDENT LEGAL ENTITY NAME:

2. RESPONDENT CONTACT PERSON:

Name, Title:

Address:

Phone Number:

Email:

3. BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF EXPERIENCE PROVIDING SIMILAR SCOPE OF

SERVICES/PRODUCTS

4. PLEASE COMPLETE COLUMN E IN ATTACHMENT ONE

COST INFORMATIONAL FORM

1. Describe what pricing units you typically utilize for similar services or goods (e.g., per hour, each, etc.:

2. Describe the typical price range for similar services or goods

3. Describe in detail any tiered pricing you offer, including how it is structured

ADDITIONAL CONSIDERATIONS

1. Please provide input on alternative approaches or additional things to consider that might benefit the State:

ATTACHMENT ONE

No. Requirement Sub Category Description Describe how your solution will satisfy each

Requirement based on their descriptions found in

Column D.

Functional Requirements

1 Functional Live Captioning Real-time caption generation during live events, webinars, or broadcasts

2 Functional Pre-recorded

Video Support

Ability to generate captions for uploaded media (MP4, MOV, etc.)

3 Functional Multi-language

Captioning

Support for multiple languages for

LEP accessibility

4 Functional Speaker

Identification

Distinguishes and labels different speakers

5 Functional Caption Editing UI for editing auto-generated captions for accuracy

6 Functional Time Code

Syncing

Accurate syncing of captions to video/audio timeline

7 Functional Export Options SRT, VTT, TXT, and embedded caption export formats

8 Functional Integration with

Platforms

Integration with Zoom, YouTube, Vimeo, MS Teams, etc.

9 Functional Interpretation

Service

American Sign Language

10 Functional Extended Audio

Descriptions

Detailed description for Blind and low vision users.

11 Functional Analytic

Reporting

Ability to produce "Canned" or

Custom reporting.

Technical Requirements

12 Technical API Access RESTful APIs for automation and integration with other tools

13 Technical Cloud or On-prem

Deployment

Options

Flexibility in deployment models

14 Technical Data Security &

Encryption

Compliance with HIPAA, SOC 2, FERPA, or other standards

15 Technical Scalability Ability to handle varying volumes of video/live streams and duration.

16 Technical Compatibility Cross-platform support (Windows, macOS, Linux, browser)

17 Technical User

Authentication

& Roles

Secure logins, roles/permissions, SSO integration

18 Technical Version management

Automatic version updates for product and service solutions.

Support Requirements

19 Support Training &

Onboarding

Availability of user training, documentation, and onboarding support

20 Support SLA &

Availability

Clear service uptime commitments, e.g., 99.9% availability

21 Support Technical

Support

24/7 support options, multi-channel

(email, phone, chat)

22 Support User Community

& Knowledge

Base

Online support portal with FAQs, guides, and user forums

23 Support Accessibility

Compliance

WCAG 2.1 Level AA, ADA, Section

508 compliance

Security Requirements

24 Security Data Encryption at Rest and in

Transit

All data should be encrypted using industry standards such as AES-256 and TLS 1.2+

25 Security User Access

Controls

Granular role-based access control and admin permissions

26 Security Audit Logs and

Monitoring

Capability to log and monitor user activity for compliance and troubleshooting

27 Security Compliance

Certifications

Support for SOC 2, ISO 27001, HIPAA, or FedRAMP certifications

28 Security Data Retention

Policies

Clearly defined policies for how long data is stored and procedures for secure deletion

29 Security Incident

Response Plan

Defined protocols for identifying, managing, and reporting security incidents (Disaster Recovery)

Artificial Intelligence

30 Artificial

Intelligence

General Does this solution contain an AI model?

31 Artificial

Intelligence

Hosting Where is the AI solution hosted?

32 Artificial

Data What type(s) of data does the AI solution ingest or create?

33 Artificial

AI Training Does the AI model train from user data?

34 Artificial

Opt Out Option How does the State of TN opt out of training the AI model?

35 Artificial

Model Training Who develops and trains the AI model: the enterprise internally or a third-party/vendor?

36 Artificial

Data Sensitivity Does this AI solution leverage a dataset for training or fine tuning that contains sensitive information?

37 Artificial

Data Retention

Policies

Are there different data retention polices for the user interface versus the API?

38 Artificial

Human in the

Loop

Does the AI feedback process include human re-enforcement(RLHF)?

39 Artificial

Third Party

Assessment

Has a third-party AI assessment been conducted? If yes, where are the results available?

40 Artificial

NLP Capabilities Use of NLP, speech-to-text engines with high accuracy (98-99%)