Tegrity, a provider in student achievement systems, and Blackboard Inc., a provider of technology to educational institutions, have announced a partnership so that college students can watch and listen to class lectures on their iPods at any time and from any location. Through Tegrity Campus enterprise software and the Blackboard Learning System, recorded instruction from class can now be automatically converted to enhanced podcasts for students to review later.

The Tegrity Campus enterprise software integrates with Blackboard, and includes a Blackboard Building Block, described and available for download at the Web site. Blackboard Building Blocks are third party applications, which enable academic institutions to extend and customize their Blackboard application. The Tegrity Campus Blackboard Building Block enables institutions to automatically capture, store, and index every class on campus for later replay by every student. The on-demand content is accessible through Blackboard on any computer, and is now available on iPods as well. Each podcast is automatically indexed and enhanced with instructor audio, slides, and annotations from class.

Tegrity Podcast setup starts at the beginning of the semester as the Tegrity Campus Blackboard Building Block adds a podcast subscription button in every Blackboard course and sends a personalized email to students with a link for subscribing to their podcasts using iTunes. During class, instructors press one button to start and stop recording and the software creates visual podcasts broken down by chapter that are automatically uploaded after class to the right place on the Tegrity Server. The Tegrity Campus Blackboard Building Block component uses information already available in the Blackboard Learning System to catalogue the recordings by course. While listening to their podcasts, students can navigate to specific parts (chapters) of their class. Blackboard administrators and other stakeholders in the institution can use the Tegrity Campus governance component to track usage.

(www.blackboard.com; www.tegrity.com)

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