(Advances in Educational Technologies and Instructional Design) Lee Chao - Handbook of Research On Cloud-Based STEM Education For Improved Learning Outcomes-IGI Global (2016) PDF

Handbook of Research
on Cloud-Based STEM
Education for Improved
Learning Outcomes
Lee Chao
University of Houston - Victoria, USA
A volume in the Advances in Educational

Technologies and Instructional Design (AETID)
Book Series
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Chao, Lee, 1951- editor.
Title: Handbook of research on cloud-based STEM education for improved
learning outcomes / Lee Chao, editor.
Description: Hershey, PA : Information Science Reference, 2016. | Includes
bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2015046895| ISBN 9781466699243 (hardcover) | ISBN
9781466699250 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Science--Study and teaching--Technological innovations. |
Cloud computing.
Classification: LCC Q181 .H1488 2016 | DDC 507.1--dc23 LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2015046895
This book is published in the IGI Global book series Advances in Educational Technologies and Instructional Design (AE-
TID) (ISSN: 2326-8905; eISSN: 2326-8913)
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Titles in this Series
For a list of additional titles in this series, please visit: www.igi-global.com
Handbook of Research on Estimation and Control Techniques in E-Learning Systems

Vardan Mkrttchian (HHH University, Australia) Alexander Bershadsky (Penza State University, Russia) Alexander
Bozhday (Penza State University, Russia) Mikhail Kataev (Tomsk State University of Control System and Radio
Electronics, Russia & Yurga Institute of Technology (Branch) of National Research Tomsk Polytechnic University,
Russia) and Sergey Kataev (Tomsk State Pedagogical University, Russia)
Information Science Reference • copyright 2016 • 554pp • H/C (ISBN: 9781466694897) • US $235.00 (our price)
Handbook of Research on Active Learning and the Flipped Classroom Model in the Digital Age
Jared Keengwe (University of North Dakota, USA) and Grace Onchwari (University of North Dakota, USA)
Handbook of Research on Applied Learning Theory and Design in Modern Education

Elena Railean (European University of Moldova, Moldova) Gabriela Walker (University of South Dakota, USA)
Atilla Elçi (Aksaray University, Turkey) and Liz Jackson (University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong)
Handbook of Research on Strategic Management of Interaction, Presence, and Participation in Online Courses
Lydia Kyei-Blankson (Illinois State University, USA) Joseph Blankson (Ohio Northern University, USA) Esther
Ntuli (Idaho State University, USA) and Cynthia Agyeman (Ohio University, USA)
Intelligent Design of Interactive Multimedia Listening Software

Vehbi Turel (Bingol University, Turkey)
Utilizing Virtual and Personal Learning Environments for Optimal Learning

Krista Terry (Appalachian State University, USA) and Amy Cheney (Appalachian State University, USA)
Handbook of Research on Individual Differences in Computer-Assisted Language Learning

Mehrak Rahimi (Shahid Rajaee Teacher Training University, Iran)
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Editorial Advisory Board
Jan Bogg, University of Liverpool, UK
Cecelia Wright Brown, University of Baltimore, USA
Tianxing Cai, Lamar University, USA
Jennifer Donovan, University of Southern Queensland, Australia
Matthew Eichler, Texas State University – San Marcos, USA
Lesley Farmer, California State University – Long Beach, USA
Jenny Huang, Lamar Consolidated ISD, USA
Wenhao David Huang, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA
Alex Kumi-Yeboah, University at Albany (SUNY), USA
Maria Meletiou-Mavrotheris, European University Cyprus, Cyprus
Prantosh Kr. Paul, Bengal Engineering and Science University, India
Julie Prescott, University of Bolton, UK
Cindi Smith-Walters, Middle Tennessee State University, USA

List of Contributors
Al-Bayatti, Ali / De Montfort University, UK..................................................................................... 123

Alkadi, Ihssan / Southeastern Louisiana University, USA................................................................. 260
Amobi, Onuora / LearnAboutTheWeb.com, USA.............................................................................. 159
Arinze, Bay / Drexel University, USA................................................................................................. 159
Beltrán, Marta / Universidad Rey Juan Carlos, Spain...................................................................... 198
Caluza, Las Johansen Balios / Leyte Normal University, Philippines................................................ 94
Chao, Lee / University of Houston – Victoria, USA............................................................................ 141
Chen, Feng / De Montfort University, UK.......................................................................................... 123
Chen, Yong / Old Dominion University, USA..................................................................................... 277
Chrysikos, Alexandros / University of Huddersfield, UK.................................................................. 377
Corona, Felice / Università degli Studi di Salerno, Italy.................................................................... 421
Correa, Andre / Universidade Estadual Paulista, Brazil................................................................... 291
Cross, Brandon / University of Wisconsin – Stout, USA...................................................................... 64
d’Alessio, Matthew / California State University – Northridge, USA......................................... 172,311
Di Tore, Pio Alfredo / Università degli Studi di Salerno, Italy.......................................................... 421
Dubey, Sonal / RGPV, India................................................................................................................ 225
Eichler, Matthew A. / Texas State University, USA............................................................................. 94
Estevez, Claudio / Universidad de Chile, Chile................................................................................... 79
Foley, Brian / California State University – Northridge, USA............................................................ 172
Gupta, Pooja / Uttaranchal University, India....................................................................................... 31
Gütl, Christian / Graz University of Technology, Austria & Curtin University, Australia................ 106
Hankin, Robin / AUT, New Zealand................................................................................................... 218
Herr, Norman / California State University – Northridge, USA................................................. 172,311
Huang, Xiaodi / Charles Sturt University, Australia............................................................................ 42
Karunanithi, Arunprakash T. / University of Colorado – Denver, USA.......................................... 403
Lobera, Kim / Coleman University, USA............................................................................................. 12
Masud, Anwar Hossain / Charles Sturt University, Australia............................................................. 42
McDowell, James / University of Huddersfield, UK........................................................................... 377
Mikroyannidis, Alexander / The Open University, UK..................................................................... 291
Nguyen-Graf, Dorothy / California State University – Northridge, USA.......................................... 172
Okada, Alexandra / The Open University, UK.................................................................................. 291
Paul, Prantosh Kr. / Indian Institute of Engineering Science and Technology (IIEST), India.......... 247
Reveles, John / California State University – Northridge, USA.................................................. 172,311
Rickards, Tony / Curtin University, Australia............................................................................. 343,357
Rivas, Mike / California State University – Northridge, USA..................................................... 172,311

Rizvi, M. A. / NITTTR, India.............................................................................................................. 225

Rizzardini, Rocael Hernandez / Galileo University, Guatemala...................................................... 106
Sahlin, John P. / Coleman University, USA.......................................................................................... 12
Scott, Peter / The Open University, UK.............................................................................................. 291
Siewe, Francois / De Montfort University, UK................................................................................... 123
Steele, Aaron / Universal College of Learning, New Zealand............................................................ 357
Sylla, Cheickna / New Jersey Institute of Technology, USA............................................................... 159
Tang, Michael S. / University of Colorado – Denver, USA................................................................ 403
Tippens, Marten / California State University – Northridge, USA.................................................... 311
Vandergon, Virginia Oberholzer / California State University – Northridge, USA.................. 172,311
Verma, Kritika / ICAI, India.............................................................................................................. 225
Ward, Rupert / University of Huddersfield, UK................................................................................. 377
Weber, Alan S. / Weill Cornell Medical College in Qatar, Qatar.......................................................... 1
Yuan, Dongqing / University of Wisconsin – Stout, USA..................................................................... 64
Table of Contents
Preface................................................................................................................................................ xxiv
Section 1
Trends and Advances of Cloud-Based Teaching and Learning
Chapter 1
Strategic Planning for Cloud Computing Adoption in STEM Education: Finding Best Practice
Solutions.................................................................................................................................................. 1
Alan S. Weber, Weill Cornell Medical College in Qatar, Qatar
Chapter 2
Cloud Computing as a Catalyst for Change in STEM Education.......................................................... 12
John P. Sahlin, Coleman University, USA
Kim Lobera, Coleman University, USA
Chapter 3
The Emergence of Cloud Portfolio in Higher Education....................................................................... 31
Pooja Gupta, Uttaranchal University, India
Section 2
Development of Education Cloud Platform
Chapter 4
Strategies and Practice of Cloud-Based Learning Environment Implementation................................. 42
Anwar Hossain Masud, Charles Sturt University, Australia
Xiaodi Huang, Charles Sturt University, Australia
Chapter 5
Designing, Developing, and Evaluating a Cloud-Based Laboratory for Online STEM IT Students.... 64
Dongqing Yuan, University of Wisconsin – Stout, USA
Brandon Cross, University of Wisconsin – Stout, USA
Chapter 6
Addressing Transport Layer Issues in Cloud Computing: A STEM Perspective.................................. 79
Claudio Estevez, Universidad de Chile, Chile

Chapter 7
Cloud-Based Social Media as LMS: A Fit for STEM in Developing and Newly Developed
Economies.............................................................................................................................................. 94
Matthew A. Eichler, Texas State University, USA
Las Johansen Balios Caluza, Leyte Normal University, Philippines
Chapter 8
A Cloud-Based Learning Platform: STEM Learning Experiences with New Tools........................... 106
Rocael Hernandez Rizzardini, Galileo University, Guatemala
Christian Gütl, Graz University of Technology, Austria & Curtin University, Australia
Chapter 9
Context-Aware Cloud Computing for Personal Learning Environment.............................................. 123
Feng Chen, De Montfort University, UK
Ali Al-Bayatti, De Montfort University, UK
Francois Siewe, De Montfort University, UK
Chapter 10
Free and Open Source Cloud Computing Technology........................................................................ 141
Lee Chao, University of Houston – Victoria, USA
Section 3
Teaching and Learning in the Cloud Environment
Chapter 11
Cloud Computing for Teaching and Learning: Design Strategies....................................................... 159
Bay Arinze, Drexel University, USA
Cheickna Sylla, New Jersey Institute of Technology, USA
Onuora Amobi, LearnAboutTheWeb.com, USA
Chapter 12
Engaging Students in Conducting Data Analysis: The Whole-Class Data Advantage....................... 172
Virginia Oberholzer Vandergon, California State University – Northridge, USA
John M. Reveles, California State University – Northridge, USA
Norman Herr, California State University – Northridge, USA
Dorothy Nguyen-Graf, California State University – Northridge, USA
Mike Rivas, California State University – Northridge, USA
Matthew d’Alessio, California State University – Northridge, USA
Brian Foley, California State University – Northridge, USA
Chapter 13
Hands-On Learning of Cloud Computing........................................................................................... 198
Marta Beltrán, Universidad Rey Juan Carlos, Spain

Chapter 14
Screencasts in Mathematics: Modelling the Mathematician............................................................... 218
Robin Hankin, AUT, New Zealand
Chapter 15
Support for Cloud-Based Mobile Learning......................................................................................... 225
Kritika Verma, ICAI, India
Sonal Dubey, RGPV, India
M. A. Rizvi, NITTTR, India
Chapter 16
Cloud Computing: An Agent of Promoting Interdisciplinary Sciences, Especially Information
Science and I-Schools – Emerging Techno-Educational Scenario...................................................... 247
Prantosh Kr. Paul, Indian Institute of Engineering Science and Technology (IIEST), India
Section 4
Security and Access Control in Cloud Computing
Chapter 17
Assessing Security with Regard to Cloud Applications in STEM Education..................................... 260
Ihssan Alkadi, Southeastern Louisiana University, USA
Chapter 18
Security Issues Related to Cloud Applications in STEM Education................................................... 277
Yong Chen, Old Dominion University, USA
Section 5
Management and Evaluation of Classes Supported by Cloud Platform
Chapter 19
Inquiry-Based Learning on the Cloud:................................................................................................ 291
Alexander Mikroyannidis, The Open University, UK
Alexandra Okada, The Open University, UK
Andre Correa, Universidade Estadual Paulista, Brazil
Peter Scott, The Open University, UK
Chapter 20
Cloud-Based Continuous Formative Assessment (CFA)..................................................................... 311
Marten Tippens, California State University – Northridge, USA
John Reveles, California State University – Northridge, USA

Chapter 21
Improving the Effectiveness of Research Supervision in STEM Education: Cloud-Based
Multimedia Solutions........................................................................................................................... 343
Tony Rickards, Curtin University, Australia
Chapter 22
Designing a Cloud-Based Assessment Model: A New Zealand Polytechnic Case Study................... 357
Aaron Steele, Universal College of Learning, New Zealand
Chapter 23
Cloud Services in UK Higher Education: A Feasibility Study for Providing IaaS in the Computing
and Library Services of a UK University............................................................................................ 377
Alexandros Chrysikos, University of Huddersfield, UK
James McDowell, University of Huddersfield, UK
Rupert Ward, University of Huddersfield, UK
Chapter 24
A Media Interpretation of the Negative Impact of Cloud Technologies............................................. 403
Michael S. Tang, University of Colorado – Denver, USA
Arunprakash T. Karunanithi, University of Colorado – Denver, USA
Chapter 25
The Significance of Situation Awareness in Education: Being Aware of What We Learn................. 421
Pio Alfredo Di Tore, Università degli Studi di Salerno, Italy
Felice Corona, Università degli Studi di Salerno, Italy
Compilation of References................................................................................................................ 430
About the Contributors..................................................................................................................... 468
Index.................................................................................................................................................... 478
Detailed Table of Contents
Preface................................................................................................................................................ xxiv
Section 1
Trends and Advances of Cloud-Based Teaching and Learning
Chapter 1
Strategic Planning for Cloud Computing Adoption in STEM Education: Finding Best Practice
Solutions.................................................................................................................................................. 1
Alan S. Weber, Weill Cornell Medical College in Qatar, Qatar
This chapter describes effective strategic analysis and implementation methods for the adoption of cloud
computing services (infrastructure, platforms, and software) in Science, Technology, Engineering, and
Mathematics (STEM) education. The benefits of cloud computing, including lower costs, scalability
and virtualization capabilities, have been recognized and adopted by major educational, governmental
and research institutions internationally during the last five years. However, the term ‘cloud computing’
was only recently clarified in 2011 in the NIST’s standard definition published by Mell and Grance
(2012) as “a model for enabling ubiquitous, convenient, on-demand network access to a shared pool of
configurable computing resources (e.g., networks, servers, storage, applications, and services) that can
be rapidly provisioned and released with minimal management effort or service provider interaction.”
Despite the increasing clarity in defining cloud computing, the deployment models can be complex,
encompassing hybrid, public, community and private cloud frameworks, all with varying levels of privacy,
security, and trust. Data format, integrity, and portability as well as geographical server location represent
additional factors that educational institutions must weigh when they consider adopting a cloud solution
for their educational needs. The chapter provides advice on how to strategically plan for the use of cloud
computing services and how to identify, weigh and assess the various factors in decision-making. Just as
with e-learning when it was found at the end of the 1990s that purely online technological approaches
were not as effective as pedagogical models (blended learning) which took into account human factors
such as student motivation, teacher training, technological illiteracy, etc., the author suggests that a
holistic technology adoption process that includes needs assessment and stakeholder engagement will
be the most successful.

Chapter 2
Cloud Computing as a Catalyst for Change in STEM Education.......................................................... 12
John P. Sahlin, Coleman University, USA
Kim Lobera, Coleman University, USA
Cloud computing drives value to profit-centric businesses by establishing a utility computing model,
allowing companies to focus on their core business function rather than concern themselves with the
“plumbing” associated with technology infrastructure. How then, can this profit-centric model be applied
to improve the delivery of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) education? Studies
indicate that students perform far better in the workplace if their education in technical fields is relevant,
current, and based on real-world scenarios (Pryor, 2014). If businesses are operating in the cloud,
STEM education must follow suit. While cloud computing is traditionally associated with profit-centric
organizations, this model has demonstrated benefits to non-profit and government organizations as well
in terms of reduction of enterprise costs and time to delivery of new products and services. Even when a
profit motive is non-existent (or at least not central to the mission of the organization), cloud computing
can be a catalyst to transformative improvements in the academic community. As organizations adopt
cloud computing, they must face changes in core business practices in order to take advantage of the
on-demand service, rapid elasticity, and broad network access associated with cloud computing (Mell &
Grance, 2011). Businesses must transform their business architecture in order to adopt this new technology
architecture effectively. In the same vein, educators must consider how their business processes (i.e.,
pedagogy) must change in order to adopt this technology. This chapter considers cloud computing as a
technology enabler for STEM education, and how it requires dramatic changes in pedagogy in order to
ensure that STEM education is relevant, useful, and effective in the digital world.
Chapter 3
The Emergence of Cloud Portfolio in Higher Education....................................................................... 31
Pooja Gupta, Uttaranchal University, India
Educating the digitally literate generation is a privilege and a challenge because this generation is exposed
to enormous proliferation of affordable computers, Internet and digital education content. With the
advancements in technology, there is a definite improvement in learning methods; similarly performance
assessment, career preparation and credential documentation should also be driven by technology. An
e-portfolio is a tool for teaching, learning and assessment. The purpose of the e-portfolio is to highlight
the student’s best work. Current e-portfolio systems pose problems of scalability and sustainability, as
they provide limited user storage space in a centralized server. With the rapid use of multimedia, there
is a drastic increase in storage load imposed by any user on the e-portfolio system. Cloud computing can
provide e-portfolio service that can be delivered to a higher education community. An e-portfolio service
provided by cloud computing (c-portfolio) can be accessed from a standalone system. The c-portfolio
can also be accessed from local servers of an educational institute, or from a third-party service provider
that is accessed via the Internet. Such cloud computing services allow users to share their c-portfolios
with anyone, anywhere and at anytime. This chapter defines and categorizes c-portfolio, addresses issues
and challenges faced by c-portfolio’s implementation in higher education.

Section 2
Development of Education Cloud Platform
Chapter 4
Strategies and Practice of Cloud-Based Learning Environment Implementation................................. 42
Anwar Hossain Masud, Charles Sturt University, Australia
Xiaodi Huang, Charles Sturt University, Australia
The education landscape around the world is in a constant state of flux and evolution, facing significant
challenges in adopting new and emerging technologies. This is driven mainly by a new genre of students
with learning needs that are vastly different from those of their predecessors. It is increasingly recognized
that the use of technology in higher education is essential to providing high quality education and preparing
students for the challenges of the 21st century. Advances in technology offer new opportunities in
enhancing teaching and learning. The new technologies enable individuals to personalize the environment
in which they work or learn a range of tools to meet their interests and needs. In this chapter, we attempt
to explore the salient features of the nature and educational potentials of ‘cloud computing’ in order to
exploit its affordance in teaching and learning in the context of higher education. It is evident that cloud
computing plays a significant role in the higher education landscape as both a ubiquitous computing
tool and a powerful platform. Although the adoption of cloud computing promises various benefits to
an organization, a successful adoption of cloud computing in an organization, particularly in educational
institutes, requires an understanding of different dynamics and expertise in diverse domains. This chapter
aims at describing an architecture of Cloud Computing for Education (CCE), which includes a number
of steps for adopting and implementing cloud computing. To implement this architecture, we have also
outlined an open framework that is used as a guidance in any organisations with any cloud computing
platforms and infrastructures towards the successful adoption and implementation of cloud computing.
Chapter 5
Designing, Developing, and Evaluating a Cloud-Based Laboratory for Online STEM IT Students.... 64
Dongqing Yuan, University of Wisconsin – Stout, USA
Brandon Cross, University of Wisconsin – Stout, USA
In an IT learning environment, hands-on learning is central to one’s learning. Many previous studies
found that STEM students who were taught through a hands-on learning method, as opposed to only
the textbook and lecture method, showed higher comprehension of the concepts. Hands-on labs and
experimenting expand a student’s understanding and appreciation of science. For many years, traditional
IT program instructors have been able to integrate hands-on approaches into the classroom. Although
hands-on laboratory exercises are integral to a successful IT program, e-Learning students in IT do not
have the same laboratory experience as onsite students. Consequentially, there is a problem with e-Learning
IT students not acquiring all the essential hands-on skills with equipment used in the IT industry. In
this chapter, we present a solution which is based on private cloud computing and can be used to build
a laboratory and learning environment for a variety of online hands-on IT courses including Wireless
System, IP Telephony and Server Application. Students, as cloud clients, can access the server by web
access through VPN connection.

Chapter 6
Addressing Transport Layer Issues in Cloud Computing: A STEM Perspective.................................. 79
Claudio Estevez, Universidad de Chile, Chile
Due to bandwidth limitations and overflowing in the Internet, connectionless transport-layer protocols
are migrating to connection-oriented, mainly because of the flow control it offers. Because of this,
many Internet Service Providers (ISPs) and network administrators have restricted user traffic to only
Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) segments. Optimizing TCP-based protocols will benefit significantly
the performance of any centric system, such as the STEM clouds. The challenging scenarios, when using
TCP-based systems, are transmitting large files over long distances, as these have a large bandwidth-
delay product (BDP) which hinders drastically the performance, even if the network’s physical link is
broadband (e.g. fiber optics). There are various transport protocols today that address these problems.
This chapter aims at explaining the transport layer limitations, an overview of how we arrived at the
protocols used today, and some techniques that could be adopted in the future, with a focus on cloud
computing systems.
Chapter 7
Cloud-Based Social Media as LMS: A Fit for STEM in Developing and Newly Developed
Economies.............................................................................................................................................. 94
Matthew A. Eichler, Texas State University, USA
Las Johansen Balios Caluza, Leyte Normal University, Philippines
Social media, with its ubiquitous characteristics and availability for use throughout the world, may serve
as a replacement for many features typically associated with learning management systems (LMS). These
systems are generally free to use, rely on robust servers with high speed connections, and are already
widely used on mobile phones and other devices, unlike learning management systems, which are
typically used for the duration of educational experience and then no longer available to students. Due
to low budgets available for IT, universities in developing and newly developed countries may consider
alternatives to the LMS, which is both expensive, and relies either on paid services or the provisioning
of servers. Educators should consider potential negative aspects and positive aspects of the use of these
tools in higher education before adopting for widespread use. STEM learning may be especially enhanced
through the use of social networking services (SNS) as LMS.
Chapter 8
A Cloud-Based Learning Platform: STEM Learning Experiences with New Tools........................... 106
Rocael Hernandez Rizzardini, Galileo University, Guatemala
Christian Gütl, Graz University of Technology, Austria & Curtin University, Australia
A wide range of innovative Web 2.0 tools can be used for STEM education; however, learning orchestration
issues arise in terms of management, adaption, and intervention. These issues can be solved through
the manipulation of the tools’ Web application programming interfaces (APIs) in order to orchestrate
the learning experience. In this chapter, the authors present a learning platform that is capable of
orchestrating learning activities through Web interoperability with Web 2.0 tools. This interoperability
is realized through advanced Semantic Web technologies such as JSON-LD and Hydra, and a specialized
architecture to automatically recognize, process, and use the tools’ Web APIs. Finally, an evaluation of
the architecture in a Massive Open Online Course is presented which reveals satisfactory usability and
emotional evaluation results.

Chapter 9
Context-Aware Cloud Computing for Personal Learning Environment.............................................. 123
Feng Chen, De Montfort University, UK
Ali Al-Bayatti, De Montfort University, UK
Francois Siewe, De Montfort University, UK
Virtual learning means to learn from social interactions in a virtual platform that enables people to study
anywhere and at any time. Current Virtual Learning Environments (VLEs) are normally institution centric
and are designed to support formal learning, which do not support lifelong learning. These limitations
led to the research of Personal Learning Environments (PLEs), which are learner-centric and provide
lifelong access as well as the ability of a user to produce (share) and consume information resources
easily. In this research, a context-aware cloud based PLE architecture is proposed, which is driven by
a Context-Aware Engine to acquire, filter and interpret context information based on the preferences
defined in user profile, where cloud computing is taken as service infrastructure. An illustrative personal
learning scenario is investigated to demonstrate the proof of concept implementation. The results show
the benefits of the proposed architecture on resource utilisation and user experience.
Chapter 10
Free and Open Source Cloud Computing Technology........................................................................ 141
Lee Chao, University of Houston – Victoria, USA
This chapter covers the free and open source cloud computing technology and its application in Web-based
IT education. It discusses the difficulties in teaching online IT courses. One of the technologies that can
be used to overcome these difficulties is cloud computing. This chapter focuses on cloud based online
teaching infrastructure created with free and open source cloud computing. It provides some strategies
in developing various cloud based computer labs for hands-on practice required by IT courses. A case
study is used to illustrate the use of the free and open source cloud technology in e-learning.
Section 3
Teaching and Learning in the Cloud Environment
Chapter 11
Cloud Computing for Teaching and Learning: Design Strategies....................................................... 159
Bay Arinze, Drexel University, USA
Cheickna Sylla, New Jersey Institute of Technology, USA
Onuora Amobi, LearnAboutTheWeb.com, USA
Cloud-based courses are now in widespread use by universities and other educational institutions. The
cloud-based approach to course delivery is now used to provide scalable, granular educational content
and training to millions of students asynchronously and synchronously in an innovative, effective manner.
In the case of universities, more variables are under their control, such as student enrollment and student
use of course elements. For universities with a focus on STEM-related programs, courses are offered
to multiple categories of students with a mix of face-to-face and distance learning approaches, and the
courses are often also open to the general public under different contracts. These universities typically aim
to offer specially designed programs to companies and the general public who have diverse requirements
and challenges. Aided by advances in cloud computing platforms, STEM focused-educational programs
are increasingly adopting cloud-based learning systems to meet the diverse needs of their students. In

this chapter, we discuss the motivation behind leveraging the cloud for STEM based higher education.
We use the case study approach and examine two cases. The first is a large private university with 18,000
students and the second is a for-profit private educational company offering courses mainly to the general
public. We examine best practices that are involved in developing such systems, progressive delivery
mechanisms for course presentations, setting up the required cloud infrastructure and the operational use
of the entire system. The aim is to give researchers and developers deeper insights into the development
of successful private cloud-based STEM-based educational offerings.
Chapter 12
Engaging Students in Conducting Data Analysis: The Whole-Class Data Advantage....................... 172
John M. Reveles, California State University – Northridge, USA
Dorothy Nguyen-Graf, California State University – Northridge, USA
Brian Foley, California State University – Northridge, USA
Computer Supported Collaborative Science (CSCS) is a teaching pedagogy that uses collaborative web-
based resources to engage all learners in the collection, analysis, and interpretation of whole-class data
sets, and is useful for helping secondary and college students learn to think like scientists and engineers.
This chapter presents the justification for utilizing whole-class data analysis as an important aspect of the
CSCS pedagogy and demonstrates how it aligns with the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS).
The chapter achieves this end in several ways. First, it reviews rationale outlined in the NGSS science
and engineering practices for adapting 21st century technologies to teach students 21st century science
inquiry skills. Second, it provides a brief overview of the basis for our pedagogical perspective for
engaging learners in pooled data analysis and presents five principles of CSCS instruction. Third, we offer
several real-world and research-based excerpts as illustrative examples indicating the value and merit of
utilizing CSCS whole-class data analysis. Fourth, we postulate recommendations for improving the ways
science, as well as other subject matter content areas, will need to be taught as the U.S. grapples with the
role-out of new Common Core State Standards (CCSS) and NGSS. Taken together, these components
of CSCS whole-class data analysis help constitute a pedagogical model for teaching that functionally
shifts the focus of science teaching from cookbook data collection to pooled data analysis, resulting in
deeper understanding.
Chapter 13
Hands-On Learning of Cloud Computing........................................................................................... 198
Marta Beltrán, Universidad Rey Juan Carlos, Spain
Professionals with deep knowledge about cloud computing are in high demand in the industry these days.
This knowledge should comprehend concepts related to models, technologies, techniques, frameworks,
interfaces and tools needed to design, develop, deploy, integrate and manage cloud-based architectures.
Universities are trying to offer different undergraduate and graduate courses teaching these contents at
different levels, aimed at students’ development of strong practical skills to deal with the new paradigm
in real-world environments. In this chapter, a hands-on learning approach is proposed to achieve this
goal, considering an essential element of this approach - the use of cloud simulators. A survey of open

source cloud simulators is provided, presenting an exhaustive comparison of the existing alternatives
and determining an appropriate set of criteria to decide the best simulator for each learning objective.
Furthermore, two examples of hands-on contents are presented using these simulators.
Chapter 14
Screencasts in Mathematics: Modelling the Mathematician............................................................... 218
Robin Hankin, AUT, New Zealand
A screencast is a video recording of a computer monitor display, together with voice-over. This teaching
technique has multiple advantages including the ability to model the thought processes of a mathematician
in a context in which content may be repeated at will. Anecdotal evidence suggests that screencasts can
be a very effective teaching tool, especially for providing model answers. Here, screencasts are discussed
from a pedagogical and curriculum perspective using student feedback statistics as data. Specifically,
screencasts offer a teaching resource that has value for many traditionally difficult groups of students.
For example, poorly engaged students are well-served, as the barriers for participation are low; and high-
achieving students benefit from the directed narrative. All students valued the ability to view material
multiple times at will. The chapter concludes with some observations about how the overall learning
environment might be improved in the context of undergraduate mathematics.
Chapter 15
Support for Cloud-Based Mobile Learning......................................................................................... 225
Kritika Verma, ICAI, India
Sonal Dubey, RGPV, India
M. A. Rizvi, NITTTR, India
Cloud based mobile learning (m-learning) is emerging as one of the most important branches of cloud
computing, and is still in its infancy. These days, there are two emerging archetypes in Information and
Communication Technologies (ICT) for learning. The first one is the anytime, anywhere, on-the-move, to
be called the mobility archetype, and the second one is the cloud computing. Both archetypes are radically
transforming the way we learn, communicate, access, and utilize information resources, and connect
with peers and colleagues, thus affecting all aspects of education. This chapter delivers an introduction
of the evolution of cloud based m-learning, benefits and characteristics of cloud based m-learning. It also
canvasses the current scenario of m-learning utilizing the cloud, various challenges for implementing
the m-learning system on the cloud. It further confers technologies used for cloud based m-learning. It
also considers a brief look at methods for creating m-learning content and experiences, suggested by
various researchers and concluded with the future aspects of the cloud based m-learning.
Chapter 16
Cloud Computing: An Agent of Promoting Interdisciplinary Sciences, Especially Information
Science and I-Schools – Emerging Techno-Educational Scenario...................................................... 247
Prantosh Kr. Paul, Indian Institute of Engineering Science and Technology (IIEST), India
Cloud is, in today’s age, one of the important and valuable names not only in computing but also in all
most all the fields of science, technology and engineering and even in several branches of humanities and
social science—the reason behind this is its ultimate benefit of virtualization and elasticity of IT products.
This is actually a type of virtualization; here computing is geared up with the wonderful virtual platform
which provides a remote accessibility of hardware, software, IT resources, as well as application packages.

Interestingly, ‘Cloud’ also supports the green agenda of the organization and society. There are so many
subjects and domains gaining or injecting the cloud benefit to their services. The information field and
domain is more close to the computing and information technology, but it has another core agenda of
information activities, which include collection, selection, organization, processing, management, and
dissemination of information; here, cloud plays a potential and healthy role.
Section 4
Security and Access Control in Cloud Computing
Chapter 17
Assessing Security with Regard to Cloud Applications in STEM Education..................................... 260
Ihssan Alkadi, Southeastern Louisiana University, USA
There are many steps involved with securing a cloud system and its applications (SaaS) and developed
ones in (PaaS). Security and privacy issues represent the biggest concerns to moving services to external
clouds (Public). With cloud computing, data are stored and delivered across the Internet. The owner
of the data does not have control or even know where their data are being stored. Additionally, in a
multi-tenant environment, it may be very difficult for a cloud service provider to provide the level of
isolation and associated guarantees that are possible with an environment dedicated to a single customer.
Unfortunately, to develop a security algorithm that outlines and maps out the enforcement of a security
policy and procedure can be a daunting task. A good security algorithm presents a strategy to counter
the vulnerabilities in a cloud system. This chapter covers the complete overview, comparative analysis of
security methods in Cloud Applications in STEM Education and the introduction of a new methodology
that will enforce cloud computing security against breaches and intrusions. Much light will be shed on
existing methodologies of security on servers used for cloud applications in STEM education and storage
of data, and several methods will be presented in addition to the newly developed method of security
in cloud-based servers, such as the MIST (Alkadi). Not only can cloud networks be used to gather
sensitive information on multiple platforms, also there are needs to prevent common attacks through
weak password recovery, retrieval, authentication, and hardening systems; otherwise hackers will spread
cyber mayhem. Discussion of current security issues and algorithms in a real world will be presented.
Different technologies are being created and in constant competition to meet the demands of users who
are generally “busy”. The selling point of these technologies is the ability to address these demands
without adding more to any workloads. One of the demands often discussed is that users want to have their
digital information accessible from anywhere at any time. This information includes documents, audio
libraries, and more. Users also demand the ability to manage, edit and update this information regardless
of physical location. Somewhat recently, mobile devices such as laptops, tablets, and smartphones have
provided these abilities. This is no small feat as vendors and providers have reduced the size of these
devices to increase mobility. However, as the amount of personal information that users are wanting to
access has grown exponentially, manipulation and storage of it require more capable devices. To meet
increased demands, increasing the capabilities of mobile devices may be impractical. Making mobile
devices more powerful without technological advancement would require that the device be larger
and use more resources such as battery life and processing power to function properly. Storing all of a
user’s information on a mobile device that travels everywhere also adds vulnerability risks. The best
technical solution to having a user’s information accessible is some sort of online storage where there
is the convenience to store, manipulate and retrieve data. This is one of the most practical applications
for the concept of cloud computing in STEM education. As storage capabilities and Internet bandwidth
has increased, so has the amount of personal data that users store online. And today, the average user

has billions of bytes of data online. Access is everywhere and whenever is needed. As everyone started
doing so, people want their data safe and secure to maintain their privacy. As the user base grew in size,
the number of security issues of the personal data started to become increasingly important. As soon
as someone’s data are in the remote server, unwanted users or “hackers” can have many opportunities
to compromise the data. As the online server needs to be up and running all the time, the only way to
secure the cloud server is by using better passwords by every user. By the same token, the flaws in the
password authentication and protection system can also help unwanted users to get their way to other
people’s personal data. Thus, the password authentication system should also be free from any loopholes
and vulnerabilities.
Chapter 18
Security Issues Related to Cloud Applications in STEM Education................................................... 277
Yong Chen, Old Dominion University, USA
Learning based on cloud computing, denoted as cloud learning (CL) in short, is a disruptive innovation
and a current buzzword in education. It provides a learner-centered platform that benefits learners,
instructors, and education providers. However, because it requires the Internet and is built on cloud
computing, CL has inherent security issues. By analyzing the benefits and the security threats inherent
in CL, this chapter aims to help CL stakeholders in STEM Education (namely cloud service providers,
cloud content providers, and cloud users) to better understand the security issues inherent in CL from
the perspectives of confidentiality, integrity, and availability. The discussions about the risks that CL
stakeholders in STEM education incur as a result of prevailing security threats and system vulnerabilities
will help those stakeholders to assess the cost effectiveness of security countermeasures.
Section 5
Management and Evaluation of Classes Supported by Cloud Platform
Chapter 19
Inquiry-Based Learning on the Cloud:................................................................................................ 291
Alexander Mikroyannidis, The Open University, UK
Alexandra Okada, The Open University, UK
Andre Correa, Universidade Estadual Paulista, Brazil
Peter Scott, The Open University, UK
Cloud Learning Environments (CLEs) have recently emerged as a novel approach to learning, putting
learners in the spotlight and providing them with the cloud-based tools for building their own learning
environments according to their specific learning needs and aspirations. Although CLEs bring significant
benefits to educators and learners, there is still little evidence of CLEs being actively and effectively used
in the teaching and learning process. This chapter addresses this issue by introducing a European initiative
called weSPOT (Working Environment with Social, Personal and Open Technologies for Inquiry-based
Learning) for supporting and enhancing inquiry-based learning in STEM education via a cloud-based
inquiry toolkit. The chapter presents evidence of using this toolkit within a case study that investigates
how a secondary education community of students / co-learners selects information sources on the web
and identifies factors associated with the reliability of information sources during their collaborative
inquiry (co-inquiry) project in online environments.

