VHEAP Captioning Initiative


Through a combined effort of the VHEAP Captioning Committee, the Virginia Higher Education Procurement Consortium (VHEPC), and the University of Virginia (UVA), a new set of captioning agreements are now in place. Building on the initial work by George Mason University, these agreements offer advantageous pricing to participating state agencies, K-12 schools and districts, and post-secondary institutions.

It is the intent of this initiative and resulting agreements to allow for cooperative procurement. Accordingly, any public body (i.e., state agencies) public or private health or educational institution, or any related foundation may access any agreement resulting from this initiative if authorized by the vendor. No modification of any agreement or execution of a separate agreement is required to participate. Participating entities will place their own orders directly with the vendor and will fully and independently administer their use of the agreement to include contractual disputes, invoicing, and payments without direct administration from the UVA, VHEPC or VHEAP. 

The services requested through this RFP and provided by the vendors listed, all involve human intervention (audio description may or may not include human intervention). Other services may be offered and each participating entity is welcome to work with the vendor to secure the appropriate service for the entity’s needs.

The initial term of these agreements will be for two years, with the option to renew for an additional two-year period and three subsequent one-year periods.

These agreements will be managed by the VHEAP Captioning Committee and VHEPC, and administered by UVA. The services offered through these agreements include:

  • Live Captioning (Remote)
  • Live Captioning (On-Site)
  • Post-Production Captioning and Transcription
  • Audio Description

Not all vendors offer all services. It is up to each participating entity to choose the vendor and service most appropriate for their needs.

Benefits of Using These Agreements

Most vendors have offered a tiered-pricing structure that aggregates minutes used by participating entities to lower the pricing for selected services for all participating entities. In essence, leveraging the spend of the larger entities to the benefit of the smaller entities.

The vendors who have entered into agreements through this process have also undergone a UVA IT Security and Data Protection review. (For more information on this review, contact the UVA Coordinator of Academic Accessibility). They also agreed to abide by all state required contractual stipulations, the UVA Data Protection Addendum, and VHEPC reporting requirements.

Participating Vendors

A couple of notes of interest:

  • In some cases, background checks of employees for firms participating in this Initiative were only conducted for those individuals who would be on-site. Please check with the vendors you use if this is concerning to you.
  • Video recordings of each vendor’s demonstration and information session are posted on their page. All include professional captions and ASL interpretation. If you would like access to 3Play Media’s recording, contact captioning@vheap.org.
VendorLive Captioning (Remote)Live Captioning (On-Site)Post-ProductionAudio Description
3Play Media XXX
Ai-MediaXX
AzurXXX
Cielo24XXX
KaraschX
Verbit*XXX
VZP DigitalXXX
Participating Vendors with Services Provided

* There has been a price drop since the original prices were posted

Getting Started

  1. Review the information listed for each vendor to determine which may provide the services you require
  2. Contact the account manager(s) listed and reference the VHEAP Captioning Initiative agreement

VHEAP Captioning Committee

Along with VHEPC, the VHEAP Captioning Committee will be managing this initiative. Members include:

Contract Administrators:

  • Lori Kressin (Univ of Virginia)
  • Korey Singleton (George Mason Univ)

Other Committee Members

  • Erik Elvgren (Univ of Virginia)
  • Bryant Leonard (James Madison Univ)
  • Mark Nichols (Virginia Tech)
  • Aja Puopolo (George Mason Univ)
  • Danielle Smith (Univ of Mary Washington)
  • Eric Raff (Virginia Dept for Deaf / Hard of Hearing)
  • Kristin Roush (Univ of Virginia)
  • Christina Wulf (James Madison Univ)

For more information, send email to captioning@vheap.org.