Automated Lecture Recording Subtitling System - Soft Market Testing Exercise

Tender description

The University of Southampton is currently exploring a range of options to meet its need for automated subtitling of lecture video recordings. The University is keen to explore all options that may be currently available in the marketplace. Students use videos of lectures to revisit taught content. Some groups of students benefit from subtitles on videos, especially those with additional learning needs or with English as an additional language (EAL). Lectures are recorded using Panopto. The University is conducting soft market testing for an automated subtitling system for lecture video recordings that must include the following: - A high degree of transcription accuracy in real-world scenarios (including a range of acoustics, voices, accents and background noise) - A pricing model that defines the University's costs - A operational and/or support model that reduces the costs to the University - Ability to cope with ~55k lecture recordings per annum, with a processing time limited to 12 hours per recording - Ability to cope service approximately ~1m hours of video per annum (or integration with existing services that provide this) and scalable to support future growth beyond this - Ability to integrate with existing University services to give an excellent student experience (e.g. Blackboard, Panopto, Banner etc.) This soft market exercise is intended to allow interested organisations with appropriate experience to outline their views and provide impartial information to the University with no commitment to themselves or the University. It is not part of a formal procurement process nor shall the University be committed to carrying out such a process. The ultimate aim is to understand the strengths and weaknesses of the various solutions available to the University to deliver the outcomes above. The aim of the soft market test is not to select organisations with which to work, it is to better understand the solutions available in the market to inform the University's strategy for fulfilling their requirements. It can, however, be viewed as an opportunity for contractors to become more familiar with the University's automated lecture subtitling needs and inform the University of their organisation and relative services. The soft market testing process will consist of submission of the Soft Market Testing Questionnaire (SMTQ) using the In-Tend portal. Further details regarding the completion and submission of the SMTQ can be found within the questionnaire document. PLEASE NOTE: This is not a call for competition at this stage.