Cloud Based Environment for Higher Education Institution in Developing Countries

The paper summarizes the experience in higher education institutions financing, substantiates the trends in their financial support models diversification. The study systematizes approaches to the organization of higher education institutions financing under market conditions and reveals their advantages and disadvantages in terms of the effects at the level of an individual and society as a whole. It defines tools and models of the financing under orientation on demand, supply and strategic purposes of the national development. The study proves the need to substantiate the rational balance of individual and social effects in higher education institutions financing, which can be achieved through a combination of market self-regulation and state regulation of the higher education services market. The system of methods was used in the study, namely: monographic – to define the research aim and conclusions, the method of theoretical generalization of foreign and domestic scientists was used to critically analyze the existing approaches to the organization of financing the work of agricultural education higher institutions. General scientific methods of cognition, such as analysis and synthesis, induction and deduction, systemic integrated approach, were used to systematize the models of financial support for higher agricultural education institutions and to generalize the conclusions. The paper substantiated that the state should take leading positions in higher education institutions financing. The role of state funding in ensuring sustainable development of agricultural education higher institutions has been identified considering the specificity of educational services and their role in ensuring sustainable development of the agricultural sector of the economy and rural areas. It is argued that the current conditions of free economic development and challenges the institutions face requires focusing on consumer demand and adjusting their educational services through prompt updating the changing educational programs based on modern research, attracting a larger number of stakeholders in the financing model formation. The modern tendencies typical of the market of educational services determining the expansion of the participants of the organization of financing the higher education institutions activity, are considered. The importance of financing elements focused on the innovations development, the role of which will grow in the future, especially in the form of competitive and targeted financing is revealed. It is proved that the results-based approach to the organization of financing also reduces the risks of macroeconomic inefficiency and contributes to reducing the information asymmetry. The obligatory presence of the state in the organization of research funding in higher education institutions is justified due to the positive impact of research on educational services quality and increases their value for an individual and society. The paper considers options for market-oriented higher education financing and the state's demands in terms of the concept of management, public and private funding methods, the education fee. It is established that the changing conditions of the market of educational services require a revision of targets for state funding due to the following factors: increased number of foreign students, use of information and communication technologies, increase in the integration of higher education institutions nationally and internationally. Key words: higher education institution, higher agricultural education, concepts of higher education institution management, methods of free economic education financing, sources of higher education institutions financing.

Researches in technology adoption among the Middle Eastern countries are more concentrated on e-government, e-commerce, and internet banking domains. Higher education institutions (HEIs) in these countries fall behind their Western counterparts due to the cutting edge technology adopted for research, teaching, and collaboration in the Western countries. One of the Middle Eastern countries, which is the focus of this research, Yemen, still adopt the conventional way of teaching in the HEIs, which could result in failures to accomplish the optimal desired educational performance. Higher education sector in Yemen faces a number of obstacles and challenges in delivering a good education to its entire population in terms of lack of reliable infrastructure; limited financial resources; lack of teaching staff and expertise; and lack of IT personnel to manage the existing restricted IT infrastructure. Cloud computing, a pool of computer-related resources and services, is seen as one of new technologies which can assist in improving educational delivery in Yemen. Thus, this study firstly, identified the factors that influence the cloud computing adoption in general. Then, it categorized these factors into four (4) domains, namely technological, organizational, environmental and individual domains; and lastly, validated the selected factors using semi-structured interview with IT experts. Based on the validation session with the IT experts, the factors were ranked based on their applicability and suitability in Yemeni’s higher education environments and 13 factors were selected. These 13 factors are adopted from Technology Acceptance Model (TAM), Theory of Reasoned Action (TRA), Technology-Organization-Environment (TOE) framework and Diffusion of Innovation (DOI) theory. Then, a conceptual framework was developed using these 13 factors to identify the significant factors that influence cloud computing adoption in HEIs in Yemen. It is hoped by having a better understanding on the factors that influence cloud computing adoption in HEIs in Yemen, the responsible parties such as the government agencies, HEIs managements and staff will be more prepared to ensure successful adoption of cloud computing in their HEIs and ultimately help Yemen to improve its higher education delivery to its people.

In the era of digitization, higher education institutes and universities are strengthening to provide a new way of virtual technologies and electronics for learning and teaching. Cloud computing technology is currently considered to become an integral part of the educational experience and will have a significant impact on the learning environment. This innovative technology has been applied to cloud-computing learning system and has facilitated the development of cloud computing for classrooms. With the development of the cloud computing classrooms, improving students' attitudes is quite significant to adopt and use cloud computing classroom, however, student behavioral intention using cloud computing remains unclear among higher education institutions in Thailand. Limited studies integrating and analyzing factors influencing user acceptance of cloud computing classroom in higher education are investigated for guiding in students' adoption decision. Thus, this study review significant factors that could affect user acceptance of cloud computing classroom and develop a conceptual framework of cloud computing classroom acceptance model in higher education's institutions in Thailand. A conceptual framework developed is theoretically based on Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) and Service and System Quality (SSQ). This framework provides a comprehensive understanding of the potential factors influencing the students' behavioral intention and the use of cloud computing classrooms.

