SalesForce.com, Google Big Query, New Relic, and Rack. Space Email. Wong and Xing (2011) listed out Google. Apps and Zoho Office. Al-Shuwaier et al., ...
DOI 10.4010/2016.1532 ISSN 2321 3361 © 2016 IJESC
Research Article
Volume 6 Issue No. 6
Adoption of Cloud Computing in Education System: A Survey Chetan Bulla1, Basavaraj Hunshal2, Sankalp Mehta3 KLE College of Engineering & Technology, Chikodi1 Abstract: Education plays an important role in maintaining the economic growth of a country especially growing country like India. Now days students are becoming more technology oriented and more advanced than before, learning and teaching is changing day by day. Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) are powerful enabling tools for educational change and reform introducing new methods of teaching and conducting research as well as provisioning of educational facilities for online learning, teaching and research collaboration. The smart classroom, labs are introduced with automation in maintenance and management of all academic activities. Cloud computing is opening new horizons for various sectors of business as well as education sector also. Cloud computing is changing the ways of the individual’s personal learning and interactive learning. In this paper, we discuss the use of cloud computing platforms as solution for educational institutes which is likely to have a significant impact on new teaching and learning environment. Keywords: cloud, IoT, Education sector, I. INTRODUCTION The education system in India has been gradually expanded and education system has changed from teacher centric to learner centric. The higher education environment is emphasizing on the innovative teaching and learning tools/techniques that are used. The evolution of the educational process is getting faster every day as new technologies puts more and more tools at its disposal. These technological systems do not use education as a key element instead they are based on the advantages that the teachers and the students can find in management models through online and distance education. It is very essential to adopt new technologies to increase to cope with new teaching and learning methodologies. Cloud computing and IoT are helpful in providing all kind of academic solutions. It is a model of delivering services, infrastructure and application software ondemand using the Internet. Higher education is one of the most important pillars of social development. There is a strong partnership between the educational system and the industry. Researchers are able to contribute their knowledge and scientific breakthroughs to the industry which in returns leads to a stronger economy and a healthier society. It is very important for governments to invest in high quality universities and provide them the access to the most effective learning tools such as high standard IT infrastructure which can be used for educational software or easy data sharing within the classroom. Virtual classroom and e-leaning are the popular methods that maintain a centralized system where all the consultants can check the education system from each and every aspects and can continue monitoring and guiding the system. They not only check the necessities of the institutions but also ensure that better quality education is provide to every student and also his attendance, performances, dedication etc. can be effectively maintained without worrying about the infrastructure issue. This technology ensures that students, trainers, and staff have an access to any information using any device from anywhere. Both public and private institutions can use the cloud computing technology along with IoT to provide better services, even if they are having few resources.
International Journal of Engineering Science and Computing, June 2016
Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) are powerful enabling tools for educational change and reform introducing new methods of teaching and conducting research as well as provisioning of educational facilities for online learning, teaching and research collaboration. It thus represents a potentially equalizing strategy for developing countries. The great flexibility offered by ICT strongly facilitates the acquisition and use of available knowledge to expand access to education, strengthen the quality of education and improve the quality of the classroom teachinglearning processes via access to electronic active teaching and learning, research, training and development resources on the global collaborative network of internetworks and use of ICT tools in education. Cloud computing[1] is the buzz phrase nowadays which is finding its application in almost every area including education. Broadly speaking, cloud is an on-demand computing service, available to anybody with an internet connection. Application of cloud computing in higher education institutes and for academic purposes creates numerous advantages for the colleges and universities. Firstly, it is cost-effective for them, considering the fact that they may be on a tight budget. Secondly, it has a positive impact on the educational experiences of the academicians who are involved in it. In addition, cloud computing increases the productivity of the IT staff. Nowadays, the term “cloud computing” has become a significant idiom in the world of Information Technology (IT). Cloud computing at its core is a technology that uses the Internet and central remote storage and processing servers to support user applications and data. The paper organized as follows properties, architecture, benefits and limitation of adopting cloud and IoT in education System. II. CLOUD COMPUTING Cloud computing offers a value proposition that is different from traditional enterprise IT environments. By providing a way to exploit virtualization and aggregate computing resources, cloud computing can offer economies of scale that would otherwise be unavailable. With minimal upfront investment, cloud computing enables global reach of services and information through an elastic utility computing
6375
http://ijesc.org/
environment that supports on-demand scalability. Cloud computing can also offer pre-built solutions and services, backed by the skills necessary to run and maintain them, potentially lowering risk and removing the need for the organization to retain a group of scarce highly skilled staff.
