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What is Tegrity?

Tegrity is an application to record your lectures for your students to watch at their convenience and to repeat lectures (or portions thereof) until they grasp the concepts. The convenience of "time-shifting" your lectures also helps you by allowing you to record your lectures in advance. Recorded lectures can be reused from semester to semester, and they can be updated to keep them current. You could use recorded lectures as a substitute if you have to a conference or otherwise be absent from a class. Tegrity sessions can also be a useful component of a hybrid or Internet-based class.

You can include a wide variety of materials in your Tegrity session. Simple audio/video, PowerPoint presentations, whiteboard notes, images from a document camera, and audio and video capture of software applications are all possibilities.

Tegrity is not a "panacea product"—there are things that it can't do, there are things that doesn't do well, and there are things for which other products are more appropriate. For example, if you simply wanted to add a voice-over to a PowerPoint presentation, PowerPoint's built-in Record Narration feature is a simpler means of accomplishing that end.

What do I need before I start?

There are two Tegrity studios on campus for the creation and editing of Tegrity sessions. We also have a floating license for a client version that can be installed on your (Windows) personal computers to create and edit Tegrity sessions. There are no outstanding charges or costs for using Tegrity—ULM has already paid for licenses and support through 2007.

At a minimum, Tegrity needs PowerPoint (which it uses as a "workspace" during recording) and a microphone (to record the audio portion of the lesson). Most users also use a camera (a simple USB camera is sufficient, but the two Tegrity studios are equipped with camcorders) pointed at themselves to give the students the impression that the instructor is talking directly to them. The Tegrity studios are also equipped with document cameras, LCD tablets, and projectors.

Currently, all Tegrity creation and editing is scheduled through Alex Tan. For the Tegrity studios, this prevents argument over studio usage. For the floating license-dependent Tegrity Instructor Desktop client, the schedule provides proof that we are abiding by the limits of our single floating license (which is not a site license).

How do I create a Tegrity session?

To create a Tegrity session, one starts with a PowerPoint presentation. It can be as simple as a single title slide or it could be many slides. The microphone (and camera) records the instructor as he or she gives the lecture. The instructor can point to things on the slides, highlight things on the slides, mark up or write on the slides, and insert new slides, and Tegrity will record it all—and even update presentations with the changes, if desired. Tablets (such as the LCD tablets in the studios) make this easy to do.

The instructor can switch back and forth to a document camera if one is available. So far, not many users have taken advantage of this, simply because the documents look better if they are scanned and inserted into the PowerPoint presentation as either images or text.

The instructor can also switch back and forth to other programs. For example, the instructor could switch to a web browser and guide students through a web site to point out items of interest. This feature should work with most applications. The only incompatibility that we have encountered so far is with a particular web site that depends on Java to animate images.

Are there any guidelines for making a Tegrity session?

We currently recommend that instructors make several short and tightly focused lessons instead of a single long lecture. Short videos in the 5-10 minute range seem to hold students' attentions better.

Also, if you are converting a classroom course into an on-line course, creating Tegrity sessions (or competing alternatives) is useful only if you are testing students on the content presented in the Tegrity session and/or if you are elaborating on topics in greater detail than the other course materials (e.g. textbooks, journal articles, etc.). The College of Business Administration is currently the biggest user of Tegrity on campus, and they have collected data showing that their students rarely watch the videos unless they have a need to do so.

I've finished recording. What do I do next?

When the instructor finishes recording, Tegrity will convert the recording into the proper video formats. At least two streaming video files will be created: one with audio and video appropriate for people who use dial-up access to the Internet, and an audio-only stream for people who have bad or particularly slow connections to the Internet. The Tegrity studio units can create streaming video files appropriate for broadband users.

At this point, the instructor can edit the recording to remove mistakes, to add URL's to the entire session or selected portions, to add "bookmarks" to specific points in the lecture, to add captions, and to make a few other changes. Most users use the Tegrity Editor software just to make sure that there is not a long pause at the beginning and end of their Tegrity sessions.

After recording (and editing), the instructor uploads the Tegrity session to his or her directory on the Tegrity server. Then the instructor uses a browser to go to the correct directory, copies the resulting URL, and pastes it into Blackboard as an external link.

What do my students need to view Tegrity sessions?

In addition to the standard computing requirements described in the ULM Electronic Learning Policy, students will need the following to view a Tegrity session:

Tegrity uses cookies, Java, Javascripts, and pop-up windows. Users should be prepared to adjust their browser settings and protection software settings to allow it to function.

Sometimes, browsers will ask to install some software (usually ActiveX) before the Tegrity session comes up; if this happens, it is necessary to accept installation. Tegrity is a Microsoft-centric application, so it works best with Internet Explorer on Windows. We've noticed that other browsers on Windows, IE on non-Windows, and non-IE on non-Windows have all demonstrated inexplicably-random compatibility even if they meet the requirements.

Are there any sample Tegrity sessions that I can look at?

If you have a few minutes, you might want to take a look at some of the existing Tegrity sessions on the Tegrity server. One of Tammy Parker's ECON 201 sessions is a good example of Tegrity's ability to mark up slides during a session. One of the earliest Tegrity sessions created by Mark Doherty is a good example of using a projector (with whiteboard capture) and switching back and forth to another application.

Where can I get more information about Tegrity?

On campus, Alex Tan handles most demonstrations and support. The main web site for Tegrity, Inc., is located at http://www.tegrity.com/. The support section can be found at http://support.tegrity.com/.