What is Tegrity?

Tegrity is a lecture capture system. Put differently, Tegrity is a web-based software application that allows instructors to record lectures or presentations for their students. Technically, Tegrity records the following:

• video of what's happening on the instructor's primary monitor (e.g., PowerPoint presentations, documents, websites, special software applications used in class)
• audio of the instructor's narration or lecture
• video of the instructor through a webcam, or a still picture of the instructor

Many instructors use Tegrity to record their in-class lectures for their students. This is helpful for times when you need to review challenging material or fill a gap in your notes. Many students find that Tegrity enables them to pay better attention in classs, because they can worry less about capturing comprehensive notes and instead focus on understanding the material.

To get an idea for what watching a Tegrity recording looks like, see Fig. 1 below.

Fig. 1, Screen shot of a sample Tegrity recording (PowerPoint and audio narration)

Viewing Tegrity recordings in a Blackboard course site

If your instructor has created Tegrity recordings, you may view them by following these steps:

1. Login to your Blackboard course site.
2. From the Course Navigation menu (see Fig. 2), click the Tegrity Classes  button. The Tegrity application will open in a new window.
   
   Note: If you use a pop-up blocker, you may need to allow an exception for the blackboard.missouri.edu and missouri.tegrity.com domains, or you can manually allow the Tegrity pop-up every time you click the Tegrity Classes button. For help adding exceptions to your browser's pop-up blocker, please call the MU Division of IT Help Desk at (573) 882-5000.
   
   
   Fig. 2, The Course Navigation menu. The Tegrity Classes button usually appears toward the bottom of this list.
   
   
3. In the Tegrity application window, you will see a list of recordings for your course. Find the recording you want to watch, and click its title in the list. The recording will expand to display a series of thumbnail images (see Fig. 3).
   
   
   Fig. 3, Expanded view of a Tegrity recording
   
   
4. In the expanded recording view, click the thumbnail in the upper-left corner to start watching from the beginning. 
   
   Note: If you have previously watched this recording, the upper-left thumbnail will be displaced by a button allowing you to begin from where you left off. 

System hardware/software requirements

Like any software application, your computer must meet the minimum system requirements (link opens in new window) in order to use Tegrity. If you adhere to the MU Division of IT's computer buying guide (link opens in new window), you'll meet Tegrity's requirements.

Help with Tegrity

If you want to go straight to the source, the Tegrity vendor maintains a separate website for Tegrity help documentation (link opens in new window).  

Tegrity for reviewing in-class lectures

Well of course you should still go to class! 

When Tegrity was first implemented at MU, some instructors worried that Tegrity would encourage students to skip class, since they can watch a recording of the lecture later, at their leisure. After a couple of years of Tegrity usage on campus, students who have tried this have tended to wish they hadn't. Tegrity is an excellent review tool, but it's no substitute for attending class. Watching a recorded in-class lecture that you didn't attend has been likened to watching someone else's home videos.

Many instructors place great value in classroom activities, and you will miss out on that if you don't attend class. Of course, this is true regardless of whether your classes are recorded in Tegrity.

Unless...

An exception to the above rule is when your instructor designs a presentation in Tegrity that's intended to be viewed outside of class (like a video reading assignment). This is useful for introducing content to assist you in your reading or to give you an introduction to a topic that the instructor will cover in greater detail during class. Instructors have also used Tegrity to give lectures during inclement weather (such as in February 2011, when MU cancelled classes for 3 days because of snow).

Privacy concerns

If your instructor records a class period in Tegrity, then the recording may capture audio beyond the instructor's lecture, such as student questions and classroom discussion. Normally, these recordings are available only to other members of your class. Should you have any concerns about Tegrity's impact on your expectations of privacy, you should speak with your instructor.

Other uses for Tegrity

Tegrity often gets used for purposes other than creating review materials for face-to-face courses. Here are some examples:

• presentations by guest speakers who couldn't make it to class time
• short (10-12 minute) "lecturettes" designed for viewing online (in contrast to an in-class recording, these are for presenting new information); these are ideal for fully-online courses as well as hybrid courses (where some face-to-face class time is replaced by online material)
• "flipped classroom" activities, similar to a reading assignment, where an instructor asks students to watch a video before coming to class, so classtime can be used for group discussion
• student presentations recorded for viewing outside of class time (requires the instructor to enable a feature)