Translation Services

The vendor is required to provide for foreign language in-person interpretation, translation, telephonic interpretation and video remote interpretation services.
- Translation and interpretation
1. Interpreting:
• Interpreting is the process of fully understanding, analyzing, and processing a spoken message and then faithfully rendering it into another spoken language.
• Interpreters must be able to accurately convey the meaning from one language to another in a culturally appropriate manner, mindful of the setting in which they are rendering their services.
2. Interpretation services include:
• Oral face to face interpretation (in-person)
• Telephonic interpretation services and video remote interpretation (VRI).
• Services may take place in a variety of settings such as office buildings, medical facilities, hearing offices, schools, construction sites, individual and family homes, or other locations as deemed necessary.
• Fee structure for interpretation services is to be billed at an hourly rate with a minimum time agreed upon by the purchasing entity and the vendor, which shall be either one or two hours.
• Time beyond this minimum will be billed in 15-minute increments
3. Interpreters:
• Unless a purchasing entity has specified a longer period, contractors are required to arrive at least fifteen (15) minutes prior to the scheduled time of on-site scheduled appointment in order to receive any instructions from the purchasing entity.
• The contractor is responsible for taking all necessary actions to obtain adequate transportation, accurate times, locations, directions, telephone numbers, contact person(s) and any other information or actions to ensure that that they are present at the proper location at the time specified
- Telephonic and video remote interpretation (VRI) services:
• Contractors shall comply with all federal and state wiretapping and recording statutes, including MGL by not directly or indirectly monitoring, taping, intercepting, or recording conversations without explicit consent
• The contractor shall provide both scheduled and unscheduled telephonic interpretation services for non-English speaking individuals 24 hours a day and 7 days a week
• Contractors shall provide, at no extra cost to the purchasing entity, a dedicated, toll-free, number to access interpretation services. all costs for this toll-free access will be borne by the contractor.
• All interpreters provided by the contractor shall be pre-qualified, tested and trained for industry standard terminology and agree to adhere to the american society of testing and materials (ASTM) standard interpretation guide.
• The contractor shall provide 24-hour, toll free, customer support line attended to by live representatives
• Contractors must prioritize emergency, time critical, and non-time critical calls; (i.e., hotline and emergency room, case worker in the field). for conference call or video remote interpretation (VRI) billing purposes, the contractor may bill only for the actual time an interpreter participates on a call
• The time required to set up the conference call prior to the interpreter joining the call and any continuation of the conference call once the interpreter has dropped off, will not be chargeable time.
• The contractor may not terminate the conference call at any time before all parties to the call have dropped off, regardless of whether the services of the interpreter are no longer needed. (i.e., the contractor must maintain the conference call connection as long as at least 2 parties are still connected.)
• There will be an announcement at end of call or vri, so all parties can disconnect.
• The contractor shall provide an account team that is dedicated to support the activities provided under this initiative.
- Translators:
• Translators work with the written word, converting text from a source language into a target language. • This is far more than replacing one word with another.
• The translation must also convey the style, tone and intent of the text, while taking into account differences of culture and dialect.
• The finished document should read as if it had originally been written in the target language for the target audience.
- Translation services:
• The contractor shall be capable of receiving source language documents by facsimile, e-mail or other electronic means (i.e., microsoft word, pdf or flat files, standard word processing languages, etc.), country postal service or courier delivery.
• The typical delivery is expected to be by facsimile, e-mail or other electronic means.
• From the source language to the target language, the written text of the target language will be determined by the statement of work (sow) of the purchasing entity.
• The contractor shall provide all language translation services for languages or dialects at the per word rates of the source language as provided within the cost table and price sheet.
• Translation documents must be delivered in both “word” and “pdf” unless instructed differently by the purchasing entity.
• In expedited situations the purchasing entity will determine how the written document translation shall be completed in terms of word count or number of pages of the target language translation.
- Contract Period/Term: 2 years