Tegrity Blog

Captured Thoughts on Lecture Capture and Learning.

Record Numbers and Exceptional Achievement at TUC 2012

Posted on May 10, 2012 by Erin Blaze

This just in from the Sixth Annual Tegrity User Conference in Seattle, Washington! We had an incredibly successful event this year, hosting the largest TUC to date with over 200 attendees and nearly 80 different institutions in attendance. The conference was hosted by the Hyatt at Olive 8 in downtown Seattle. The Olive 8 is the first Leed-certified hotel in the city, boasting an array of innovative, environmentally friendly and energy-saving features.

Conference participants included administrators, eLearning professionals, instructional designers, IT staff, and faculty from institutions of Higher Education nation-wide, all of whom currently use Tegrity lecture capture to improve student achievement. This year’s theme, Unlocking Tegrity’s FULL Potential in the Classroom and Beyond, spoke to the creative ways in which Tegrity lecture capture is being used at institutions across the country, as well as the many facets of Tegrity that are available to greatly enhance the student and instructor experience.

Break-out sessions included such theme-centered topics as Tegrity lectures: Tips and tricks to better impact your students, Advanced editing: Making corrections and importing video, Deploying a lecture capture program for student athletes, Tegrity and mobile devices, Tegrity + Tablets: A win-win for connected instructors, Tegrity remote proctoring: A quality solution for distance testing, Closed captioning best practices, and Professional development training made easier with Tegrity.

The conference was jam-packed with sessions led by 40 client speakers and 8 Tegrity speakers. Each one delivered content on how to maximize Tegrity use in the classroom as well as throughout the institution in order to help increase student satisfaction, retention, and graduation rates. SBCTC administrators, eLearning professionals, and faculty led general sessions which covered topics such as, Summer 2012 Service Update, Improving Student Outcomes Across Washington, and Tegrity and Beyond: Transforming Learning in the Digital Age. The conference also hosted a student panel entitled, What Do Students Really Think?, in which six different students from across Washington state were candidly interviewed on their own individual experiences using Tegrity.

One of the highlights of the conference was our awards dinner. This special event atop Seattle’s iconic Space Needle not only provided spectacular views of the city but also hosted the annual Customer Appreciation Awards. We were delighted to honor particular institutions using Tegrity with certificates of achievement for their success in the areas of recording, online viewing, and student achievement. Administrators and institutions were also recognized for their leadership in Tegrity implementation across their campuses.

Student Achievement Award: Presented to a Tegrity client institution that has achieved outstanding success and has achieved the highest total volume or number of student views during the past year.

Winner: University of Central Florida
- Largest Number of Online Views: 734,247
- Largest Total Duration of Online Views: 1,597,083 hours
Don Merritt, University of Central Florida

Faculty Champion Award:Given to an individual at a Tegrity client institution that has made a significant impact in inspiring other instructors to use Tegrity and thereby positively impact student success.

Winner: Dr. Ann Garnsey-Harter, Director of eLearning at Shoreline Community College
Dr. Ann Garnsey-Harter, Shoreline Community Colllege

Innovator Award: Presented to an individual at a Tegrity client institution who has been a true catalyst for positive change within their institution, who is an acknowledge champion of technology on campus, and who has found innovative new uses for Tegrity on campus.

Winner: Dr. Bobbi Jo Carter, Distance Learning Coordinator at Calhoun Community College, the largest institution in the Alabama Community College System.

Rapid Response Award: Awarded to a new Tegrity client institution that has implemented Tegrity, trained their faculty, and made themselves fully operational in the shortest period of time. This award is also known as the “fastest launch”.

Winner: Saint Louis University
- Customer since 6/22/2011
- Full campus: 13,000 FTE (more than 8,100 undergraduate and 5,100 graduate students)
  Kyle Collins, Saint Louis University

Outcomes Assessment Award: Granted to a Tegrity client institution that has demonstrated through first-hand research Tegrity’s proven, quantified student impact on student outcomes during the previous academic year.

Winner: Arkansas Tech University
Rebecca Callaway, Arkansas Tech University

Customer Champion Award: Awarded to an individual at a Tegrity client institution who has consistently presented the “voice of the customer” throughout the previous year, contributing time and expertise to influence and enhance the quality of Tegrity offerings.

Winner: Mr. Steve Clark, Athens State University
Steve Clark, Athens State University

Shared Vision Award: Presented to a Tegrity client institution that has engaged students across the entire institution to use Tegrity and in so doing, has positively impacted the lives of students at their institution.