Public Cloud: is a type of cloud hosting in which the cloud services are delivered over a network which is open for public usage. This model is a true representation of cloud hosting; in this the service provider renders services and infrastructure to various clients.
Essential Characteristics of Cloud Computing • On-demand self-service. A customer can provision computing capabilities, such as server time and network storage, as needed, automatically without requiring human interaction with the service provider. • Omni-channel access. Capabilities and services are available over the network and accessed through standard mechanisms that promote use by heterogeneous client platforms . • Resource pooling. Cloud computing pools a provider’s computing resources to serve multiple customers using a multi-tenant model, with different physical and virtual resources assigned and reassigned according to customer demand. • Rapid elasticity. Resources can be rapidly and elastically provisioned, sometimes automatically, to scale out quickly, and be rapidly released to scale in quickly. To customers, the resources often appear to be unlimited and can be purchased in any quantity at any time. • Measured Service. Cloud services automatically control and optimize resource use by leveraging a metering capability at some level of abstraction suitable to the type of service (e.g., storage, processing, bandwidth, and active user accounts). Providers and customers can monitor, control, and report on services with transparency.
Private Cloud: is also known as internal cloud; the platform for cloud computing is implemented on a cloudbased secure environment that is safeguarded by a firewall which is under the governance of the IT department that belongs to the particular corporate.
In essence, the top five benefits of cloud are as follows: 1. Achieve economies of scale. Increase volume output or productivity with fewer resources (computing and human). 2. Reduce CapEx by moving to OpEx. The pay as you go model (weekly, quarterly or yearly), based on demand / utility computing, will help reduce capital expenditure on hardware and software licenses. 3. Improve access. Information access can be anytime, anywhere and anyhow through omni channel access. 4. Implement agile development at low cost. Design, development and rollout of new solutions and services using agile methodologies on cloud based shared development operations. 5. Leverage global workforce. Follow-the-sun model for defining, developing and rolling out new solutions and applications. Deployment Models Cloud hosting deployment models represent the exact category of cloud environment and are mainly distinguished by the proprietorship, size and access. It tells about the purpose and the nature of the cloud. Most of the organisations are willing to implement cloud as it reduces the capital expenditure and controls operating cost. In order to know which deployment model matches your website requirements it is necessary to know the four deployment models.
International Journal of Engineering Science and Computing, June 2016
Hybrid Cloud: is a type of cloud computing, which is integrated. It can be an arrangement of two or more cloud servers, i.e. private, public or community cloud that is bound together but remain individual entities. Benefits of the multiple deployment models are available in a hybrid cloud hosting. A hybrid cloud can cross isolation and overcome boundaries by the provider; hence, it cannot be simply categorized into public, private or community cloud.. Community Cloud: is a type of cloud hosting in which the setup is mutually shared between many organizations that belong to a particular community, i.e. banks and trading firms. It is a multi-tenant setup that is shared among several organizations that belong to a specific group which has similar computing apprehensions. SERVICE MODELS Software as a Service (SaaS) Cloud application services, or Software as a Service, represent the largest cloud market and are still growing quickly. SaaS uses the web to deliver applications that are managed by a third-party vendor and whose interface is accessed on the clients’ side. Most SaaS applications can be run directly from a web browser without any downloads or installations required, although some require plugins. Popular SaaS offering types include email and collaboration, customer relationship management, and healthcare-related applications. Some large enterprises that are not traditionally thought of as software vendors have started building SaaS as an additional source of revenue in order to gain a competitive advantage. Platform as a Service (PaaS) Cloud platform services, or Platform as a Service (PaaS), are used for applications, and other development, while providing cloud components to software. What developers gain with PaaS is a framework they can build upon to develop or customize applications? PaaS makes the development, testing, and deployment of applications quick, simple, and cost-effective. With this technology, enterprise operations, or a third-party provider, can manage OSes, virtualization, servers, storage, networking, and the PaaS software itself. Developers, however, manage the applications. Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) Cloud infrastructure services, known as Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), are self-service models for accessing, monitoring, and managing remote datacenter infrastructures, such as compute (virtualized or bare metal), storage, networking, and networking services (e.g. 6376
http://ijesc.org/
firewalls). Instead of having to purchase hardware outright, users can purchase IaaS based on consumption, similar to electricity or other utility billing. III.