Chapter 20
Cloud-Based Continuous Formative Assessment (CFA)..................................................................... 311
Marten Tippens, California State University – Northridge, USA
John Reveles, California State University – Northridge, USA
Continuous Formative Assessment (CFA) is a strategy that employs free and accessible collaborative
cloud-based technologies to collect, stream, and archive evidence of student knowledge, reasoning, and
understanding during STEM lessons, so that instructors and students can make evidence-based decisions
for adjusting lessons to optimize learning. Writing samples, diagrams, equations, drawings, photos, and
movies are collected from all students and archived in cloud-based databases so that instructors can assess
student understanding during instruction, and monitor learning gains over time. This chapter introduces
and explains CFA techniques and provides preliminary research pertaining to the effectiveness of CFA
instructional strategies in promoting student accountability, metacognition, and engagement in STEM
courses, and suggests avenues for future research.
Chapter 21
Improving the Effectiveness of Research Supervision in STEM Education: Cloud-Based
Multimedia Solutions........................................................................................................................... 343
Higher degree STEM research students working at a distance often report that they feel more isolated
than students who have face-to-face contact with their supervisors (Macauley, 2002). Though face-to-
face often implies “on campus” contact, face-to-face can now also be via videoconference software and
cloud based solutions. It is the purpose of this chapter to provide an auto ethnographic example of some
ways to enhance student supervision at a distance using these education technologies. The author has
utilised technology to enhance teacher-student interpersonal behaviour (Fisher & Rickards, 1998), social
presence (Stacey & Fountain, 2001) and learning outcomes in STEM Education since 1999. Reductions
in the time research students take to complete research proposals and a greater sense of personalised
supervision have been positive outcomes from using these learning environment enhancements. This
chapter presents a journal like case study perspective to show academics and teachers everywhere how
utilizing freely available online software might improve the effectiveness of the supervisory experience
for all.
Chapter 22
Designing a Cloud-Based Assessment Model: A New Zealand Polytechnic Case Study................... 357
Aaron Steele, Universal College of Learning, New Zealand
A cloud based assessment learning environment exists when the collaborative sharing features of cloud
computing tools (e.g. Google Docs) are utilised for a continuous assessment of student learning activity
over an extended period of time. This chapter describes a New Zealand Polytechnic based success story
which utilised a multi-method approach to investigate student perceptions of a cloud assessment learning
environment. The learning environment factors that are examined in this chapter include progress

monitoring, cloud tools (i.e. Google Docs), feedback, cloud storage, technology preference, student
achievement, and student engagement. This chapter not only describes this unique learning environment,
it also provides a clear insight into student perceptions of the cloud assessment learning environment. In
concluding, the chapter provides some outcomes that may be utilised to improve pedagogy and student
outcomes in a STEM based multimedia learning environment.
Chapter 23
Cloud Services in UK Higher Education: A Feasibility Study for Providing IaaS in the Computing
and Library Services of a UK University............................................................................................ 377
Alexandros Chrysikos, University of Huddersfield, UK
James McDowell, University of Huddersfield, UK
Rupert Ward, University of Huddersfield, UK
The current chapter reports an investigation of Information Technology (I.T.) enablement for a Higher
Education Institution (HEI), with focus on the feasibility of Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) using Cloud
Computing technology. A pragmatist - mixed-methods research approach was followed to establish the
Feasibility Study, which included the potential IaaS risks and benefits for a HEI such as the Computing
& Library Services of a UK university. An analysis of the advantages and disadvantages, as well as a
legal, social, operational and Service Level Agreement (SLA) discussion are provided. Furthermore, the
authors outline the potential impact on the institution’s employment. Finally, based on the Feasibility
Study, the authors recommend a list of selection criteria and evaluation methods that could be regarded
as the basis for a future IaaS Cloud decision model for HEIs. The findings of the current investigation
contribute to the body of knowledge for both academics and I.T. managers.
Chapter 24
A Media Interpretation of the Negative Impact of Cloud Technologies............................................. 403
Michael S. Tang, University of Colorado – Denver, USA
Arunprakash T. Karunanithi, University of Colorado – Denver, USA
This chapter presents a media studies interpretation of the impact of Cloud communication technologies
on traditional academic achievement. According to social media critics following the “medium is
the message” theory of Marshall McLuhan, the hidden “message” in the new Cloud communication
education technologies conflicts with the old message of the printed textbook, the traditional medium of
communication in education since the printing press in the 16th and 17th centuries. The chapter begins
with a brief history of media technologies in education to gain understanding into the nature of this conflict
and follows with a review of research and studies that document the conflict’s cause and consequences
with the conclusion that a major factor in the proliferation of any new media communication technology
is its commercial value. Moreover, because new technologies in education are driven by commercial
interests, its pedagogical value becomes secondary resulting in what social media and other critics view
as the dumbing down of the American student. These social media critics contend that not only have
American students been declining intellectually, computer technologies, including the Cloud Internet
communication technologies are the direct cause of this decline, raising the question, “is education
technology an oxymoron?” Given this analysis of media communication technologies’ impact on education,
the authors then offer a possible way out of the current situation by proposing a more human factors
approach towards Cloud technologies based on constructivist educational and cognitive styles theory.

Chapter 25
The Significance of Situation Awareness in Education: Being Aware of What We Learn................. 421
Pio Alfredo Di Tore, Università degli Studi di Salerno, Italy
Felice Corona, Università degli Studi di Salerno, Italy
Learning today is no longer related to the “classroom” as the physical environment; it is instead an
“across spaces” place characterized by the possibility to build serendipitous, pervasive and seamless
experiences. Such experiences are in fact no more constrained to space-time limits and bounds but
focused on context and situation awareness to enhance the learning process. Also, these experiences are
often associated with next generation technologies which well fit to a paradigm shift marked by seamless
continuity of learning. The interest in context-aware educational settings mainly based on mobile and
sensor systems has led researchers to investigate new ways to recognize issues mainly related to the
definition of “learner’s contextual information” (profile information in situation) and, on the basis of
this information, to identify the “types of adaptation”. In this work, we present the first theoretical and
applicative results that the Italian scientific community has achieved as part of the research lines that
revolve around the concept of Situation Awareness (SA).
Compilation of References................................................................................................................ 430
About the Contributors..................................................................................................................... 468
Index.................................................................................................................................................... 478
xxiv
Preface
As the IT industry advances, cloud computing represents the next big platform change in e-learning. Due
to its stability, flexibility, security, availability, and low cost, cloud computing has various applications in
educational organizations. Cloud computing will literally revolutionize the way of teaching and learning.
In particular, the cloud technology has created great excitement in STEM education which can benefit
from many features of the cloud technology. Cloud computing can significantly reduce the expenditure on
computer lab construction and maintenance. The cloud-based learning environment encourages learners
to be actively engaged in the learning process. It also promotes collaboration in group projects. Due to
these features, the cloud technology has been widely adopted by a large number of schools and universi-
ties throughout the world. It has been used to support Web-based software development, integration of
engineering drawing and data, big data analysis and processing, virtualization of labs, implementation
of virtual reality, and so on.
This book is designed to prepare instructors and students for the new cutting-edge learning environment
in STEM education. The book aims to discuss and address the advantages, difficulties, and challenges that
STEM education has faced in adopting cloud computing. It has collected chapters that address different
aspects of cloud adoption, ranging from virtual lab construction, app development, social networking,
software support, information sharing, collaboration platform development, IT infrastructure development,
information sharing, course material distribution, and related topics. Additionally, the book explores the
impact of cloud computing on STEM education and analyzes the acceptance of cloud-based learning in
STEM education. This book provides the much needed information to help educators and technology
professionals in understanding the theories and concepts of cloud computing and its application in e-
learning. To help readers better understand and apply the cloud computing technology in teaching and
learning, the book provides research studies on the following subjects.
• Cloud adoption in STEM education

• STEM requirements for cloud computing
• Learning STEM subjects in the cloud environment
• Support for cloud-based scientific application software
• Support for cloud-based mobile learning
• Impact of cloud computing on STEM education
• Barriers to cloud computing in STEM education
• Security issues related to cloud applications in STEM education
• Case studies on cloud applications in STEM education
• Pros and cons of cloud computing in STEM education

Preface
• Open source cloud products used in STEM education

• Strategies and practice of cloud-based learning environment implementation
• Cloud-based learning platforms
• Cloud accessibility
• Cloud services for STEM education
• Cloud-based social networking
• Cloud-based collaboration platform development
• Cloud technology for virtual STEM lab development
• Cloud technology for information retrieving and sharing
• Cloud technology for infrastructure development
• Evaluation on the effectiveness of cloud computing on teaching and learning
This comprehensive and timely publication aims to be an essential reference source, building on
the available literature in the field of cloud applications in STEM education while providing for further
research opportunities in this dynamic field. It is hoped that this text will provide resources necessary
for policy makers, educators, students, technology developers and managers to adopt and implement
the cloud-based learning environment in STEM education. The book includes research studies in cloud
system implementation, cloud computing architecture and its support to IT infrastructure. It includes
the first hand experience provided by the authors who are researchers, educators, and practitioners in
various STEM fields. Some of the authors provide solutions for the implementation of cloud infrastruc-
ture to support STEM education. Some of them discuss policies and security issues related to the cloud
system for STEM education. In addition, some of the authors present their research results for the class
and lab management with the cloud approach. This book also presents evaluations on the effectiveness
of cloud-based teaching and learning on STEM subjects.
Due to its complexity, expense, and high demand on technology, STEM education requires a computing
platform that has flexibility, security, availability, scalability, and affordability. The cloud infrastructure
provides a solution that can meet the requirements by STEM education. Financially, small educational
institutions can particularly benefit from a cloud infrastructure to support their STEM programs since a
cloud infrastructure can significantly reduce the cost of IT expenditure. Using the cloud infrastructure
can also improve computing availability. The SaaS service provided by the cloud allows students to
access software through the Internet. The cloud infrastructure can also improve security. With the IaaS
service, students are allowed to create their own IT environments with virtual machines. In the virtualized
environment, the students can have the administrative privilege to learning and practice the manage-
ment of servers and networks without harming the underline physical network. The cloud infrastructure
is flexible so that the virtualized computing environment can be specially designed for each individual
course without changing the underline physical IT infrastructure. The cloud can also improve collabora-
tion among a group of students. With the PaaS service provided by the cloud infrastructure, a group of
students can participate in the same application development project. Multiple students can access the
same set of virtual machines and watch the same screen of a virtual machine together.
As cloud computing has revolutionized the IT industry, a great number of research studies have been
done about the cloud infrastructure and its application in business. On the other hand, the experiences
with the cloud approach to support STEM education have rarely been seen. As more and more STEM
programs will adopt cloud computing for teaching and learning, a systematic and comprehensive coverage
of cloud-based teaching and learning becomes necessary. It is necessary to collect the results of research
xxv
Preface
on cloud computing and its application in the fields of STEM. This book provides valuable information
on the effectiveness, usefulness, performance, availability, and security of cloud-based STEM education.
THE CHALLENGES
Moving from an existing IT infrastructure to a cloud-based IT infrastructure can be a great challenge

for an education institution. Although, cloud computing has been widely adopted in the IT industry, for
many education institutions, cloud computing brings a new way of supporting their daily teaching and
learning. A cloud-based learning environment could create great challenges to everyone who is involved
in cloud-based e-learning. For the IT service department, switching from the existing IT infrastructure to
the cloud-based IT infrastructure is a complex process. It requires the IT service department to get its IT
staff trained on the cloud technology. The IT staff members need to understand the cloud computing first.
They need to get familiar with new ideas, new concepts, new devices, new software, new architecture,
and new terminologies. The implementation of the cloud-based IT infrastructure requires knowledge and
skills. The IT service department needs to make a decision on which cloud technology to use. Although
different types of cloud infrastructures have their own pros and cons, the choice of a cloud technology
has to be based on the requirements by a STEM education program. The IT service department needs
to conduct systematic analyses before making a decision. Before the implementation, The IT service
department may need to draft a logical design and conduct experiments to make sure the requirements
have been met. The long term effect is another factor that needs to be considered by the IT service people
so that they do not use a soon-out-of-date technology to implement the cloud infrastructure. Although
the cloud infrastructure allows instructors and students to remotely access computer resources through
the Internet, the IT service people need to address the compatibility issues. The cloud infrastructure may
not support all the Web browsers or other remote access mechanisms. The IT service department needs
to work on the compatibility of the new cloud infrastructure and the existing IT infrastructure. Using
virtual machines through the Internet may also generate some performance related issues.
Students, instructors, and administrators need to deal with an unfamiliar learning environment. In the
cloud-based learning environment, besides learning the course content, students are required to learn
about cloud computing. Leaning about the cloud infrastructure may require training and technical sup-
port for all the students. The extra time used for the training may reduce the time for students to learn
the course content. New ways will be used by the students to communicate with their fellow students
and with their instructors. In the new cloud-based learning environment, the teaching evaluation may
also be different. The evaluation questionnaire should be redesigned to reflect new teaching methods.
Measures should be implemented to make sure that the students can participate in the evaluation process.
There is no question that cloud computing will bring new ways of teaching and learning. This will
require instructors to learn more and stay up-to-date with the cloud technology. The instructors need to
renew their course materials to adopt the new environment. Lab manuals need to be rewritten to cover
cloud computing. Lab activities need to be redesigned so that the students can perform hands-on prac-
tice in the cloud environment. For the instructors, class management and student management will also
be different. To take advantage of the cloud infrastructure, collaboration activities will be redesigned.
The students will be regrouped. The responsibility of a student in the collaboration will be redefined.
The distribution of course materials will be done through different channels. The instructors need the
training on the cloud technology. In addition to course content, the instructors need to stay ahead of
xxvi
Preface
their students on the cloud technology. The students often relay on the instructors for troubleshooting
when there is a technical problem. The instructors and students also need to work together to overcome
difficulties carried by the new teaching environment.
Although the cloud-based learning environment is appealing at first, once implemented, many prob-
lems may come up due to less thoughtful designs. The administrators of an educational institution need
to pay attention to the planning and management of the migration from the traditional IT infrastructure.
They need to have a feasible strategy on the implementation of the cloud-based learning environment.
By common understanding, the cloud infrastructure can significantly reduce the IT expenditure. How-
ever, it may not be the case if the cloud infrastructure is not properly developed. The expenditure for
the long-term subscription of virtual machines from a public cloud provider may not be affordable for
many education institutions. On the other hand, the development of a private cloud requires a great deal
of initial cost. A well designed implementation plan and budget allocation are the key factors for suc-
cess. During the operation, cost control and security are the main tasks for the administrators to keep
track of. The Internet is often considered the weakest link for network security, and cloud computing
is established on top of the Internet. It is possible that the new cloud-based learning environment is
vulnerable to some security threats. The administrators need to make sure that the new cloud-based IT
infrastructure complies with the government regulations. Students’ privacy needs to be protected in the
cloud leaning environment. However, in the cloud-based learning environment, student data may not be
protected by the campus private firewall. In such a case, an educational institution loses the full control
of the student data, which may not be acceptable by many education agencies and governments.
THE ANSWERS
To help STEM programs successfully implement the cloud-based learning environment, this book
aims to provide some guidance and solutions to some commonly encountered problems. For readers
who are involved in cloud-based teaching and learning in STEM education, or who participate in cloud
infrastructure development to support STEM education, they can benefit from the ideas and solutions
provided by the book. This book presents the reader some firsthand experience in cloud infrastructure
implementation and actual classroom teaching so that the reader can better understand cloud computing
and its application.
For administrators who are looking for strategies and practices to establish a cloud infrastructure, this
book provides reports that summarize the trend and current status of using cloud computing in STEM
education. Readers can learn from both the success and difficulty summarized by the authors of the
book. This book includes strategies for developing a successful cloud infrastructure to support teaching,
learning, and research in STEM areas. It shows the planning on the adoption of the cloud infrastructure
for STEM education. It provides strategies for dealing with the dramatic change in pedagogy. Some tips
on cost reduction are also included. This book illustrates the ways of migration from the traditional IT
infrastructure to the cloud infrastructure. For administrators, security issues are discussed as the high-
est priority that they should pay attention to. Two of the chapters in this book are devoted to security
issues related to cloud applications in STEM Education. Measures are proposed to protect cloud-based
applications and student information.
For readers who are responsible for implementing the cloud infrastructure, this book provides several
chapters that cover the different aspects of cloud infrastructure development. These chapters discuss
xxvii
Preface
issues related to cloud infrastructure implementation, from the design to the deployment of a cloud
infrastructure. Several research studies related to teaching STEM subjects in the cloud-based learning
environment are included in this book. To help readers understand the technical foundation of the cloud
infrastructure, this book has a few chapters that provide the first hand experience on the construction
of a private cloud and the subscription of cloud services from public cloud providers. It introduces the
architecture of Cloud Computing for Education (CCE). It also introduces the cloud learning platform and
several tools used to enhance cloud-based teaching and learning. For the STEM online IT education, this
book includes a chapter on a Cloud-based Laboratory. This book also addresses network issues related to
cloud infrastructure construction. A context-aware cloud-based Personal Learning Environment (PLE)
architecture is proposed to show the benefits of the cloud infrastructure on resource sharing. For cost
reduction, this book illustrates how to utilize the cloud-based social media as a learning management
system (LMS). It also includes an open source based private cloud infrastructure.
For the readers who are planning to teach STEM courses in the cloud infrastructure, this book
provides several chapters which cover the use of different cloud technologies to teach subjects such
as math and biology. It provides case studies that deal with the real world challenge in implementing
cloud-based teaching and learning. By studying these case studies, readers can avoid making the same
mistakes. Several chapters in this book illustrate how teaching and research can benefit from the cloud
infrastructure. This book demonstrates how teaching and learning can be conducted successfully on
a private cloud. It also illustrates how to engage students in conducting data analysis. For developing
strong practical skills, an open source cloud simulator is introduced in this book to enhance hands-on
learning. In this book, an author demonstrates the use of cloud-based screencasts for improving math
learning. Cloud-based mobile learning is also discussed in this book, demonstrating how to deal with
various challenges in cloud mobile learning. Cloud computing has been used by an author to promote
the interdisciplinary study in information science and I-school.
This book provides multiple chapters that deal with the evaluation of cloud-based learning in STEM
education. Readers can find several evaluation methods for cloud-based learning. They can also gain
information from the feedback of the instructors and students. The feedback can be used as guidance for
readers who want to develop their own cloud-based learning environment. The authors have provided
some lessons learned from the inquiry-based learning on the cloud. The effectiveness issues in cloud-
based teaching and learning are also addressed. The effectiveness analysis is applied to the cloud-based
multimedia solutions. The Continuous Formative Assessment (CFA) technique is introduced for evaluat-
ing student understanding to optimize STEM teaching and learning. Through a case study, a cloud-based
assessment model is introduced to investigate student perceptions of a cloud learning environment. A
feasibility study is discussed on evaluating the IaaS service in the computing and library services of
a UK university. Topics such as the negative impact of cloud computing and the situation awareness
learning are also discussed in the book.
In summary, the book provides various solutions to combat the challenges raised in cloud-based
teaching and learning. When developing a cloud-based IT infrastructure to support teaching and research,
readers can find case studies that are useful to help them apply the cloud technology to the enhancement
of their own teaching and learning. From the lessons learned, readers can avoid making the same mis-
takes. They can find plenty of tools and the usage of the tools to create cloud-based teaching materials.
They can also find a number of security measures to protect their student data and cloud infrastructure.
xxviii
Preface
TARGET AUDIENCE
In general, this book is for students, instructors, IT professionals, researchers, and administrators who
are involved in the development cloud-based teaching and learning in STEM education. The book is
designed for readers who want to get a quick start on developing cloud-based STEM courses. It can
help instructors make teaching and learning more efficient with cloud computing. Based on the experi-
ence learned, the instructors can avoid some shortfalls when developing their own course materials.
The book can help decision makers to understand the cost and benefit of the cloud-based learning en-
vironment. It provides them with information on how to reduce the cost of running a STEM education
institution. It can also help education institutions to improve the availability, security, and affordability
of STEM education. It is useful for people who are planning the switch from the existing traditional IT
infrastructure to a cloud-based infrastructure. Particularly, IT service staff can benefit from this book
which covers the strategies and practice on the construction of the cloud infrastructure. Students can
also benefit from this book where they can find case studies on class discussions and term projects. By
learning in a cloud environment, students can familiarize themselves with cloud computing and adjust
their learning behavior accordingly.
ORGANIZATION OF THE BOOK
Twenty five chapters are included in this book. The chapters are categorized into five main sections:
Trends and Advances of Cloud-based Teaching and Learning, Development of Education Cloud Platform,
Teaching and Learning in the Cloud Environment, Security and Access Control in Cloud Computing, and
Management and Evaluation of Classes Supported by Cloud Platform. The following briefly describes
the chapters included in each section.
Section 1: Trends and Advances of Cloud-based Teaching and Learning. Three chapters are included
in this section. These chapters describe the big picture of cloud-based STEM education. This sec-
tion discusses the adoption of the cloud infrastructure in STEM education, the dramatic changes
in pedagogy, and the establishment of a cloud portfolio system.
Chapter 1 gives advice on how to strategically plan for the use of cloud computing services and how to
identify, weigh and assess various factors in decision-making. Just as with e-learning when it was found
at the end of the 1990s that purely online technological approaches were not as effective as pedagogical
models (blended learning) which took into account human factors such as student motivation, teacher
training, technological illiteracy, etc., the author suggests that a holistic technology adoption process
that includes needs assessment and stakeholder engagement will be the most successful.
Chapter 2 considers cloud computing as a technology enabler for STEM education, and it discusses
how it requires dramatic changes in pedagogy in order to ensure that STEM education is relevant, useful,
and effective in the digital world.
Chapter 3 defines and categorizes c-portfolio; it addresses issues and challenges faced by c-portfolio’s
implementation in higher education.
xxix
Preface
Section 2: Development of Education Cloud Platform. This section includes seven chapters. The chapters
in this section focus on the cloud infrastructure construction.
Chapter 4 describes the architecture of Cloud Computing for Education (CCE), which includes a
number of steps for adopting and implementing cloud computing. To implement this architecture, the
chapter outlines an open framework that can be used as a guidance towards successful adoption and
implementation of cloud computing.
Chapter 5 presents a solution that is based on private cloud computing and can be used to build a
laboratory and learning environment for a variety of online hands-on IT courses including Wireless
System, IP Telephony and Server Application.
Chapter 6 aims at explaining the transport layer limitations, an overview of how we arrived at the
computing systems.
Chapter 7 investigates a possible replacement for many features typically associated with the learning
management system (LMS) with social media. STEM learning may be especially enhanced through the
use of social networking service (SNS) as LMS.
In Chapter 8, the authors present a learning platform that is capable of orchestrating learning activi-
ties through Web interoperability with Web 2.0 tools. This interoperability is realized through advanced
Semantic Web technologies such as JSON-LD and Hydra, and a specialized architecture to automatically
recognize, process, and use the tools’ Web APIs.
In Chapter 9, a context-aware cloud-based PLE architecture is proposed, which is driven by a Context-
Aware Engine to acquire, filter, and interpret context information based on the preferences defined in
user profile, where cloud computing is taken as service infrastructure. An illustrative personal learning
scenario is investigated to demonstrate the proof of concept implementation.
Chapter 10 focuses on cloud-based online teaching infrastructure created with free and open source
cloud computing. It provides some strategies in developing various cloud-based computer labs for hands-
on practice required by IT courses. A case study is used to illustrate the use of the free and open source
cloud technology in STEM education.
Section 3: Teaching and Learning in the Cloud Environment. This section includes six chapters. It pro-
vides research studies on the cloud-based teaching and learning in STEM education.
Chapter 11 discusses the motivation behind leveraging the cloud for STEM based higher education.
The authors use the case study approach and examine two cases. This chapter examines best practices
that are involved in developing cloud-based learning systems, progressive delivery mechanisms for course
presentations, setting up the required cloud infrastructure, and the operational use of the entire system.
The authors aim to give researchers and developers deeper insights into the development of successful
private cloud-based STEM-based educational offerings.
Chapter 12 presents the justification for utilizing whole-class data analysis as an important aspect of
the Computer Supported Collaborative Science (CSCS) pedagogy and demonstrates how it aligns with
the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS). The authors conclude that the components of CSCS
whole-class data analysis help constitute a pedagogical model for teaching that functionally shifts the
focus of science teaching from cookbook data collection to pooled data analysis, resulting in deeper
understanding.
xxx
Preface
In Chapter 13, a hands-on learning approach is proposed for developing strong practical skills, consid-
ering an essential element of this approach - the use of cloud simulators. A survey of open source cloud
simulators is provided, presenting an exhaustive comparison of the existing alternatives and determining
an appropriate set of criteria to decide the best simulator for each learning objective. Two examples of
hands-on contents are presented using these simulators.
In Chapter 14, screencasts are discussed from a pedagogical and curriculum perspective using student
feedback statistics as data. Specifically, screencasts offer a teaching resource that has value for many
traditionally difficult groups of students. The author concludes with some observations of how the overall
learning environment might be improved in the context of undergraduate mathematics.
Chapter 15 introduces the evolution of cloud-based m-learning, benefits and characteristics of cloud-
based m-learning. It also canvasses the current scenario of m-learning utilizing the cloud, various chal-
lenges for implementing the m-learning system on the cloud. It further confers technologies used for
cloud-based m-learning. It also discusses some methods of creating m-learning content and experiences.
The authors conclude with a brief discussion on the future aspects of cloud-based m-learning.
Chapter 16 describes the virtualization technology which provides a remote accessibility of hardware,
software, IT resources, as well as application packages. Information schools or the information field
not only get information support from the cloud but also other technology support for virtualization.
Advanced information services are positively possible to gain up with cloud supported technologies.
Section 4: Security and Access Control in Cloud Computing. This section includes two chapters. This
section deals with the important security issues in the cloud learning environment.
Chapter 17 presents a comprehensive overview and a comparative analysis of security methods of

cloud applications in STEM education; it introduces a new methodology that will enforce cloud comput-
ing security against breaches and intrusions.
Chapter 18 aims to help cloud learning (CL) stakeholders in STEM education (namely cloud service
providers, cloud content providers, and cloud users) to better understand the security issues inherent in
CL from the perspectives of confidentiality, integrity, and availability. The discussions about the risks
that CL stakeholders in STEM education incur as a result of prevailing security threats and system
vulnerabilities will help those stakeholders to assess the cost effectiveness of security countermeasures.
Section 5: Management and Evaluation of Classes Supported by Cloud Platform. This section includes
seven chapters. This section provides evaluation methodologies on various aspects of cloud-based
teaching and learning.
Chapter 19 addresses some effectiveness issues in the cloud-based teaching and learning process by
introducing a European initiative called weSPOT (Working Environment with Social, Personal and Open
Technologies for Inquiry-based Learning) for supporting and enhancing inquiry-based learning in STEM
education via a cloud-based inquiry toolkit. The chapter presents evidence of using this toolkit in a case
study that investigates how a secondary education community of students/co-learners selects information
sources on the web and identifies factors associated with the reliability of information sources during
their collaborative inquiry (co-inquiry) project in online environments.
Chapter 20 introduces and explains Continuous Formative Assessment (CFA) techniques and pro-
vides preliminary research pertaining to the effectiveness of CFA instructional strategies in promoting
xxxi
Preface
student accountability, metacognition, and engagement in STEM courses. It also suggests avenues for
future research.
Chapter 21 provides an auto ethnographic example to enhance student supervision at a distance using
education technologies. This chapter presents a journal-like case-study perspective to show academics
and teachers everywhere how utilizing freely available online software might improve the effectiveness
of the supervisory experience.
Chapter 22 describes a New Zealand Polytechnic based success story which utilised a multi-method
approach to investigate student perceptions of a cloud assessment learning environment. The learning
environment factors that are examined in this chapter include progress monitoring, cloud tools (i.e. Google
Docs), feedback, cloud storage, technology preference, student achievement, and student engagement.
This chapter not only describes this unique learning environment, it also provides a clear insight into
student perceptions of the cloud assessment learning environment.
Chapter 23 reports an investigation of Information Technology (I.T.) enablement for a Higher Edu-
cation Institution (HEI), with focus on the feasibility of Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) using Cloud
Computing. A pragmatist - mixed-methods research approach was followed to establish the Feasibility
Study, which included the potential IaaS risks and benefits for a HEI such as the Computing & Library
Services of a UK university. An analysis of the advantages and disadvantages, as well as a legal, social,
operational and Service Level Agreement (SLA) discussion are provided. Furthermore, the authors
outline the potential impact on the institution’s employment. Based on the Feasibility Study, the authors
recommend a list of selection criteria and evaluation methods that could be regarded as the basis for a
future IaaS Cloud decision model for HEIs.
Chapter 24 presents a media studies interpretation of the impact of Cloud communication technolo-
gies on traditional academic achievement. The authors state that, because new technologies in education
are driven by commercial interests, its pedagogical value becomes secondary resulting in what social
media and other critics view as the dumbing down of the American student. Given the analysis of me-
dia communication technologies’ impact on education, the authors then offer a possible way out of the
current situation by proposing a more human factors approach towards Cloud technologies based on
constructivist educational and cognitive styles theory.
In Chapter 25, the authors present the first theoretical and applicative results that the Italian scien-
tific community has achieved as part of the research lines that revolve around the concept of Situation
Awareness (SA).
Lee Chao
University of Houston – Victoria, USA
xxxii
Section 1
Trends and Advances of
Cloud-Based Teaching and
Learning
1
Chapter 1
Strategic Planning for
Cloud Computing Adoption
in STEM Education:
Finding Best Practice Solutions
Alan S. Weber
Weill Cornell Medical College in Qatar, Qatar
ABSTRACT
This chapter describes effective strategic analysis and implementation methods for the adoption of cloud
computing services (infrastructure, platforms, and software) in Science, Technology, Engineering, and
Mathematics (STEM) education. The benefits of cloud computing, including lower costs, scalability and
virtualization capabilities, have been recognized and adopted by major educational, governmental and
research institutions internationally during the last five years. However, the term ‘cloud computing’ was
only recently clarified in 2011 in the NIST’s standard definition published by Mell and Grance (2012) as
“a model for enabling ubiquitous, convenient, on-demand network access to a shared pool of configurable
computing resources (e.g., networks, servers, storage, applications, and services) that can be rapidly
provisioned and released with minimal management effort or service provider interaction.” Despite the
increasing clarity in defining cloud computing, the deployment models can be complex, encompassing
hybrid, public, community and private cloud frameworks, all with varying levels of privacy, security,
and trust. Data format, integrity, and portability as well as geographical server location represent ad-
ditional factors that educational institutions must weigh when they consider adopting a cloud solution
for their educational needs. The chapter provides advice on how to strategically plan for the use of cloud
computing services and how to identify, weigh and assess the various factors in decision-making. Just as
with e-learning when it was found at the end of the 1990s that purely online technological approaches
were not as effective as pedagogical models (blended learning) which took into account human factors
such as student motivation, teacher training, technological illiteracy, etc., the author suggests that a
holistic technology adoption process that includes needs assessment and stakeholder engagement will
be the most successful.
DOI: 10.4018/978-1-4666-9924-3.ch001
Copyright © 2016, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited.