Winner: University of Missouri – Columbia
Boden Lyon, University of Missouri-Columbia

Provost Award: Given to a senior academic leader at a Tegrity client institution who has advocated Tegrity adoption campus-wide, as well as to the institution itself for achieving an exceptional degree of instructor usage during the past year.

Winner: Dr. Guy Westhoff, Washington State University

President Award: Awarded to a senior executive (VP or higher) of a Tegrity client institution who has demonstrated exemplary vision and leadership through successful implementation of Tegrity at their institution. This individual is generally recognized within the academic community as an accomplished leader who has impacted the lives of his/her students and colleagues.

Winner: Dr. Joel Hartman, University of Central Florida

Other institutions accepted Certificates of Achievement for their notable accomplishments in recording and online viewing numbers including Sam Houston State University, Blinn College, University of Louisville, John Marshall Law School, Saint Mary’s University of Minnesota, Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine, University of Missouri – Kansas City, and University of Alabama.

Audrey Wick, Blinn College

Congratulations are in order for all of our winners, as is a big thank you to all of our participants at this year’s TUC. We look forward to seeing familiar as well as new faces at next year’s event! Stay tuned to the Tegrity website for future updates!

Posted in Innovative Uses, Lecture Capture, Mobile, Tegrity Campus, Uncategorized | Tagged Academic Achievement, Combat cheating, Distance Learning, exams, Lecture Capture, Notes, recording, remote proctoring, screen grab, search, streaming, tablet, User Conference | Leave a comment

Tegrity Named a Finalist for 2012 SIIA’s 27th Annual CODiE Awards!

Posted on March 27, 2012 by Erin Blaze

Awards season is now in full swing and we’re proud to announce that Tegrity has been selected as a finalist for the 2012 CODiE Awards in the “Best Postsecondary Enterprise Solution” award category. The award is organized by the Software & Information Industry Association (SIIA), the primary trade association for the software and digital content industries. As a finalist, Tegrity Campus is being recognized as one of the “best non-instructional business management applications or services that support education enterprises in the postsecondary market”.

Tegrity Campus is one of the four technology solutions, and the only lecture capture solution, being considered for the CODiE Award. This is a great achievement! Starting Monday, March 26th, SIIA members can begin voting for their favorite solutions and if you are a SIIA member, we would love your input in the voting process. SIIA members make up to 20% of the final score in selecting the final CODiE award winner!

If you are interested in voting for Tegrity Campus in the Best Post-secondary Enterprise Solution category, please log in to your SIIA account and vote!

Posted in Tegrity Campus | Leave a comment

Tegrity named Winner of 2012 eSchool Readers’ Choice Awards!

Posted on March 26, 2012 by Erin Blaze

The Tegrity team was thrilled to be named the winner of the 2012 Ed-Tech eSchool Media Readers’ Choice Award. Thanks to the votes of nearly 1,400 readers of eSchool News, eClassroom News, and eCampus News, Tegrity was ultimately selected for the award due to its scalability, ease of use, and extensive product set. The award was featured in the January 2012 special edition of eCampus News and its sister publications, as well as the eCampus News website.

We are truly proud of this achievement and want to thank you, our loyal and passionate customers, for selecting Tegrity Campus as your lecture capture solution of choice and submitting your nominations for the Readers’ Choice Award.

Why not go for two years in a row? The call for nominations for the 2013 eSchool Media Readers’ Choice Awards is now open. If you would like to nominate Tegrity for this award, please remember that the deadline is Friday, April 20, 2012.

Posted in Tegrity Campus | Tagged eCampus News, Lecture Capture | Leave a comment

2012 Annual Tegrity Lecture Capture Survey Indicates Big Impact

Posted on March 22, 2012 by Erin Blaze

Nationwide survey gathered more than 11,000 responses from students using Tegrity

Lecture capture is credited as one of the most transformative educational technologies available today. As institutions across the country continue to recognize Tegrity’s potential and implement this solution, instructors and students alike are reporting measurable impact.

To help illustrate the many benefits of lecture capture use, Tegrity recently conducted a nation-wide survey of more than 11,000 students, probing their individual experiences using Tegrity. The primary objective was to measure Tegrity’s impact on student outcomes. The findings of the study not only support the strong interest lecture capture technology has generated on campuses around the country, but also improvements in student motivation, study effectiveness, understanding of material, and overall grades as a result of Tegrity usage.

A very high percentage of those surveyed identified themselves as full-time students. However, respondents also represented a wide range of ages and reported using Tegrity in different class settings (ie: traditional, online, and hybrid) for a variety of course disciplines.