CLOUD COMPUTING IN EDUCATION SYSTEM The scope of applications in education sector is huge considering the young Indians. In an interview by Sharon Lobo in CXOtoday.com dated Feb 28, 2011 "There is a greater need for automation & process management in Indian educational institutes"; says Raj Mruthyunjayappa, MD - APAC & Europe, Talisma Corporation, educational institutions in the country have identified the need for technology to bring in higher transparency, set governance standards, improve the interactive standards between faculty and student community, centralized view of academics among other needs. Various point solutions and comprehensive ERP applications can address all of these needs. Many colleges are also going the paperless admission route, where the entire process of application handling is managed though the web including the counseling and fee payments for courses\classes. If we look across the higher education space few of the technology implementations like Smart Card readers across the institutions, dynamic university websites & portals, student admission portals, faculty portals, student information systems for student life cycle, career/placement management, learning management system (LMS)[5], document management systems etc. has already been implemented by most of the colleges. Based on this information, we identify the stakeholders as Management/Trustees, Principal/Directors, Faculty, NonTeaching staff, Students & Alumni, Aspiring candidates, Parents &Guardian, Recruiters, University/AICTE/DTE/NAAC/UGC & other governing bodies. Now let us have an idea of the existing tools and technologies used in this sector. Cloud computing provides a lot of advantages to users all over the fields. Cloud computing allow users to access software, infrastructure and platforms anytime and anywhere all over the Internet. There are several research papers that focuses on Cloud Computing in Education Systems. The impact of cloud computing in education has gained awareness to many researchers and countries (Masud & Huang, 2012). PRIMARY EDUCAION The cloud can be adapted to primary schools in India to improve the quality of overall education system. The following diagram shows the architecture of cloud adoption in government primary schools.
Figure : Cloud adption in Primary and secondary education In the above figure, two types of servers are maintained to avoid availability and speed problem. The central server International Journal of Engineering Science and Computing, June 2016
timely updates the Servers that are placed in district wise. The schools will get updated resources through intermediate servers. The teacher and student can use cloud resources for academic (attendance entry and marks entry) and administration (admission, transfer, fees collection etc) purpose. The school may have smart classes so the videos and animation can directly stream from central server so all students in the state can have identical and quality education. SECONDARY EDUACTION The cloud can be extended to secondary education[8] where lot animation can be shown to students like scientific experiments, universal study, and human biological system study through cloud. The teachers, students and administration section can also use cloud for various academic activities as stated above. PRE-UNIVERSITY The existing pre-university colleges does not use much IT technology. The college can use cloud to enhance the quality of education. Now a days PU board releasing various lecture videos for different subjects. Students can sit anywhere and access videos through smart phones, laptops and computers using Internet. This saves lot of time and cost of students by avoiding tuitions and its fees. UNIVERSITY The result of significant challenges arising from efforts in adopting new and emerging technologies like cloud and IoT, Higher Education system needs to move together in a constant state. However, using traditional methods, Higher Education (HE) systems cannot caters all the new software, updated platform and high technology infrastructure due to lack of financial help and cooperation between the institutions. University level many colleges are affiliated university. The university maintains the clous server and storage. Each college should maintain their own server to overcome the centralized communication problems. There are different roles(users) in the university Like Student Activities 1. view marks card and download marks cards 2. View attendance status 3. E-learning 1. Notes 2. Projects 3. QPs, 4. Circulars 5. Online videos 6. Interaction with domain experts and other college students-By forum 7. Knowledge sharing Faculty Activities 1. Online attendance ( No manual) and marks 2. Online/offline academic resources 3. Domain expert interaction 4. View status like experience , feedback, college 5. Research 1. Sharing of knowledge between research scholars 2. Resource sharing like papers, QPs, results etc
6377
http://ijesc.org/
Parents Activities 1. View the status their son/daughter 2. Interaction with college and university College Management Activities 1. use for accrediting process 2. Lesser cost of maintenance 4. Availability of all information
7.
University 1. Maintain overall communication 2. Timely update all documents 3. Adopt high security
10.
8.
9.
11. Main problems in basic traditional education resources sharing. 1. Lacks of the sense to share education resource where by institution with good reputations protect their high quality resources on some level. Not only that this institution does not see any benefits in doing resource sharing and therefore they tend to keep all the good resources for themselves. 2. Majority of research suggested Software as a Service (Saas) for educational purposes compared to the other two service models. From all the papers and journals that had been revised, the software that can be used by higher education institution are listed below.