Strategic Planning for Cloud Computing Adoption in STEM Education
INTRODUCTION In each of these targeted areas, cloud computing

has a role to play, as outlined in the discussion be-
Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math- low. In this chapter, selected examples and analysis
ematics (STEM) education has been the focus of are used to demonstrate the current capabilities
recent interest in the federal government in the and potential of cloud computing in STEM edu-
last decade, including the White House and U.S. cation. Some of the pitfalls and potential harms
Department of Education. The 2013 Federal Sci- and risks associated with using these technologies
ence, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics are also highlighted to provide potential adopters
(STEM) Education 5-Year Strategic Plan issued with a balanced view of benefit/risk scenarios.
by the National Science and Technology Council Although there are a number of currently available
(Committee on STEM Education) identified five technology adoption and technology acceptance
key STEM education investment areas: models, such as Davis, Bagozzi, and Warshaw’s
Technology Acceptance Model (David et al.,
• Improve STEM Instruction: Prepare 1989; Davis, 1989) later modified with Venkatesh
100,000 excellent new K-12 STEM teach- (2000) as TAM2 and again by Venkatesh et al.
ers by 2020, and support the existing (2003) as the Unified Theory of Acceptance
STEM teacher workforce; and Use of Technology (UTAUT)–they are dif-
• Increase and Sustain Youth and Public ficult to apply to real world technology adoption
Engagement in STEM: Support a 50 per- scenarios. The UTAUT model, for example, has
cent increase in the number of U.S. youth over 40 variables explaining decision-making and
who have an authentic STEM experience subsequent behavior of new technology adopters.
each year prior to completing high school; This chapter takes a common sense and practical
• Enhance STEM Experience of approach to cloud computing technology adop-
Undergraduate Students: Graduate one tion by identifying key factors in the process of
million additional students with degrees in selecting infrastructure, platforms, and services.
STEM fields over the next 10 years; Cloud computing within STEM degree grant-
• Better Serve Groups Historically Under- ing institutions is unique, since cloud technologies
Represented in STEM Fields: Increase comprise a set of tools and a domain of knowledge
the number of students from groups that that not only facilitate the production of knowledge
have been underrepresented in STEM in other fields of study, but also represent an area
fields that graduate with STEM degrees of research and discovery in their own right allied
in the next 10 years and improve women’s with each STEM discipline; for example, basic
participation in areas of STEM where they and pure sciences (information theory, physics),
are significantly underrepresented; technology (all aspects of cloud computing),
• Design Graduate Education for engineering (computer engineering, computer
Tomorrow’s STEM Workforce: Provide architecture, Internet infrastructure, networking)
graduate-trained STEM professionals with and mathematics (algorithms, chip logic, etc.).
basic and applied research expertise, op- The main STEM educational areas in which cloud
tions to acquire specialized skills in areas computing can have a serious impact are:
of national importance, mission-critical
workforce needs for the CoSTEM agen- 1. Administration: Many educational adminis-
cies, and ancillary skills needed for success trative tasks and functions can be migrated to
in a broad range of careers. (CoSTEM, cloud services, most notably email, database
2013, pp. vii-viii). storage, and analytics. A common platform
2

can simplify tasks and reduce complexity tailed in nature (Weber, 2013b, pp. 401-402;
and enhance interoperability between depart- Weber 2013a). Some of the records systems
ments and units. described above are not new; for example,
2. Virtual Laboratories: Computer model- campus-wide integrated computer records
ing of large and complex systems can be systems on in-house main frame comput-
extremely processing intensive in the fields ers have been available since the 1970s. In
of theoretical physics, cosmology, climate fact, many of these legacy systems are still
modeling, etc. or any field that makes use running and viable and the large mainframe
of 3D visualization or graphic or satellite computer is still ubiquitous in business and
images such as geography and the earth education. In the early days of cloud com-
sciences, for example. Also physics and puting development, many unsubstantiated,
engineering virtual learning laboratories commercially-motivated statements were
that mimic digital or analog sensors and made by technology companies that cloud
measurements can use considerable comput- computing would be vastly superior to the
ing resources. Cloud computing provides mainframe ecosystem and solve all of an
scalability (on-demand resource allocation) institution’s computing needs, i.e. ‘hype.’
to meet changing demands in research and Thus cloud adopters should seriously con-
teaching based on faculty and researcher sider whether a mature, stable and working
needs. Thus, unneeded specialized hardware system such as an onsite data center might
or software is not left over after grant periods meet institutional needs better than a cloud
end or if an institution changes its curricula. solution.
3. Educational Online Platforms: These 4. Professional Workplace: Cloud comput-
include Learning Management Systems ing has become an increasing feature of
(LMSs), Course Management Systems the professional workplace outside of the
(CMSs), and routine educational activities. academic environment. Many professionals
This area is where cloud computing has had are expected to be fluent in the use of online
its most significant impact on education in collaborative tools for creating and sharing
the form of free and low cost hosted services work documents and large file storage or
such as email, social networking style tools transfer tools such as Dropbox.com or similar
for communication (chat or bulletin board) services. Familiarity with cloud technologies
and collaboration, spreadsheets, or mobile as a student can translate to a better school
apps in which data processing occurs on to workplace transition and contributes to
remote cloud servers. Educational tools in greater general student computer literacy.
addition can be seamlessly integrated into
management tools, i.e. student records,
library records, student services, and reg- BACKGROUND: LEARNING
istration. However, privacy and security of AND MANAGEMENT BENEFITS
data, specifically student-generated online OF CLOUD COMPUTING FOR
behaviors that are tracked and monitored EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS
to create consumer profiles, are an area of
concern if the cloud vendor reserves the The definition of cloud computing of the National
right to collect these data, since the types Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) is
of data collected by public cloud firms have widely accepted: cloud computing is “a model
become increasingly personal and highly de- for enabling ubiquitous, convenient, on-demand
3

network access to a shared pool of configurable hard drive space, and computers left on and unat-
computing resources (e.g., networks, servers, tended in offices. The greatest advantage of cloud
storage, applications, and services) that can be computing for educational institutions is that the
rapidly provisioned and released with minimal institution only pays for the services that it uses,
management effort or service provider interac- and these can be modified rapidly to respond to
tion” (Mell & Grance, 2012). On-demand services changing needs (on-demand provisioning).
are available at the infrastructure, platform, and The scalability of cloud computing allows
software level. These technologies rely on virtual- institutions to rapidly introduce large scale cpu-
ization in which logical resources at the software intensive research projects and learning systems,
level can be configured to act like hardware for including virtual labs, without the lengthy process
creating a virtual machine (VM). This means that of needs assessment, sourcing, and approval and
very different operating systems can co-function purchase of costly hardware. The cloud vendor
on the same system (multitenancy), and that tasks normally maintains the hardware (remote data
can be scheduled efficiently with maximized and centers), takes care of updating software and
optimal resource use using a software device called fixing bugs, and maintaining data security and
a ‘hypervisor’ that acts as a router, gatekeeper, backups, which reduces institutional IT costs.
scheduler, or overall system manager. The hypervi- Many vendors offer analytical services and con-
sor opportunistically seeks out idle resources for sultation services as well that can be calculated
provisioning. These resources can be scattered into services packages. Cloud technologies can
across the globe, and the autonomous nature of capture large amounts of user-generated data and
decision-making can pose serious problems in runtime logs (large data sets, known as ‘Big Data’)
identifying where data resides at any particular that are useful for planning and optimization of
moment and how secure it is. systems, including human-computer interfaces.
Many valid arguments have been advanced Mayer-Schönberger’s and Cukier’s recent popular
for the superiority of cloud computing over the book Big Data: A Revolution that Will Transform
stand-alone desk top computing and in-house data How We Live, Work, and Think (2013) illustrated
center models. Since cloud companies run 24/7 the potential for big data to aid business analysis
under constant vigilance, and opportunistically (airline ticket prices), biomedicine (flu trends
seek the most efficient load balancing and task tracked by Google search engine searches) and
distribution, they are inherently more efficient, an many other areas of human activity.
important consideration as institutions are moving
towards green building and operations policies.
Economic efficiencies and energy savings are also PRIMARY CONCERNS IN
a major concern of all large institutions. Koomey CHOOSING A CLOUD PLATFORM,
estimated in 2010 that between 1.1% - 1.5% of SERVICES, AND SOFTWARE
total global electricity usage could be traced to
data centers (2011). Most major cloud companies Issues, Controversies, Problems
such as Microsoft Azure, Amazon.com EC2, and
Salesforce.com have achieved an approximately Engaging All Stakeholders
98-99% availability rate, making resources highly
reliable and available when they are needed. Every The author has witnessed in his varied career
educational institution constantly battles with working in robotics, technical writing, education,
unused hardware, rapid obsolescence, unused and journalism the devastating effects of computer
4

technology purchases that were made without costs are lower. Servers may simply be located in
consultation with the users and managers of those specific geographic regions for closer access to
technologies. Problems with technology use can point of service, or multiple backups may co-exist
often be foreseen based on existing workflows. in different regions making a particular dataset
This has been a very common scenario since more readily available when it is needed for pro-
computer technology became a standard feature cessing, also guarding against central catastrophic
of the professional workplace in the 1970s and hardware failure. These facts introduce the difficult
80s. Some of the reasons for unnecessary and question of legal jurisdiction. Data residing in a
inappropriate purchases of technology are rooted physical geographical location logically would be
in lack of interdepartmental communication, lack subject to that country’s data regulatory regime,
of employee voice and decision-making in the including data privacy. Migrating data from a
workplace, or competition between institutional country with strict data privacy laws to one with
divisions (‘siloing’ or ‘territorialism’). more lax regulations might violate an institution’s
In the case of very new and emerging technolo- internal data policies or statutory requirements
gies like cloud computing, institutional decision such as maintaining the privacy of student records
makers may be vulnerable to clever salespersons under the Federal Family Educational Rights and
who may play on their insecurities about rapidly Privacy Act (FERPA) in the U.S. or another na-
developing technology. Such tactics include creat- tion’s data retention and destruction laws. Also,
ing fears that the educational institution will be ‘left will the nature of the data and the data transfer
behind’ in the technology advancement game, with conform to the local laws of the new jurisdiction
loss of status, funding and eventually students; or in which it resides? These issues have sparked an
they may convince purchasers they are not keeping ongoing dispute between Google, Facebook, and
up to date, and not providing standard tools that Apple (who all offer hosted services in Europe)
students will need for the future workplace. And and the European Union’s Justice Commissioner
as with all salespersons, they often overstate the Viviane Reding, who is concerned that these
capabilities of their product. Fortunately, both technology companies’ data protection policies
determining the real needs of an institution and violate European privacy protection rules.
engaging educational stakeholders can be easily For example, biomedical research data, or
accomplished with the standard strategies used in patient and health data, may need stricter privacy
social sciences research such as public meetings, controls since research may be regulated and
questionnaires, focus groups and interviews: not covered by the Health Insurance Portability and
only does management gain valuable insight into Accountability Act (HIPAA) which regulates
the potential barriers and road blocks to the actual protected health information (PHI) in a strict
use of the technology in that institution (including manner. Also, there may be strict confidentiality
policy and legal challenges), but stakeholders feel requirements for researchers undertaking Human
more invested in the final technological solution Subjects Research (HSR) in collecting, storing
and will be more willing to help it succeed. and analyzing computer-based data on humans
as governed by Institutional Review Boards
Regulatory / Legal Framework (IRBs)–also known as Ethical Review Boards
(ERBs) and Research Ethics Boards (REBs)–as
Major cloud vendors often own servers which mandated by Code of Federal Regulations: Title 45
are physically located in many different parts of Public Welfare Department of Health and Human
the world. They may wish to process and store Services Part 46 Protection of Human Subjects.
information in countries where electricity or labor
5

Privacy data on its servers, it may engage in various forms

of traffic or log analysis which might easily reveal
Many technology companies who offer cloud private information such as an individual’s cur-
services simultaneously collect large amounts rent geospatial location or their actual identity.
of user generated data about Internet behaviors, Potential cloud adopters should strongly consider
such as buying patterns, websites visited, friends seeking external disinterested professional advice
networks, and email and telephone contacts, all on potential privacy threats and mitigation strate-
for targeted behavioral marketing. Compiling gies when considering migrating any potentially
these data into profiles and analyzing it provides protected private, sensitive or confidential student,
valuable information that corporations can use faculty or employee data to the cloud.
for advertizing and other commercial purposes.
A prime example is Google Apps for Education, Data Integrity: System Reliability,
a suite of educational productivity and learning Security, and Vendor Lock
tools, which includes one of its popular products In (Interoperability)
Gmail. Users of Gmail in the Apps for Educa-
tion package believed that their communications Institutions which are investigating cloud services
were not being automatically key-word scanned or platforms should be reasonably comfortable
to deliver targeted individualized advertisements that data will not be lost or corrupted, or that
to their computers. However, after a lawsuit in loss of services (outages) could detrimentally
2014, Google admitted that key-word scanning impact operations. For example, several serious
was occurring with all Gmail communications interruptions of Gmail occurred in 2009, lock-
even though users of Apps for Education believed ing businesses out of their email functionality.
that their communications were not being ana- Institutions should investigate what potential
lyzed; educational users were simply not served compensation or reimbursement might be avail-
advertisements. Thus educational users of Gmail able for outages, and what mitigation strategies
may have held a reasonable expectation of privacy the vendor employs to prevent these issues from
with respect to their academic activities. This may occurring. Also, contractually, what will happen
seem minor since email scanning is carried out to data if a cloud vendor closes, enters receiver-
by an algorithm and not a human agent, but it is ship, or ends a particular service – will the data
an important point since some communications be accessible to the client? Some categories of
in the academic environment (for example, email- data may be sold off as a business asset to another
ing student grades, or alerting student services company if a vendor declares bankruptcy, so it
to a student behavioral problem) may be subject is in the best interests of educational institutions
to FERPA or the The Protection of Pupil Rights to clarify any data ownership concerns at the
Amendment (PPRA) prohibiting information dis- beginning of service. Similar to the problem of
closure to a third party without a consent process, data traversing different territorial jurisdictions,
the third party being Google corporation. some cloud processes may migrate data from
Privacy is an extremely complex issue in cloud more secure to less secure environments where
computing. For example, simply combining dif- it would be vulnerable to attack.
ferent kinds of anonymized data may introduce a As Gritzalis et al. (2014) argued in a recent
privacy threat, i.e. aggregation, that would identify special issue of the International Journal of Infor-
a single user, hence rendering each of the previ- mation Security, cloud computing entails placing
ously disparate elements also identifiable. And trust in a vendor’s security system as well as other
although a cloud vendor may agree not to access forms of trust, and centralizing data makes cloud
6

datasets profitable targets for data thieves. Data The NCCoE in partnership with Intel is de-
typically reside on a cloud server unencrypted. veloping Trusted Geolocation in the Cloud, a
Thus, new security practices in the cloud indus- tamper-proof automated ‘hardware root of trust’
try are imperative: “The whole IT infrastructure that would test for hardware integrity and man-
is under the control of the cloud provider, and age workloads among cloud servers only within
the clients have to trust the security protection defined locations. The NIST also introduced a
mechanisms that the cloud and the service pro- trusted geolocation draft framework in the cloud
viders offer. At the same time, the centralization framework for IaaS in 2012 (Banks et al., 2012).
of resources constitutes the cloud provider a very
tempting target. The cloud computing technology The Service Level Agreement
is evolving rapidly, and the security and privacy
protection mechanisms must keep this quick pace Many of the issues above could be solved by cus-
in order to support the acceptance of the cloud tomized contracts and service level agreements
model. New security solutions are required, while (SLAs) in which customer concerns could be
well-established practices must be revisited” adequately addressed. However, a recent review
(Gritzalis et al., 2014, p. 95). Pearson (2013) notes of cloud computing contracts demonstrates that
additionally that “it is a common requirement there is little variation in the standard contracts
under the law that if a company outsources the offered (Srinivasan, 2014, p. 120). Most cloud
handling of personal information or confidential services are purchased online with a credit card
data to another company, it has some responsibil- using the standard click-through process after a
ity to make sure the outsourcer uses ‘reasonable purchaser reads the Terms of Service online. Also,
security’ to protect those data” (p. 12). according to Hon et al. (2012), there is little incen-
The National Cybersecurity Center of Ex- tive for cloud providers to alter terms of service
cellence (NCCoE) has identified several major for anyone except a major customer. Srinivasan’s
security and privacy issues with cloud computing (2014) review of cloud contracting is helpful in
related to the physical location and transfer of delineating the serious concerns that cloud adopt-
data. A cloud client would need to be assured that: ers may encounter with a vendor. For example,
clauses in SLAs can be linked to terms of service
• The cloud computing platform hosting on the vendor’s website and many cloud vendors
their workload has not been modified or such as Google reserve the right to change terms of
tempered, service without notifying customers, which could
• Sensitive workloads on a multi-tenancy void certain specially negotiated SLA terms. Some
cloud platform are isolated within a logi- advances have been made in automating the SLA
cally defined environment from the work- adoption process (Cuomo et al., 2013, pp. 1-25).
loads of competing companies,
• Workload migration occurs only between
trusted clusters and within trusted data SOLUTIONS AND
centers, RECOMMENDATIONS
• Cloud servers are located in their preferred
regions or home countries so that the cloud The adoption of institution-wide cloud computing
provider is subject to the same data secu- solutions–whether at the level of infrastructure,
rity and privacy laws” (NCCoE, n.d., p. 1; platform, or software–is obviously a highly person-
2013, pp. 2-5). alized decision. Cloud computing is particularly
7

suited for STEM degree granting higher educa- cal advice on specific adoption and implementa-
tion institutions since these fields, as opposed to tion strategies. Ideally this would be automated,
humanities and many social sciences that rely on but the complete service selection process at the
qualitative data, have high throughput and high present time is too complex for artificially intel-
capability computing needs for research, modeling ligent agents, although progress has been made to
and virtual laboratories. Table 1 lists a number of automate sub routines such as service level agree-
practical steps which institutions might consider ments. Legal, political and social constraints need
following in their cloud technology adoption to be integrated with the factors of privacy, security
strategy. These steps are not necessarily in order and trust discussed above, and also the constraints
of importance or chronology, since institutions related to external vendors such as interoperability
will weigh different factors in different ways. of systems should be considered. Human factors
such as training, computer literacy, openness to
change, and individual investment in a particular
FUTURE RESEARCH DIRECTIONS cloud service, etc. also need to be considered. Due
to the proprietary nature of cloud technologies,
In the future, researchers would be better served it is extremely difficult to quantify and predict
with a technology adoption model with a theoreti- in today’s rapidly moving IT ecosystems what
cal component but which would also output practi- new products and services will emerge. Often,
Table 1. Summary of recommended steps towards safe and responsible cloud computing adoption in
STEM education (not necessarily in chronological order)
Key Steps
Conduct an exhaustive institution-wide needs assessment survey about cloud computing needs. Focus groups and online questionnaires
are effective. Stakeholders may first need to be educated about cloud computing capabilities via public presentations. Include all
stakeholders: students, faculty, staff, and administration.
Identify key areas where cloud computing will have a significant and measurable institutional impact (i.e. research, administration, course
management, etc.)
Determine what institution-wide training programs will be required to learn new cloud technologies and who will carry them out.
Assess complete current software, hardware, and IT personnel capabilities of the institution.
Create a transition team to move from in-house to cloud services, and a permanent management team. Identify the required skill set of
these teams.
Investigate compatibility of current system with cloud systems, including any potential shifts in cloud provisioning that might render
current in-house systems obsolete.
Consult with legal experts about national and international laws on data, particularly highly protected data categories such as health
information, financial information, student records and data on under-13 years of age. Determine from the cloud vendor the geographical
jurisdiction(s) in which data will reside and obtain copies of the data laws of those territories. Cloud vendors may not be willing or able
to supply this information for technical and security reasons.
Test the network and determine required upload, download (data transfer) speeds for optimal performance.
Identify all sensitive data that would present significant risk to the institution if leaked or destroyed. Common categories include: school
records, patentable material / intellectual property, health data, ground breaking research, military research, human subjects research,
institutional / departmental financial documents and personnel or student files containing large amounts of personally identifiable
information. Conduct worst case scenario testing to gauge potential institutional damage (punitive fines, legal action, loss of reputation
of institution). Some data may not be appropriate for the public cloud. These data can be held in-house or in cloud structures in which
security and access are completely controlled by the institution (‘private clouds’).
If possible, negotiate a comprehensive contract and Service Level Agreements with a reputable cloud vendor that meets the needs of the
institution.
8

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10

PHI: Protected health information, an es- TAM: Technology Acceptance Model, a model
pecially sensitive category of data protected by that attempts to understand how and why users
HIPAA and consisting of 18 identifiers. adopt a particular technology.
PPRA: The Protection of Pupil Rights Amend- TAM2: Modification of the Technology Ac-
ment of 1978 requires parental consent before ceptance Model (TAM).
sensitive PII is collected from students. UTAUT: Unified Theory of Acceptance and
Privacy: The ability of an individual or group Use of Technology, a social psychology model
to control or conceal information about themselves. used to explain why users adopt a particular tech-
Security: The protection of computer data and nology and their consequent behavior.
systems from theft, destruction, and alteration. Virtual Machine (VM): In full virtualization,
Service Level Agreement (SLA): A nego- a VM is a software emulation of a real machine.
tiable agreement in a contract between a service
provider and a service user.
11
12
Chapter 2
Cloud Computing as a Catalyst
for Change in STEM Education
John P. Sahlin
Coleman University, USA
Kim Lobera
Coleman University, USA
ABSTRACT
Cloud computing drives value to profit-centric businesses by establishing a utility computing model,
allowing companies to focus on their core business function rather than concern themselves with the
“plumbing” associated with technology infrastructure. How then, can this profit-centric model be ap-
plied to improve the delivery of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) education? Studies
indicate that students perform far better in the workplace if their education in technical fields is relevant,
current, and based on real-world scenarios (Pryor, 2014). If businesses are operating in the cloud,
STEM education must follow suit. While cloud computing is traditionally associated with profit-centric
organizations, this model has demonstrated benefits to non-profit and government organizations as well
in terms of reduction of enterprise costs and time to delivery of new products and services. Even when a
profit motive is non-existent (or at least not central to the mission of the organization), cloud computing
can be a catalyst to transformative improvements in the academic community. As organizations adopt
cloud computing, they must face changes in core business practices in order to take advantage of the
on-demand service, rapid elasticity, and broad network access associated with cloud computing (Mell &
Grance, 2011). Businesses must transform their business architecture in order to adopt this new technol-
ogy architecture effectively. In the same vein, educators must consider how their business processes (i.e.,
pedagogy) must change in order to adopt this technology. This chapter considers cloud computing as a
technology enabler for STEM education, and how it requires dramatic changes in pedagogy in order to
ensure that STEM education is relevant, useful, and effective in the digital world.
INTRODUCTION status of the United States, the populace must be

trained to meet workforce requirements. “Current
Trends in STEM education are directly related educational initiatives in science, technology,
to the currents needs in society. To ensure the engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education
DOI: 10.4018/978-1-4666-9924-3.ch002

Cloud Computing as a Catalyst for Change in STEM Education
are placing increased emphasis on the importance computing resources to end users based on demand
of engineering education for providing the skills (Mell & Grance, 2011). This model applies the
necessary for the 21st century” (Strimel, 2014, concept of the public utility (e.g., water, power)
p. 16). In response to societal needs, President to computing resources. Just as individuals do
Obama (2011) during a speech shared that “over not generally know how much infrastructure is
the next 10 years, with so many baby boomers necessary to power a light bulb, end users of
retiring from our classrooms, we want to prepare cloud computing platforms do not know or need
100,000 new teachers in the fields of science and to know about the infrastructure necessary to
technology and engineering and math” (State of provide computing power for their needs. Cloud
the Union, p. 1). In reaction to educational initia- computing is the latest in a trend of utility com-
tives and societal needs, movements have begun puting models that essentially dates from the
to promote the education of future generations. original models of distributed computing dating
In fact, “the Next Generation Science Standards from the 1960s (Sahlin, 2013). Cloud computing
and the National Assessment of Educational allows the consumer to focus on the business need
Progress’s Technology and Engineering Literacy rather than the underlying technology: consumers
Assessment promote the idea that citizens need to are not concerned with the number of servers or
be technology and engineering literate” (Strimel, switches, they only care that when they flip the
2014, p. 16). switch, they get light.
For the United States to stay competitive in Cloud computing in its current form started
the world, STEM related careers must be pro- primarily as a model for reducing capital expen-
moted. The results of properly promoting STEM ditures necessary to build traditional data centers
education will have positive effects in the U.S. and evolved from the Application Service Provider
for generations to come. The results of a study (ASP) industry from the late 1990s and early
performed by Maokler and Kim’s study (2014), 2000s (Sahlin, 2013). The original argument was
they found that “through student interaction with that small- and medium-sized companies would
role models, mentorship programs within higher be able to provide enterprise-class capabilities
education, career-linking program with industry, and service levels without multi-million dollar
and outreach programs” (p. 8) students would expenditures. This concept eventually evolved to
cultivate optimistic expectations toward STEM include multiple delivery models for cloud com-
related fields. In fact, they found that “students with puting. NIST officially recognizes four delivery
parents who work in STEM-related occupations models as described in Table 1 below.
were 1.5 times more likely to develop an outcome These current models have been recently
expectation to pursue STEM majors” (Maokler adapted based on business needs. The public model
& Kim, 2014, p. 8), hence, a multi-generational of usage-based pricing, on-demand resources, and
strategic educational plan geared toward posi- consumer self-service has become an attractive
tive STEM experiences and promotion of STEM model for business units with the need to execute
careers at all levels of education would greatly with speed and agility to stay ahead of their com-
benefit the United States status in the future. petition. As these offerings require little (if any)
capital investment, the control of IT spending has
Trends in Cloud Computing begun to shift away from the CIO and toward the
Business Unit General Managers who are willing
According to the U.S. National Institutes of Stan- and able to fund IT outsourcing via the cloud to
dards and Technology (NIST), cloud computing execute to their business needs faster than the
is a model for providing scalable and extensible traditional IT organization. This decentraliza-
13

Table 1. Features of cloud computing delivery models (adopted form Mell & Grance, 2011)
Delivery Model Features Utility Comparison Sample CSP Offerings

Public Cloud • Infrastructure provided entirely by a Public Power Utility • HP Helion
third party Cloud Service Provider (CSP) • Amazon Web Services, Elastic
• Changes to infrastructure and core Compute Cloud
applications controlled by CSP • Microsoft Azure, Office 365
• Consumer establishes demand for • Rackspace
system resources and controls business
rules for automation of resource
allocation
• Consumer only pays for actual usage
during service period
Hybrid Cloud • Infrastructure and applications provided Public Power supplemented by • HP Helion
by CSP and consumer both in CSP and solar panels • Amazon Web Services, Elastic
consumer premises Compute Cloud
• Control of changes to infrastructure • Microsoft Azure, Office 365
coordinated between CSP and consumer • Rackspace
• Consumer pays capital expense for
all infrastructure on premises as well as
usage from CSP infrastructure
Private Cloud • Consumer provides all infrastructure Power completely provided by • Internal infrastructures and
and applications on premises solar panels experiments
• Consumer pays for all capital • DoD Information Systems
expenditures Agency Rapid Application
• Consumer responsible for all Computing Environment
monitoring and maintenance activities
• Consumer IT Operations acts as CSP to
corporate
Community Cloud • Highly specialized public cloud Coop of multiple houses • Udacity
offering providing industry-specific sharing solar panels and wind • Khan Academy
solutions farm • Blackboard
• Same features as public cloud • Socrata.com
tion of IT spending is driving a proliferation of among multiple systems, only some of which are
public cloud services within an organization. under that organization’s control (INCOSE, 2012).
This proliferation of multiple CSPs providing Other trends in the cloud computing industry
service to an organization and interfacing into focus on the services provided. Initially, NIST
its IT resources, has driven IT organizations to only recognized four service models as shown
develop Cloud Brokerage and governance models in Table 2.
(Carroll, 2014). These models are necessary to Just as evolving business needs have driven
ensure a consistent business, data, and security changes in the cloud delivery models, the ser-
architecture across the organization to avoid ac- vice offerings provided by CSPs have changed
cidental data loss, spillage of sensitive information dramatically over the past five years. CSPs are
(e.g., personally identifiable information, trade now offering models such as Service Manage-
secrets), and issues of interoperability among ment, Security, and as cloud services. Rather
the multitude public and private infrastructures. than try to keep up with the next new thing, the
Cloud Brokerage has become a complex issue of cloud computing industry has begun to adopt the
systems engineering, requiring the organization Everything as a Service (XaaS) model (Burns,
to focus on the business and technology interfaces 2012). Indeed, this increasing comfort level with
14

Table 2. NIST cloud service models (adapted from Mell & Grance, 2011)
Service Model Features Examples

Software as a Service (Saas) • CSP provides all infrastructure and • Microsoft Office 365
applications • Salesforce.com
• Consumer access applications from
distributed network (e.g., Internet)
Platform as a Service (PaaS) • CSP provides all infrastructure, operating Google Application Engine
environment, and development platform/
common objects
• Consumer builds custom business
applications using development platform
and common objects
Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) • CSP provides all infrastructure (and • Amazon Web Services
possibly operating environment) • Microsoft Azure
• Consumer provides business applications • Rackspace
(purchased or built) that are hosted on CSP
infrastructure
Data Storage as a Service (DaaS) • CSP provides data storage infrastructure • Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud
• Consumer IT infrastructure interfaces • Carbonite
with CSP storage infrastructure
outsourcing services that were once considered the skills and expertise they need to succeed in
critical services are rapidly changing the nature their chosen field of study.
of how organizations are using technology to
meet their mission needs. More than ever, cloud Can Cloud Computing Be Used
computing is allowing organizations to focus their Effectively to Deliver STEM
Human Resource and financial assets on their core Education, Particularly in Higher
mission rather than building and maintain increas- Education for Adult Learners?
ingly complex technology infrastructures. An ad-
ditional benefit to organizations is the transition In order to proper address the effectiveness of cloud
of capital expenditure to operational expenditure, computing in delivering STEM education to adult
allowing an organization to invest in areas that learners, one smust first understand the difference
will directly drive business solutions and pay for between teaching to children (i.e. pedagogy) and
only the technology infrastructure they actually teaching to adults (i.e. andragogy). A major dif-
need at a point in time. ference between pedagogy and andragogy is that
This shift toward a capacity model of buying adult learners utilize their past experiences in the
technology services and focusing on the core learning process (Luna & Cullen, 2011, p. 41).
mission of an organization rather than investing Additionally, “adults are motivated to learn to the
heavily into cost centers that do not directly drive extent that they perceive that learning will help
business goals makes the cloud computing model them perform tasks or deal with problems that they
particularly attractive to education organizations. confront in their life situations” (Knowles, Holton,
Even schools with significant capital are com- & Swanson, 1973, p. 67). Cloud-based learning
pelled by the model of focusing their efforts (and supports the concept of andragogy methodologies,
investments) on ventures that directly relate to since “adults are the products of authentic life-long
their core mission: providing their students with experiences, and have the desire to gain increased
15

knowledge to face the tasks they encounter in offers learners an active learning environment sup-
their studies— and in life” (Ryan, 2001, p. 316). ported by web-based applications and an enhanced
The cloud-based learning methodology utilizes, learning processes that is supported on most
Ryan’s (2001) concept of the Online Collabora- electronic devices. This classroom environment
tive Model, which consists of the learner’s role is flexible and allows students to guide their own
being a self-paced internal problem-solver who learning process by working through the content
collaborates with fellow learners in a flexible at their own pace, allowing for enhanced learning
interdependent learning environment. through the social media model, and enhanced
Cloud computing has been used in the corporate collaboration through chat features (Weinstein,
world to find efficiency and to advance capabilities 2012). Kulturel-Konak, D’Allegro, and Dickinson,
beyond what would have been realized without (2011) performed a study on learner preferences of
their use. In the recent past, cloud computing has STEM and non-STEM students. The study found
been “leveraged to disseminate and scale web- that STEM students preferred hands-on materi-
based applications within and across learning als in their learning process (Kulturel-Konak et
contexts” (Stevenson & Hedberg, 2011, p. 321). al., 2011). “The research indicates that students
Hence, leveraging “emerging cloud computing employ different learning styles, regardless of
technology provides a compelling prospect for gender, and would benefit from different modes of
Institutions of Higher Learning to outsource their material dissemination” females (Kulturel-Konak
Information and Communications Technology et al, 2011, p. 6).
(ICT)” (Kihara & Gichoya, 2014, p. 1) to achieve
optimum educational outcomes. “Technology in
higher education has exploded within the last RELEVANCY IN STEM EDUCATION
decade, as educators, become more knowledge-
able about its uses and students become more STEM education is more relevant today than it ever
demanding of access and convenience to teaching has been in the past. Changes that have occurred
and learning” (Luna & Cullen, 2011, p. 40). In fact due to technology have precipitated the need for
“educational cloud computing services represent a lifelong learners. As a result, the concept of life-
growing variety of useful services available on the long learning has changed the nature of education
internet” (Ouahabi, Eddaoui, Labriji, Benlahmar, and society in general. Hence, students, qualified
& El Guemmat, 2014, p. 655) that promote student teachers, and teachers in training are responsible
autonomy in the learning process and result in a for appropriate strategies being deployed in the
shortening the amount of time it takes to teach classroom (Irving, 1999), so market needs are
the concepts (Yang, Xu, & Wang, 2014), since met with highly skilled workers in STEM related
students learn through self-discovery at their own fields. As a result, “the onus will be on individuals
pace and are actively pursuing knowledge. This to engage with learning throughout their lifetime
represents a major shift from previous educational as a means of coping with an ever-changing
models, which relied heavily on passive learning. employment and social world” (Irving, 1999, p.
This is counter to the Traditional Model in which 1). Since, sixty “percent of all jobs require skills
the student plays a more passive role and is led to with information technology, a percentage that
the knowledge by the instructor. has been increasing at a steady rate in recent
Cloud-based learning provides a high qual- years” (Trend, 2001, p. 29). It is imperative that
ity educational experiences for students (Yang, American’s education system at all levels should
Huang, Liu, Ni, Tong, & Gen, 2014). This model base instruction on the growing and future work-
16