A few of the findings helped put to rest some concerns that have been expressed about the use of lecture capture. For example, despite the fear that students might skip class in favor of viewing lectures at home, the reality is that less than 15% of respondents indicated that they have used Tegrity due to a missed class, which is in line with the national average of student truancy in higher education. In fact, almost 20% of students said that Tegrity increased their class attendance. This correlates well with a similar survey conducted with instructors, in which 85% of survey participants reported that Tegrity had no impact on or actually increased student attendance in their class sessions.

Not only did the survey demonstrate that students are attending class just as often, if not more often thanks to Tegrity use, but it also found that 63% credited Tegrity for increasing their motivation to study outside of class and 85% felt Tegrity increased their study effectiveness. What’s more, 90% of students indicated that Tegrity has increased the amount they learned in their course.

Why are these numbers important? The answer is simple: Better grades.

After seeing such improvements in study habits and material retention as a result of Tegrity use, it should come as no surprise that an impressive 72% of respondents felt that Tegrity helped them earn a better grade in their course.

Here are a few more encouraging statistics:

80% of students find Tegrity to be user-friendly
45% indicated that they had accessed Tegrity “on the go” (via iPhone, iPod, iPad, Android phone, or other MP3 device)
85% reported that using Tegrity has increased their course satisfaction
90% said they would like to have Tegrity in all of their classes.

To get full results of the survey, click here.

Posted in Lecture Capture | Tagged Grades, Lecture Capture, Student Attendance, Student Engagement, Student Satisfaction | Leave a comment

Lawson State Community College using Tegrity for Freshman Orientation

Posted on October 26, 2011 by Michael Berger

As freshman students across the country begin their first semester of college this fall, most will we be greeted with an orientation program. Not only is freshman orientation crucial to acclimating students to an institution, but it also can have a lasting impact on a student’s entire academic career.

Lawson State Community College, located in Birmingham, Alabama, welcomes more than 1,200 traditional and non-traditional freshman students each semester. The school recently determined it was time to rethink its approach to orienting new students to the institution. They set out to create a program that fostered lasting academic success by ensuring all students had the tools necessary to be successful during their time at Lawson State (or if they decided to transfer to a four-year institution).

Lawson State established the “Freshman Academy,” a comprehensive orientation program that aims to equip, engage and empower students by delivering the orientation curriculum in an interactive manner. Rather than lecturing at students, Tegrity recordings on a variety of topics are now populated directly into course lessons through Blackboard. Required viewing includes a welcome message from the university president, safety information from the campus police chief as well as an introduction to individual disciplines.

Lawson State has also created a wide array of “How to” recordings, which walk students through a variety of essential skills including registering for classes online, using the university website, checking course grades and paying tuition online. Starting this fall, students in the Freshman Academy will take a pre-designed through Blackboard directly after viewing each Tegrity recording, further streamlining the learning process.

Not only did the Freshman Academy save Lawson State valuable resources, since the same Tegrity recordings could be populated into all 35 sections of the Freshman Academy for future use, but the school has already seen comprehension of orientation topics increase after completion of the program.

For any institution considering a new approach to the traditional freshman orientation program, Dr. Sherri Cousin Davis, Academic Dean at Lawson State and Lead Creator of the Freshman Academy, has the following advice:

Don’t be afraid to think outside the box
Consider how students learn best – not just how faculty want to deliver content
Aim for sustained learning, rather than a temporary solution
Ask for faculty and student feedback

Posted in Innovative Uses, Lecture Capture | Tagged freshman orientation, increase retention, lawson state, Lecture Capture | Leave a comment

Arkansas Tech University Operations Management Students Excel with Tegrity

Posted on September 14, 2011 by Michael Berger

With classes starting right around the corner – some have already begun! – Dr. Loretta Cochran, Associate Professor of Management at Arkansas Tech University, is dusting off her recording equipment and gearing up for another year of using lecture capture. When she began using Tegrity at the university, she was looking for a technology to serve as a supplement to face-to-face time that would aid in student retention rates and help improve their final grades.

Dr. Cochran teaches an operations management course, which tends to be quantitative and is traditionally an “in-person” class. All lectures regularly include complicated math problems with various steps which she works through on the classroom smartboard. Using Tegrity, she is able to record problems where students are able to review as frequently as they wish, and stop the recording at any time to view a step so they may better comprehend the problem at hand.

Recently, Dr. Cochran conducted a survey of her students to show how lecture capture impacts their learning and to assess how students were using the service to impact their final grade. As Arkansas Tech University has a significant amount of international students from China and Japan, many students were viewing the recorded lectures much more often than others in the class. She found they were utilizing the “slow down” feature in Tegrity, which allows students to reduce the speed in which they hear a professor speak. Dr. Cochran’s students indicated that the slow down feature was a helpful tool in their success of the course, as the feature enabled them to learn the problems at their own pace. (And in contrast to some other recording devices that can make you sound like an alien, Dr. Cochran’s voice doesn’t change when students use Tegrity’s slow down feature.)

