Tegrity vs. Adobe Connect FAQ
"What is the difference between Tegrity and Adobe Connect?"
Tegrity and Adobe Connect both provide web video content, but are very different and serve different needs. Tegrity is a video course capture and review platform, built specifically for the higher education industry. Adobe Connect is a more broadly used web conferencing tool, with users spanning many different industries.
Adobe Connect is built as a real-time web conferencing and collaboration tool. If you need group video and/or text chat while discussing a document in real time, Adobe Connect is an appropriate choice. Live video broadcast to a web audience is also done very well by Adobe Connect. Google+ Hangouts is a free-of-charge alternative that is also a good choice for real-time, web broadcast or document collaboration with group video chat.
Tegrity is built as a video course capture and review tool. Real-time course broadcasting and group text chat is available, but is not the focal point of the tool. Tegrity's features focus more on the audience experience, making video course materials easy and efficient to review. Presenters are able to quickly and easily create pre-lectures, lectures, answers to FAQ's, record guest speakers, and let students add their own videos to the course. Tegrity can be installed into the new UW Canvas Learning Management System, allowing presenters and audience quick access from one central location. UW courses are automatically updated in Tegrity, allowing the audience and presenters to add recordings to specific courses and search keywords across all courses.
"Why is Tegrity free of charge, while Adobe Connect has fees to use?"
University of Washington Information Technology (UW-IT) has campus license agreements to provide both Tegrity and Adobe Connect. Tegrity is funded by UW-IT and the UW Office of the Provost, as part of the 2y2d Teaching & Learning in the 21st Century Initiative. As a result of this funding, Tegrity is free of charge to all UW Staff, Instructors, and Students. Adobe Connect is not a part of the 2y2d Initiative and is funded differently than Tegrity. Users of UW Adobe Connect fund their own account, using a UW budget number. The cost to use Adobe Connect is significantly discounted through the UW-IT negotiated campus agreement. Visit the UW Adobe Connect page on IT Connect for more information.