force needs. This concept is supported by Trend To Remain Relevant, STEM Curricula
(2001) who that “we now inhabit a postindustrial Must Align with Current Needs
“information society” in which intangible goods
like images and ideas are the prime commodities, To remain relevant, STEM curricula must align
and people who can produce them represent the with current needs in the marketplace. Accord-
workforce of the future” ing to Brown (2014), “getting STEM education
right is one of the most important tasks facing the
Issues, Controversies, Problems U.S.” (p. 44). Unfortunately, there is a “diminish-
ing pool of STEM graduates with the expertise
One issue discussed by Kulturel-Konak et al., necessary to promote international economic and
(2011) was that “educational institutions tend to technological advancement” (Maokler & Kim,
focus on female under-representation as either 2014, p. 1). Similarly, “enrollment of women in
an issue of recruitment or retention” (p. 2) when science, technology, engineering, and mathemat-
it actually may be due to societal factors. These ics (STEM) majors is disproportionately small
factors could fall into the category of the fol- and declining” (Morganson, Jones, & Majors,
lowing: “stereotyping, traditional gender roles, 2010, p. 1). In order to address the gap between
inflexibility toward women with children, alien- academia and industry, it is important for tools
ation and many other factors” (Kulturel-Konak to be utilized in the education of STEM students.
et al., 2011, p. 1). Likewise, Kulturel-Konak et Hence, “it is extremely important for educators,
al., (2011) identified that “STEM courses tend to with the help of practioners, to increase the abil-
reflect the analytical approach that men tend to ity of both current and future… [students] to deal
embrace. This may create a barrier for women in effectively with computerization (Smith, Langley,
these fields” (p. 6). Unfortunately, “without more & Mundy, 1998, p. 2). “As technology improves
women in the workforce, the health and growth of and has greater impact on the conduct of business
information industries will suffer (Kulturel-Konak activities, gathering information about which
et al., 2011, p. 1). technologies and applications are popular among
Another issue was brought to light in a study educators in the design and delivery of college
performed by Morganson, Jones, and Majors curricula is of vital importance” (Ahadiat, 2008,
(2010), which determined the social coping skills p. 5). Hence, cloud-based learning is the answer
of females in STEM programs in order to bet- to the problem of aligning our curricula with the
ter understand their underrepresentation in the current market needs.
STEM fields. The result of the study was that
“women reported greater use of social coping Why Do STEM Graduates Not
than did men” (p. 3). It is important that school Work in STEM Fields?
counselors understand the barriers that females
in STEM fields experience, so they can better Many factors affect why STEM graduates do not
assist them with their unique needs (Morganson, work in STEM fields. Currently, “U.S. colleges
Jones, & Majors, 2010). Morganson, Jones, and and universities are graduating as many scientist
Majors (2010) also suggested that school coun- and engineers as ever before, but many of the best
selors should promote female STEM students students are going into other careers after school”
to broaden their support systems with academic (Brown, 2009, p. 1) mainly, since the jobs are
faculty, STEM organizational memberships, and “higher-paying and offer better career prospects
through professional networking. such as advancement, employment stability, and/
17

or prestige, as well as being less susceptible to fore, there is great value in skills-based educa-
offshoring” (Anonymous, 2010, p. 2). Likewise, tion, since theoretical education is insufficient to
“an interesting trend that is occurring is that meet current market needs. As a result of societal
American scientists and engineers are choosing changes and technological advances, “individu-
to work for small firms and start-ups as opposed als will be required to develop a range of skills,
to large corporations due to the personal fulfill- competencies, and sense of critical understanding
ment of being involved in the decision making about themselves, their world and the emergent
processes” (Gwynne, 2012, p. 1-2). So it appears labour market if they are to manage and traverse
that major factors effecting why STEM graduates uncertain futures” (Irving, 1999, p. 1). In our highly
are not working in STEM related jobs is simply competitive world, “higher-order skills may give
a matter of personal choice and the benefits of students the edge over their peers” (Puzziferro &
working in other fields. Shelton, nd, p. 123), so it behooves America to
implement skill-based learning, so future genera-
Graduates Do Not Have Skills tions will be capable of sustaining our economy
Needed to Compete in STEM Jobs and status in the world.
Skill-based education comes in many forms.
There is a disparity between what the current The “Open Educational Resources (OER) initia-
market requires and what graduates bring with tive is an initiative that allows the sharing of
them to the workforce. Training graduates for a “educational resources to the public domain with
technology-based workforce is a perplexing task open access” (Selviandro, Suryani, & Hasibuan,
for educators given the current rate of technological 2014, p. 542). An example of the utilization of OER
advancements and the skills necessary to operate would be the certification system MITx that Mas-
in an ever changing environment (Ahadiat, 2008). sachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) offers
“Well trained graduates are the cornerstones of our through its MOOC’s. The research by Ehiyazaryan
innovation infrastructure, representing the current and Barraclough (2009) supports the concept of
and future workforce of our nation” (Industrial skill-based education; the study indicated that
Research Institute, 2013, p. 1), so it is very con- students were more confident and employable
cerning that there is “a growing gap between the when they had the chance to practice real-world
information technology (IT) skills demanded… skills in the learning environment.
and those supplied by higher education” (Chandra
& Cheh, 2006, p. 1). Overcoming the disparity Efficacy of Skills-Based Learning
that exists between education and the STEM Compared to Theory-Based
workforce will require a shift in the education
system. Since technology is the impetus for the It is important to note that in decades past, indi-
changes in the workforce, technology can be the viduals were educated through narrow theoretical
vehicle for training the workforce and address- frameworks, but in our fast paced world, employ-
ing the current gaps in knowledge and skills that ees must be agile, adaptable, and able to transfer
graduates have. skills across jobs and industries in order to stay
competitive and employed. Hence, “transferability
Value in Skills-Based Education is a distinguishing feature of generic skills and an
important reason for its demand by employers”
There is an increasing demand for highly skilled (Dickfos, Cameron, & Hodgson, 2014, p. 1). Like-
workers in our knowledge-based society. There- wise, skills-based learning encourages practice
18

and development of vital skills” (Butler, Forbes, CLOUD COMPUTING TOOLS TO

& Johnson, 2008, p. 228) that can be transferred ENHANCE STEM EDUCATION
and used in the workforce. “Students who grew
up using all sorts of new technology, are often not The typical assumption made with regard to cloud
receptive to traditional lectures” (Kulturel-Konak computing as an educational resource is the use
et al., 2011, p. 2), but “[w]ith the infusion of tech- of cloud computing as a platform for delivering
nology into academic course materials, questions distance learning capabilities. While this is a clear
of educational effects and impacts emerge” (Luna application of this technology, cloud computing
& Cullen, 2011, p. 41). provides capabilities beyond merely publishing
video content to the Internet. As mentioned pre-
• Graduate Employment Engagement viously in this chapter, hands-on skills are vital
research. to the success of employees in the STEM field
• Multi-Term Project Based education Kena, and are therefore critical elements of any STEM
et al.). course. Cloud computing platforms can provide
tools to enhance the STEM education experience
Strimel (2014) suggested that STEM lead “by in the following arenas:
using knowledge of technology and engineering
integrative instructional educators must strategies • Distance Education.
to help develop a transdisciplinary STEM thematic • Virtual Laboratories.
unit that can engage student in confronting a global • Crowdsourced Research.
issue across various core classes” (p. 20).
Distance Education
STEM Curricula Should Teach Using
Current Tools and Techniques One trend in adopting Information Communica-
tions Technology (ICT) to enhance learning is
“Technology has changed the way students learn, in providing a virtual classroom experience to
and… the way educators teach—with this, there is remote students. This model has actually been
a multitude of options to… provide opportunities used by universities for many years. Private and
for technological application in higher education” public universities had been experimenting with
(Luna & Cullen, 2011, p. 41). In a study conducted adapting video teleconference (VTC) technology
by Aaron and Roche (2012) on faculty members’ to provide course content remotely. In 1999, a
utilization of cloud computing in a higher educa- consortium of private universities gathered un-
tion setting, they found that one-third of the faculty der the umbrella of Cardean University to form
members had adopted cloud computing by storage a completely online school delivering content
of files; creation of documents; collaboration; and from some of the best schools in the United States
synchronization of files (Aaron & Roche, 2012). (Blustain & Goldstein, 2004). This experiment
Aaron and Roche (2012), also, shared that “pos- led to other ventures in providing online course
sible uses of the cloud learning would be a “pa- content to remote students. Today, it seems that
perless classroom…, increased interdisciplinary every major public and private institution has an off
resources, student collaboration, and preparation campus offering for at least a few of its academic
of students for the workplace” (p. 107). programs. Cloud computing has enabled schools to
19

adapt their distance learning programs to an even Virtual Laboratories

wider audience. Because of the rapid scalability
and low cost of cloud services, many education Technology companies have experimented with
programs are offering content at little to no cost. providing virtual laboratories for technical train-
These Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) ing for decades. Cisco, a leader in networking
are marketed as democratizing education, though technology, was an early adopter of the virtual
in practice they often serve as a feeder for more laboratory concept, providing access to profes-
formal university programs (a sort of try before sionals preparing for Cisco certification exams
you buy approach). In 2014, Georgia Institute of to access equipment hosted in a Cisco data center
Technology announced a Master’s of Computer environment, allowing them hands-on experience
Science program entirely using the MOOC format with the equipment to help them prepare for the
at a total cost of under $10,000 (Schaffhauser, certification exams (Cisco, 2014). VMware, ini-
2014). $10,000 for a Master’s Degree from a major tially focused on virtualization technology, has
accredited institution! The Khan Academy pro- grown its virtual laboratory environment into a
vides its content, geared primarily toward middle virtual cloud environment, providing online access
and high school students at no cost. The successful to the major cloud computing management suite
adoption of the Khan Academy classes not only by of software within the VMware portfolio. Cloud
students but also by educators as a supplemental computing providers such as Microsoft, Amazon,
pedagogical tool has resulted in major grants by and HP all provide a virtual cloud environment lab
the U.S. Department of Education and the Bill to give users an opportunity to get familiar with
and Melinda Gates Foundation (Williams, 2014). the tools before actually using them in a produc-
This could change the face of education. tion environment. HP provides free access to their
Cloud computing has been vital in bringing Helion development platform either in a public
research and education resources in areas not cloud environment, or access to an Open Stack
generally considered centers of higher education. version of Helion platform code to install in on
In Egypt, cloud computing has been successfully on-premises or other public cloud environment
applied to provide scholarly research and expertise (Hewlett Packard Enterprise Services, 2014). The
in a distance learning format to students outside value technology companies see in providing this
the urban population centers. The value of cloud level of access is in developing real-world exper-
computing to reduce the investment costs of tise in professionals using specific tools. There is
large-scale computing technology systems has only so much one can learn about how to apply
proven vital to advanced education in Egypt, al- technology to meet a business need without actu-
lowing both urban and rural citizens access to high ally using it. By providing inexpensive (or free)
technology and advanced computing capabilities access to cloud-based versions of their products,
in a massively scalar manner to support complex these companies not only build the expertise of
research (Mosbah, Alnashar, & El-Nasr, 2014). professionals worldwide, they gain market ac-
The adoption of cloud computing resources in ceptance of their services as decision makers are
universities Kenya resulted not only in reduced more likely to choose systems with which their
costs for access to sophisticated technology to team has direct experience and expertise. The
support research, it also resulted in a significant technology training company CBT Nuggets is a
increase in student satisfaction with access to leader in providing cloud computing resources for
computing resources and communication access technology training to students and corporations.
to professors for feedback and support (Kihara & CBT Nuggets took this model pioneered by the
Gichoya, 2014). technology companies and consolidated access
20

to not only distance learning resources but also provide information to add to the data analyzed
direct access to virtual laboratories to complement by a cloud computing platform. Typical examples
academic education with hands-on labs (CBT of crowdsourcing include apps such as Waze, a
Nuggets, 2014). traffic monitoring application that allows users to
The idea of using cloud computing to provide report heavy traffic, accidents, disabled vehicles,
virtual laboratories to students goes far beyond and even speed traps. Yelp! is another example of
corporate training. Universities have been using how crowdsourcing can provide massive amounts
cloud computing to deliver virtual labs for years of data regarding businesses in a given community.
with a great deal of success. Certainly, cloud Creative decision coaches have driven entrepre-
computing virtual labs can help reduce the costs of neurial spirit in the academic research community,
such resources, but they provide additional benefits adopting the idea of crowdsourcing to research.
to universities and their students. Because of the After posting a mathematical problem on his blog
online access model, scheduling of virtual labs (which was solved by the blog’s followers in a few
is no longer an issue of first come, first served to days), mathematician Tim Gowers realized that
use scarce resources. Cloud computing provides scientific research could adopt this concept of
on-demand scalability that is simply not possible crowdsourcing (Gowers, 2009). Based on this and
in a physical lab environment. A recent study other experiments with crowdsourcing research,
compared the efficacy of virtual labs to physical the Polymath Project was born (Polymath Projects,
labs and found that virtual labs can provide the 2014). Technology companies are collaborating
same degree of fidelity as physical labs without with major universities to help with crowdsourcing
the constraints of scarce resources and restrictive research. While the launch of the Apple Watch
office hours (Xu, Huang, & Tsai, 2014). The use of capitalized the media buzz, Apple’s release of a
cloud computing virtual labs has also been shown crowdsourcing research platform (ResearchKit)
to improve the overall quality of computer science may prove far more important to the advance-
coursework by allowing for better isolation of stu- ment of technology and research (Greenemeir,
dent projects within a virtual lab cloud; it provides 2015). The Icahn School of Medicine at Mount
the added benefit of providing elastic and scalable Sinai Hospital partnered with LifeMap Solutions
resources for academic research conducted by PhD to develop an iPhone app using the ReserachKit
candidates (Ristov, Gusev, & Donevski, 2014). In platform that tracks input from asthma suffers
addition to the benefits of cost, rapid scalability, to provide real-time data for researchers and fa-
and hands-on expertise, virtual laboratories in a cilitate education and self-monitoring for those
cloud computing environment improve the col- living with asthma (BioTime, 2015). This is just
laboration of researchers and students across the the beginning of how the crowdsource model of
globe (Xu, Huang, & Tsai, 2014). funding research or providing data can improve
the overall academic research process.
Crowdsourced Research
The concept of crowdsourcing is one of the many PEDAGOGY IN THE CLOUD

benefits of public cloud computing models.
Technology evangelists must work as decision Education has served the purpose of preparing our
coaches to help senior leadership to identify population to work and be productive members of
how to adopt cloud computing to scenarios other society. The traditional model of education was
than the typical business model (Sahlin, 2014). geared toward creating workers for the production
Crowdsourcing takes advantage of the masses to lines in factories (i.e. obedient workers who were
21

easily transitioned into factories to perform menial and experiential; they’re action-and just-in-time-
and repetitive tasks). With the advancement of oriented” (Henno, Jaakkola, & Makela, 2014, p.
technology, the workforce has dictated the need 616). Hence, technology-centered designers will
for a different kind of worker; one that is willing need to “incorporate multimedia into emerging
and able to critically think and synthesize infor- communications technologies” (Mayer, 2001, p.
mation and come up with solutions to problems. 8) to capture and maintain the interest of learners.
The workforce has been transformed through Cloud-based learning models allow universi-
technology and, as a result, the field of education ties and employers to update curricula quickly
must be modified to challenge traditional teaching without the constraints of supporting the tech-
methodologies. Cloud-based learning offers an nological needs, thus, saving money by investing
advantage over traditional education because it in the information being taught as opposed to
surpasses the obstacles of time and space (Wang, paying for the IT staff, purchasing of hardware,
2013, p. 1212). and the operational support of the technology
The choice of whether or not to adopt tech- (Weinstein, 2012). “Curriculum design and tradi-
nology in the classroom is being altered by “the tional pedagogic practices need… to be changed
digital mechanization of teaching” (Trend, 2001, quite radically if… [Universities] are to optimize
p. 45). It is no longer a choice of if, but rather the potential for graduates to engage with the
when the technology will be adopted and how it world” (Yorke, 2003, p. 123). “Instruction which
will be utilized. Adoption of “educational tech- integrates the use of cloud technologies shows
nology is viewed as an equalizer for the various tremendous potential” (Denton, 2012, p. 40) for
learning abilities represented in the classroom… enhancing the learning environment.
[since it] creates a new instructional dynamic by
creating higher order learning opportunities for all
students” (Lobera, 2010, p. 29). “With the advent PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT
of new considerations in instructional design and
implementation, universities are taking the task Cloud-based learning is the natural progression
of adapting their instructional approaches” (Kop in the field of education. Carol, Roy, and Pras-
& Hill, 2008, p. 4). In fact, according to Trend sanna (2014) proposed a Model for the Educa-
(2001), “computer networks will eliminate the tional Cloud which includes flexible, fast-paced
need for costly campuses, troublesome faculty, differentiated content, and opportunities for
and the numerous other inconveniences that define meaningful collaboration. In order for educators
college” (pp. 76-77). Although I don’t know that to continue to offer quality relevant education
there will not be a need for faculty, I do agree that to students, new approaches must be deployed.
the role of faculty will definitely be transformed. Hence, educators “must be given an opportunity
Hence, teacher training programs will need to and support to transition through the process of
be adjusted to support the changes being made utilizing technology in the classroom and altering
in the field. their teaching methodologies” (Lobera, 2010, p.
32). A new method that is available is the STEM
integrated approach, which is “an effective profes-
CURRICULUM DEVELOPMENT sional development model that results in growth
in teacher content and pedagogical knowledge”
“Today’s students are multitasking and collabora- (Mason, Brewer, Redman, Bomar, Ghenciu, LeD-
tive; they’re constantly connected and use multiple ocq, & Chapel, 2012, p. 1). Since, it is essential
devices for being connected. They’re highly visual to have highly qualified teaching professionals it
22

is important for teacher education programs to the focus at all education levels. Another recom-
focus on mathematics and science, since they are mendation is “to create internship opportunities,
so important to supporting students in all fields, use real-life experiences and applications, allow
but more importantly STEM students (Mason et students to construct knowledge and encourage a
al., 2012, p. 1). collaborative classroom culture” (Kulturel-Konak
et al., 2011, p. 6). Finally, encourage an environ-
ment of collaboration over competition in STEM
ASSESSMENT classrooms.
Since there is a large population of students at- Practical Application: Cloud-

tending school via the internet, the Educational Centric Curriculum
Testing Service “are basing their new assessments
on the fact that in the very near future instruc- Cloud computing represents a new modality for
tion will be adapted… to personal interests and business. The goal of education is to prepare stu-
background, allowing more meaningful accom- dents for success in the future. This is particularly
modation to diversity than was possible with true of adult learners, where learning is most
earlier approaches” (Bennett, 1998, p. 12 found beneficial when it is:
in Albermann & Hagood, 2000, p. 1). The “next-
generation electronic tests will make it possible 1. Practical: Adult learners need to know the
to embed assessment activities within instruction, value of what they are learning
so that large-scale evaluations will serve forma- 2. Immersive: Adult learners place a higher
tive as well as summative purposes” (Albermann value on experiential learning
& Hagood, 2000, p. 1). Nedungadi and Raman 3. Action Oriented: Adult learners prefer a
(2012) discuss the Adaptive Learning and Assess- problem-solving approach toward learning
ment System (ALAS), which is a computer-based 4. Employable: Adult learners prefer learning
assessment that identifies “ skills that individual skills that are directly applicable to their work
students have mastered, diagnose instructional environment (Chan & Uhlmann, 2014)
needs, monitor academic growth over time, make
data-driven decisions at the classroom, school, and In order to prepare students to work in the cloud,
district levels, and place students into appropriate educators must transform curricula to adopt cloud
instructional programs” (p. 662). computing best practices and techniques. Educa-
tors must review the tools used in the classroom
and consider how each is used and whether it can
SOLUTIONS AND (and should) be migrated to a cloud computing
RECOMMENDATIONS option. Table 3 provides an example of how a
school can transform STEM higher education for
Recommendations for future educator training adult learners from a traditional curriculum to a
is to include content on web-based curriculum cloud-centric curriculum model by modifying the
development, effective use of cloud technologies tools and assessments used.
in the classroom, and facilitation of learning with Note that each example identified in Table 3
a focus on STEM topics. In order to stay competi- above uses cloud computing technology to address
tive, educators across education should be adept at all of the characteristic needs of the adult learner
promoting the vital skills necessary for the coming and adds an element of practical application for
generations, hence, STEM education should be industry use. By releasing code into the wild for
23

Table 3. Migration to a cloud-centric curriculum
Course and Skills Traditional Curriculum Cloud-Centric Curriculum

Database Design Use static modeling techniques (e.g., Use Vertabelo cloud-based design tool
• Identify relationships Microsoft Visio) to teach for basic design to design database, then port results to
• Use models to develop database principles. MySQL or SQL Anywhere.
architecture Assess knowledge through tests and a static Assess interrelationships of data entities
• Describe implications of data reporting design assignment. once populated to demonstrate the impact
needs on database design of design decisions on data modeling in
real time.
Software Development Student uses assigned local server instance Assign each student a virtualized server
• Develop software applications to meet and/or workstation space to develop instance on Amazon Web Services (include
specifications applications that meet predetermined a usage budget as part of lab fees); student
• Compile and distribute code in usable specifications and requirements. uses available services to develop software
manner Assess student’s ability to develop that meets specifications within the
• Confirm software quality through to specifications through functional budgeted server time.
demonstration of all required features demonstration and error checking. Assess software’s ability to meet
• Develop software in a usable environment specifications as well as meet schedule
and server usage budget constraints
(i.e., can student balance cost/schedule/
functionality?)
Mobile Application Development Use local development platforms to build a Use Google Application Engine to develop
• Develop Mobility Application to meet mobile application based on specifications and launch a mobile application of student’s
specifications and requirements and requirements identified by instructor. own design and choosing; release app to
• Demonstrate cross-platform usability Assess applications quality (i.e., ability Google Play Store as freeware.
• Identify distribution techniques for to meet specifications) based on feature Assess quality and usability of application
mobile platforms demonstration. based on real-world user feedback.
Decision Support Analysis Use local spreadsheets and reporting tools Use Hootsuite to collect social media
• Demonstrate ability to use data analysis to analyze ersatz data regarding a sample statistics of organization and provide
to solve complex business problems generic organization. visualization reports for analysis.
• Identify key data drivers and trends Assess student’s comprehension of data Assess student’s ability to use real-
• Use statistical analysis of alternatives and analysis techniques to solve a sample time social media feeds about an actual
recommend appropriate resolution problem. organization, use data analysis to identify
a business challenge, and develop a set of
specific recommendations to address the
challenge identified.
user feedback or forcing a student to complete a grated to a public cloud. As mentioned previously,
software development project within a defined several deployment options exist. Educators can
cost and schedule budget, educators are forcing transform extant systems to a Private Cloud with
the students to consider real-world tradeoffs relative ease and low cost. For example, the HP
of usability versus features and functionality Helion Cloud offering has an Open Stack environ-
compared to cost to deliver. Cloud computing ment available that provides a free development
allows educators to transition learning out of the environment for users as a development platform.
theoretical world and into the practical world. By This would enable a school to build a Hybrid
using tools and techniques that directly apply to Cloud architecture, using existing infrastructure
commercial industry, STEM learners (particularly investments (i.e. sunk costs) where applicable
adult learners) gains skills that directly translate and leveraging the reduced investment costs and
to an increased market demand. usage-based pricing of a Public Cloud to reduce
Incorporating cloud computing into the cur- capital outlay for new programs.
riculum does not require that all courses be mi-
24

Challenges to Educators school’s CTO or Director of IT to ensure that the

infrastructure and staff are adequately prepared to
The inclusion of cloud computing in the classroom handle a new mode of computing in the classroom.
requires that both educators and the school’s IT
staff update their skills to adapt to this model of Be a Change Agent
technology. If educators are not actively engaged
in cloud computing, it will be difficult for them to Change is difficult, especially for those with
explain the value and drawbacks of working in the years of experience in a certain method or prac-
cloud. Similarly, if the IT staff has not evaluated tice. Educators may not want to learn new skills.
the implications of migration to a cloud-centric Administrators may not understand the value of
model, they might not be prepared for the sudden a transformational approach toward STEM edu-
onslaught of Internet traffic. If the IT staff does not cation. The IT staff may resist changes to their
have the technical expertise to manage a private business model to support cloud computing. The
cloud infrastructure, a migration to the cloud opens challenge to educators is to be the change agent
a Pandora’s Jar of problems in both infrastructure in the organization. Many of the public cloud
performance and cybersecurity. Modeling and service providers (CSPs) offer free or low cost
simulation tools are critical in identifying the alternatives for higher education. Engage with
end-to-end Quality of Service implications of CSPs as partners in education. Cloud computing
migrating to a distributed cloud computing archi- offers schools the ability to remain current with
tecture. These tools are useful in determining the technology as it advances without significant
overall System Goodput (GS) of the hybrid cloud reinvestment in infrastructure. This allows cloud
architecture by considering the LAN, WAN, end computing to act as a real catalyst for change in
users, and application-layer interactions that are the world of higher education for adult learners –
associated with a distributed computing environ- acting as the bridge from theoretical learning to
ment (Sahlin, Sarkani, & Mazzuchi, 2013). IT practical, skills-based education that is relevant
departments must work together with educators to to the marketplace.
conduct a risk management assessment, balancing
the need for agility and extensibility provided by
cloud computing with the needs for security and DIRECTIONS FOR
privacy. Several risk assessment techniques exist, FUTURE RESEARCH
but the U.S. National Institute for Standards and
Technology guidelines for privacy in a public cloud Future research should be conducted to identify
combined with ISACA’s principles for security the efficacy of cloud computing resources to
in cloud computing provide a useful blended ap- improve skills-based training for STEM gradu-
proach toward risk assessment (Jansen & Grance, ates by comparing the use of cloud computing
2011; Vohradsky, 2012). resources to short- and long-term employment in
Without conducting proper due diligence, a STEM fields. This research could be conducted
school can find that their IT infrastructure quickly through use of employee engagement surveys as
becomes a bottleneck. The migration to a cloud- well as statistical analysis of open data sources
centric curriculum requires a partnership between such as those available from the U.S. Department
the academic and operations (i.e., IT) organizations of Education. By combining this analysis with
to ensure success. Before moving forward with engagement surveys such as conducted by Gallup
a plan to migrate to a cloud-centric curriculum, and the University of California at Los Angeles
the academic department must consult with the (Gallup, 2014, & Pryor, 2014).
25

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31
Chapter 3
The Emergence of Cloud
Portfolio in Higher Education
Pooja Gupta
Uttaranchal University, India
ABSTRACT
Educating the digitally literate generation is a privilege and a challenge because this generation is ex-
posed to enormous proliferation of affordable computers, Internet and digital education content. With the
advancements in technology, there is a definite improvement in learning methods; similarly performance
assessment, career preparation and credential documentation should also be driven by technology. An
e-portfolio is a tool for teaching, learning and assessment. The purpose of the e-portfolio is to highlight
the student’s best work. Current e-portfolio systems pose problems of scalability and sustainability, as
they provide limited user storage space in a centralized server. With the rapid use of multimedia, there is
a drastic increase in storage load imposed by any user on the e-portfolio system. Cloud computing can
provide e-portfolio service that can be delivered to a higher education community. An e-portfolio service
provided by cloud computing (c-portfolio) can be accessed from a standalone system. The c-portfolio can
also be accessed from local servers of an educational institute, or from a third-party service provider
that is accessed via the Internet. Such cloud computing services allow users to share their c-portfolios
with anyone, anywhere and at anytime. This chapter defines and categorizes c-portfolio, addresses is-
sues and challenges faced by c-portfolio’s implementation in higher education.
INTRODUCTION with the information technology on the content

delivery, communication and collaboration. The
Technology has experienced its own series of classroom is changing and students are demanding
generations. Today’s generation has grown up more technology services from their education
with technology. The Internet and smart phones system. It’s important not only to keep pace with
have had a major impact on today’s generation’s their evolving needs, but also to prepare them for
culture and development. Students are more likely the demands of the workplace tomorrow. With
to use Google for research than the library. Educa- the advent of the digital age, the emergence of
tion today is also becoming completely associated electronic portfolios (e-portfolios) appeared as a
DOI: 10.4018/978-1-4666-9924-3.ch003

The Emergence of Cloud Portfolio in Higher Education
logical next step for portfolios. In fact, over half education to represent a student’s or teacher best
of US higher education institutions are using work. The earlier portfolio was used by students in
some form of e-portfolios (Green, 2008), Using e- disciplines such as art and architecture as a means
portfolios is a change in the pedagogical approach of collating evidence of achievements (Harun &
to teaching; it morphs into a more student directed Cetinkaya, 2007). But today, accordion folders are
style of learning. Using cloud computing, the e- being replaced by “e-portfolios” - engaging the
portfolio service can be designed in several ways. electronic medium to showcase the user’s best work
put together with software and services. Paulson
et al. (1991) defines a portfolio as a meaningful
DIGITALLY LITERATE GENERATION collection of student work that highlights progress
and/or mastery guided by standards and includes
To better understand what the digitally literate evidence of student self reflection. Buzzetto-More
generation expects from technology in support of (2006) points that electronic portfolios provide an
learning, we must first understand what digitally efficient way to document student progress and
literate generation is. A generation that has grown encourage the improvement and motivate involve-
up on the Internet, cell phones and computers is a ment in learning. An e-portfolio can be defined
digitally literate generation. They are multitask- as a digitized collection of artifacts including
ing, always-on communication, engaged with demonstration, resources and accomplishments
multimedia. To a great extent, their behavior is an that represent an individual, group, community,
enactment of the capabilities afforded by modern and organization.
digital technologies. According to a Pew Study Portfolios are critical for managing each stu-
(Jones et al., 2002), one-fifth (20%) of today’s dent’s academic progress, and they can also play
college students in the USA began using comput- an important role in managing the performance
ers between the ages of 5 and 8. By the time they and progress of an entire education system. E-
were 16 to 18 years old, all of today’s current portfolios provide significant advantages over
college students had begun using computers and paper-based alternatives. One of the reasons is
the Internet was a commonplace in the world in their accessibility. End users (learners, educators,
which they lived. Computers, the Internet, online parents and administrators) can access e-portfolios
resources, and instantaneous access are simply the from computers, cell phones or other devices.
way things are done. Digitally literate generation E-portfolios can be accessed by teachers to issue
has never known life without the Internet. The assignments, and by students to access assign-
learners of today are adept at using Web 2.0 tools. ments. Buzzetto-More (2006) defines portfolios
They already rely on communications technolo- as an effective way of alternative assessment that
gies to access information and to carry out social encourages students and educators to examine
and professional interactions (Kennedy, Judd, skills that may not be otherwise accessed using
Churchward, Gray, & Krause, 2008). traditional means such as higher order thinking,
communications, and collaborative abilities.
E-PORTFOLIOS
EXISTING E- PORTFOLIO SYSTEM’S
A portfolio is a valuable record of a student’s aca- ISSUES AND CHALLENGES
demic life. The record may include items such as
assessments, evaluations, assignments and class- E-portfolios are recognized throughout the aca-
room projects. Portfolios have long been used in demic community for their benefits, but many
32

studies observe challenges against a successful 8. The increase in range, file size and diversity
e-portfolio implementation at higher education of possible digital artifacts.
institutions (Canada, 2002; Lorenzo & Ittelson,
2005a, b; Sherry & Bartlett, 2005; Tosh, Light,
Fleming, & Haywood, 2005; Wetzel & Strudler, CLOUD COMPUTING IN
2005); such challenges include: HIGHER EDUCATION
1. Current e-portfolio systems generally pro- According to the definition by the National
vide user storage space in a centralized server Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST),
for all of their data. This poses immediate “Cloud computing is a model which provides a
problems of scalability and sustainability, convenient way of on demand network access to a
especially for institutions with large popula- shared pool of configurable computing resources
tions of active users. With the increasing use (e.g., networks, servers, storage, applications,
of multimedia, and the ease of creation of and services), that can be rapidly provisioned
media-rich content, there is a drastic increase and released with minimal management effort
in storage load imposed by any user on the or service provider interaction”. According to
e-portfolio system. Youry et al (2011), cloud computing plays an
2. Most of the e-portfolio systems in use today important role in university education, as it can
are not interoperable as users import all their provide important gains in offering direct access
data into the centralized e-portfolio server to a wide range of different academic resources,
of an institution, it is essential for users to research applications and educational tools. The
be able to transport their information as potential and efficiency of using cloud computing
they move from one educational institution in higher education has been recognized by many
to another. universities. Mircea et al. (2011) & Sultan (2010)
3. According to Kim et al (2010), with learn- mentioned University of California, Washington
ers already fluent in social and Web 2.0 State University’s School of Electrical Engineering
technologies in interacting with each other and Computer Science, higher education institu-
and in showcasing their media artifacts, cur- tions from the UK, Africa, U.S and others. Cloud
rent e-portfolio systems require users to go computing offers to universities the possibility
through an additional process of duplicating of concentrating more on teaching and research
the media artifacts which may already be activities rather than on complex IT configura-
residing in these diverse web applications, tion and software systems, through a fast IT
and uploading them onto the e-portfolio implementation. According to Tout et al. (2009),
system. This is potentially time-consuming complexity can be reduced with cloud computing.
and laborious, and could pose as a barrier In addition, cloud solutions can be used to sup-
to user adoption. port cooperative learning and socially oriented
4. The insufficient technical infrastructure theories of learning, using computer technologies
(hardware, software and IT support). to support collaborative methods of instruction
5. Lack of skills and knowledge among students (Thorsteinsson et al., 2010). Many IT companies
and staff. have already placed their educational resources
6. Demand on increased time commitment for in the cloud, for example, Microsoft Office 365
users (especially on the part of the teaching Apps for Education, Adobe Creative Cloud, and
staff). Google Apps for Education. According to Kim et
7. Problems with security and privacy of data. al, with Web 2.0 technologies and applications, a
33