83 percent of Dr. Cochran’s students that used Tegrity indicated it impacted their learning and they found the technology to be very helpful. Dr. Cochran’s final results showed that only one student using Tegrity received a failing grade in the class, as opposed to the previous year, where among students that didn’t use Tegrity, seven received a failing grade.

For better retention and success, Dr. Cochran urges professors to use Tegrity for their classes, as it’s as easy as point, click and smile!

Posted in Lecture Capture, Pedagogy, Tegrity Campus | Leave a comment

One Stop Note Taking

Posted on September 14, 2011 by Michael Berger

Do you remember pulling out your notebook in class and taking your notes with a pen or pencil? How about reviewing those notes after the fact? Imagine if you could have tapped any of these notes with your finger only to have your instructor magically appear in your room and repeat what he or she said in class at the moment you took the notes you tapped? I’m guessing you would have found that helpful. Well, that’s essentially what Tegrity Notes provides!

With Tegrity Notes, students are able to type their notes directly into their computer or tablet device. Each time they take a note, it is automatically associated, or “time-stamped” to a specific class moment. This association is made whether the student is taking the notes live in class or taking them later as they watch the recorded version.

When it’s time to study for an upcoming exam, students can review their Tegrity Notes, which span the entire course, not a single recording. If they come across an item in their notes that they don’t understand, they can just click that item and Tegrity will begin playing back the exact moment in class when that item was covered.

This link between what the student wrote and what the instructor presented in class represents an incredibly powerful learning pathway that is sure to add tremendous efficiencies to the learning process.

However, that’s not the end of the story. Tegrity Notes has a few other tricks up its sleeve. Let’s say a student is using Tegrity Notes on their laptop and they hear something of importance in class that doesn’t warrant them taking notes on the topic. In these cases, they can simply click the Bookmark button on the Tegrity Notes interface and a time-stamped Bookmark is created. When they access Tegrity to review the material, the Bookmark is there for them to click to go back to that specific class moment.

Now let’s say that same student sees something of importance, such as a graph or photo, that the instructor is presenting on screen. They would like to have that image in their Tegrity Notes to reference, and even annotate, as they review their notes. No problem! They can simply click the Screen Grab button on the Tegrity Notes interface and whatever the instructor is presenting in class at that moment will appear in the student’s notes.

Instructors can also add their own Tegrity Notes, and these notes are visible to all students enrolled in the course. Student notes are not shared in this way. For added convenience, all Tegrity Notes can be exported in MS Word or Adobe PDF format.

We feel that Tegrity Notes presents an entirely new dimension to teaching and learning, eliminating the gap between what is taught in class and what students write and ultimately interpret from lectures.

We’d love to hear feedback from users – please share in the comments section!

Posted in Tegrity Campus | Tagged bookmarks, Notes, screen grab, search, tablet | Leave a comment

New Case Study: Athens State Improves Student Achievement with Tegrity

Posted on June 5, 2011 by Erin Blaze

We’re proud to announce the release of another case study showcasing Tegrity user success! In this study, we investigate Athens State’s use of Tegrity and how it has helped students overcome unique obstacles and achieve a new level of academic success.

Athens State University is the oldest institution of higher learning in Alabama. Established in 1822, Athens services approximately 3,600 students, most of whom have children and work full-time.

To better serve its nontraditional student body, Athens began using Tegrity as a way to record lectures, old and new. The goal was to improve access to course material such that students could study when, where and how they wanted. Tegrity lecture capture ultimately helped Athens maintain its accreditation, ensuring that students who attend live and/or online classes get an equally valuable learning experience.

Our case study on Athens State’s use of Tegrity further discovered:

Athens professors are also leveraging Tegrity as a tool for recording lectures that may be used weeks, months or years later, and for transferring library reserves, such as content from VHS and DVD recordings.
Every class, captured on or off campus, is automatically stored and indexed within the right course for enrolled students to access, so students can learn while at home, on the road, or between jobs and child day care shifts.
Today, over 300 Athens classes across majors use Tegrity.

Click here to download the full case study!

Posted in Tegrity Campus | Tagged Academic Achievement, Grades, Lecture Capture, Student Retention | Leave a comment

Tegrity Usage Skyrockets and Customers are Honored

Posted on April 14, 2011 by Michael Berger

Usage of Tegrity’s lecture capture technology continues to surge at institutions across the country compared to the same time last year (for example, March saw a 74% jump). This revelation was certainly cause to celebrate at Tegrity’s most recent User Conference, held at Georgia Tech’s campus. While there, Tegrity’s Annual Customer Appreciation Awards took place on April 14^th at the historic Fox Theater.

