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Washington College System Signs $1.2 Million Lecture Capture Deal

• By Dian Schaffhauser
• 08/20/10

Following a multi-month evaluation of lecture capture applications, the Washington State Board for Community and Technical Colleges has licensed the use of Tegrity Campus for three years. The total funding of the contract, according to board documentation, is about $1.2 million to provide the recording services to the 34 community and technical colleges in the public system.

The introduction of uniform lecture capture across campuses is part of an overall effort to enhance online distance learning in the state, which also includes eliminating published textbooks as much as possible in favor of free, online materials; providing online tutoring; and assembling a central 24/7 help desk.

The selection process included six vendors. Tegrity Campus was selected for its ability to effectively capture classes across the entire system with the lowest total cost of ownership among competing proposals. The college system has opted for cloud-based delivery of the service to reduce costs.

"We were looking for a solution that not only offered a superior student experience, but could also be effectively deployed and managed across the entire system. The cloud-based nature and high-level of automation of Tegrity takes an enormous load off the IT resources within the colleges that make up our system, making it more practical than server or appliance-based solutions for such a large-scale deployment," said Cable Green, director of e-learning and open education. "Another key consideration in our selection of Tegrity was its ease-of-use for faculty and students."

Each college within the system will be able to customize the service for its users, generate its own reports, and control the look and feel of the interface, while at the same time allowing the board to generate system-wide reports.