significant amount of user data, or media artifacts, Objectives of Cloud Portfolio

are stored in online storage services in the Inter- in Higher Education
net cloud. Such cloud computing services (e.g.
Google Docs, Facebook, Flickr, MySpace, Picasa, 1. To provide the quickest method to showcase
and YouTube) allow users to share their data the student’s credentials and achievements.
with anyone, anywhere and at anytime. Software 2. To deliver an efficient and affordable way
applications like Adobe Photoshop and Google for student’s assessment.
Docs already operate on data stored in the cloud. 3. To develop students’ skills and prepare
students for the new job market.
4. To share resources across different regions
C-PORTFOLIO or the entire country.
5. To simplify, speed and reduce the cost of
For years, educators have cobbled together digital operation and maintenance of ICT infra-
portfolios for their students, re-purposing tools structure in academic institutions.
designed for blogging, graphic design, and file 6. To focus on the user experience and expected
storage. Later, specialized tools were developed, outcomes, not on infrastructure.
but they were not always portable, meaning that 7. Provide better visibility of results and im-
students still had to use multiple tools to gather pacts, using cause-and-effect analysis for
their learning artifacts as they moved from class continuous improvement.
to class and school to school. There is a newer
generation of online portfolios that allows com- Flavors of C-Portfolios
plete portability - by storing learning artifacts and
student reflections in the cloud (Roland, 2013). For better understanding, c-portfolio can be cat-
Rather than operating an e-portfolio system apart egorized into 3 main categories:
from these online services, cloud computing
offers a potential solution to the challenges of e- 1. Individual portfolio.
portfolio implementation - issues of sustainability, 2. Group portfolio.
scalability, and data portability and user adoption 3. Lifelong learner’s portfolio.
(Kim et al, 2010).
Ercan (2010) describes that students already Individual Portfolio
use many of the cloud technologies in their per-
sonal life. By using a cloud model and applications 1. Learner’s Portfolio: A learner can record
based on the cloud, they obtain the advantage and archive his/her work done at various
of the ability of working and communicating in stages of his/her academic life to show the
the educational environment without taking into progress and the development. The ability to
account space and time. According to Thomas upload a wide variety of evidence and gain
(2009), the teaching staff shall benefit from support instant feedback on their progress towards
in preparing their teaching portfolio. By offering achieving their chosen qualification; clear,
a portfolio of cloud services, the organization accessible learning targets, ability to chal-
can access a virtually infinite pool of sharable lenge themselves though progress monitor-
resources. Cloud-portfolio service is one of the ing and inspirational grade setting.
advantages of cloud computing in education that 2. Educator’s Portfolio: Like learner port-
can be delivered to the members of an educational folio, a teaching portfolio can serve as a
community. documentation of skills, competence and
34

achievements of a teacher. An educator different assessment points and areas for

can maintain a portfolio to showcase the improvement can be identified.
academic background, experience, training 4. User-Friendly: Cloud hosted portfolio pro-
received, conferences attended and papers vide easy interface to its users that require no
presented, the expertise in course, teaching special training to use. According to Jafari,
philosophy and methodology, lesson plans, (2004), a successful e-portfolio must offer
examples of student work, etc. an attractive and relatively simple interface,
with little or no training required.
Group Portfolio 5. Fosters Social Learning: Sharing knowl-
edge with peers, and providing and acting
a. Class / Department’s Portfolio: A class on feedback fosters a collaborative learning
portfolio can be prepared to show the activi- environment. Enhanced communication
ties of the class. It can be used to showcase involving multimedia messages among stu-
the work of all the students collectively. dent, teacher and recruiters; great potential
b. Institutional / Organizational Portfolio: A for feedback, reflection.
comprehensive portfolio featuring the work 6. Enables Transparent Assessment:
done by different departments, faculties, Incorporate peer feedback into formal as-
students etc. sessment for a comprehensive evaluation
of a learner’s achievements.
Lifelong Learner’s Portfolio 7. Optimize Cost: By providing cloud choice
and ongoing workload portability, institutes
Many portfolios are built by the lifelong learners. can choose the right cloud for each applica-
When any individual portfolio is stretched beyond tion to optimize costs.
the academic year or organization to record the 8. Access Unique Capabilities: Each cloud
various stages of the person’s life, it turns out to provider provides unique capabilities, in-
be a lifelong learner’s portfolio. cluding special security options, data ser-
vices, and compliance features - that may
C-Portfolios Advantages be required by particular applications.
9. The Benefits for the Employer: A reduc-
1. The most immediate benefit of the c-portfolio tion in the cost of qualification delivery; the
is the elimination of storage problems as- ability to review their learners’ progress at
sociated with the traditional e-portfolio. any time. Easy access from any venue to
2. Remote Access: The e-portfolio hosted in results and progress at a reasonable cost both
the cloud which means it can be accessed in time and money, reduced paper, postage,
from anywhere (home, university, school). time and transportation costs.
Institutions need to leverage public or private 10. The Benefits for the Educator: Instructional
clouds that span all of the geographies where implementation can be repeated by copying
they operate and enable expansion to new course content from one semester to the next,
locations around the globe. each time enriching the content through
3. Easy Assessment: Students can be assessed additional resources and new curricular
online using the teacher’s assessment crite- initiatives.
ria and their progress can be traced against
35

COMPARISON OF PAPER ISSUES AND CHALLENGES

PORTFOLIO, E-PORTFOLIO FACED BY C-PORTFOLIO’S
AND C-PORTFOLIO IMPLEMENTATIONS IN
HIGHER EDUCATION
Based on the comparison of the paper portfolio,
e-portfolio and web folio done by Love et al. Sandholtz, Ringstaff, and Dwyer (1997) assert
(2004), a comparison study of paper-portfolio, that faculty will not use technology unless they
e-portfolio and c-portfolio is proposed Table 1. believe it will make a difference in the quality of
education provided to their students. This comes
first in implementing c-portfolio: convincing edu-
Table 1. Comparison of paper-portfolio, e-portfolio and c-portfolio
Paper Portfolio E-Portfolio C-Portfolio

Description Hard-copy of student work samples Electronic document on disk or Electronic document mounted on
CD-ROM the Web.
Purpose To showcase student work samples To showcase Student work samples To showcase Student work samples
organized around a set of standards organized around a set of standards organized around a set of standards
Student Artifact Written assignments, photographs, Multimedia capabilities Multimedia capabilities

and audio/video
Feedback and Assessment Ad hoc comments and/or graded Ad hoc comments and/or graded Formative and summative feedback,
assignments assignments provided by teachers and mentors
Nature of Content Static Static Possibility of the revised content

based on feedback
Context Provided by students Provided by students Provided by institution, educators,

and students; includes information
about the institution, faculty,
program, assessment criteria, and
the student work sample
Delivery hand-delivered hand-delivered Electronically transmitted anytime

and anywhere.
Student Value High—enhanced communication High—enhanced communication High—enhanced communication

involving artifacts among student, involving multimedia messages involving multimedia messages
teacher and recruiters. among student, teacher and among student, teacher and
recruiters. recruiters; great potential for
feedback, reflection.
Employer Value High—employer access to showcase High—employer access to showcase High—employer access to showcase
portfolio, with the benefit of portfolio, with the benefit of portfolio, with the benefit of
contextual clues from the student. contextual clues from the student contextual clues from the institution,
assignments, resources, and
assessment criteria.
Educator Value Moderate—enhanced Moderate—enhanced High —enhanced communication

communication involving artifacts communication involving involving multimedia messages
between student and teacher multimedia messages between between student and teacher
student and teacher
Institutional Value Low Low Moderate—enhanced

communication involving
multimedia messages between
student and teacher.
Digital Equity No assurance No assurance Highly Likely
Expense High High Low
36

Table 2. Barriers to adoption
Data protection and Security The key concern is data privacy: users do not have control or know where their data is being stored.
Interoperability A universal set of standards and/or interfaces have not yet been defined, resulting in a significant
risk of vendor lock-in.
Control The amount of control that the user has over the cloud environment varies greatly
Performance All access to the cloud is done via the internet, introducing latency into every communication
between the user and the environment.
Reliability Many existing clouds infrastructures leverage commodity hardware that is known to fail
unexpectedly
Platform or Language Specificity Some cloud environments provide support for specific platforms and languages only.
cators that implementation is in the best interests 2004 states that the benefits of an e-portfolio
of students. Further to implement c-portfolio, a system have been identified and explained since
technology infrastructure is needed where all users a long time ago. But existing e-portfolio system
need Internet access. poses many problems, first it is not scalable and
Prior to migrating to the cloud the universities sustainable, it provides user storage space in a
and schools must analyze both from the benefits centralized server for all of their data. Another
point of view, as well as from that of the risks and issue is of data transportability; as users import
limitations. After the analysis, one or more service all their data into the centralized e-portfolio server
models of cloud computing may be chosen to be of an institution, it is difficult for users transport
used. The decision must take into account the real their data as they move from one place to another.
needs and be aligned with the university strategy. Cloud computing can help provide solutions.
By implementing the solution a gain that exceeds Cloud services bring to education a range of op-
the capital costs and compensates the associated tions not found in traditional IT models, cloud
risks must be obtained. With respect to data protec- hosted portfolios are scalable and sustainable.
tion, special attention must be paid to the sensitive Many challenges of cloud computing for higher
data from the institution (for example, research education relate to its relative newness and the
results, students’ scholastic records, employees’ underdevelopment of the marketplace for cloud
accounts).When choosing the data protection services. There are many cloud based e-portfolio
and security solution, the risks and costs on/ systems available like Smart Assessor e-portfolio
non implementation must be taken into account, that allows tutors and learners to meet up virtu-
as well as the benefits of using the respective ally, using smart rooms for online teaching and
solution (Mircea et al, 2011). Carnegie Mellon assessing; another one is Skills Portfolio which
University has developed a useful overview of is a user-friendly and comprehensive cloud-based
some of the challenges that higher education will e-portfolio solution that comes pre-loaded with
face in adopting cloud computing (see Table 2). awarding body apprenticeship, guiding centers
through the assessment framework, reducing the
cost of qualification delivery and, most important-
CONCLUSION ly, engaging learners. For higher education, deci-
sions to adopt cloud computing will be influenced
E-portfolio is a tool for students, faculty and institu- by more than technical and cost considerations.
tions to document skill sets and reflect on learning, Universities that are planning to work in the cloud
accomplishments and career goals. Greenberg, need to cope with challenges of the cloud envi-
37

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definitions, privacy, contractual and jurisdictional line portfolio course in assessing students’ work.
issues, risk and nonperformance, interoperability, Turkish Online Journal of Educational Technol-
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Jafari, A. (2004). The ‘Sticky’ ePortfolio system:
Tackling challenges and identifying attributes.
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and network hardware and software, satellite
39

systems and so on, as well as the various services Student Artifact: Artifacts used in e-portfolios
and applications. are digital evidence of progress, experience,
Interoperability: Interoperability is the abil- achievements, and goals over time. In other
ity of a system or a product to work with other words, artifacts are examples of student’s work.
systems or products without special effort on the This might include electronic documents, video,
part of the customer. audio, and images.
NIST: The National Institute of Standards Web 2.0: Web 2.0 describes World Wide Web
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States Department of Commerce.
40
Section 2
Development of Education
Cloud Platform
42
Chapter 4
Strategies and Practice
of Cloud-Based Learning
Environment Implementation
Anwar Hossain Masud
Charles Sturt University, Australia
Xiaodi Huang
Charles Sturt University, Australia
ABSTRACT
The education landscape around the world is in a constant state of flux and evolution, facing significant
challenges in adopting new and emerging technologies. This is driven mainly by a new genre of students
with learning needs that are vastly different from those of their predecessors. It is increasingly recognized
that the use of technology in higher education is essential to providing high quality education and pre-
paring students for the challenges of the 21st century. Advances in technology offer new opportunities in
enhancing teaching and learning. The new technologies enable individuals to personalize the environment
in which they work or learn a range of tools to meet their interests and needs. In this chapter, we attempt
to explore the salient features of the nature and educational potentials of ‘cloud computing’ in order to
exploit its affordance in teaching and learning in the context of higher education. It is evident that cloud
computing plays a significant role in the higher education landscape as both a ubiquitous computing
tool and a powerful platform. Although the adoption of cloud computing promises various benefits to an
organization, a successful adoption of cloud computing in an organization, particularly in educational
institutes, requires an understanding of different dynamics and expertise in diverse domains. This chapter
aims at describing an architecture of Cloud Computing for Education (CCE), which includes a number
of steps for adopting and implementing cloud computing. To implement this architecture, we have also
outlined an open framework that is used as a guidance in any organisations with any cloud computing
platforms and infrastructures towards the successful adoption and implementation of cloud computing.
DOI: 10.4018/978-1-4666-9924-3.ch004

Strategies and Practice of Cloud-Based Learning Environment Implementation
1. CLOUD BASED collaborations among academic institutions. Cloud

E-LEARNING SYSTEM computing is considered a typical paradigm that
provides a suitable and efficient network login
Higher education is regarded as one of the pillars to an appropriate pool of computing resources,
of societal development. Recently, educational such as network servers, applications, platforms,
institutes, universities, and industries have been infrastructure segments and services. It delivers
making great contributions to transforming soci- services autonomously based on demands and
ety and the entire world economy, with various provides sufficient network access, a data resource
research studies carried out to update current IT environment and the effectual flexibility. Various
infrastructure, especially in the area of education. modes of education can be seen from Figure 1.
Cloud computing can be a welcome option for
universities and educational institutes of higher
studies (Masud & Huang, 2011). With its help, 2. DRIVERS FOR CLOUD
their platforms and applications can be on- or off- ADOPTION IN E-LEARNING
campus or their combination, depending on their
needs. Due to their evolution, several services have Current education has several problems, particu-
migrated from traditional forms to online ones. At larly in developing countries, as given below.
present, the challenges faced by many universities
when trying to update their IT infrastructures and • The imbalance in development between
data can be addressed by cloud computing. In the world’s developed and undeveloped re-
this chapter, we provide an overview of the cloud gions means that some schools cannot af-
computing model and discuss its applications for ford any e-education systems.
Figure 1. Traditional classroom vs. e-learning
43

• Some institutions do not have the technical ture, platform, application and software services
expertise to support, operate and maintain that are growing in complexity and capability.
their infrastructures. With the huge growth in the numbers of users,
• Despite of having the necessary network services, educational contents and resources, some
and infrastructures, some institutions rec- leaders are required to reduce their operating, de-
ognize that the e-learning applications in velopment and maintenance costs, as depicted in
the market are not fit or customisable for Figure 2. The flexibility the cloud offers, coupled
them, or that they cannot afford all the ap- with mounting economic pressures, is prompting
plication systems they want. commercial organisations to consider the new
• With good applications running, some in- cloud environment, with some even testing cloud
stitutions, however, cannot share them with services ranging from computing cycles and data
others. This is because they have to deal storage to student e-mails, disaster recovery and
with the great dynamic concurrency de- virtual computing labs in the marketplace. Using
mands and requirements for handling the its savings from lower infrastructure costs, an
rapid growth of the storage. educational institution can focus more resources
• Many old-fashioned desktop and low- on improving teaching and learning outcomes. As
configuration notebook computers may such, teachers and faculties can personalise their
be abandoned because of their poor per- students’ educational experiences as dashboards
formances if no good use for them can be of cloud services by aligning individualised learn-
found. ing content to performance standards and specific
needs, allowing them to uncover new insights and
On the other hand, the cloud is no longer just intelligence about performance trends, deficien-
a concept (Masud & Huang, 2012). . Commercial cies and teaching strategies.
cloud computing already encompasses an expand- A cloud service provider should ensure that
ing array of on-demand, pay-as-you-go infrastruc- the customers will use Cloud computing without
Figure 2. Drivers for cloud adoption in e-learning
44

worry. The necessary security considerations for governance, user-centric privacy, transparency,
performing critical tasks on a Cloud-computing legal issues, and business service management
platform are furnished below. This can serve as a (Armbrust et al., 2010). It has long been recognised
reference for both the vendors and users of Cloud that there are no design guidelines that architects
computing based solutions. and developers can follow for the cloud-based ap-
Authentication and Identity Management: plications required in the education arena. Defining
Identity and access management are very im- a standard and scalable architecture is needed for
portant for the strategic use of dynamic cloud the success of cloud computing as it will serve
computing resources. Providers’ authentication as a means of coordination and communication
systems should either meet or exceed enterprise among service providers and educational institutes
standards. Enterprises should be encouraged to to address the above issues (Chandran & Kempe-
adopt single-sign on for applications to simplify gowda, 2010). Its architectural requirements are
identity and access management (Hosseini et al. classified according to those of cloud providers,
2010).. By using cloud services, users can easily and the institutes using the cloud and end-users,
access their personal information and make it with the following criteria for those of cloud-based
available to various services across the Internet. educational systems illustrated in Figure 3.
Access Control and Accounting: It is important
that the access control system employed in clouds • Scalability: Maximise concurrency and
is easily managed and its privilege distribution using application resources for large num-
is administered efficiently. It should be ensured bers of users more efficiently, for example,
that cloud delivery models provide generic ac- by optimising locking duration and state-
cess control interfaces for proper interoperability, lessness, sharing pooled resources, such
which demands a policy-neutral access control as threads and network connections, cach-
specification and enforcement framework that ing reference data and partitioning large
can be used to address cross-domain access is- databases.
sues. The access control models should also be • Multi-Tenancy: Design the underlying
able to capture relevant aspects of SLAs (Masud application data model to accommodate
& Huang, 2013).. The utility model of clouds flexibility for manipulating tenant-specific
demands proper accounting of user and service data whereas the single-tenant data models
activities that generates privacy issues because of many existing on-premise applications
customers might not want to let a provider main- constrain running applications to use only
tain such detailed accounting records other than the operational and business data owned by
for billing purposes. a single organisation.
• Customisation: Enable SaaS customers to
customise the application services to which
3. ARCHITECTURAL they subscribe in order to alter workflows,
REQUIREMENTS FOR CLOUD extend business documents, modify busi-
BASED E-LEARNING SYSTEM ness rules and customise brands (Dutta,
2010).. The challenge for a SaaS architect
Cloud computing systems are available for both in- is to ensure that this task is simple and easy
dustry and academia. However, despite significant while, at the same time, ensuring that each
advances, there are several open issues, such as customisation does not incur extra manual
security, availability, scalability, interoperability, development or operational costs.
service-level agreements, data migration, data
45

Figure 3. Criteria for architectural specifications
4. PROPOSED CLOUD BASED • The infrastructure layer is composed of an

E- LEARNING ARCHITECTURE information infrastructure and teaching re-
sources. The former contains the internet/
E-learning does not simply use the Internet, but intranet, system software, an information
also provides solutions to technologies for system management system and some common
standardisation and methods of management. With software and hardware; and the latter are
a cloud computing platform, the network, modern accumulated mainly through the traditional
communication and information management teaching model and distributed to different
systems technologies should be fully utilised in departments and domains (Ghilic et al.,
the building of cloud-based e-learning. Consid- 2011).. This layer is located in the low-
ering the drivers and requirements stated in the est level of the cloud service middleware
previous sections, we propose the interoperable which contains the basic computing power,
cloud architecture shown in Figure 4 which can such as the physical memory and CPU, and
be divided into the following layers: an infra- is responsible for managing the physical
structure layer as a dynamic and scalable physical resources of the cloud, including physi-
host pool; a software resource layer that offers a cal servers, routers, switches, and power
unified interface for e-learning developers; a re- and cooling systems. In practice, this layer
source management layer that achieves the loose is typically implemented in data centres
coupling of software and hardware resources; a which usually contain thousands of serv-
service layer containing three levels of services ers organised in racks and interconnected
(SaaS, PaaS and IaaS); and an application layer through switches, routers or other equip-
that provides content production, content delivery, ment, as depicted in Figure 5.
a virtual laboratory, collaborative learning, and • The software resource layer is composed
assessment and management features (Masud & mainly of the operating system and mid-
Huang, 2012).. dleware. Through middleware technol-
ogy, a variety of software resources are
integrated to provide a unified interface for
46

Figure 4. A proposed e-learning cloud architecture
software developers so that they can easily API to secure and manage the infrastruc-
develop many applications based on them ture necessary to run its software and store
and embed them in the cloud to make them data.
available for users of cloud computing. • The application layer contains specific
• The resource management layer is the key applications for integrating teaching re-
to achieving the loose coupling of software sources in the cloud computing model,
and hardware resources. Through integrat- including interactive courses and the shar-
ing virtualisation and the cloud computing ing of teaching resources. The interactive
scheduling strategy, the on-demand free programs are mainly for teachers, accord-
flow and distribution of software over vari- ing to their learning and teaching needs
ous hardware resources can be achieved (Rajasingham, 2011). They take full ad-
(Farah, 2010). vantages of the underlying information
• The service layer has three levels, namely, resources, with the course content as well
SaaS, PaaS and IaaS, with the most impor- as progress capable of being adjusted at
tance for the educational cloud being SaaS any time based on feedback, and can be
for which there is no need to purchase more effective than traditional teaching.
software and hardware but simply pay a The teaching resources for sharing include
monthly fee. SaaS makes it possible for materials, information (such as digital li-
customers to access software maintained in braries and information centres) and hu-
the data centre of the SaaS provider with- man inputs. This layer consists mainly of
out having to manage software upgrades content production, educational objectives,
which are undertaken in the data centre. It content delivery technology, and assess-
is provided on IaaS; that is, it uses the IaaS ment and management components and,
47

at the highest level of the hierarchy, actual hardware and software computing resources for
cloud applications. As distinct from tradi- e-learning which, after virtualisation, can be of-
tional applications, cloud applications can fered in the form of services for rent by educational
leverage the automatic scaling feature to institutions, students and businesses.
achieve better performance and availabil- Our proposed cloud-based architecture can be
ity, and a lower operating cost (Paul et al., adopted by higher educational institutes to provide
2012). Compared with traditional service cloud computing services, such as SaaS, PaaS
hosting environments, the architecture of and IaaS, which allow users to access computer
cloud computing is more modular, with applications to carry out their activities without
each layer loosely coupled with the layers having to purchase, install and run software on
above and below to allow them to evolve their local computers or servers (Masud & Huang,
separately, similar to the design of the OSI 2012).. In this architecture for higher education,
model for network protocols. the administrative staff will handle student-related
work, finance and accounting, purchasing and
It can be said that as a result of a migration procurement while the education, training and
of cloud computing technology to the field of e- research-related needs of students and academic
learning, the e-learning cloud is a future e-learning staff will be met. The service providers of cloud
infrastructure which includes all the necessary computing, such as Amazon, Google, Microsoft,
Figure 5. A proposed Infrastructure Layer in an expandable view
48

Sun and Aneka, can provide these services in because, as most learning experiences are
real time by managing all the infrastructure from delivered through the browser, PCs with
remote locations. lower specifications can still be used by
students and teachers to utilise the e-learn-
ing gateway (Lalidhar & Ujawl, 2010).
5. ROLE OF ARCHITECTURE • Digital Curricula: As curriculum readi-
IN MEETING CHALLENGES ness is a major challenge in any e-learning
OF E-LEARNING program, the cloud’s impact can be mea-
sured from two aspects: firstly, it makes
Our architectural model addresses all the chal- it easy for teachers and students to access
lenges of traditional e-learning systems by programs from anywhere; and, secondly,
highlighting the ways in which cloud computing as it reduces operational costs, the continu-
can help. A major challenge of today’s complex ous process of developing more content or
e-learning environments is efficiently managing importing content developed by other or-
and allocating resources which cloud computing ganisations throughout a project’s duration
aims to solve by intelligently sharing resources can be funded by an organisation through
with a large number of users. Its concept over- the redirection of its savings. Also, there is
laps others, such as those of the grid, utility and no cost for configuring hardware as this is
distributed computing. While cloud computing the responsibility of the cloud service pro-
has the following many desirable characteris- vider while the cost of software is reduced
tics, elasticity is likely its most attractive as this because a higher education institute does
provides the capability to dynamically provision not need to purchase licensed software for
and de-provision computing resources as needed. a fixed period of time as it pays for it as it
is used.
• Simplicity: As it is simple to set up and • Reliability: Network and data access are
use all its services, higher education insti- guaranteed to be reliable as they are main-
tutes do not have to worry about resource tained by the service providers’ experts.
management and other hassles that come • Manpower: As training is provided to us-
with establishing and managing proper ers in a higher technical education organi-
infrastructure. This is the most common sation, it is not necessary to recruit a new
obstacle to e-learning programs which employee to specifically utilise cloud ser-
cloud technology addresses through its vices as well as manage them.
centralised infrastructure model. This • Collaboration and Flexibility: As us-
model reduces the amount of infrastruc- ers in higher education have universal
ture required to be deployed in each and access to projects, applications and docu-
every educational institute dealing with ments, they can collaborate using the col-
higher education, thereby reflecting di- laboration tools provided by cloud services
rectly on the cost and time needed to build through SaaS. Also, cloud services are suf-
infrastructure. ficiently flexible for use anywhere and can
• Speed: Once an organisation has its cloud be transferred to any location in the case of
running, the deployment process may be a failure or system crash, the tier connec-
speed up across the organisation without tivity for which is shown in Figure 6.
the necessity for technical work in indi- • Powerful Computing and Storage
vidual schools. Also, it reduces PC costs Capacity: The cloud-based e-learning ar-
49

chitecture locates the computing and data need to be concerned about the security of
in a large number of distributed computers applications in educational clouds.
and the sea of clouds in the tens of thou- • Virtualisation: Is the most important char-
sands of computers to provide powerful acteristic of this type of architecture. Each
computing power and huge data storage application’s deployment environment and
space, thereby offering the ‘cloud’ as a ser- physical platform are not related but man-
vice available to students via the internet aged, expensed, migrated and backed up
(Al-Zoube et al., 2010). through a virtualisation platform. It places
• High Availability: Through integrating the underlying hardware, including serv-
mass storage and high-performance com- ers, storage and networking equipment, in
puting power, this cloud computing sys- a comprehensive virtualisation in order to
tem can provide a high quality of service, build a pool of shared, distributed and on-
including automatically detecting a node demand resources.
failure and excluding it so that the normal
operation of the system is not affected. The major advantage of this proposal is that
• High Security: In the cloud computing it aims to provide easy access to costly software
model, data is intensively stored. As, by running on high-performance processors to rural
relying on one or more data centres, the students at institutions which lack considerable
managers manage the unified data, allocate facilities. Although considerable investment would
the resources, balance the load, deploy the be required to implement this architecture, its
software, control the security and conduct benefits would easily justify the cost, as can be
reliable real-time monitoring, users’ data seen in Figure 7 which illustrates its connectivity
security is guaranteed to the maximum scenario.
possible degree. Also, as standard encryp- Assessment system: although cloud technology
tion and decryption can be used, there is no does not really address this challenge in depth
Figure 6. Tier connectivity
50

Figure 7. Connectivity scenario for the institutions in proposed architecture
because an assessment system needs to be incor- analysis of large amount of data. Clouds make
porated in e-content programs and driven from day a large number of computing resources, data
one by the educational side of an organisation, it stores, and visualization tools available. In times
helps the organisation in its curriculum develop- of global economic slow-down, organizations
ment efforts in which an assessment system should are increasingly under pressure to cut down their
be included (Anderson & Dron, 2011). budget. Cloud computing tries to utilize comput-
ing power that will help users to access various
types of services simultaneously.
6. REASONS FOR Over the recent past, the interest in cloud com-
CLOUD ADOPTION puting has grown exponentially. Enterprises are le-
veraging cloud computing to provide the increased
Cloud computing can be built with the aims of standardization of IT infrastructure and to lower
integrating and sharing computer resources, and the cost of delivering technology solutions. The
thus offering performance speed and resource private sector is clearly moving towards the cloud.
availability, that is unattainable by single tech- The increasing buzz around cloud computing has
nology resources. Lack of basic information also prompted to assess the new delivery model.
technology resources, the use of cloud computing Although concerns, especially around privacy,
would contribute to the enhancement of course security and sovereignty of data, do continue to
delivery, course management, and other aspects of inhibit adoption, the value proposition of moving
educational institutional development. Advances to the cloud is too attractive for the concerned
in the Internet and the availability of powerful authorities to ignore. Migration towards Cloud
computers and high-speed networks are changing computing is easier said than done. It requires a
the implementation of cloud computing. These fundamental shift in the way people perceive IT.
technology advances have allowed us to use Rather than thinking about IT as an exercise in
cloud based systems. Universities are involved in asset ownership, IT decision makers need to start
advanced research collaboration and require the thinking about IT as a utility. Migrating to cloud
51

often involves a mammoth evaluation exercise that inform prospective Cloud computing adopters in
looks at the readiness of applications and data and understanding and mitigating the challenges of
the business case for doing so. adoption. Moreover, internet service providers
Cloud computing is regarded as a new tech- who provide the platform for Cloud computing
nology that can provide several advantages, both can work with the government to use the find-
strategic and operational, to its adopters. The ings to facilitate the implementation of rules and
cloud computing adoption rate is not growing as regulations that promote the adoption of Cloud
fast as expected (Buyya et al., 2009; Goscinski & computing.
Brock, 2010), according to the surveys of different
companies from different industries that have built
custom applications in the cloud and the analyses 8. CHALLENGES OF CLOUD-BASED
of how cloud computing affected the companies’ E-LEARNING SYSTEM ADOPTION
operations in security integration areas. The future
of computing lies in cloud computing, whose major Advances in technology offer new opportunities
goal is reducing the cost of IT services through in enhancing teaching and learning. The new
increasing reliability, availability, and flexibility technologies enable individuals to personalize
and decreasing processing time. the environment in which they work or learn a
range of tools to meet their interests and needs. In
this section, we try to explore the salient features
7. RESEARCH ON of the nature and educational potential of ‘cloud
CLOUD ADOPTION computing’ in order to exploit the affordance of
CC in teaching and learning in a higher education
There is still currently a little scholarly work context (Pereira et al., 2010). It is evident that
that discusses about cloud adoption in organiza- cloud computing has a significant place in the
tion or enterprise and its undertaking. A notable higher education landscape both as a ubiquitous
study was carried out by (Paul et al., 2012) who computing tool and a powerful platform. Although,
analysed the impacts of adopting IaaS in an or- the adoption of cloud computing promises various
ganization and the implications of the adoption benefits to an organization, a successful adoption
for the cloud application users. They also suggest of cloud computing in an organization, particularly
Cloud Adoption Toolkit, which can be used in the in educational institutes requires an understand-
process of decision making about cloud adoption. ing of different dynamics and expertise in diverse
Chang et al. reviewed cloud cube model (CCM), a domains. This section aims at a roadmap of Cloud
cloud business model that can be adopted by the Computing for Higher Education (CCHE) which
management of an organization, and suggested a provides with a number of steps for adopting
hexagon model for sustainability of the adoption. cloud computing.
Empirical research on Cloud computing adop- Higher education landscape around the world
tion is still limited – particularly in developing is in a constant state of flux and evolution, mainly
country’s contexts. In this research, we have tried as a result of significant challenges arising from
to focus at determining the factors that significantly efforts in adopting new and emerging technolo-
impact on the ability of Bangladeshi universities to gies. This is mainly as a result of a new genre of
adopt cloud technology as a tool for facilitation of students with learning needs vastly different from
collaboration among institutions. It investigates the their predecessors, and it is increasingly recog-
factors influencing organizational Cloud comput- nized that using technology effectively in higher
ing readiness and adoption. The findings should education is essential to providing high quality
52

education and preparing students for the challenges latency and network throughput, and increased
of the 21st century. Although the new technologies variability of the observed metrics compared to
have the potential to play an important role in the their behaviour in native, non-virtualized system.
development and emergence of education system Aside from this performance problem, there are
where control can shift from the teacher to an also fundamental issues that the cloud introduces.
increasingly more autonomous learner to rescue In a private cloud, the issues include various
the higher education from this appalling situa- aspects of virtualization and management of the
tion, the change is very slow or not forthcoming cloud. In a multi-tenant cloud, additional issues
at all for various reasons. It is becoming clear to such as privacy and confidentiality, security and
many people, including students, that traditional trust, network addressing, and service compliance
methods are unable to address the needs of higher also exist.
education where the emphasis is on higher order Actually demands are made by users, supplier
learning experiences and outcomes demanded is responsible for developing the system, which
of a changing knowledge- and communication- is the commercial value a cloud computing lies.
based society. It is hoped that this need can be There are three levels of services provided in
effectively facilitated by adopting the benefits cloud computing, namely, IaaS, PaaS, and SaaS.
of cloud computing through innovative research As e-learning cloud computing is a new thing,
approaches (Masud & Huang, 2013). which faces a double of challenges from suppli-
Despite the benefits that cloud computing of- ers to users. Figure 8 indicates the challenges for
fers, there are several challenges that can affect cloud based e-learning system.
the decision of cloud computing adoption. The
low cost of scaling, for example, does not directly Bandwidth
correlate with performance and QoS that can be
assured by a public cloud. Some studies about E-learning cloud computing services is Internet-
the performance of EC2 cloud revealed degrada- based. All of the application data must be transport-
tion of the performance metrics such as average ed based on a remote network, data traffic surging
Figure 8. Challenges for cloud based e-learning system
53

with a very high bandwidth requirement. To adopt workload management should be taken care when
a cloud based system, establishing a broadband implementing a cloud based system.
network and taking fibre optic and leased lines
for communication – is so indispensable. Resource Development
Security A group of e-learning cloud materials of high

quality, high-grade, for e-learning program will
Part of e-learning data may be confidential, but be available, which requires investing a lot of
when educational institutions store the data to human and material resources and using the
equipment afforded by cloud computing service intelligence of educational experts, technical
providers. Priority accessing to the data is not the experts and art experts in cooperation to create a
owner, but cloud computing service providers. set of scientific, interesting and artistic learning
Therefore, it is possible that e-learning confidential resources. To overcome this challenge, a variety
data cannot be leaked. It is necessary that important of experts are organized by e-learning providers
data uses encryption technology for storage and to complete the work.
transmission (Goel et al., 2013).
Role of Teachers
Authentication
E-learning cloud challenges traditional educa-
Users expect to be able to access and use the cloud tional forms and methods. But e-learning cannot
where and when they wish without hindrance from completely replace teachers. It is only a updating
the cloud provider or third parties, while their for technology, concepts and tools, giving new
intellectual property rights are upheld. Here the content, concepts and methods for education,
most important issue is the way that the provider so the roles of teachers cannot be replaced. So
has to assure the user of providing it. Also one teachers should play leading roles and participate
of the most important aspects of cloud in which in developing and making use of e-learning cloud
academia is more interested is high performance (Sultan, 2010).
and adding securing will always reduce perfor-
mance. Thus there is a need for finding a way of User Data
implementing security with the least effect on
performance. Users need to add tenant-specific data extensions
without affecting the overall data schema. Best
Management practice designs include using a pre-allocated field
in each table to hold custom XML data extensions.
Because of the differences between traditional SaaS customers are uneasy about entrusting all
education and e-learning cloud education, the data and backups to a SaaS provider. Making
introduction of e-learning cloud computing will ESaaS (Education Software as a Service) as a part
bring a lot of new problems. So establishing a of the multi-tenant server framework eliminates
suit of comprehensive management rules for these concerns.
the e-learning mode based on cloud, including
teaching content management, course manage- Charging
ment, examination management, performance
management, student management, and teacher The introduction of cloud computing to e-learning
is the introduction for a market mechanism, so
54