12.
13.
14. SaaS service models. By using Saas, big vendors like Microsoft, IBM, Oracle and SalesForce.com offers various educational software and applications in less cost. The software that can be used by academician and students are Microsoft 365, SalesForce.com, Google Big Query, New Relic, and Rack Space Email. Wong and Xing (2011) listed out Google Apps and Zoho Office. Al-Shuwaier et al., (n.d.) listed six application based on the big companies and its application. Amazon, Microsoft, Google, IBM, HP and Amanda and Zmanda are the company that offers SaaS service models. IV.
BENEFITS OF CLOUD COMPUTING IN EDUCATION SYSTEM Cloud computing is a significant alternative for today’s education environment. Advantages that come with the newest technology can help resolve some of the common challenges. 1. Universities can open their technology infrastructures to business and industries for research advancements. 2. The efficiencies of cloud computing can help universities keep pace with ever-growing resources requirements and energy cost. 3. The extended reach of cloud computing enables institutions to teach students in new, different ways and help them manage projects and massive workloads. 4. When students enter the global workforce they will better understand the value of new technologies. 5. The cloud computing release the institutions from data management, ensures that the users always have the newest documents and reduces the requirements and costs associated with data security. 6. It offers a range of online tools and services that provide secure communication and collaboration capabilities. International Journal of Engineering Science and Computing, June 2016
15. 16.
17.
Cloud computing allows both the teachers and the students to access, share and publish documents, class calendars or web pages. The problems like low graduation rates, insufficient infrastructure, tiny classrooms, lack of teachers can be solved using Cloud computing solutions. Geographical distances will not be any hindrances in the education system. Institutions not having ample infrastructure will also be able to provide quality education as there is no need to purchase hardware, software licenses, or implementation services. Education can be easily democratized as organization can deploy cloud computing rapidly. Maintenance and upgrades will be lot more easier. The cloud model provides the ability to rapidly acquire, provision, and deploy new IT platforms, services, applications, and test environments. With cloud capabilities, months-long IT hardware procurement processes can be eliminated, reducing time spent on such tasks to a matter of hours or even minutes. Cost is reduced as institutions reduce or eliminate IT capital expenditures and decrease ongoing operating expenses by paying only for the services they use (pay-as-you go plan or a subscription ) and potentially by reducing or redeploying IT staff. Availability of the services is 24/7 as desired by the user using a education cloud. Accessibility is good as data and services are publicly available. Education cloud will surely decrease the carbon footprint and we can move towards Going Green project. Education cloud is user friendly and can effectively manage large amounts of data.
V. GUIDELINES FOR CLOUD SERVICES DEPLOYMENT Institutions wishing to procure cloud services will find it helpful to develop a list of selection criteria and present these to competing providers for their response. Functionality The list should include the functionality required by users. In the case of email for example this may include the use of a POP client instead of the web based software or out of office messages for display when on holiday. For document storage, issues to consider may include the total allocation per user and the types of files that can be stored. For office applications, file compatibility may be of concern, particularly if documents created using the cloud software may later be viewed using different providers’ applications. It is also helpful to assess the level of integration between the different applications provided within a product suite. Platform The platforms on which the applications are provided should be assessed. Ideally the software will function the same on all devices, operating systems and web browsers but this is unlikely to be the case. It may be necessary to advise users to use particular platforms. Access from mobile devices[4] is becoming increasingly important for many students. 6378
http://ijesc.org/
Technical issues The Institutions may have to carry out some technical integration work such as automating the create one of user accounts on the cloud system based on data held in student information systems or facilitate single sign-on across systems. There may also be a necessity to monitor usage, remove accounts or perform other systems management activities. User experience and accessibility Some systems may provide a better overall user experience than others. Usability is important – a necessity to install any software additional to the web browser may make the software less attractive, for example. Use by disabled users is one issue that requires to be considered for ethical and legal reasons. Organizations wishing to deploy cloud services should therefore ensure that the software conforms with web accessibility guidelines and standards. Contract The provider will have a standard contract which