Cloud computing is a new computing model which uses virtualization technology, distributed computing, parallel computing and other existing technologies to achieve cloud service virtualization and economies of scale, whilst increasingly overwhelming cloud security issues has brought great challenges and concerns to the cloud services providers and cloud users, especially trust and privacy issues with regard to cloud computing and cloud shared storage associated security issues. In the paper, we expound the basic concepts of cloud computing, deployment models, service models and key features, analyze and outline the currently highlighted cloud security issues, report the status quo of cloud computing security, investigate the prevalent and typical cloud computing security problem key solving techniques, and thus render a comprehensive cloud computing security technical reference model, which is composed of associated cloud security solving techniques that result from inevitably multi-faceted cloud security issues. The model is expected to alleviate prominent cloud security issues. This paper generalizes cloud security technology research directions and further development space of cloud security technology and standardization.KeywordsCloud computingSecurity issuesTrusted cloud computing solving techniquesShared storage security solving techniquesCloud security technical reference model

This paper aims to explore the challenges, opportunities and implications of COVID-19 pandemic in the UAE higher education context. It uses the qualitative study approach and websites methodologies to enrich the aims and results of the study. It focuses on the influence of COVID-19 pandemic on higher education institutions and their progressions respectively. As higher education institutions not only provide knowledge but also develop interpersonal skills and help mold an individual in all aspects to face real-world challenges. Institutions should, therefore, get back to traditional teaching methods as soon as possible by incorporating the benefits of virtual learning into traditional learning methods, as virtual learning cannot replace traditional methods. Consequently, over some time as the crisis continues globally, the higher educational institutions worldwide can take into development better modes of communication and continue to provide various forms of delivering their services, and as the COVID-19 with progress in medical fields can fade to a disease of history we can improve what was once traditional learning with the online learning experience from this time. As the COVID-19 crisis continues globally, the higher education institutions can develop better modes of communication and forms of providing their services and as the COVID 19 fades to a disease of history, so it can improve what was known as traditional learning into the online learning over the time. After substantiating the multiple benefits and consequences of having virtual learning in the higher education system, it is clear that there is a lot of room for improvement over the time. This study contributes to the COVID 19 concept and higher education tools as it introduces you to the various impacts of online educational tools used by higher education universities in the UAE during the spread of COVID-19. It can be considered as a pioneer study in UAE in exploration the relationship between COVID-19 and higher education field.KeywordsCOVID-19PandemicHigher educationDistance learningE-LearningUAE

Due to its increased reliability, adaptability, scalability, availability, and processing capacity, cloud computing is rapidly becoming a popular trend around the world. One of the major issues with cloud computing is making informed decision about adoption of community cloud (CC) computing (ACCC). To date, there are various technology acceptance theories and models to validate perspective of ACCC at both organizational and individual levels. However, no experimental studies have been carried out to provide a comprehensive assessment of the factors of ACCC, specifically in the area of the Saudi Higher Education (HEI) Institution. Thus, this research was aimed at exploring the factors of ACCC and the relationship to the experiences of the employees. The analysis of the employee context was driven by the success factors of technological, organizational, environmental, human, security, and advantage contexts on community cloud computing adoption in HEI. The data collection was a questionnaire-based survey based on 106 responses. We present findings based on descriptive analysis in identifying the significant component that contributed to the effective implementation of ACCC. Security concerns are a significant influencing element in the adoption of community cloud technology.

Purpose: development of recommendations for the study of security-oriented disciplines by students of higher educational institutions. Methodology: Analysis and generalisation of research results regarding the need of higher education students to study security-oriented disciplines. Results: In the conditions of modern warfare, knowledge and understanding of security issues are of critical importance for students of technical specialties. It helps them to be aware of the threats and risks associated with armed conflict and make the right decisions to ensure personal and collective security, and provides the necessary knowledge and skills to effectively respond to emergencies and save lives. Therefore, in the article: information on the state of higher education in Ukraine until February 2022 has been studied and summarised; the need of students of higher technical education to study security-oriented disciplines during the war was investigated; an expert survey was conducted among students who are studying for the Master’s and Bachelor’s degrees of two higher technical educational institutions – the State Higher Educational Institution “Donetsk National Technical University” and Kyiv National University of Construction and Architecture. It was established that about eighty percent of the respondents are in favour of mandatory study of security-oriented disciplines during martial law, as an opportunity to ensure their own safety and the safety of others, help others and be useful in war conditions. A new concept of civil security education in higher technical institutions under martial law from the point of view of studying individual disciplines is proposed, which consists of the following: improvement of training plans for higher education applicants. recommendations for students of technical higher education institutions to study the following disciplines (in order of priority): “Life safety”, “Occupational safety”, “Fire safety”, “Civil protection”, “Environmental safety”, “Psychology of hazards”. Mandatory courses for students on pre-medical care, psychological help for themselves and others, military training should be introduced. Scientific innovation: a scientific approach has been developed to clarify the new concept of civil security education in higher technical institutions under martial law. Practical significance: the results of the work can be used in the preparation of educational plans for applicants of higher technical educational institutions.