Figure 9. A conceptual framework of cloud integration
how to charge becomes a particularly important 9. CLOUD ADOPTION

problem. Charge can be made for educational STRATEGY ROADMAP
institutes or for personnel, but it is very complex.
To set up a market-oriented charging mechanism, Migrating towards cloud needs a well-defined
two types of fees are combined: institutional fees strategy that supports Cloud Computing capabili-
and individual fees, with institute charging for ties. Representing an important part of the orga-
general resources and individual charging for nization IT strategy, migration must be aligned to
special resources. This is essential for successful this. The success of the strategy implementation
implementation of the cloud based solutions (see depends on the existence of a service-oriented
Figure 9 and Table 1). architecture at the level of the institution that offers
Table 1. Impact of cloud computing on education, research and innovation
Users Cloud Computing Implications

Students • Open, computer-based educational offers
• Digital Learning Environment
• Educational methods with personal portfolios
• Web-based self-service
• Intelligent environments of synchronous and social learning
Teachers • Computer-based, integrated and flexible teaching systems
• Training facilities for educational innovation
• Easy access to educational and research content
• Blog Web sites for collaboration and knowledge building
• Use of presentation software and of digital content
Researchers • Collaboration and transparent sharing of research infrastructures
• Access to digital data and information
• Knowledge of the economic demands and carrying out research in accordance with these demands
55

the necessary infrastructure for cloud implemen- project is feasible. It is at this stage that the initial
tation. Also, in order to be successful, the cloud requirements, feasibility and initial plan are to be
strategy must be aligned with the institutional developed. During this phase thought should be
strategy. Starting from the recent researches related given to how the existing systems strengths and
to the transition to Cloud Computing- a migrating opportunities can be maximised, weaknesses and
strategy towards cloud formed of the following threats minimised, the impact to organisation
stages has been suggested as in Figure 10. culture, processes, and structure minimised, and
the effect to SLAs, how return on investment and
9.1 Stage One costs to adopting cloud computing can be man-
aged and the usability and access to resources
This step consists of developing the knowledge will be assured and maintained. Also the impact
by attending seminaries, conferences, discussions to organisational security policies, standards and
with the suppliers and consulting the most recent legal and compliance issues in order to analyse
researches in the field. The success of the phase the strengths, weakness, opportunities and threats
depends on the allocation of sufficient resources of existing systems a SWOT matrix is useful.
for research, for understanding how cloud comput- The detail of stage components are depicted in
ing functions in different organizational structures Figure 11.
from universities and between institutions, the
benefits and risks, policies and the best usage 9.2 Stage Two
practices of cloud computing. As with all software
projects, the initial stage of understanding users’ In this phase benchmarks for security, legal and
requirements in order to determine whether the compliance issues identified in the analysis phase
Figure 10. A cloud migration roadmap
56

Figure 11. Detailed components of four stages
are set. The benchmarks will reflect the internal or- prototyping of the cloud services will be used and
ganisational best practices, policies and standards whether there will be pilot projects before full roll-
to industry standards and best practices and how out and identifying risks and how they are to be
these can be achieved when moving to the cloud. mitigated. Evaluating the present stage from the
The benchmarks will reflect the legal and com- point of view of the IT needs, structure and usage
pliance best practices that need to be maintained that may be migrated or need to be maintained
and achieved in the cloud environment. Financing within the institution is taken care at this stage.
and cost management plan is developed in this With respect to the IT needs, their structure and
stage and how costs will be managed. The plan usage, the analysis may start from the categories
on how to ensure security compliance, legal and of users who interact with the present IT infra-
compliance to industry standards and regulation structure and their necessities. The objective is
is laid down. In preparing the adoption or roll-out to identify the emergent technologies, efficient
plan it is important at this stage to decide whether from the point of view of costs that satisfy the
57

Figure 12. An evaluation process of experimental cloud solution
necessities of the students and university staff. 9.4 Stage Four

The hardware and software needs shall then be
analysed from the perspective of cloud models as The migrating to the cloud concludes and migra-
given in Figure 12. tion can proceed at this stage. The project can
be either discarded or enhanced to meet the user
9.3 Stage Three requirements. Given the outcomes from the three
previous phases, the roll-out plan can be put into
This stage is a preparation phase for the actual practice. Applications and data migration can
migration of systems and/or applications selected proceed. Support to users during the migration
to the cloud platform and infrastructure of choice. process is provided, and the monitoring and control
In this phase the systems/ application integration is of the project is maintained to ensure a successful
done to ensure that the candidate applications will migration (Masud & Huang, 2011). The solution
be able to function with the internal applications now should be fully operational in the cloud; how-
that are not migrated to the cloud and also with ever contract and vendor management, testing and
the cloud infrastructure of choice. Outsourcing maintenance, user support and review should be
strategies are decided upon and the benchmarks ongoing for several months subsequent to launch.
developed in the second stage are used to measure The system metrics or benchmarks developed and
the vendor ability of providing services that will set in stage 3 can be used as indicators of success
not affect the organisation service delivery and and should be monitored Security standards com-
business. The last thing in this stage is contract pliance, SLAs, legal and compliance issues, IT
development and signing that meets the user re- governance best practices and cost management
quirements for using cloud services. The transition are desirable metrics. Also documentation of les-
to cloud may be achieved gradually, starting from sons learnt and best practices during the project
testing a pilot project in cloud and to externalizing should be documented and communicated to all
the applications chosen for cloud. The mainte- stakeholders. The solution implementation may
nance of low costs for using the solution must be be done in iterative phases, through a continuous
permanently taken into account. transition of the data, services and processes to-
58

wards cloud. Data migration must be performed 10.1 Open, Standards-

by keeping an optimum balance between the data Based Functionality
accuracy, migration speed, non-functioning time
and minimum costs as in Figure 13. Platform as a Service (PaaS) offerings are some-
times based on proprietary languages and hosting
providers. Educational Institutes should choose an
10. ESSENTIAL CRITERIA FOR open, Java-based framework for SaaS applications.
CLOUD SELECTION IN ROADMAP An institute can unilaterally provision computing
capabilities, such as server time and network stor-
Drivers for considering cloud computing solutions age, as needed automatically without requiring
for educational institutes should be identified in human interaction with each service provider
the context of the institutional strategy and how (Sasikala, 2011).
well they align. The main drivers for adoption of
cloud computing within institutions are economic, 10.2 Secured Access to Resources
relating to the reduction in funding and the need
to increase competitiveness through better student A robust SaaS application requires secure data ac-
and staff experiences. Some of the essential selec- cess to ensure each user/student/staff sees only data
tion criteria are furnished below. that belongs to their tenant. Best practice design
gives each table a tenant identifier column and
filters all queries using that identifier. Capabili-
ties are available over the network and accessed
Figure 13. A data migration scenario after cloud adoption
59

through standard mechanisms that promote use by for enabling end users to configure their own
heterogeneous thin or thick client platforms (e.g. dashboards is essential for a competitive SaaS
mobile phones, laptops, and PDAs). offering. The cloud architecture should include
the capability of dynamically expanding and con-
10.3 Resource Pooling tracting the pool of application and data servers.
The provider’s computing resources are pooled to 10.6 Measured Services

serve multiple consumers like teachers and staff
using a multi-tenant model, with different physical Cloud systems automatically control and optimize
and virtual resources dynamically assigned and resource use by leveraging a metering capability
reassigned according to academic demand. There at a level of abstraction appropriate to the types
is a sense of location independence in that the of services (e.g., storage, processing, bandwidth,
students generally have no control or knowledge and active user accounts). Resource usage can be
over the exact location of the resources but may monitored, controlled, and reported on, providing
be able to specify location at a higher level of transparency for both the provider and consumer
abstraction. Examples of resources include stor- of the service utilized.
age, processing, memory, network bandwidth and
virtual machines.
11. STRATEGIC FOCUS
10.4 Dynamic Backup and Recovery TO THE ROADMAP
Our proposed ESaaS (Education Software as a A successful adoption of cloud computing is key
Service) suggests adding student-specific data for realisation of benefits promised by a cloud com-
extensions without affecting the overall data puting environment. As organisations are faced
schema. Best practice designs include using a with the need for high processing capabilities,
pre-allocated field in each table to hold custom large storage capabilities, IT resource scalability
XML data extensions or using name/value pair and high availability, at the lowest possible cost,
tables. ESaaS users are uneasy about entrusting cloud computing becomes an attractive alternative.
all data and backups to a SaaS provider. When an However, the nature of cloud computing pose chal-
application server fails, users should transparently lenges to organisations as they consider it. Issues
failover. Similarly, when a database server fails, such as security, legal and regulatory compliance
the application should failover to a backup server become more prevalent. The aim of the research
instance and restarts a new backup server. was to investigate the challenges facing cloud
computing adoption and synthesise a roadmap
10.5 Elastic Allocation which will provide organisations with guidelines
for successful cloud computing adoption by ad-
Capabilities can be rapidly and elastically provi- dressing the challenges identified.
sioned, in some cases automatically, to quickly The roadmap is an open framework that can
scale up capacity. The capabilities can then be be used in any organisation and for any cloud
rapidly released when additional capacity is no computing platform and infrastructure as guidance
longer required. End users have been trained by towards successful cloud computing adoption. The
Web 2.0 applications like MyYahoo and FaceBook proposed roadmap was divided into four stages.
to expect that the application user interface will be These stages would help to analyse similar adop-
under their control. A drag and drop framework tion process. Future work should also include
60

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Dutta, A. S. (2010). Security and forensics chal-
understanding of the different key issues facing
lenges of cloud computing. (Doctoral dissertation).
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Jadavpur University, Kolkata.
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Farah, S. (2010). Cloud computing or software
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64
Chapter 5
Designing, Developing,
and Evaluating a Cloud-
Based Laboratory for
Online STEM IT Students
Dongqing Yuan
University of Wisconsin – Stout, USA
Brandon Cross
University of Wisconsin – Stout, USA
ABSTRACT
In an IT learning environment, hands-on learning is central to one’s learning. Many previous studies
found that STEM students who were taught through a hands-on learning method, as opposed to only
the textbook and lecture method, showed higher comprehension of the concepts. Hands-on labs and ex-
perimenting expand a student’s understanding and appreciation of science. For many years, traditional
IT program instructors have been able to integrate hands-on approaches into the classroom. Although
hands-on laboratory exercises are integral to a successful IT program, e-Learning students in IT do
not have the same laboratory experience as onsite students. Consequentially, there is a problem with
e-Learning IT students not acquiring all the essential hands-on skills with equipment used in the IT
industry. In this chapter, we present a solution which is based on private cloud computing and can be
used to build a laboratory and learning environment for a variety of online hands-on IT courses includ-
ing Wireless System, IP Telephony and Server Application. Students, as cloud clients, can access the
server by web access through VPN connection.
1. INTRODUCTION AND intertwined in the real world. It is an interdis-

BACKGROUND ciplinary and applied approach that is coupled
with hands-on, problem-based learning. Hands-
STEM is an acronym for Science, Technology, on practice expands a student’s understanding
Engineering and Math education. The skills and and appreciation of science. Experimenting can
knowledge in each discipline of STEM are deeply encourage students to explore new ideas, which
DOI: 10.4018/978-1-4666-9924-3.ch005

Designing, Developing, and Evaluating a Cloud-Based Laboratory for Online STEM IT Students
can lead to increased confidence and competence their own equipment, or to procure specialized lab
in the science, engineering, technology, and math equipment that can be remotely accessed, each
(STEM) fields. Nurturing these hands-on skills workaround having its own advantages, problems,
will help STEM students find satisfying careers and limitations (Leitner & Cane, 2005).
and solve issues (Lunt, Ekstrom, Gorka, Hislop, In this chapter, we first investigate several IT
Kamali, Lawson, LeBlanc, & Reichgelt, 2008) technologies that can improve an IT e-Learner’s
In addition, hands-on learning has been a opportunity to experience quality hands-on learn-
well-known practice allowing a learner to apply ing. Then, we present a solution which is based
concepts taught in class. Blooms Taxonomy, on private cloud computing and can be used to
Kolb’s theory of experiential learning, and numer- build a laboratory and learning environment for
ous other studies all support the need for learners a variety of online hands-on IT courses including
to learn in a hands-on environment (Forster & Wireless System, IP Telephony and Server Ap-
Jazayeri, 2010). Many previous studies found plication. Students, as cloud clients, can access the
that students who were taught through a hands-on server by web access through VPN connection.
learning method, as opposed to only the textbook
and lecture method, showed higher comprehension
of the concepts. 2. IT LABORATORY TECHNOLOGY
Although hands-on laboratory exercises
are integral to a successful STEM program, e- There are several laboratory options for IT learners
Learning students do not have the same laboratory to include onsite laboratories, remote laboratories,
experience as onsite students (Leitner & Cane, and simulation laboratories, each having its own
2005). Consequentially, there is a problem with advantages, problems, and limitations.
e-Learning STEM IT students not acquiring all
the essential hands-on skills with equipment used 2.1 Onsite IT Laboratory
in the IT industry. In a traditional IT program, a
hands-on approach generally requires the students To begin with, onsite IT laboratories commonly
to work on lab equipment, and the equipment is contain similar or identical equipment that is used
typically identical to devices used in the indus- in the IT industry (Li, Toderick, Li, Mohammed,
try. The lab equipment is almost always isolated & Lunsford, 2008). Routers, switches, servers, and
from internet denoting it is impossible for an network cabling are all common equipment seen
e-Learning student to remotely access the lab. in IT laboratories. A fundamental lab setup for
A few workarounds do exist including the use an onsite IT laboratory can be seen in Figure 1.
of simulation software, to require students to use
Figure 1. A typical onsite IT laboratory
65

A fundamental setup typically consists of ences. In particular, remote IT laboratories must

multiple routers, multiple local area network be connected to a network such as the Internet
(LAN) switches, lab computers, and a server(s). which opens an array of security issues. A general
Some advantages of onsite IT laboratories include lab setup for a remote IT laboratory can be seen
students get to interact with the actual physical in Figure 2.
equipment, permitting them to explore the exact A general lab setup for a remote lab typically
technology employed in the IT field. In conse- includes a connection to the internet, a firewall
quence, IT learners receive realistic training and which performs basic security functions, and an
can use their newly acquired skills immediately access control server which allows the remainder of
in the workplace. Two major disadvantages of the laboratory equipment to be accessed remotely.
onsite IT laboratories include the cost of purchas- The key advantages of remote IT laboratories are
ing the laboratory equipment and the inflexibility the laboratory equipment can be remotely ac-
of when the equipment can be used. Equally, in cess, beneficial to distance e-Learning students,
many instances an onsite lab is only available for and the laboratory generally is accessible at any
use between certain hours and may require a lab time. Similar to onsite IT laboratories remote IT
worker be available during those hours. laboratories have cost disadvantages. Not only
does the typical IT laboratory equipment need to
2.2 Remote IT Laboratory be purchased but specialized hardware needs to
purchase for the remote access aspect of the labo-
Remote IT laboratories, IT laboratories that can be ratory, adding substantial cost to build a remote
accessed from distant locations, are setup similar IT laboratory and for this reason making it not
to onsite IT laboratories but have a few key differ- an option for many organizations. Furthermore,
Figure 2. A typical IT Remote Laboratory
66

remote IT laboratories do not allow for the IT expansion of network resources. If designed well
students to be physically involved in the cabling remote IT laboratories, using cloud computing
of the equipment as this step must be completed concepts, can be an advantageous opportunity
onsite. compared to the other laboratory technologies
(Doelitzscher, Sulistio, Reich, Kuijs, & Wolf,
2.3 Simulation Software 2010).
Information technology e-Learning programs
Simulation software is another IT laboratory can employ cloud computing techniques by virtual-
technology that currently is used to support IT izing laboratory equipment such as PC’s (Lai, &
learners’ hands-on experiences (Pickard, Spence, Chiang, 2011). Virtualization allows software such
& Lunsford, 2012). Simulation software in IT gen- as Windows 7 to operate in a cloud environment.
erally imitates certain functions of real equipment. For example, computing resources can be allocated
Some common simulation software IT students use from a “cloud” and be used to run multiple virtual
includes Cisco’s Packet Tracer, Graphic Network instances of window 7, each instance being similar
Simulator 3 (GNS3), and IOS on Unix (IOU). to a standalone PC with Windows 7 installed. Not
only can IT e-Learning programs take advantage
2.4 Cloud Computing of virtualizing computer software but also network
infrastructure devices such as routers and switches.
Cloud based computing is a recent technology As a result, IT e-Learning programs can virtualize
that has become popular over the past few years. all the basic components to an IT laboratory. As
Cloud computing allows computer networks to be seen in Figure 3 an entire IT laboratory can be
engineered in such a way that computer process- virtualized using cloud computing infrastructure.
ing resources can be shared and optimized among Within the cloud a number of basic IT labo-
multiple applications as well as allows for flexible ratory components can be virtualized to include
Figure 3. A typical cloud IT laboratory
67

routers, switches, personal computers, firewalls, building a laboratory and learning environment
and servers. The major advantages of building a for online IT courses. The solution we propose
virtualized IT laboratory is it is cost-effective as is a private cloud computing system providing
minimal hardware is required, the environment SaaS. Students, as cloud clients, can access the
provides IT learners hands-on experience with Servers by web access anywhere in the world. The
real world IT industry equipment, and can easily virtual infrastructure can automatically adapt to
be accessed remotely. Additionally, cloud comput- the changes of the service load. The infrastructure
ing is going to be more prevalent in the future, is centrally managed. This reduces costs by reduc-
making it an ideal technology for an IT learner to ing licensing, space requirements, management,
use (Anderson, Wiles, & Young, 2008). energy consumption, and cooling.
A big concern about cloud computing is secu- Three clusters of virtual machines have been
rity. Security is a significant concern of cloud com- integrated into a single architecture. With the
puting as the physical infrastructure commonly is virtualization, we are able to reduce the power
not owned by the organization or person whom is consumption, improve CPU utilization, reduce
utilizing it (Armbrust, et al, 2009; Zhou, Zhang, the number of physical servers, support failover,
Xie, Qian, & Zhou, 2010). However, recently and have more centralized delivery of services.
many security innovations have been developed The lab currently supports three courses: Wireless
to protect cloud computing resources such as System, Server Application and IP Telephony. The
Cisco’s adaptive security appliance (ASA) 1000V topology of the laboratory is illustrated in Figure 4.
cloud firewall, a virtual firewall that has identical Four clusters of virtual machines are installed
functions as Cisco’s hardware ASA firewall yet over a campus network. Students can freely connect
can be directly integrated into the “cloud”. to any of the virtual machines remotely through
The implementation of cloud computing in School’s VPN connection. The call manager
an IT eLearning environment can be accom- cluster includes one physical server running eight
plished in a variety of ways, (one) by creating virtualized call manager servers. The Windows
a private cloud, a cloud that is owned solely by server cluster has sixty-four virtual machines with
an organization, (two) by utilizing public cloud two nested layers. The Domain Controller and
computing resources such as Amazon web service, Unified Communication cluster has eight domain
and (three) by using a hybrid cloud, a cloud that controller servers, eight unified communication
utilizes both public and private cloud computing. servers such as Unity connection servers and
Once a cloud method is chosen an organization presence servers. Each wireless m pod consists of
will then need to procure the required equipment two access points, one wireless LAN controller,
if a private cloud or hybrid cloud is the selected one POE switch, and one router. The router acts
method or procure cloud computing resources as DHCP server and NTP server.
from a public cloud entity. After the necessary The virtual cluster resembles a typical small
cloud computing resources are obtained virtual corporate network, which consists of routers, fire-
laboratory equipment can be created based on a walls, web servers, DNS, DHCP servers, domain
required IT laboratory design. controllers, etc. The following hardware is used to
develop the lab environment: HP DL380 G6 Sever,
8 TB of Hard Disk Space, 2 6-Core Intel Xeon
3. METHODOLOGY 3.4GHz processors and 48 GB of RAM. VMware
ESXi was used to install the VMs because it can
In this chapter we present a solution that is based provide all of the services and features required
on private cloud computing and can be used for for the class including virtualization within itself.
68

Figure 4. Lab topology
ESXi provided the opportunity to install ESXi 4.1 Wireless System

on the physical server and then install eight
more nested instances within the one instance. Over the last few years, wireless LANs have gained
This provided the class the opportunity to utilize strong popularity and experienced explosive
and share the same hardware while remaining growth, both in market size and the number of new
independent. Nesting ESXi also provided the standards and technologies (Sakar & Craig, 2005).
opportunity for the instructor and lab manager Just scan the current job postings, the readers may
to manage the class’s servers easily by utilizing soon realize how important wireless skills are to
snapshots and other features built into the ESXi. IT industry: IT network job descriptions increas-
Students are provided with access through school’s ingly cite wireless skills among the requirements.
VPN connection to their own ESXi installation It corresponds to the survey conducted by Comp
and given complete control of the servers within TIA on more than 3500 IT managers back in 2008.
the virtualized platform. Students can configure The survey identified wireless skills were those
network services and change settings on the virtual that would be the number one most valuable IT
machines based on the lab instruction. skills in the next five years. According to a recent
study by Robert Half Technology, the demand for
wireless skills is continuing to rise as companies
4. CLOUD-BASED COURSES look to expand and catch up on IT projects, such
as Bring Your Own Device (BYOD). With more
In this section, we briefly discuss three cloud-based and more people are using their own mobile de-
courses we develop for the STEM IT students. vices at the work place, wireless is going to be
69

Figure 5. Wireless lab topology
an area where there will be no end to the demand from any location on the campus with web access.
(Richards & Stull, 2004). The entire system is perceived as a whole rather
To meet the challenges of this new technology than as a collection of independent components.
and the needs of the IT students and professionals, The topology of the laboratory is illustrated in
six hands-on cloud-based labs with detailed step Figure 5.
by step instructions of are implemented. There are 4 VLANs for each pod, a VLAN
for Wired Data, a VLAN for Employee WLAN,
4.2 Cloud Based Wireless a VLAN for Guest WLAN, and Management
Communication and VLAN. Each VLAN and pod has its own subnet.
Networking Laboratory The IP addressing scheme is listed in Table 1. Table
2 lists the six labs that have been developed to date.
Eight wireless pods are installed over a campus A brief review of each lab is provided below:
network, and students can freely connect to any
of the eight pod. The system includes one physi- Lab 1: Install and Configure a Basic
cal server running eight virtualized Prime which Wireless LAN with Auto Aps
is used to manage the network. And each pod
consists of two access points, one wireless LAN In this lab students will setup and configure the
controller, one POE switch, and one router. The network infrastructure that will be used for an
router acts as DHCP server and NTP server. There autonomous wireless network. Students will then
are four onboard switch ports connecting to the set up a wireless network with multiple SSIDs
aggregation switch, and the aggregation switch using access points configured in autonomous
connects to eight routers in each group. Students mode (see Figure 6).
can get access to each pod with 24/7 availability
70

Table 1. IP addressing scheme
Network VLAN Subnet Default Gateway

Wired Data `10 10.10.n0.0/24 10.10.n0.254/24
Employee_Wireless 100 10.100.n0.0/24 10.100.n0.254/24
Guest_Wireless 92 192.168.n0.0/24 192.168.n0.254/24
Management 255 10.255.n0.0/24 10.255.n0.254/24
Table 2. Six wireless labs
Lab Learning Objective Equipment List

Install and Configure a Basic Wireless LAN Learn how to setup and configure the Cisco 2811 Router
with Auto APs network infrastructure that will be used for an Cisco 3560 Layer 3 PoE Switch
autonomous wireless network. Cisco Aironet 1200 series Wireless Access Points
configured in autonomous mode
Install and Configure an Unified Wireless LAN Learn how to set up and configure a wireless Cisco 2811 Router
LAN with wireless LAN controller. Cisco 3560 Layer 3 PoE Switch
Cisco 2504 WLC
Cisco Aironet 3502i Access Point
Configure Layer 2&3 Roaming Learn how to configure a secured WLAN Cisco 2811 Router
on Cisco 2106 WLC, using EAP-FAST for Cisco 3560 Layer 3 PoE Switch
authentication this is based on a local EAP, with Cisco 2504 WLC
WPA encryption. Cisco Aironet 3502i Access Point
Configure EAP-Fast Authentication with WPA Learn how to configure a secured WLAN Cisco 2811 Router
using EAP-FAST for authentication with WPA Cisco 3560 Layer 3 PoE Switch
encryption. Cisco 2504 WLC
Configure Web Authentication Learn how to set up a WLAN with web Cisco 2811 Router
authentication as the security policy. The Cisco 3560 Layer 3 PoE Switch
implementation provides an open connection to Cisco 2504 WLC
a user that requires a username and password Cisco Aironet 3502i Access Point
security exchange.
Install and Configure Prime Infrastructure Learn how to Install and Configure Prime Cisco 2811 Router
Infrastructure. Cisco 3560 Layer 3 PoE Switch
Cisco 2504 WLC
Prime ISO file
Figure 6. Configure WLANs with auto access points
71

Lab 2: Install and Configure Lab 4: Configure EAP-Fast

an Unified Wireless LAN Authentication with WPA
In this lab students will connect and configure In this lab, students will create and configure a
Cisco 2504 WLC. Students will learn how to con- local EAP-based EAP-FAST WLAN, with WAP
figure a Cisco 2106 WLC by using the CLI setup for encryption, then configure a client to associate
wizard, connect to the configured controller by with this WLAN (see Figure 9).
using the web interface, allow Telnet connections
to the controller, allow open authentication access Lab 5: Configure Web Authentication
through the WLAN, and verify the presence of
the Access Points (see Figure 7). In this lab, students will set up a WLAN with web
authentication as the security policy. The client
Lab 3: Configure Layer 2&3 Roaming will connect to the WLAN with username and
password. Then students will experiment with
In this lab, students will experiment with connec- exclusion policies (see Figure 10).
tion features and roaming. Students will work with
another pod and create the same WLAN first. Then Lab 6: Configure Web Authentication
students will see how the client PC can roam from
one AP to the other AP (see Figure 8). In this lab, students will install and configure
Prime. Prime Infrastructure (PI) is an essential
Figure 7. Configure a Unified Wireless LAN
Figure 8. Configure Layer 3 Roaming
72

Figure 9. Configure EAP-Fast Authentication with WPA
Figure 10. Configure Web Authentication
component of Bring Your Own Device (BYOD). walls, web servers, DNS, DHCP servers, domain
It provides a single integrated management system controllers, etc. Figure 13 shows the eight virtual
of wired, wireless access, campus, and branch servers running within the one physical server.
networks (see Figure 11). Table 3 lists windows application labs that have
been developed.
4.2 Server Application
4.3 IP Telephony
Figures 12 displays the environments and controls
the students have in the Microsoft Server lab en- The topology of the IP Telephony laboratory is
vironment. The whole point of this architecture illustrated in Figure 14. There are four onboard
is to make large pools of servers act and feel as switch ports connecting to the aggregation switch,
if they were a single, consistent, virtual system. and the aggregation switch connects to eight rout-
The virtual cluster resembles a typical small ers in each group. Students can get access to the
corporate network, which consists of routers, fire- call manager application with 24/7 availability
73

Figure 11. Configure prime
from any location with web access. The entire 5. CONCLUSION

system is perceived as a whole rather than as a
collection of independent components. STEM is an interdisciplinary and applied approach
Twenty-one labs have been developed and that is coupled with hands-on, problem-based
are grouped into 5 modules. Table 4 shows the learning. Hands-on practice expands a student’s
developed IP Telephony labs. understanding and appreciation of science. Experi-
Figure 12. Microsoft virtual networking topology
74

Figure 13. Eight virtual machines running in a virtualized ESXi server
Table 3. Windows application labs
Modules Labs
Module 1: Planning and Configuring IPv4 Lab 1: Configuring IP addresses
Module 2: Configuring and Troubleshooting DHCP Lab 2: Configuring and troubleshooting DHCP Server
Module 3: Configuring and Troubleshooting DNS Lab 3: Installing and configuring the DNS Server Role
Lab 4: Configuring DNS Zones
Lab 5: Configuring DNS Zone transfer
Lab 6: Managing and Troubleshooting DNS
Module 4: Configuring and Troubleshooting IPv6 Lab 7: Configuring IPv6 address
TCP/IP Lab 8: Configuring IPv4 to IPv6 transition
Module 5: Configuring and Troubleshooting Lab 9: Configuring RIP Routing
Routing and Remote Access
Module 6: Installing, Configuring and Lab 10: Installing and configuring a network policy server
Troubleshooting the Network Policy Server Role Lab 11: Configuring RADIUS clients and servers
Module 7: Implementing Network Access Lab 12: Configuring NAP Policy
Protection
Module 8: Increasing Security for Windows Servers Lab 13: Configuring Windows Firewall with Advanced Security
75

Figure 14. IP telephony laboratory topology
Table 4. IP telephony labs
Modules Labs
Module 1: Base Configuration Lab 1: Partition and CSS
Lab 2: Initial Sever Configuration
Lab 3: Common Device Pool Configuration
Lab 4: Phone Line and CIPC Configuration
Lab 5: Using BAT to Add Phones and Users
Lab 6: Voice Gateway Configuration—PRI
Lab 7: Voice Gateway Configuration- FXO
Module 2: Phone Features Configurations Lab 8: Ad Hoc and MeetMe Conferencing Configuration
Lab 9: Music on Hold Configuration
Lab 10: Call Park and Do Not Disturb (DnD) Configuration
Lab 11: Translation Pattern Configuration
Lab 12: Ring Tone Configuration
Lab 13: Phone Background Image Configuration
Module 3: Multiple Call Configurations Lab 14: Shared Lines Configuration
Lab 15: Hunt Group Configurations
Lab 16: Call Pickup Configurations
Lab 17: Accepting Multiple Calls
Module 4: Mobility Configurations Lab 18: Extension Mobility Configuration
Lab 19: Single Number Reach Configuration
Module 5: Multisite with Distributed Call Lab 20: Intersite Calling
Processing Model Deployment Lab 21: SRST Fall Back Configuration
76

menting can encourage students to explore new Leitner, L., & Cane, J. (2005). A virtual laboratory
ideas, which can lead to increased confidence and environment for online IT education. In SIGITE
competence in the science, engineering, technol- ’05 (pp. 283-289). doi:10.1145/1095714.1095780
ogy, and math (STEM) fields. In this chapter, we
Li, C., Toderick, L., Li, P., Mohammed, T., &
present a solution which is based on private cloud
Lunsford, P. (2008). Networking lab simulation
computing and can be used to build a laboratory
using virtual technologies. American Society for
and learning environment for online hands-on IT
Engineering Education.
courses. Although hands-on laboratory exercises
are integral to a successful IT program, online stu- Lunt, B., Ekstrom, J., Gorka, S., Hislop, G.,
dents do not have the same laboratory experience Kamali, R., Lawson, E., & Reichgelt, H. et al.
as onsite students. To address the above issues, the (2008). Curriculum guidelines for undergradu-
solution we propose is private cloud computing ate degree programs in information technology.
providing SaaS. Students, as cloud clients, can Association for Computing Machinery IEEE
access the server by web access through VPN Computer Society.
connection. Three clusters of virtual machines
Pickard, J., Spence, J., & Lunsford, P. (2012). IPv6
were created and the virtual infrastructure can
certification and course development. In SIGITE
automatically adapt to the change of the service
’12 (pp. 156-160). doi:10.1145/2380552.2380599
load. Our experience demonstrated that the private
cloud computing provide online students valuable Richards, B., & Stull, B. (2004). Teaching wire-
hands-on experience. less networking with limited resources. SIGCSE.
doi:10.1145/971300.971408
Sakar, N., & Craig, T. (2005). Teaching wireless
REFERENCES
communication and networking fundamentals
Anderson, J., Wiles, F., & Young, K. (2008). The using Wi-Fi projects. IEEE Transactions on
impact of could computing on IS/IT academics. Education, 49(1).
Issues in Information Systems, 9(1). Zhou, M., Zhang, R., Xie, W., Qian, W., & Zhou, Z.
Armbrust, M., Fox, A., Griffith, R., Joseph, A. (2010). Security and privacy in cloud computing:
D., Katz, R. H., Konwinski, A., & Zaharia, M. A survey. In 2010 Sixth International Conference
et al. (2009). Above the clouds: A Berkeley view on Sematics, Knowledge and Grids (pp. 105-111).
of cloud computing. University of California. doi:10.1109/SKG.2010.19
Berkeley: Tech.
Doelitzscher, F., Sulistio, A., Reich, C., Kuijs,
H., & Wolf, D. (2010). Private cloud for col- KEY TERMS AND DEFINITIONS
laboration and e-Learning services: From IaaS
Bring Your Own Device (BYOD): Refers to
to SaaS. Computing, 91(1), 23–42. doi:10.1007/
the policy of permitting employees to bring per-
s00607-010-0106-z
sonally owned mobile devices (laptops, tablets,
Forster, A., & Jazayeri, M. (2010). Hands-on ap- and smart phones) to their workplace, and to use
proach to teaching wireless sensor networks at those devices to access company information and
the undergraduate level. In ITiCSE’10. Ankara, applications.
Turkey: Bilkent. doi:10.1145/1822090.1822170 Extensible Authentication Protocol-Flexible
Authentication via Secure Tunneling (EAP-
77