Awards reception attendees learned that the breathtaking theater was originally designed in the late 1920s as the Yaarab Temple Shrine Mosque, serving as headquarters for the 5,000-member Shriners organization. The theater boasts a magnificent “sky” – a vaulted ceiling painted ultramarine blue, twinkling 11-watt bulbs fixed above four-inch crystals and drifting clouds produced by a special projector as well as a custom made organ adoringly named “Mighty Mo.” The only full-time, in-house Restoration Department of its kind in the United States leads an ongoing effort to keep all of these original features in tact. The beloved Fox theater is now listed on the National Register of Historic Places and is designated a National Historic Landmark. Ranked the #1 non-residency venue worldwide for the decade (5,000 seats or less) by Billboard Magazine in December 2009, attendees of Tegrity’s awards dinner were sure in for a treat.

Tegrity’s Customer Appreciation Awards were presented to those individuals and institutions that have championed the adoption of lecture capture at their campuses and showed passion and innovation in maximizing the benefits of Tegrity. Certificates of Achievement were also awarded to the institutions marking the highest number of new Tegrity recordings and online views, and logging the longest durations of new recordings and online views. The top honors went to the University of Missouri–Columbia which logged the largest numbers of online views (226,622), the largest number of viewing users (31,938), and the second greatest duration of online views (92,857) in the past year.

Such impressive usage statistics certainly sets the bar high, but 2012 promises even more growth and most importantly, an improved learning experience for students across the country.

Congratulations to all of Tegrity’s Customer Appreciation Award honorees!

Posted in Lecture Capture | Tagged Customer Appreciation Awards, Fox Theatre, online views, User Conference | Leave a comment

Going Mobile with Tegrity to Maximizing Study Time

Posted on December 10, 2010 by Michael Berger

The explosion of smart phones and tablet computers has taken the higher education industry by storm as an increasing number of students rely on these digital devices for just about everything – including course work. Soon these devices will be making our morning coffee, or at least we hope! However, not all mobile applications are created equal! To best support the needs of students, Tegrity has a few tricks up its sleeve! Here are some of the best features of the Tegrity Mobile App.

Streaming

Students should be able to fire up their mobile app, click on the desired content, and view it instantly. They shouldn’t have to first connect their mobile device to a computer in order to download the content. The Tegrity Mobile App supports the streaming of recorded content over the air to Apple iOS (iPod, iPhone and iPad) and Android devices. This means that as soon as an instructor is done recording a class (or other content), the student can watch it instantly on their mobile device anywhere they can get a connection to the Internet – which between 3G, 4G and WiFi, is pretty much anywhere these days.

Bookmarks

Imagine being a student in class and not understanding what the professor just said. With Tegrity, you can go back to that exact moment and review what the professor said as many times as needed. However, wouldn’t it be even better if you could push a button that very moment in class in order to set a bookmark in Tegrity that would, when clicked, take you back to that exact point in the recording? Well, that’s exactly what the bookmarking feature in the Tegrity Mobile App does. When the professor says something you feel is unclear or important, simply take out your mobile device, and click the “Unclear” or “Important” button on the Tegrity Mobile App. When you login to Tegrity later on to review, the bookmark you set with your mobile device will appear in the bookmarks list and clicking it will take you back to the moment your instructor said whatever it is you found important or unclear – making learning super efficient!

Search

One of the Tegrity’s most popular features is its search capability. Unlike other platforms that require the instructor to take various steps in order for search metadata to be created, Tegrity captures it automatically – meaning there is always a ton of relevant text and phrases to search for! So why limit the ability to search through the content to the Tegrity web interface? That’s what we were thinking anyway when we added full search capabilities to the Tegrity Mobile App. Not only can you go directly to the content you want to review by browsing the thumbnails, but you can also put in a search term, and Tegrity will present a list of matches that, when clicked, will take you to the exact moment they were presented in class.

Whether at the gym, in the car or on the team bus heading to a game, today’s students are constantly on the go. With a great mobile app like Tegrity’s, students are able to study pretty much anywhere, anytime. And of course, if they don’t plan on having Internet access on their mobile device, Tegrity also supports good old-fashion downloading of podcasts and/or vodcasts. We won’t tell anyone you did it!

Posted in Mobile | Tagged app, bookmarks, Lecture Capture, recording, search, streaming | Leave a comment