Mediaboss Marketing

SANTA CLARA, Calif., March 1, 2012 /PRNewswire/ --In light of the recent U.S. economic downturn, higher education institutions have experienced a steep decline in the amount of government funding that is available to support operations and investment. As a result, institutions are struggling to fund the next-generation educational technologies that have become critical components of higher education over the past decade. Administrators tasked with ensuring that the latest classroom technologies are available to their professors and students are finding themselves poorly resourced to carry out their mandate.

Lecture capture solutions are one technology that leading institutions have been pursuing due to their proven positive impact on student performance and course completion rates, which ultimately result in a more successful student body and stronger reputation for the institution. Thanks to shrinking budgets, however, administrators are sometimes forced to table the implementation of such next-generation technologies, regardless of their potential. To help, the Center For Digital Education, in partnership with Tegrity, a division of McGraw-Hill Higher Education, has just released a new research paper titled "Funding Lecture Capture in Higher Education," offering various strategies for funding lecture capture solutions and enabling administrators to clear the financial hurdles they may face.

The paper, authored by the Center for Digital Education, pinpoints how and why higher education institutions are facing a so-called 'recession.' This may come as a surprise to the general public, as many people are surrounded by news of the cost of tuition's rapid growth. Though it seems that institutions should have the ability to fund technological innovations as a result of those high tuitions, schools are struggling with a decrease in the number of government funds available. Federal stimulus funds awarded during the first few years of the U.S. recession have been reduced and are not being replaced. State budget cuts for institutions are also being levied even though enrollments are increasing and the costs for educating a larger body of students are rising.

"Administrators are caught between the dual imperatives of providing the educational technology necessary to compete today and the need to cut costs," said Michael Berger, Senior Director of Marketing for Tegrity. "The good news is that there are alternative funding options available and our hope is that the Center for Digital Education's research helps administrators deploy the latest education technology - including Tegrity Campus - without breaking the bank."

Despite chronic federal budget cuts among institutions, the Center for Digital Education uncovered several strategic funding methods that can provide funds for the deployment of lecture capture solutions:

"Given the recent budget constraints that higher education institutions are experiencing as a result of the loss of federal funding, it is clear that administrators must search for alternative ways to secure the funds needed to maintain their institution's technology leadership," said LeiLani Cauthen, VP of the Center for Digital Education and Publisher, ConvergeSpecial Reports. "Fortunately, modern lecture capture solutions like Tegrity offer deployment models and flexible payment methods that take the current funding environment into account. Higher education leaders just need to be prepared and do their homework to determine which solutions fit best."

When searching for the perfect lecture capture solution for an institution, administrators must look for technologies that are affordable and deliver the best return on investment so that they can justify the need for this technology on campus. Tegrity Campus is an affordable lecture capture solution due to its cloud-based deployment model, which eliminates the need for expensive hardware while lessening the necessity for IT professionals to spend precious resources on maintaining and updating software and infrastructure as these tasks are taken care of by Tegrity. High, on-demand scalability exists within the cloud system, so resources can be implemented in all classrooms on campus providing lower per capita capital expense and overhead costs. The necessary bandwidth is consumed on the provider's side, not the institution's side, which is a particular advantage if the school has many off-campus students or mobile usage is high. Additionally, Tegrity provides flexible pricing plans for institutions as the company understands the budget constraints facing schools today.

To download a copy of "Funding Lecture Capture in Higher Education," visit http://pages.tegrity.com/fund.

About Tegrity

Tegrity Campus is the only cloud-based Lecture Capture solution proven to improve student achievement, satisfaction, retention and recruitment across an institution. It makes class time available all the time by automatically recording, storing and indexing every class on campus without the need to install any special hardware or software in classrooms. The company's patent-pending Search Anything and Smart Bookmarks features then let students instantly review key class moments online using a PC, Mac, iPod, iPad or other mobile device. For more information, visit http://www.tegrity.com.

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Tegrity and the Center for Digital Education Report on Alternative Funding Mechanisms for Deploying Lecture Capture in ...