FAST): A publicly accessible IEEE 802.1X EAP Virtual Local Area Network (VLAN):
type developed by Cisco Systems. It is available A group of end stations with a common set of
as an IETF information draft. requirements, independent of physical location.
Network Time Protocol (NTP): It is an In- Wi-Fi Protected Access (WPA): A security
ternet protocol used to synchronize the clocks of protocol developed by Wi-Fi Alliance to secure
computers to some time reference. wireless computer networks.
Power of Ethernet (POE): Allows a single Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN):
cable to provide both data connection and electrical A wireless computer network that links two or
power to devices such as wireless access points. more devices using a wireless distribution method
within a limited area.
78
79
Chapter 6
Addressing Transport Layer
Issues in Cloud Computing:
A STEM Perspective
Claudio Estevez
Universidad de Chile, Chile
ABSTRACT
Due to bandwidth limitations and overflowing in the Internet, connectionless transport-layer protocols
are migrating to connection-oriented, mainly because of the flow control it offers. Because of this,
many Internet Service Providers (ISPs) and network administrators have restricted user traffic to only
Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) segments. Optimizing TCP-based protocols will benefit significantly
the performance of any centric system, such as the STEM clouds. The challenging scenarios, when using
TCP-based systems, are transmitting large files over long distances, as these have a large bandwidth-
delay product (BDP) which hinders drastically the performance, even if the network’s physical link is
broadband (e.g. fiber optics). There are various transport protocols today that address these problems.
This chapter aims at explaining the transport layer limitations, an overview of how we arrived at the
computing systems.
INTRODUCTION and it has done so because of all the advantages it

offers. A few advantages of implementing a cloud
STEM learning is an important foundation that network include: (a) Easy access: End-users can
everyone should possess, regardless if the job they access data and applications through any terminal
decide to perform requires a deep knowledge of connected to the Internet, from any location and
these fields. STEM learning is powered by knowl- at any time. Data and applications will not be
edge and the diffusion of knowledge, so computer confined to a single location, such as a university,
networks play an important role in education in enterprise or home, enabling ubiquitous access.
the twenty first century. In the last decade, cloud (b) Economical: Client hardware cost will drop
computing has become a pervasive technology drastically, as the intelligence can be placed in the
DOI: 10.4018/978-1-4666-9924-3.ch006

Addressing Transport Layer Issues in Cloud Computing
cloud, and the need for hardware upgrades will grid will allow students to program even the most
gradually become less frequent, perhaps one day processor-hungry algorithms. Solutions to prob-
there will be no need for upgrades. (c) Software lems that do not have closed-form expressions
licensing: Companies running licensed software can be found by exhaustive search, an alternative
can have a centralized processing grid that al- that may not have been an option before grant-
lows access to its users, resulting in a reduction ing access to computer grids. Now that we have
in license costs. Also, renewal of licenses can be discussed the advantages, a discussion of some
automatic and have an even lower cost. (d) Stor- issues related to cloud computing follows.
age: Organizations with massive storage needs Cloud computing undoubtedly has improved
can save physical space, energy consumption, our way of life, and it has done so for many years.
and managing costs, by utilizing cloud services. E-mail is one of the earliest cloud-based systems,
By utilizing these services, consumer organiza- and it basically replaced regular paper-based
tions will save money on maintenance, energy, mail. When e-mail was born, the term ‘cloud’
software upgrades, hardware repair, support, and did not even exist in the context of technology.
many in many other aspects as streamlined equip- After many years, in which the Internet has grown
ment, in general, has fewer problems than fully significantly, cloud networks still encounter many
integrated systems. (e) Finally, processing power: challenges (Dillon, Wu, & Chang, 2010; More-
If the cloud network is equipped with a computer no-Vozmediano, Montero, & Llorente, 2013),
grid system, then the client can take advantage of including: Privacy, Scalability, Interoperability,
the network’s parallel processing power to send Reliability, and Performance issues. Privacy is
demanding computational processes to the cloud. a big concern for the user as the data resides on
As it can be observed, all these traits: easy access, the cloud’s servers, so it is vulnerable to hacking
economical, centric software licensing, storage, attempts. Scalability is essential for any cloud
and processing power are very beneficial to STEM service provider, as the number of users increases,
learning. Here are a few examples: Students and the cloud must be able to sustain the demand.
teachers can benefit tremendously from sharing Interoperability is a difficult task because of a
experimental results located in a central database lack of standardization; each provider has its own
that everyone (that is allowed) can access it from interface. Reliability is important to retain users.
home, school or university. Given that students High system downtime will discourage users from
have access to public computer grids, they can utilizing specific providers. Performance is one
run processor-demanding tasks from a tablet or of the most important issues and can encompass
laptop. Students do not have to invest in expen- many aspects of the cloud, including quality of
sive computers. Having centric software licenses service (QoS), throughput, and delay. The cloud’s
allows students to use programs, like Matlab or performance is among the top priorities, without
Mathematica, in any computer using the school’s good performance, the other issues become less
license. Storage is necessary in any organization, relevant. Performance can be significantly en-
educational or not, to store the institution’s data in hanced by improving the effectiveness of transport
a safe and accessible way. In schools, the storage layer protocols. This is the focus of this chapter.
can be used to digitize books and share them with
students. It occurs often that there are not enough
hard copies to satisfy the demand for a specific CLOUD COMPUTING IN STEM
group. If soft copies were kept, now demand for
knowledge is too high; of course, this would need Cloud computing is making a huge impact in
a lot of storage space. Lastly, access to a computer STEM learning. Much work has been dedicated
80

to improve the way teaching is done today (Li-li tablets. The last work discussed is not how cloud
& Xin-cheng, 2014; Li, 2013; Sun & Jiang, 2014; computing can help STEM, but how STEM can
G. Yang, Zhu, & Zhuo, 2011; Zhaobin, Wenzhi, help cloud computing. In the paper of Li (2013),
& Caidong, 2013). The point in which most of it is discussed how portable lab modules can be
the work in cloud computing oriented to teaching used to teach cloud computing concepts. The lab
intersect is in that the material is more accessible modules can be run in a decentralized fashion so
and the infrastructure necessary to provide the each student can run it remotely. The main concept
teaching tools is more economical. For instance, is to teach students how different virtual machines
Zhaobin et al. (2013) and G. Yang et al. (2011) can communicate with each other.
discussed that teaching and research requires a Now that the interaction between STEM and
demanding processing capability and that peri- cloud computing has been discussed, let’s see
odical hardware replacement is very expensive. how the transport layer can benefit the cloud net-
By means of virtualization, similar results can work. First, a brief overview of the early TCP is
be obtained while saving resources. It also ad- discussed to mainly understand what mechanisms
dresses the uneven distribution of educational are inherited and what traits are new. This section
resources, where adopting cloud computing can will be followed by the limitations of TCP and
make the fund allocation to different fields more recent work in this field.
homogenous and a one-time investment can be
made on a cloud-based institutional network. In
(Li-li & Xin-cheng, 2014), a centric network is MECHANISMS OF EARLY TCP
proposed for teaching resource storage. Among
the advantages discussed, the paper mentions that The earliest design of TCP was published in the
the proposed system can standardize teaching request for comments (RFC) of the Internet Engi-
resources and interconnect the cloud with other neering Task Force (IETF) under the identifier 793
institutions’ clouds. Standardizing class material, (Postel, 1981). The main contribution of RFC793
particularly when more than one professor teaches is the synchronization scheme and variable defi-
the same class, allows for a more uniform level nitions. Before the transmission of data, a con-
from one term to the next. Having each professor nection establishment procedure, referred widely
control his own material can lead to heterogeneous as the three-way handshake, must be performed.
topics teaching in different sections or terms Once the three-way handshake is completed the
from the same class. Interconnected clouds also data transmission starts. To guarantee that the
serves a similar purpose but at a much bigger segments arrive in the correct order, each seg-
scale. Interconnecting different clouds allows ment is assigned a sequence number (SEQ), in
a more uniform teaching level across different units of bytes, to which the receiver replies with
educational institutions. This would mean that it an acknowledgement number (ACK). The ACK
does not matter at what campus the student takes corresponds to the next expected SEQ, which
a class, the class would be similar in every loca- is simply computed by adding the data length
tion. In (Sun & Jiang, 2014), the specific require- (LEN), information found in the header, to the
ments for supplying a robust multimedia teaching SEQ. After the data is completely received, there
platform is addressed. This is more specific to a is a final exchange of control messages to close
multimedia than the general cloud concept and the connection and release the reserved resources.
discusses topics such as the hardware and design What is missing in RFC793 are the details of
of the cloud environments and how to incorporate the congestion window management, but they can
end-user elements, such as mobile phones and be found in a later publication, which is RFC2581
81

(Allman, Paxson, & Stevens, 1999). This new a segment is lost, there are two other states that
RFC includes much more detail regarding the handle the recovery.
congestion window control. To regulate the flow The recovery algorithm implemented depends
of traffic through the network, TCP administers on the exact version of TCP used. The traditional
the congestion window size (cwnd); note that the versions all have the timeout (TO) mechanism.
word ‘size’ is not included in the abbreviation. The sender is constantly computing the TO
The cwnd dictates the transmission throughput time based on the RTT and the delay jitter. If no
by deciding the amount of segments that can be segments are received within a TO interval, the
released by the sender at any point in time. The system assumes the segments are lost and resets
increase and decrease of the cwnd value depends the cwnd and enters the slow start state. Another
on which of the four basic states of TCP the con- more efficient method exists for detecting seg-
nection is found: slow start, congestion avoidance, ment losses. Because the receiver acknowledges
fast retransmit, and fast recovery. The connection the received segments and each segment has a
is initialized in the slow-start state with the mini- SEQ, it can detect immediately if a segment is
mum number defined for the cwnd, typically 2. out of order. If a SEQ is skipped, the receiver will
In the slow start state, the cwnd increases by one persistently send the ACK of the next segment it
segment upon the arrival of every ACK. The slow expects while storing all segments with higher
start can also be triggered by a timeout, i.e., no SEQ. If the segment is lost, then the receiver will
packets arrive before an expiration time, in which only send the ACK of the missing segment until
the cwnd is also set to the minimum value. When it arrives. At the sender end, the duplicated ACK
found in the slow-start state, the cwnd increases segments arrive. A duplicate ACK can occur for
exponentially in time; more specifically, at each at least three different reasons: in the event that a
round-trip time (RTT) the cwnd will double. This segment is lost, duplicated, or arrives in a different
growth continues until a loss is detected or the order. When a triple-duplicate ACK (consisting
cwnd exceeds what is referred to as the slow-start of four continuous segments, one expected plus
threshold (ssthresh). Once the cwnd exceeds the three duplicates) is detected, the protocol assumes a
ssthress, TCP switches to the congestion avoid- segment is lost and enters the fast retransmit state,
ance state. The congestion avoidance state has where it sends the missing segment without wait-
a more conservative control over the cwnd; this ing for the TO timer to expire. Once the receiver
avoids saturating the network. In the congestion gets the missing segment, it sends the ACK of the
avoidance state, in theory, the cwnd is increased next expected segment, acknowledging all previ-
by 1/cwnd (i.e. cwndn+1 = cwndn + 1/cwndn) upon ous segments. Some protocols also have a fast
every ACK arrival. In practice, there is an ACK recovery state, which follows the fast retransmit,
counter and, every time the counter is equal to but different versions have different strategies.
the cwnd value, the cwnd is increased by one. TCP, at its early stages, have several versions,
This is known as the additive increase and it is including: Tahoe, Reno, New Reno and selec-
part of TCP’s additive-increase multiplicative- tive ACK (SACK). The main difference between
decrease (AIMD) algorithm. The multiplicative these versions is the mechanisms used in the fast
decrease behavior will be explained ahead. The recovery state. TCP Tahoe, the earliest version,
cwnd value in the congestion avoidance state has had fast retransmit state but did not have fast re-
a linear growth in time. Both the slow start and covery. After the fast retransmit was completed,
the congestion avoidance states have algorithms TCP Tahoe would enter the slow start state. TCP
that execute only while no segments are lost. If Reno implements fast recovery, besides the other
82

basic congestion control algorithms. In Reno’s fast LIMITATIONS OF CONNECTION-

recovery algorithm, after a triple-duplicate ACK, ORIENTED TRANSPORT
computes the new slow-start threshold by dividing PROTOCOLS
the flight size, i.e., all segments that have not been
acknowledged, by two (or multiplying by half), Connection-oriented protocols are responsible
also known as the multiplicative-decrease process. for the data integrity, but the integrity comes
The New Reno fast recovery has a small improve- at a price. To enable a reliable transfer of large
ment over Reno’s. It differs from Reno in how it files, connection-oriented protocols must obtain
handles a burst of segment losses, i.e., losing more an acknowledgement for every segment that is
than one segment in less than one RTT interval. sent. This need for acknowledgement is the main
TCP Reno handles a burst of segment losses in hurdle faced by these protocols. The farther the
an inefficient manner: once it recovers from the transmitting and receiving nodes are from each
first loss, if the next non-duplicate ACK does not other, the more time it takes for the ACK to return
acknowledge all the remaining segments, known and therefore the effective throughput will be
as a partial ACK, it reenters the fast retransmit low. Let’s analyze this in greater depth. Assume
and recovery states, which means it will decrease there are two pairs of traditional-TCP-based
again the cwnd by a factor of two. It may repeat transmitting-receiving nodes: the first pair has
this process several times, depending on how an RTT of 100 ms and the second has an RTT of
many segments were lost in the burst. New Reno 200 ms. Each pair starts a session by initializing
stores the value of the last SEQ, if triple-duplicate and establishing a connection. After the three-way
ACK is triggered, the first non-duplicate ACK is handshake, both transmitting nodes send 2 seg-
compared to the last SEQ value stored and, if it ments. After 100 ms, the first pair has received
is lower, it means it is a partial ACK. In this case, an ACK and has doubled its cwnd to 4, while the
the SEQ that corresponds to the partial ACK is receiver of the second pair has just received the
retransmitted but without reducing the cwnd again. first 2 segments. After 200 ms, the first pair has
Finally, the SACK fast recovery is an improvement reached a cwnd = 8, while the second pair has just
over Reno and it leaves New Reno obsolete. Both completed the first cycle doubling its cwnd. It is
end users must support the SACK option, which easy to see that, if this continues, the first pair will
reserves the fields in the segment header. In the always have a cwnd twice as large as the second
event of a segment loss, a triple-duplicate ACK is pair. The relation between various key parameters
imminent. If multiple segment losses occur within and the effective throughput of traditional TCP is
the same RTT, the second and subsequent losses derived in (Padhye, Firoiu, Towsley, & Kurose,
will have a SACK option set, by the receiver. The 1998). The expression is:
options data field contains the information about
the missing segments in a single ACK. Therefore, 1
T= , (1)
the sender can be informed prematurely (does not RTT 2bp / 3
wait for non-duplicate ACK) of all the segment
losses and, using this information, it can retransmit
all the missing segments within a single RTT. where T is the throughput, b is the maximum
amount of segments the receiver waits before send-
83

ing an ACK, and p is the packet loss rate (PLR). locations found in the opposite side of the Earth.
The throughput T is in units of packets per second, The last example portrays very well the problem
more specifically frames per second. To convert found in high BDP networks, where even if the
to the more familiar bits per second (b/s) unit, it physical link can easily sustain gigabit per second
is necessary to multiply by the total packet size in transmissions, if the transport layer protocol is
bits. From (1), it is easy to see that the throughput inefficient, the traffic will be nowhere near these
is inversely proportional to the RTT. Having a large bitrates. This is the reason some researchers refer
RTT link is not the only limitation; the PLR also to this problem as the transport layer bottleneck.
plays an important role. The best way to visualize In summary, the two main parameters that affect
how packet losses affect a system is to take a high the throughput of TCP-based protocols are the RTT
bandwidth-delay product (BDP) network example. and the PLR. The problem is exacerbated in high
Let’s take, again, two traditional-TCP-based pair of BDP networks. Even if the bandwidth capacity of
nodes each with a 1-Gbps link. The first pair has the physical links increases, traffic will not be able
a 1-ms RTT, the second has 500-ms RTT. Both to flow at the maximum allowable rate. The search
links have reached the steady-state throughput for more efficient TCP-based protocols is still an
of 1 Gbps and simultaneously both connections on-going research topic. Some research proposals
suffer a single packet loss. In both cases, the fast in this field, with a focus on cloud computing, are
retransmit and fast recovery states perform as discussed in the following section.
usual, reducing the cwnd by half. Assuming the
packets have 1500 bytes, the first pair had a cwnd
of 83 segments (cwnd = T·RTT) and, after the CLOUD COMPUTING ISSUES
segment loss, it was reduced to 42 segments, (int) AND TCP SOLUTIONS
cwnd/2. In the congestion avoidance state, after
each RTT without any segment loss, the cwnd in- As mentioned earlier, in the introduction section,
creases by 1; it will take 41 ms to reach the 1 Gbps cloud computing has many advantages. Cloud
throughput, assuming there are no segment loss computing is just starting to grow, not only in
in this interval. The PLR would have to be lower terms of size but in terms of applications. As
than 4·10-4, which is reasonable, particularly for cloud computing grows, it will encounter many
this RTT. For the second pair, the situation is quite challenges that it will need to address. Many of
different. Before the loss, the cwnd was of 41,666 these hurdles are directly or indirectly related to
segments; after the loss, it was reduced to 20,833 the transport layer, so this symbiotic relationship
segments. This means that it will require 10,416.5 between the transport layer and the system has
seconds to reach again the 1 Gbps throughput, to be improved. Some of the issues are related to
if there are no losses in this interval. The PLR, transmission efficiency, Quality of Service (QoS),
in this case, would have to be lower than 2·10-9, Quality of Experience (QoE), privacy, scalability,
which is not easily attainable, especially at these energy efficiency, and latency. These issues have
distances. This means that reaching 1 Gbps, under an effect on the design of the transport protocol
these conditions, is very improbable. The relation and will be discussed in this section, which is
between distance and RTT depends a lot on the organized in subsections that discuss specific
network components. A 1-ms RTT is typical in a drawbacks and some protocols that address these
wired campus LAN, while 500-ms RTT is typi- problems.
cal of wired intercontinental transmissions from
84

Transmission Efficiency range of cwnd. The algorithm is described as

follows:
As discussed earlier, one of the issues of a TCP-
based protocol is overcoming the problems that cwndn+1 = cwndn + α(cwndn)/cwndn (2)
arise in networks with large RTTs. This affects the
QoE perceived by the user. The ideal cwnd is the
BDP, i.e., the product of the available bandwidth cwndn+1 = (1 – β(cwndn)) cwndn (3)
and the connection’s RTT. Cloud computing ser-
vices have characteristics that make TCP-based α(cwnd) = 1 and β(cwnd) = 1/2 for cwnd < 38,
protocol design more difficult. Typically, cloud where 38 segments is obtained from computing
computing services are available worldwide, and the cwnd equivalent to a PLR = 10-3. For cwnd >
therefore can potentially have large RTTs. Fiber 38, α(cwnd) > 1 and 1/2 > β(cwnd) > 0. α is the
optic network improvements, reaching 10 Tb/s additive-increase factor and β is the multiplicative-
transmissions over a single channel (Yu et al., decrease factor. A suggested relation for α(cwnd)
2011) can support vast bandwidths over long- and β(cwnd) is presented and can be found in a
haul distances. Because of the high BDP these table provided in the referenced work (Appen-
networks inherently have, it is very difficult for dix). What HSTCP does is to accelerate the cwnd
TCP-based protocols to reach the available band- growth when the PLR < 10-3. The consequence
width. This problem was detected several years of having more aggressive AIMD values is better
ago(Jacobson & Braden, 1988) and, as networks performance in high BDP networks, where large
improve, the problem will continue to aggravate. cwnd’s are needed. One drawback that HSTCP has
The prevalence of wireless technology at the edge is that it is not fair, i.e., if HSTCP and traditional
of the network only worsens the situation, since TCP shared the same pipeline, HSTCP could take
it increases the RTT and the packet loss rate. resources from traditional TCP. In the context of
One reason for exhibiting poor performance is academia, having efficient protocols (in terms
the management of the cwnd. Various versions of handling high BDP links) can significantly
of TCP have an AIMD cwnd algorithm, which improve the speed at which separate institutions’
means that the cwnd increases conservatively clouds synchronize data, particularly in the institu-
(additive) and decreases aggressively (multipli- tions are in different countries. For example, the
cative). Traditional TCP was designed for best- Georgia Institute of Technology, with headquarters
effort transmissions without any knowledge about in Atlanta, GA, USA, has a campus in Savan-
the available bandwidth. The sender probes the nah, GA, USA, and another in Lorraine, France.
network using the acknowledgement feedback Implementing an institutional cloud with servers
from the receiver. As RTT increases, it is more in all three campuses would benefit from efficient
difficult for traditional TCP to estimate the avail- protocols for data synchronization.
able bandwidth accurately and it takes more time
to respond to network congestion. Quality of Service
One of the first proposed solutions to the BDP
issue was a protocol known as HighSpeed TCP One way of providing QoS is through differenti-
(HSTCP) (Floyd, 2003). The proposed solution ated services. Incorporating this into TCP-based
is to modify the AIMD algorithm under a certain protocols can assist the QoS mechanisms provided
at other levels outside the transport layer. A pro-
85

posal that implements differential services at the another for high PLR. The exact value of the
transport layer is presented in (Y. R. Yang & Lam, threshold Vth is relative and no definite value is
2000). It presents a congestion control protocol mentioned. What is certain is that the top equa-
called General AIMD (GAIMD). The proposed tion of (7) is more accurate for p << 1, e.g. 10-3
algorithm is as follows: or lower, while the bottom equation becomes
more accurate as p gets closer to 1, e.g. 0.1-0.5.
cwndn+1 = cwndn + α/cwndn (4) For values of p that are too close to 1, e.g. 0.8-1,
TCP-based protocols cannot even operate well and
are programmed to terminate the connection after
cwndn+1 = β cwndn (5) several segment transmission failures.
In relation to the differential services, the rea-
The α and β values are selected to maintain a son the authors of GAIMD claim that the protocol
certain level of fairness. Fairness can be measured is able to provide differentiated services comes
by plotting the GAIMD cwnd versus the traditional from the following analysis (Equation 5 in the
TCP cwnd; the closer the observations fall to the x referenced paper):
= y line, the fairer the protocol is. The fairness of
GAIMD depends on the aggressiveness of the α (
4 1 − β2 )
and β values, so it is necessary to find a combina- TGAIMD = d TTCP or α = d 2
(8)
3
tion of values that will not overcome traditional
TCP traffic. To achieve this expression for the
GAIMD protocol, throughput should be equaled where d is the throughput ratio. When d = 1, the
to the traditional TCP throughput and the relation protocols are considered fair. From (8), it can be
between α and β can be solved for. The throughput observed that increasing the throughput ratio d
expression for the GAIMD protocol is: will increase the additive-increase factor α by d2.
If a differentiated service is set up such that the
1 α(1 + β) desired GAIMD traffic flow is twice as much
T = (6) as a reference flow (assuming a fair protocol is
RTT 2b (1 − β)p
used), the α value would have to be increased by
a factor of four. The same procedure can be used
where the dependence due to TO is ignored, as it to obtain other transmitting flows, may these be
only applies to networks with relatively high PLR. higher or lower. This can be used to provide an
To derive the expression that relates the α and β extra layer of QoS to users, as by simply adjusting
values, equations (1) and (6) should be equaled the value of d, which can affect the flow of the
and solved for. The resulting relation yields: user. This does not provide a great advantage in
general, as the value of d has to be adjusted at the
 3(1 − β) server side, but in a cloud computing environment,
 , 0 < p < Vth where the system is centralized, this can be very
α=  1 + β (7)
 4(1 − β 2 ) advantageous. The differentiated service does not
 , Vth < p < 1 necessarily apply to different cost plans. It can
 3
also be applied to different academic hierarchies;
for example, if library resources are hosted in the
It is important to mention that the work of (Y. cloud, professors can have a certain value of d,
R. Yang & Lam, 2000) includes two expressions students can have another and, if the library is
for the relation of α and β, one for low PLR and public, outside users can have a lower value of
86

d. This would allow the academic population to bound is helpful because once the cwnd exceeds
enjoy faster traffic flows. cwndMAX, the respective throughput will exceed
EIR packets will be discarded due to the enforced
Quality of Experience traffic policy. If this happens, the fast recovery
will decrease the cwnd, which is unnecessary
Traffic policing restrictions are almost an inherent since there is no congestion in the network and
quality of computer networks. The traffic policy the EIR value is known. By restraining the cwnd
is specified in the service level agreement (SLA), at cwndMAX, the traffic will flow at the maximum
which is an agreement between the user and the allowable bitrate. The congestion avoidance al-
provider and determines in great part the QoE gorithm then becomes:
perceived by the user. Two common specifica-
tions included in most SLAs are the committed  1 
information rate (CIR) and the excess information cwndn +1 = min cwndn + , cwndMAX 
 cwndn 
rate (EIR). When designing a TCP-based protocol,
(10)
incorporating these specifications could improve
significantly the performance of the user’s TCP
Traditional TCP could be seen as a special case
connections. Work that incorporates SLA informa-
of ESTP where cwndMIN = 0 and cwndMAX = ∞.
tion into the transport protocol is found in (Estevez
The incorporation of traffic-loss profile param-
et al., 2012), which is based in part on the work
eters into the multiplicative-decrease algorithm
of (Xiao, Estevez, Ellinas, & Chang, 2007). In the
and the cwnd boundary mechanism implemented
work by (Estevez et al., 2012), the protocol called
by the additive-increase algorithm give ESTP
Ethernet Services Transport Protocol (ESTP)
a significant advantage over other protocols in
incorporates SLA information in the algorithm
high BDP networks, because ESTP’s throughput
that administers the cwnd, proving that it improves
is lower bounded by the CIR. If private organi-
throughput performance. The congestion avoid-
zations are used to connect remote clouds, such
ance and fast retransmit algorithms are the same
as Carrier Ethernet providers, ESTP can easily
as the algorithms from traditional TCP, though
be configured to match the established traffic
the fast recovery algorithm is different. In the
policing restrictions. This is an advantage when
fast recovery state, the protocol will set the cwnd
synchronizing a network of distant clouds, such
to the value that corresponds to the CIR traffic
as a campus database.
rate, i.e., cwndMIN = CIR·RTT. With this value, the
multiplicative-decrease expression for the cwnd is:
Privacy
cwndn − cwndMIN One of the biggest concerns of cloud users is the
cwndn +1 = + cwndMIN
2 privacy. The information stored in the cloud could
(9) be personal, proprietary, unpublished, etc. and
the vulnerability to hackers is cause for concern.
This technique utilizes the full available band- Privacy protection is not a transport layer issue,
width by maintaining the throughput above the but there are a few measures that can be taken
CIR. The throughput can be further improved to help. TCP-based transport protocols can be
by incorporating the EIR information. The first categorized in two groups: transparent and non-
step is to compute cwndMAX = EIR·RTT. This transparent. Transparent means that the segments
will determine the cwnd upper bound. An upper flow through the core network without being de-
87

capsulated (opened). The segments are “invisible” all will be able to interact with it independent of
to the core network. Non-transparent protocols the TCP module that is loaded. The transmitter
are the inverse and the segments are read and/or only manages the cwnd and the receiver only
written, usually to store additional information acknowledges incoming segments. Some specific
about congestion. This is typically an advantage, features might be ignored by either node if it does
as better congestion control can be obtained, but not understand it, which could have increased the
it presents a vulnerability point. These protocols efficiency of the connection, but the transmission
require routers specifically designed for this task, will take place regardless. Since the node acting
which read and write transport layer information. as the server manages the cwnd, all traffic flow
Since the router has inherent access to transport will be controlled by this node. If only the cloud
layer information, the negative consequences of servers had a TCP-based protocol upgrade, i.e., a
being infiltrated are greater. For this reason, it is new module installed and loaded, rather than the
advisable to avoid routes that use these routers, whole network, then all downstream traffic will
which means that non-transparent protocols should experience the benefits of the new TCP-based
be discouraged in cloud networks. One way to protocol. Assuming the cloud network experiences
identify if the router is vulnerable is if it supports symmetric loads (same amount of downloads
the Explicit Congestion Notification (ECN) fea- and uploads), then only upgrading the servers
ture, described in detail in (Ramakrishnan, Floyd, will have a positive effect on half of the cloud’s
& Black, 2001). ECN is a congestion feedback traffic and compatibility is guaranteed. This is
tool that can label segments with a congestion a huge advantage as it avoids forklift upgrades,
warning; this allows the transmitter to adjust the which can be expensive. On the other hand, up-
traffic flow without necessarily losing a segment. grading each user’s terminal, for example each
A well-known transport protocol that uses ECN student’s personal computer, is a difficult task
(non-transparent) is the eXplicit Control Protocol as each computer has a specific transport layer
(XCP) (Zhang & Henderson, 2005). Another rea- protocol, which is dependent on the operating
son that discourages the use of non-transparent system the computer has installed. For example,
protocols is that it causes greater delays when the latest Windows versions use Compound TCP
routing because of the additional computational and the latest Linux kernels use Cubic (Iwanaga,
overhead. Kumazoe, Cavendish, Tsuru, & Oie, 2010) by
In summary, there is a vulnerability at the default (it can be easily changed though). Having
transport layer, which can be eliminated, but this no scalability restrictions at the transport layer is
should be studied thoroughly to ensure that the beneficial to the cloud, particularly in academia,
privacy threat and other disadvantages outweigh as the institution hosting the cloud definitely does
the benefits it could provide. not want any hurdles in the growth of the system.
Scalability Energy Efficiency
TCP-based protocols have an inherent compat- Energy consumption is not typically addressed
ibility advantage, and hence scalability. All TCP- at the transport layer; nevertheless there is work
based protocols share the same segment format that discusses some energy-saving solutions. It is
and all have a mechanism for acknowledging important to mention that the systems that most
successfully-delivered segments. This implies benefit from energy-efficient techniques are wire-
that any amount of computers (no transport-layer less systems. Hence, this is a topic that is of great
restriction) can be connected to the cloud and interest to the wireless communication field, where
88

devices are battery operated, reducing the energy second is using two trucks each covering half of
consumption and increasing mobility. The work of the path. Assume it takes several trips to deliver
(Haas, 1997) suggests that a TCP proxy be imple- all the boxes. Both strategies take the same amount
mented in the gateway. Therefore, the gateway of time for a box to travel from the source to the
manages two TCP sessions, one with the wireless destination, the second strategy might even take
device and another with the node the wireless longer if you count the time it takes to unload the
device is connecting to. The TCP session between first truck and load the second. The advantage of
the wireless device and the gateway should flow the second strategy is that by the time the truck in
smoothly, as it is a one-hop system and, therefore, the first strategy has reached the destination the
only subjected to intrinsic losses (no congestion leading truck from the second strategy has already
loss). The author argues this will decrease the returned to the source and left the boxes halfway
energy consumed by the wireless device, which down the path. This means the leading truck will
is a very reasonable argument. Nevertheless, the complete moving all the boxes in half the time.
gateway will consume more energy, but assum- The trailing truck will take the same amount of
ing it has a fixed power source (plugged), so it is time, hence the second strategy should complete in
worth the trade-off. An additional advantage of approximately half the time than the first strategy.
using a TCP proxy is the reduction of latency; this Leaving the analogy and back to TCP proxies, if the
will be discussed in the next subsection. Having TCP proxy is located exactly at the RTT/2 point,
an energy efficient wireless solution is not only then by the time the first data segment arrives at
necessary in cloud computing terminals but in any the receiving node (without TCP proxies), the
type of network. To the best of my knowledge, sender will have received the first ACK (with TCP
there is no transport-layer solution that can reduce proxy) reducing the RTT perceived by the sender
energy consumption at the server side assuming in half, doubling the throughput. The throughput
the server has a fixed power source. will be determined by the largest RTT in the path,
so if the TCP proxy is not in the RTT/2 point, the
Latency throughput is computed using the largest RTT,
a.k.a. the bottleneck or perceived RTT:
As mentioned earlier, in the Transmission Effi-
ciency subsection, high RTTs cause a detrimental RTTperc = max(RTTi,j) (11)
performance drop in TCP transmissions. One
alternative, that is underutilized, is the use of per- where RTTi,j is the RTT between two adjacent
formance enhancing TCP proxies, as described in nodes (proxy server, sender or receiver). Since
Section 5 of (Caini et al., 2007). This consists of RTTperc will always be lower than or equal to the
having a TCP proxy in between the cloud server end-to-end RTT, substituting RTTperc for RTT in
and the user terminal. The TCP proxy will queue (1) will always have (in theory) an increase in
incoming data segments and send “fake” ACKs throughput performance. A drawback of using
to the server, hence reducing the acknowledge- TCP proxies is that these require a vast amount
ment feedback time and therefore the perceived of memory to queue packets. Additionally, the
RTT. Reducing the RTT means increasing the computational overhead increases significantly
throughput. A useful analogy to visualize the as it needs to keep track of all the connections
mechanics of using a TCP proxy is to picture a that flow through it. Both of these tasks require
warehouse moving boxes, using trucks, to another a large amount of resources. It is not practical to
warehouse using two strategies; the first is using have TCP proxies in between every single user
a single truck covering the whole path and the and the cloud, unless it is located near the cloud
89

in which the largest RTT is approximately the congestion or congestion intensity in the network
same as the end-to-end RTT and therefore not (Jung, Kim, Yeom, Kang, & Libman, 2011; Jung,
very useful. Where this strategy is most useful is Kim, Yeom, & Kang, 2010; Estevez et al., 2012).
between cloud networks, nevertheless having a Out of these only the latter (Estevez et al., 2012)
TCP proxy could be a privacy vulnerability. As will be discussed ahead. The technique in this
with ECN-supporting routers (as discussed in the proposal consists of estimating the congestion
Privacy subsection), trade-offs must be studied to intensity based on the distance between two seg-
see if the benefits outweigh the disadvantages. ment losses, as shown in Figure 1, as a strong
correlation exists between these parameters. The
Additional Protocol Designs instantaneous amount of segments delivered be-
tween two segment losses plus one is defined here
There are many TCP-based protocols not men- as the parameter α. The value of α is mapped into
tioned in this chapter. The reader is encouraged an exponential profile to determine a less strenu-
to read about these additional protocols: BIC (Xu, ous multiplicative-decrease factor defined as 1/
Harfoush, & Rhee, 2004), CUBIC (Ha, Rhee, map(α). The reason for choosing an exponential
& Xu, 2008), Hamilton TCP (HTCP) (Leith & profile is to match the exponential probability
Shorten, 2004), Scalable TCP (Kelly, 2003), and distribution exhibited by α, where each individual
FAST (Wei, Jin, Low, & Hegde, 2006). All these loss is assumed to have a Bernoulli distribution and
protocols have some particular advantage in their the amount of successfully delivered packets per
design and most can be found in the Linux OS, unit of time has Poisson distribution. In practice,
which allows for accessible research and easy the distribution is not exactly exponential, but this
testing, as loading specific TCP modules in Linux approximation works well for the typical values of
is simple. α. By having the cwnd dependent on the network
congestion level, the cwnd can be controlled more
efficiently and with higher granularity.
FUTURE RESEARCH The extreme cases, for the value of α, are two
consecutive losses and a lossless transmission,
There have been many interesting topics in re- which indicates that it will range from 1 to ∞.
cent years. An interesting research topic in the The value of α is mapped to the value of map(α),
transport-layer design field is congestion intensity which is the denominator of the multiplicative-
estimation. The key word is ‘intensity’. Most of decrease factor and ranges from 2 to 1, respec-
the protocols discussed in this chapter only react tively (1 to ∞). The algorithm allows the cwnd
to congestion detection (binary decision) but only to be divided by a factor no greater than two
a few protocols attempt to estimate the level of (inclusive), and no smaller than one (exclusive).
Figure 1. Relation between the value of α and congestion intensity
90