Sustainability assessment of the service operations at seven higher education institutions in Brazil

Cloud computing has become an emerging IT platform for productive services and efficient use of innovation in higher education. The purpose of this research study is to investigate the factors that influence the adoption of cloud computing in Sub-Saharan Africa under Ethiopian higher education. These factors professed to influence the adoption of cloud computing built on the integrated framework of technology-organization-environment (TOE) framework, diffusion of innovation (DoI) theory, and sociocultural theory. In-depth interviews have been taken with the University of Gondar key professionals in Ethiopia to accomplish this research study. The results show that the organisational factors are more influential factors than the technological, environmental, and sociocultural factors to the adoption of cloud computing (CC) in the Ethiopian higher education (EHE) sector. This qualitative study aids researchers and practitioners in the field of IT technology cloud to employ these key factors suggestive to cloud computing adoption in the higher educational institutions.

Today, with significant improvements of computing capacities, the world is witnessing significant technological advancements. Cloud computing especially, is increasingly becoming an advantageous tool, in developed countries especially, and these countries have invested substantially in cloud computing systems to enable the implementation of hi-tech advancements in many of their industries. On the other hand, in developing and underdeveloped countries, the adoption of cloud computing is still in the early stages; as can be observed, there has been some form of digital transformation of data systems in these countries. In Jordan, The factors affecting cloud computing adoption among higher education institutions were still underexplored, especially on the issues pertaining to cloud computing adoption. Therefore. Major factors with potential impact on user adoption of cloud computing were hence reviewed in this study. A conceptual framework of cloud computing adoption based on Extended Technology-Organizational-Environmental (TOE) framework by Tornatzky and Fleischer was proposed. The framework includes individual factors as the theoretical base for cloud computing adoption, to provide an inclusive comprehension on the factors that could affect behavioral intention and use of cloud computing.

In the paper, we discuss the available research in the field of knowledge management (KM) from the specific perspective of higher educational (HE) institutions, as organisations comprised of experts. Based on the literature review, we develop a KM audit instrument and apply it to a specific HE institution in order to assess the status of its KM processes. From our study, we can conclude that even if an institution is ‘academic’ in nature and apparently successful, this fact does not necessarily mean that KM processes are institutionalised within the organisation. From this point of view, a HE institution is likely to be subject to the same limitations as any other organisation in the knowledge business. Our paper further gives recommendations to managers of HE institutions on how to assess the effectiveness of KM in their organisations as well as providing information for other researchers who want to conduct a KM audit in similar organisations. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Purpose– Cloud Computing (CC) technology is getting implemented rapidly in the educational sector to improve learning, research and other administrative process. As evident from the literature review, most of these implementations are happening in the western countries such as USA, UK, while the level of implementation of CC in developing countries such as India is rare. Moreover, implementing CC technology in the educational sector require various decisions to be made by the managers of the Information Technology (IT) department such as selecting suitable deployment model, vendor providing cloud service, etc. in their respective university or institute. The purpose of this paper is to attempt to address one such decision. Since, different types of CC deployment are available; selecting a suitable one plays a key role, as it might have an impact on the requirements of various stakeholders such as students, teachers, administrative staff (especially the staff members in the IT department), etc. apart from affecting the overall performance of the facilities such as a laboratory. Naturally, a proper decision by analysing multiple perspectives has to be made while carrying out such strategic initiatives by any educational institute.Design/methodology/approach– A case study methodology has been chosen as the research methodology to discuss and demonstrate the above decision problem that was faced in real time by one of the educational institutes in India, offering high-quality management education. The IT managers of this institute were planning to switch over to CC technology for the computer laboratory and they have to make a decision of choosing suitable alternative CC deployment models such as private cloud (PRC), public cloud (PUC), community cloud (COC), hybrid cloud (HYC), etc. by analysing and comparing them based on various factors and perspectives such as elasticity, availability, scalability, etc. Since, multiple factors are involved in making such a strategic decision, the most commonly used Multi-Criteria Decision Making (MCDM) model – namely, the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) is used as a decision support during the decision making process.Findings– The team of decision makers, who were planning to implement CC in the case institute, found that PRC is best as they believed that it would provide adequate cost savings, apart from providing necessary security to maintain confidential information such as student's detail, grades, etc.Research limitations/implications– The results obtained are based on a single case study. Hence, they cannot be generalized for institutions across educational sector. However, the decision making situation and understanding its impact on the stakeholders of the educational institute can be common across various educational institute.Practical implications– Using a real-life case study of an educational institute, this paper presented a strategic decision making situation, which needs to be considered by the IT managers of the educational institutes when they decide to switch over to CC technology. Various criteria to be considered during the decision making process was identified from the literature review were identified and enumerated. These factors would useful for the IT managers of the different educational institute and they can suitably add or delete these decision criteria as per their requirements and situation at hand. Moreover, the algorithm of AHP, which was used as a decision support, was presented in a step-by-step manner, which should be beneficial for the practitioners to apply the same for similar decision making situations.Originality/value– It is believed that this paper would be the first to report on a strategic decision of choosing the deployment model for CC technology especially in the educational sector. Similarly, this paper would also contribute to the field of CC, as it lists out the decision criteria that are to be considered for making the above decision, which has not got adequate importance. Lastly, this paper is also unique in the realm of AHP because application for a decision problem in the field of CC especially in the educational sector is least reported.

