During an interview with Tegrity President and CEO Isaac Segal on his cell phone while in an automobile somewhere in Israel, we listened to an overview about how this web-service-oriented system is geared toward enabling large numbers of faculty and staff to participate in the production of rich media courses and events.

As a web-service, instructors go to a Tegrity.NameOfInstitution.edu website, obtain a Tegrity account, log in with their credentials, find the course they are teaching among a list of courses and then simply click on the record button when they are ready to start their presentation.

Any computer that meets basic system requirements and is installed with presentation and document-producing software, as well as any connected peripheral video camera and/or microphone (or built-in camera and microphone), works with the Tegrity web-based system. "There is no need for any special devices," says Segal. "Anything that will be recognized by Windows will work with Tegrity. The professor starts the recording, and Tegrity has a small tool box with a stop and pause button. They do whatever they want while Tegrity is in the background capturing their presentation."

As noted on the Tegrity website, Campus 2.0 seamlessly integrates with Blackboard, WebCT, Angel, Moodle, Peoplesoft/Oracle, SCT and any other CMS, SIS, portal or any other IMS-compliant systems. Tegrity is a scalable, web-based enterprise system. Plus, with new built-in iTunes integration capabilities, any Tegrity recording can be published to an institution’s iTunes U site with a single click. Mobile support also enables students to review class content on their RAZR phones.

Tegrity is headquartered in Santa Clara, CA with an R & D center in Israel. Its web-service product started in 2005. Since 2000, it has also sold an appliance-based, rich-media production system. Segal says that many Tegrity customers who started with an appliance-based system, which he refers to as the "production point," are now transitioning over to the web-based service. "People who have bought at the production point and are looking more globally at their institution or department are likely to convert. Many have converted to this model because it gives them an open license and encourages everyone to record."

In a recent article in Campus Technology, freelance writer Linda L. Briggs outlined how a University of Alabama geology professor decided to record and archive his traditional classroom-based lectures and PowerPoint presentations with Tegrity in order to offer his students an additional learning resource. Initially there was some concern that many students would decide not to show up for the live, face-to-face class meeting. However, except for a few students, class attendance has remained steady. In addition, Briggs noted that the professor spent a total of four hours to become a proficient Tegrity user and that currently it takes him about five minutes of handling and editing to ultimately publish his classroom audio/video lecture and PowerPoint on the campus server. Students have reacted positively, and plans for the future include recording geology field trips.¹

"The pricing is based on full time equivalent (FTE)," says Segal. "We are not into a production point. We want to enable everybody to use it." Similar to other web-based educational technology vendors, Tegrity has an annual licensing fee ranging "anywhere between the low tens of thousands of dollars to 100,000 dollars. Our pricing is not complicated. You give us an FTE and we give you a number. There are no devices. You will get one simple quote."