Cloud Computing in Education

M. T. Alam
2013 IEEE potentials  
Educa onal ins tu ons throughout the World have become highly dependent on informa on technology to service their business requirements. Procuring and maintaining a wide range of hardware and soware require substan al, ongoing investment and the skills to support them. The economies of scale and other features of cloud compu ng are likely to mean an increasing shi away from ins tu onally-hosted services. These services are increasingly provided using Internet technologies to staff and students
more » ... nd accessed from web browsers. The services are off ered cheaply or freely to educa on, o en with much higher availability than can be provided by the educa onal ins tu on. Are we therefore facing a future where the majority of educa onal services will be hosted in the cloud and ins tu ons no longer host their own data centres with expensive hardware, power bills, staff salaries and compu ng resources which are rarely fully u lized? This policy brief has analyzed some of the emerging benefi ts and challenges of cloud compu ng for the educa onal sector. CONTENTS: Context and outline of the problem Types of cloud computing The diff erence between cloud computing and Web 2.0 How is cloud computing being applied in education? Benefi ts of cloud computing for institutions and students Risks of cloud computing Guidelines for selection and deployment of cloud services Policy implications Future scenarios 2 There are various defi ni ons of cloud compu ng but most commentators agree on several key characteris cs:
doi:10.1109/mpot.2012.2228340 fatcat:pca4ju75hbed5ara7twjgzf26e