Cloud computing and big data: Technologies and applications

In South Africa widening participation in higher education is located within a transformation discourse that sought to change the demographics of the student population in public higher education institutions. Current literature on public higher education participation demographics suggests that the transformation agenda of increasing the participation of previously disadvantaged population groups have been met in terms of headcount. There are, however, concerns raised about equality of opportunity to access public higher education institutions, especially with regard to potential students from deep rural contexts and who have attended school education in impoverished communities. In attempting to address these concerns, higher education institutional marketing became one of the communication tools through which higher education studies were promoted across the country. Although, higher education institutional marketing at Universities of Technology has been well established within South Africa, the marketing recruitment strategy employed was largely intended for the urban and sub-urban contexts. This study focuses on this challenge within a social justice and equality discourse. The study, therefore, engages with the literature on higher education transformation, marketing, social justice, equity and equality to show the complexity of higher education institutional marketing and highlights the inequalities in current marketing strategies and practices that continues to disadvantage marginalised communities from accessing higher education studies. The primary aim of this study is to explore the inequalities in current higher education institutions’ marketing processes to recruit potential students from geographically marginalised communities, with a view to reducing these inequalities. The study explored the marketing strategies employed by a University of Technology to understand the experiences and concerns identified by learners and teachers of deep rural schools in accessing higher education. The case study approach to methodology required a mixed method for the data collection from stakeholders (grade 12 learners and educators) of three secondary schools in three different deep rural contexts. A survey was conducted using a questionnaire to obtain information from grade 12 learners. In addition, the Life Orientation educators of these three schools were interviewed. In order to obtain a holistic perspective of the institutional marketing efforts, current first year university students from deep rural contexts were interviewed to explore their experiences into higher education. The analysis of the data revealed that learners in deep rural contexts were aware of higher education studies, but the information received about accessing and studying at a higher education institution was inadequate to make informed decisions. The study also found that there was a mismatch between what was marketed by higher education institutions and the needs of the learners and the community. Furthermore, the needs and resources for the potential students from disadvantaged communities were identified. Therefore, a customised recruitment strategy is proposed with regard to the promotional materials and processes to encourage and support aspiring higher education students. The findings proposes a marketing strategy that is located within a social justice, equity and equality framework that aligns institutional marketing with the needs of the communities located in deep rural and impoverished contexts. In other words, a strategic community engagement action plan between the university and the department of education is suggested. The study, therefore, makes recommendations to higher education institutions about marketing strategies that would be relevant to a diverse target market, particularly to marginalised or rural areas in KwaZulu-Natal. In addition, the study makes recommendations to address inequalities in institutional marketing that could lead to views about substantive equality needed for higher education transformation within the current South African context.

This document presents the advantages of using a private cloud of Infrastructure as a Service, using the OpenStack technology for Institutions of Higher Education of the Tecnologico Nacional de Mexico in the state of Oaxaca. The analysis of the research results consulted in the academic databases such as: EBSCO, Latindex, Redalyc, Dialnet and Scielo, show the importance of cloud computing in higher education institutions, since this type of technology allows the use of a more efficient way of computing infrastructure existing in the institution and also the rapid implementation of new information systems, in addition to the private cloud through OpenStack, has advantages over other IaaS Open source technologies, such as : cost, documentation, ease of implementation, and services offered. OpenStack provides the possibilities of implementing private IaaS clouds in a distributed way, thus allowing collaborative work between higher education institutions in the country or abroad in favor of academic improvement. Keywords: Cloud Computing, OpenStack, Open Source, IaaS, IES .