CORRECT: McGraw-Hill Education Buys Lecture Capture Company Tegrity

McGraw-Hill Cos.' (MHP) McGraw-Hill Education has bought privately held Tegrity Inc., a lecture capture software company, as it continues to shift away from its traditional textbook publishing roots.

Terms of the deal weren't disclosed.

Tegrity, with offices in Santa Clara, Calif., and Tel Aviv, sells software to schools allowing professors to record their lectures. Students can then search a database of lectures to review confusing topics or while completing assignments, watching short segments rather than fast-forwarding or rewinding through full classes. The company has sold the software to more than 200 schools, including University of Alabama and University of Central Florida. It recently signed a three-year, $1.2 million pact with Washington state's community college system.

"It's like a searchable DVR for your college courses," said Vineet Madan, who oversees an education innovation lab at McGraw-Hill.

McGraw-Hill first partnered with Tegrity in late 2007 and in 2009 began pairing the lecture-capture software with its own McGraw-Hill Connect digital learning platform, which offers online versions of its textbooks as well as supplemental reading material, interactive quizzes and other tools. Tegrity, founded in 1995, will continue to be offered on a standalone basis, with schools able to add their own visual aides, or packaged alongside Connect.

Lecture capture is still a small segment of education technology, though industry experts say it should grow rapidly as schools look to cut long-term costs and better engage students. The market generated more than $50 million in licensing and software revenue in 2009, though that's expected to increase to nearly $200 million by 2016, according to a June report by consultancy Frost & Sullivan.

McGraw-Hill is expanding its online presence in other ways as more students work on laptops and smartphones. The company in July entered a partnership with education technology firm Blackboard Inc. (BBBB), which provides schools with a web portal to coordinate online class discussions, student assignments and grades. That deal allows users to access McGraw-Hill's interactive titles with their Blackboard logins.

McGraw-Hill said the Tegrity acquisition will also allow it to expand its footprint in Israel, a growing technology hub. "Certainly there's a lot of talent there available from a technical standpoint," Madan said, adding that it's difficult to break in without a local base from which to grow.

"Tegrity's employees who are based there effectively establish the foundation for a new McGraw-Hill Education group in the country," the company said in a statement.

-By Melissa Korn, Dow Jones Newswires; 212-416-2271; melissa.korn@dowjones.com

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