should be studied closely. Larger Institutions are at greater risk and may wish to seek legal advice before signing the contract. Issues which should be examined include the initial term of the contract, penalties for early withdrawal, costs and future potential costs. Costs While costs for cloud services may appear minimal or even non-existent, the real costs to Institutions can be considerable. It is helpful to estimate costs for any legal advice associated with the contractual negotiations, project and change management, technical integration and staffing an Institutions helpdesk. VI. CHALLENGES OF CLOUD COMPUTING FOR EDUCATION The Present education system can not adopt the cloud for following reason: Security and Privacy: - This was the top most concern of most universities [10, 11]. The fact that cloud computing introduces a third party due to outsource essential services it is difficult to maintain data integrity and privacy. Real Benefits: – Most Universities are not convinced of the potential benefits of this technology. Their main concern is how to realize the full potential and make cloud part of their mainstream IT Portfolio. Universities need to be aware of the real benefits of cloud computing rather than the seeing the potential of cloud computing to add value. There should be indicators to compare availability, performance versus recovery SLA, costs benefits and utilization. Service Quality: - Service quality is one of the crucial factors that the universities cite as a core value for not moving their business applications to cloud. They feel that the SLAs provided by the cloud providers today are not sufficient to guarantee the requirements for running a production applications on cloud especially related to the availability, performance and scalability. In most cases, enterprises get refunded for the amount of time the service was down. Without proper service quality guarantee universities are not ready to host their critical infrastructure in the cloud. Performance / Insufficient responsiveness over network: Delivery of complex services through the network is clearly
International Journal of Engineering Science and Computing, June 2016
impossible if the network bandwidth is not adequate. Most of the universities do not have enough bandwidth and are waiting for improved bandwidth and lower costs before they consider moving into the cloud since many cloud applications are still too bandwidth intensive. Integration: - Many applications have complex integration needs to connect to other cloud applications as well as other on-premise applications. These include integrating existing cloud applications with existing university systems and data structures. There is a need to connect the cloud application with the rest of the university systems in a simple, quick and cost effective way. CONCLUSION Education plays an important role in maintaining the economic growth of a country especially growing country like India. The users of the education system can get lot of benefits. This results in enhancement of quality education. We have discussed how to adopt cloud computing in education with deployment guidelines. There are few drawbacks / challenges in adopting cloud in education; these can resolved by introducing new policies and techniques. VII. REFERENCES [1] Buyya, Rajkumar, et al. "Cloud computing and emerging IT platforms: Vision, hype, and reality for delivering computing as the 5th utility." Future Generation computer systems 25.6 (2009): 599-616. [2] Rosenberg, Marc Jeffrey. E-learning: Strategies for delivering knowledge in the digital age. Vol. 3. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2001. [3] L. Huanying, “Value and understanding for cloud computing based on middleware”, Programmer, 2010.05. pp.68,69. [4] F. feng, “Cloud-based IT infrastructure of nextgeneration telecom”, Mobile Communications, 2010, No. 8, pp.76-79 [5] Masud, Md Anwar Hossain, and Xiaodi Huang. "An elearning system architecture based on cloud computing." system 10.11 (2012). [6] Ranabahu, Ajith, and Amit Sheth. "Semantics centric solutions for application and data portability in cloud computing." Cloud Computing Technology and Science (CloudCom), 2010 IEEE Second International Conference on. IEEE, 2010. [7] Abul Hasanat Mohammed Rezwan. “Replicating a bangladeshi education and technology project to reach isolated communities”. http://archive.ifla.org/IV/ifla73/papers/109-Rezwanen.pdf. [8] Reza Salim. Computer Education at Secondary School level http://www.amadergramonline.net/publications/KT4DSe condaryEd.pdf [9] Al Noor, Shahid, et al. "A proposed architecture of cloud computing for education system in Bangladesh and the impact on current education system."IJCSNS 6379
http://ijesc.org/
International Journal of Computer Science and Network Security 10.10 (2010): 7-13. [10] Alwi, Najwa Hayaati Mohd, and Ip-Shing Fan. "Threats analysis for e-learning."International Journal of Technology Enhanced Learning 2.4 (2010): 358-371. [11] Alwi, Najwa Hayaati Mohd, and Ip-Shing Fan. "Information security threats analysis for e-learning." Technology Enhanced Learning. Quality of Teaching and Educational Reform. Springer Berlin Heidelberg, 2010. 285-291. [12] Coal fire 2010 , http://www.coalfire.com/News-andEvents/Newsletter/March-2013/HIPAA-and-HITRUSTWhats-the-difference
International Journal of Engineering Science and Computing, June 2016
6380
http://ijesc.org/