Since a factor of map(α) = 1 corresponds to α = function can be scaled using the relation in (7),
∞ (lossless transmission), it is obvious that the where β = 1/map(α). It is the author’s opinion
protocol will never choose this exact factor. This that future protocols will incorporate congestion
mapping scheme is effective because, if α takes intensity estimation, perhaps not precisely this
a small value, it is assumed to be the result of a technique. As networking hardware improves the
highly congested network and therefore the cwnd is bitrate capabilities, there will be a greater need
reduced more aggressively (similar to Traditional to further improve the efficiency of connection-
TCP). Inversely, if the value of α is large, it is as- oriented protocols. Having congestion intensity
sumed that the network is not experiencing high estimation is an important step to achieve this.
levels of congestion and the cwnd is (and must
be) only slightly reduced. The mapping function
is found to be: SUMMARY
 −α−1 
−1
Cloud computing is an important tool for STEM
1
= e τ + 1 (12) education. It offers high accessibility, cost reduc-
map(α)  
tions, license sharing, massive storage, and high
processing power; all these characteristics are
The value of τ is an aggressiveness constant greatly beneficial to STEM learning. Cloud com-
and it is best to set to E[α] = 1/p, if known. In- puting networks have a few drawbacks, including
creasing this value makes the protocol react more privacy, scalability, interoperability, reliability,
aggressively on the cwnd in the event of a segment and performance issues. TCP-based protocols
loss, i.e., reducing the cwnd aggressively and less play an important role in the performance of
likely to overcome other protocols. Inversely, cloud networks, as nearly all the traffic that flows
decreasing this value will result in a more lenient through it consist of TCP segments. Therefore,
behavior, i.e., the cwnd is not significantly reduced improving the efficiency of TCP-based protocols
and the protocol is more likely to overcome other will improve the overall performance of the cloud
protocols. The resulting multiplicative-decrease network. To improve cloud networks, the follow-
algorithm is: ing topics are discussed: Transmission efficiency,
QoS, QoE, privacy, scalability, energy efficiency,
 −α−1 
−1 and latency. The transmission efficiency is more
cwndn
cwndn +1 = = cwndn e τ + 1 critical in high BDP links, and the key is to have
map(α)  
a quick recovery from a segment loss. QoS can
(13) be achieved at the transport layer through dif-
ferentiated services, which itself can be achieved
An interesting characteristic of this mechanism by modifying the aggressiveness of the additive-
is that, if a link is not congested but an isolated increase algorithm differently for different users.
intrinsic loss occurs due to physical layer error, QoE can be embedded in TCP-based protocols
the value of α should be very large; hence the by incorporating SLA information such that the
cwnd will not be significantly reduced, so this protocol adapts to the traffic policy rendering it
is very useful for high BDP networks. If the link more efficient. Privacy is an important issue in
is shared and the available bandwidth decreases, cloud computing and, at the transport layer, a few
there should be more consecutive losses, therefore measures can be taken to reduce the vulnerability
decreasing the cwnd accordingly. To maintain a of the information that is carried. Scalability is
certain level of fairness, the additive-increase an inherent property of transport protocols, as
91

they all share the same segment format hence Ha, S., Rhee, I., & Xu, L. (2008). CUBIC:
compatibility and incorporation of more nodes is A new TCP-friendly high-speed TCP vari-
not an issue. By implementing TCP proxies, the ant. Operating Systems Review, 42(5), 64–74.
energy consumption can be reduced in wireless doi:10.1145/1400097.1400105
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GLOCOM.2007.468
93
94
Chapter 7
Cloud-Based Social
Media as LMS:
A Fit for STEM in Developing and
Newly Developed Economies
Matthew A. Eichler
Texas State University, USA
Las Johansen Balios Caluza

Leyte Normal University, Philippines
ABSTRACT
Social media, with its ubiquitous characteristics and availability for use throughout the world, may serve
as a replacement for many features typically associated with learning management systems (LMS). These
systems are generally free to use, rely on robust servers with high speed connections, and are already
widely used on mobile phones and other devices, unlike learning management systems, which are typi-
cally used for the duration of educational experience and then no longer available to students. Due to
low budgets available for IT, universities in developing and newly developed countries may consider
alternatives to the LMS, which is both expensive, and relies either on paid services or the provision-
ing of servers. Educators should consider potential negative aspects and positive aspects of the use of
these tools in higher education before adopting for widespread use. STEM learning may be especially
enhanced through the use of social networking services (SNS) as LMS.
INTRODUCTION Victoria Department of Education and Training

(n.d.), digital technologies are the electronic
The epistemology of digital education started tools, hardware and software devices that can
and was conceptualized when the Internet was store, process, and generate an output such as
introduced in the late 1990s as a tool for higher multimedia, applications, authoring tools, and
education and evolves to teaching with digital online systems that can be used in teaching by
technologies. According to an article from the using desktop computers, laptops, notebooks, and
DOI: 10.4018/978-1-4666-9924-3.ch007

Cloud-Based Social Media as LMS
mobile devices. The use of digital technologies proliferation of Facebook into the fabric of the
has been well received, and in many cases, shows user’s online social experiences. What is unique
positive learning outcomes at the same level or about Facebook is the ability for users to visualize
exceeding those by more traditional pedagogies. their connections with others, with the platform
Indeed, there is a need to carefully consider the even suggesting others you may want to “friend”1,
use of new or changing technologies; Higgins, which include those users with many of the same
Xia, and Katsipataki (2012) emphasize that “it “friends” (boyd & Ellison, 2007).
is not whether technology is used (or not) which As a cloud-based platform, users access many
makes the difference, but how well the technol- of Facebook’s features through standard web
ogy is used to support teaching and learning” (p. browsers, moving toward a Software-as-a-Service
3). New generations of learners get motivated (SaaS) model (Hassan, 2011). Provided the prolif-
and are more engaged through the use of digital eration of features that are useful to the exchange of
technologies in education. Educators need to ex- information, files, and photos, Facebook has begun
periment and try out the use of tools, including to resemble a unified communications platform,
social networks, to enhance the quality of educa- with uses in business, education, and social lives
tion and motivate students (Klopfer, Osterweil, (Riemer & Taing, 2009). Indeed, the blurring of
Groff, & Haas, 2009). the boundaries between uses in business, educa-
tion, and social lives, has reflected the changes to
social life as a result of the use of Internet-based
BACKGROUND communications, being “always on”. Facebook
lives in contrast to traditional learning manage-
As a platform, Facebook was started as a college- ment systems (LMSs).
student-only social networking service in 2004. As The usefulness of Facebook goes beyond
of the last report in September 2014, Facebook had maintaining social networks of friends in the same
over 1.35 billion active users monthly (Facebook, physical area. The authors of this chapter met at
n.d.). Facebook is an online application compris- an academic conference in the Philippines about
ing a social network. Individuals use Facebook a month after Typhoon Haiyan/Typhon Yolanda
for multiple purposes, including instantaneous had devastated part of the Philippines. Author 1,
communication, delayed communication through Matthew Eichler, an American faculty member
an e-mail-like system, the sharing of pictures, and scholar has presented at several conferences
developing of networks of “friends”, and the use in the Republic of the Philippines. As a faculty
of closed and open group spaces. Communica- member in a mostly-online program at a tradi-
tion can be developed in ways that are open to tional university in Texas, the first author spends
other users in the user’s network of friends, to much time “on the Internet”, answering questions,
everyone who might view the user’s profile page, updating courses, creating audio-visual content,
to a closed or open group, or to an individual electronically marking student assignments, and
privately. Newly added features include video and conducting research. In addition, he advises and
audio conferencing between users. Facebook can coordinates the masters’ degree programs in his
be integrated with personal computers, mobile department, doing much of his advising online
phones, and tablet devices—thus being persistent via teleconferencing and E-mail systems. Author
and constantly a part of the user’s daily activities, 2, Las Johansen, had lived through the surge of
as long as appropriate connectivity to the Internet Typhoon Haiyan/Typhoo Yolanda2 of November
is maintained. The flexibility of the feature set, 2013, which destroyed much of Tacloban City, a
along with no charge for use, has resulted in rapid large city and commercial center in the Eastern
95

Visayas region, in Leyte Province, Philippines consumer identities over personally narrated iden-
(“Typhoon Haiyan”, 2013). As a faculty member tities. The networks of friendships themselves are
in Tacloban, the second author had recently com- part of the currency of Facebook use as individu-
pleted a major research study and was preparing to als are able to count the number of followers and
give a number of presentations about his research, friends they have. Further, the network developed
when the Typhoon started heading towards the is a product of the use of Facebook—and perhaps
Philippines. He lived in Tacloban and during the more important than what an individual is posting
storm, held tight to his laptop computer, which or chatting about. Given the use of real photos, the
held his data and presentations for the ongoing reporting of real events, and the use of Facebook
conferences at which he was scheduled to present. for actual communication that might otherwise
Several weeks later, at the conference, the first and be conducted in other ways absent the rise of
second authors met. The second author shared Facebook, the blurring between the “online” and
the story of living through the storm surge, and “offline” profiles or identities of individuals is
the two shared business cards, e-mail addresses, less apparent. Previous research on online selves
and became “Facebook friends”. Later, when the has separated the identity presentation in which
second author came to the United States as part of users engage as separate, allowing individuals to
a dance troupe in Summer 2014 to raise funds for create a different self than that which is lived in
the Typhoon victims, Facebook provided a means everyday life. However, because Facebook can be
of communication and sharing in order to follow a reflection of life as it is lived, this distinction
one another and eventually meet again in Texas. has been less crucial and less challenged (Zhao,
What is significant about the way the authors Grasmuck, & Martin, 2008).
met is that their friendship was initially formed The Facebook enterprise has faced numerous
on the basis of personal meeting, and now, nearly criticisms, aimed not only at how the company
halfway around the globe, the authors collaborate treats data and customers, but also aimed at the
academically and follow one another via Facebook. effects of widespread Facebook use. Andreas-
The flexibility of Facebook has not only provided sen, Torsheim, Brunborg, and Pallesen (2012)
a reliable means to be friends and share, but to have devised the Bergen Facebook Addiction
collaborate professionally as academics. Scale (BFAS), reflecting the six core elements
Individuals use Facebook and other social of Facebook addiction including “salience, mood
networking sites for a variety of reasons, includ- modification, tolerance, withdrawal, conflict,
ing meeting the need to belong and the need for and relapse” (p. 501). Indeed, the need for such a
self-presentation (Nadkarni & Hofmann, 2012). scale reflects the rise of new addictions. Similarly,
Because users create a profile that is public, Young’s (2009) typification of Internet addiction
involving personal photos, artifacts from around includes three main subtypes: excessive gaming,
the Internet (such as web-links and found photos), online sexual preoccupation, and e-mailing/tex-
and maintain a friends list, there is a potential to ting. Facebook-addicted individuals may share
create and manipulate the apparent identity of the similar characteristics with other types of Internet
user. Users may maintain a “virtual front” that addictions, particularly e-mailing/texting addic-
is different (or the same) as their physically and tion in this case, because much of the activity on
temporally lived self (Zhao, Grasmuck, & Martin, Facebook is similar to e-mail and texting. Further,
2008). Zhao, Grasmuck, and Martin (2008) claim others have delineated mobile-phone addiction
that there is bias in the use of Facebook towards (Choliz, 2010), which may overlap with Facebook
users who “show rather than tell”, claim implicit addiction given that Facebook use is also done via
rather than explicit identities, and value group and mobile phone for many users.
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Other criticisms of the use of Facebook in digital multimedia content (Bennett, Maton, &
general include experimental manipulation of Kervin, 2008; Prensky, 2001). Presnky (2001)
positive and negative emotional status on users posits that the changes he highlighted will change
without notice, knowledge or consent of users, the ways of thinking of those who are digital na-
concerns over the collection, warehousing, and tives in relation to the digital immigrants, who
availability of data, as well as the feature that at- were those born prior to widespread utilization
tempts to recognize the faces in posted pictures of the Internet. Digital natives include those born
and tag them automatically (Goldman, 2014; around 1980 or after, and those born before this
Kramer, Guillory, & Hancock, 2014). Because time are considered digital immigrants (Bennett,
it has been seen as a social and not educational Maton, & Kervin, 2008). For digital immigrants
platform, many schools and educational institu- the notion of integration of the social world into
tions do not allow Facebook use through content the digital world can be problematic. For those
blocking.3 This is done through use of Internet who are digital natives, these worlds are one in the
filters at these institutions. However, as in the case same, digital and social networks are integrated
of the authors, Facebook can be used as a tool for and a distinction is probably not made between,
professionals, educators, and students. for example, Facebook friends and real world
friends. Newer typologies of users have been
Social Networks/Social proposed, criticizing the original metaphors by
Media in Learning which Prensky’s (2001) typologies are based. One
popular typology is based on a continuum between
Social networking services (SNS) are services, visitors and residents, which places the metaphor
such as Facebook, that are platforms on which on the places and tools which individuals use and
to build networks of individuals who share com- inhabit rather than on the individuals themselves
mon interests, backgrounds, or real-life connec- (White & Le Cornu, 2011). Traditionally aged
tions (boyd & Ellison, 2007). Other SNS include students, however, remain residents,
Google+, LinkedIn, and Twitter, among many
others. These sites consist of a representation of see[ing] the Web as a place, perhaps like a park
users, often called a profile, along with methods or a building in which there are clusters of friends
for linking to others, such as “friending” in Face- and colleagues whom they can approach and with
book or “following” in Twitter. The networks built, whom they can share information about their life
then, become representations of social networks and work. A proportion of their lives is actually
between actual people. Doering, Beach, and lived out online where the distinction between on-
O’Brien (2007) highlight the need for the cur- line and off-line is increasingly blurred. Residents
riculum in schools to be responsive to the daily are happy to go online simply to spend time with
technology use espoused by the learners. While others and they are likely to consider that they
the tools can vary, the concepts remain relatively ‘belong’ to a community which is located in the
stable in educational design, differentiating mes- virtual. (White & Le Cornu, 2011, Section IV.2)
sage from carrier.
Educators should continue to adapt methods Some faculty on the other hand, because of
of instruction to fit with the needs and experi- their age and the tools utilized in their education,
ences of students including their use of SNS. may be visitors, who
Today’s (traditionally-aged4) university students
are clearly digital natives, having grown up with see the Web as primarily a set of tools which
the Internet and mobile phones that can receive deliver or manipulate content…[and] understand
97

the Web as akin to an untidy garden tool shed. introduced the notion of ubiquitous computing,
They have defined a goal or task and go into the which allows platforms like Facebook and even
shed to select an appropriate tool which they use most of the World Wide Web to be carried in
to attain their goal. Task over, the tool is returned one’s pocket on a mobile phone. Weiser (1991)
to the shed. It may not have been perfect for the describes ubiquitous computing as more than just
task, but they are happy to make do so long as the ability to carry a computer around to where it
some progress is made...Visitors need to see some is needed, but also extending to the seamless in-
concrete benefit resulting from their use of the tegration of multimedia computing to life. Weiser
platform. (White & Le Cornu, 2011, Section IV.1) (1991) points out that another line of fermenta-
tive thought about computing is virtual reality,
While it might seem the distinction is clear, in which a world is made “inside the computer”
White and Le Cornu (2011) contend that most (p. 94), and exists outside everyday reality. He
users lie upon a continuum with some degree of imagines ubiquitous computing as being integrated
mixture, not being completely visitor or resident. into the physical and social world. Today’s use of
While the use of SNS has been thought of as social networking platforms perhaps reaches his
an activity separate from the “real” business of description, being firmly embedded in the actual
learning, perhaps even a distraction, however the world through pictures, communication related
authors’ example of staying connected is but one to daily life, for many users both chronicling and
way that teachers and learners have used SNS in providing a channel for the living of daily life with
educational settings (Dalsgaard, 2006; Fewkes & friends and family.
McCabe, 2012). More specialized SNS such as The introduction of ubiquitous computing to
Academia.edu have become popular among fac- educational arenas is not without its challenges,
ulty members, researchers, and graduate students, including the integration into traditional education
with the ability to highlight and link to research environments, the availability of massive amounts
papers as well as form the social network connec- of data, the transformation of learning experiences
tions common with other SNS. from private to public due to the Internet, and the
human connection to the ubiquitous technology
Ubiquitous Computing twenty-four hours a day (Hancock, 2014). Further,
educational institutions, particularly in the U.S.,
Nearly a quarter century ago, Mark Weiser pre- struggle with policies related to students and
dicted “Specialized elements of hardware and faculty bringing their own device, or several of
software connected by wires, radio waves and in- their own devices, with them daily. Additionally,
frared, will be so ubiquitous that no one will notice the porosity and speed of information continues
their presence.” (Weiser, 1991, p. 94) Although to be a challenge.
wireless networking and what passed as notebook
computers were still in their infancy compared to STEM Learning with Technology
today’s computers and networks, the predictions
continue to shape our modern understanding of Chen, Lambert, and Guidry (2010) have estab-
computing, networks, and the importance of the lished the positive relationship between learning
Internet. In 1991, the Internet, although already outcomes, student engagement, and collabora-
in existence, did not have applications like the tion when Web-based technologies are used in
World Wide Web, and was primarily a tool of university teaching and learning. Further, they
researchers, defense users, and bulletin board us- suggest that technology has a stronger impact
ers who were electronic hobbyists. Weiser (1991) earlier in the university experience. These online
98

experiences may connect individuals in new ways the Internet. As of 2012, some 27.8% of residents
to the content, each other, and the experts in the in the Philippines used Facebook (Internet World
field. Wang and Hannafin (2005) have commented Stats, n.d.). Cheng (2014) has cited the Internet
on the natural fit between design-based thinking speeds in the Philippines as being the slowest
and research in science education and technol- in Southeast Asia. Despite the slow connection
ogy-enhanced learning environments (TELEs). speeds, the Philippines remains a very strong
Design-based science education is a newer para- outsourcing country for call centers, which are
digm of research, which utilizes iterative design reliant on Internet connectivity. In 2008, the Philip-
and carrying out of small-scale experiments or pines was declared the social networking capital
demonstrations in order to enhance knowledge of the world by Universal McCann, a marketing
about the effectiveness of teaching. The thinking research company. Certainly, the use of Facebook
behind design-based research is also transferable and other SNS is pervasive in the Philippines,
to design-based thinking used in technology and perhaps because of the strong ethos of helping
engineering education. A variety of e-learning one another through personal connections, which
tools are available for use in STEM fields, which can be fostered, communicated, made tangible,
can be utilized across the educational spectrum, made measurable, and communicated across the
from elementary and secondary schools, to post- country and internationally.
secondary, undergraduate, post-graduate, and
professional settings (see Carbonaro et al., 2008). LMS in the Philippines
A meta-analysis by Freeman et al. (2014),
questions the use of the traditional lecture model Given the need to keep higher education affordable
in STEM fields, finding that more robust outcomes to Filipinos and the lack of a universal government
of learning are associated with those studies which student loan program such as exist in the United
engage in active learning, which can be supported States, Filipino universities have sought to keep
by online learning and SNS use. costs quite low, which results in minimal techno-
logical infrastructure outlay, especially compared
to the universities in the United States. Given the
MAIN FOCUS OF CHAPTER poor network connections, the hosting of robust
web servers required for learning management
Internet/Devices in the Philippines systems remains out of reach of many universi-
ties. Open-source learning management systems
The Philippines is classified as a country with such as Sakai and Moodle are available at no cost;
lower middle income and a developing economy however, these systems must be hosted on web
according to most recent classification by The servers. For-profit and other at-a-cost LMSs are
World Bank (n.d.). According to a Bloomberg largely priced for Western markets. The makers
Business article, the Philippines is forecasted to of some systems have free versions of the service
have the second fastest growing economy in the with rather limited feature sets that are utilized by
world in 2015, only lagging behind China (Rob- some faculty members in the Philippines. Others
inson, 2015). With this growth comes continued have turned to more creative solutions, utilizing
increase in mobile phone and Internet use. As cloud-based and SaaS based systems, particularly
consumers gain purchasing power, more of the SNS to handle the variety of tasks and roles typi-
population will continue to have daily access to cally associated with an LMS.
99

Facebook as LMS munication capabilities of Facebook groups when

used for discussions for the class. They regarded
While not designed to be an LMS, the features the system as easy to use. What is less clear is
of Facebook or other SNS can be used to meet how it might have compared to an LMS. However,
the demand for learning management systems. an argument can be made that many students are
Within the United States Higher Education system, already familiar with Facebook’s features, which
privacy and other regulations prevent the use of makes it a system that is already known, unlike
systems like Facebook as a way to conduct classes; some LMS, which require students to learn an
however, these regulations may not be in place in additional system that is probably not widely used
other locations. The authors first learned of col- outside the context of university learning.
leagues using Facebook as a tool to communicate
with students in a private group formed for just the
class. Indeed, with Facebook’s popularity, it works SOLUTIONS AND
well as a communication tool with students and RECOMMENDATIONS
faculty for universities in the Philippines. Given
that Facebook can be used on nearly any “smart” Facebook and other SNS may prove extremely
mobile device, tablet, laptop or desktop computer useful as tools for university instruction in a va-
connected to the Internet, and the high reliability of riety of settings, including those in developing
the Facebook system, it seems a suitable solution countries. These tools remain strong candidates
for use in higher education in developing coun- for use because of their low-cost, familiarity by
tries. Instructors and students may post files for students and faculty, and the ability to work on
general use in a private group—or within a private infrastructure and devices already in place. Ad-
message may transmit files privately to particular ditionally, universities do not have the capital
users, such as for the submission of documents to outlay of servers or technical staff to manage LMS
the instructor from student or from instructor to servers or the cost of hiring a third party service
student. What makes Facebook especially useful to provide an LMS. University administrators
is that students or instructors may form their own and faculty should, however, be considerate of
groups at no cost or with no advanced admin- students’ personal use of Facebook as well, given
istrative permissions. Links to outside content that SNS are often used in a personal context. Poli-
may be easily shared. Instructors can even link cies are most likely needed to address the use of
to their own content on other free services, such SNS and other technologies in courses. Further,
as YouTube, Google Docs, or DropBox. In short, faculty would need to also consider the ability of
the Facebook experience may have advanced students to gain access through devices they might
linking and multimedia features that LMSs lack. already have, devices provided on campus such as
Certainly, the integration with existing devices computer labs, and even consider the provision of
such as mobile phones offers strong affordances robust wireless Internet services on campuses for
that LMS may lack as well in terms of integration students to utilize these systems. In the experience
with ubiquitous computing devices. of the authors, many campuses do not provide
The suggestion of use of Facebook’s features wireless networking service to students in the
as a substitute for a LMS is not new. Wang, Woo, Philippines. This stands in contrast to the United
Quek, Yang, and Liu (2012) reported the use of States, where wireless Internet is provided on
Facebook groups as a substitute for the LMS in campus for students and faculty, and often for the
a Singaporean context and found students were public at large who may be visiting the campus.
satisfied, and in-fact quite pleased with the com- The ability to link content is a strong feature that
100

can be utilized for instruction, whether outside Karim, 2013; Gray, Annabell, & Kennedy, 2010;
websites, instructional content developed by the Junco, 2012; Lam, 2012).
instructor or university, or the tying in of outside Bateman and Willems (2012) remind instruc-
experts and contacts from around the world. tors and universities of some of the danger of
Since Facebook is accessible throughout much of using Facebook, which can, because the SNS is
the world, it is possible to involve international not controlled by the university, subject students
experts and contacts. In fact, the first author has to invasions of privacy, bullying, stalking, identity
been connected to several university Facebook theft and so on. The lack of control of the technol-
groups in the Philippines in this way. ogy is perhaps one of the biggest weaknesses of
Along with any introduction of new technol- the use of Facebook and other SNS tools (Holley
ogy or requirements for the use of technology & Oliver, 2010).
in courses, administrators, faculty, and students
should weigh both the strengths and weaknesses of
the use of the technology. Facebook and other SNS FUTURE RESEARCH DIRECTION
can be a powerful way to disseminate information
quickly from one to many, in a way that students Garrison’s (2011) framework for research and
can receive easily using mobile or other devices practice in e-learning guides scholars to consider
(Pempek, Yermolayeva, & Calvert, 2009). Schro- four main dimensions of e-learning practice and
eder, Minocha, and Schneider (2010) highlight experiences. Garrison (2011) encourages practitio-
the enhancement of communication and learning ners to consider e-learning communities of inquiry,
as key benefits, but warn about the additional given the affordances for community building
workload accrued by faculty and students in using provided by e-learning tools. Fortunately, an
any SNS in education. Others have commented SNS provides strong opportunities for community
on the use of Facebook or other SNS as a “third building. Community building is perhaps one of
space”, being a space that is neither part of the the strongest applications of Facebook as an LMS.
formal classroom nor part of the usually non-task Garrison’s (2011) description of a community of
use of the services (Rambe, 2012). Particularly, inquiry includes the three main elements of social
instructors need to rethink instructional authority presence, cognitive presence, and teaching pres-
when opening the door to sanctioned SNS use in ence. “Social presence is the ability of participants
the class. Meishar-Tal, Kurtz, and Pieterese (2012) to identify with a group, communicate purposely
indicated that in an Israeli context, students found in a trusting environment, and develop personal
Facebook groups to be quite effective and indicated and affective relationships progressively by way
high levels of satisfaction; however, the authors of projecting their individual personalities” (Gar-
warn that instructors will need to rethink the ways rison, 2009, as cited in Garrison, 2011, p. 23).
they teach to utilize the technology effectively Social presence is quite possible and probably
in teaching. This does not equate directly to a needs little enhancement in locations such as the
transfer from face-to-face to include the use of Philippines where many students are already using
SNS—additional thought must be made in regards Facebook to connect with one another. Cognitive
to the inclusion of the technology in the pedagogy presence refers to the presence guided by process,
(Gray & Howard, 2014; Haythornthwaite & De intent, and learning outcomes (Garrison, 2011).
Laat, 2012). A number of other studies have hy- Educators will need to consider ways in which
pothesized the relationship between engagement, they can project the cognitive presence of the
online discussion using Facebook, and student Facebook space, to mark the space as intentional,
performance (Gabarre, Gabarre, Dinn, Shah, & process-oriented, and outcome-oriented. Teaching
101

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Developing Countries: Nations with a lower
ENDNOTES
standard of living, less developed industrialized

1
The term “friend” has come to be a verb
base, and low human development index.
in this context, meaning to develop a link
E-Learning: Education or training that is
on Facebook from your profile to another’s
provided using electronic technologies, such as
profile. It is called friending because the
multimedia hosted on the Internet.
button which activates and requests this link
Facebook: A popular social networking ser-
simply says “Friend” and refers to the group
vice, originally started with college students in
with which you have links as friends.
the United States of America. Used worldwide,

2
Typhoon Haiyan and Typhoon Yolanda
1.35 billion each month at last report. Includes a
are two names for the same storm. Known
variety of tools.
to much of the rest of the world, including
Learning Management System: Web-based
the United States as Typhoon Haiyan, the
software application (examples: Moodle, Sakai,
storm was named Typhoon Yolanda within
Blackboard, Canvas) that provides for the delivery
the Philippines (“Typhoon Haiyan”, 2013).
and management of e-learning. May include fea-

3
A much fuller discussion of the criticism of
tures such as quizzes, content delivery, chatting,
Facebook can be found at http://en.wikipedia.
e-mail, grade books, assignment submission and
org/wiki/Criticism_of_Facebook.
return, etc.

4
There are large numbers of “non-traditional”
Resident: Generally younger, “see the Web as
or adults returning to university - but we here
a place…in which there are clusters of friends and
are referring to those who attend university
colleagues whom they can….share information
after the completion of high school, largely
about life and work” (White & Le Cornu, 2011,
under 22-25 years of age.
Section IV.2). Residents have grown up with wide-
105
106
Chapter 8
A Cloud-Based
Learning Platform:
STEM Learning Experiences with New Tools
Rocael Hernandez Rizzardini

Galileo University, Guatemala
Christian Gütl
Graz University of Technology, Austria & Curtin University, Australia
ABSTRACT
A wide range of innovative Web 2.0 tools can be used for STEM education; however, learning orchestra-
tion issues arise in terms of management, adaption, and intervention. These issues can be solved through
the manipulation of the tools’ Web application programming interfaces (APIs) in order to orchestrate
the learning experience. In this chapter, the authors present a learning platform that is capable of or-
chestrating learning activities through Web interoperability with Web 2.0 tools. This interoperability is
realized through advanced Semantic Web technologies such as JSON-LD and Hydra, and a specialized
architecture to automatically recognize, process, and use the tools’ Web APIs. Finally, an evaluation
of the architecture in a Massive Open Online Course is presented which reveals satisfactory usability
and emotional evaluation results.
INTRODUCTION Furthermore, parallel reports from the New Media

Consortium regarding higher education and K-12
In a research report by the New Media Consortium in 2012 also ranked cloud computing within the
titled “Technology Outlook for STEM+Education top short-term adoption technologies. Research
2012-2017”, Johnson, Adams, Cummins and community has also focused on this type of tech-
Estrada (2012) show technologies that will im- nology for education, such as the comprehensive
pact STEM in the upcoming years. With over review by Chao (2012). Interestingly, mobile apps,
30 different technologies analyzed, the results social networking, and collaborative environments
of the referred study ranked cloud computing were also ranked for short-term adoption in the
within the top short-term adoption technologies. STEM report, which indicates the major role that
DOI: 10.4018/978-1-4666-9924-3.ch008

A Cloud-Based Learning Platform
collaborative and mobile applications are playing provide new learning experiences through or-
in educational settings. chestrated services, the authors also claim that a
This aforementioned STEM report also de- new paradigm is presented, where a monolithic
scribes the identified trends, which are summa- architectural approach is evolved to a flexible,
rized in three areas. The first area is that teaching heterogeneous and distributed architectural set-
paradigms in all educational sectors are continually ting intended for education environments. The
shifting to include models of online learning, new perspective presented by Hernández et al. (2013)
technologies, and collaboration. Second, the im- asserts that the change of paradigm enabled by
pact of massively open online courses (MOOCs) cloud computing also maximizes innovation pos-
in STEM areas is highly evident by an increasing sibilities in the following way:
number of new MOOCs offered in the very fields.
Third, the abundance of resources (in the forms …allowing interoperability of the best and most
of content, applications, and services) that are appropriate cloud services based on learning
easily accessible through the Internet challenges needs, freeing up from a vendor specific ap-
the educators’ role. proaches and limits, transforming the cloud
Moreover, the challenges identified in the education environment into a digital educational
STEM report raise issues, such as digital media ecosystem of services and resources available for
literacy, which is one of the essential skills that the practitioners, in contrast to a large amount
continue to gain importance. In education, this of software services that are difficult to manage
is a relevant challenge from the perspective of and organize for a learning setting.
the inclusion of multiple tools and apps that are
already available, which can be used for STEM The aforementioned CBTs can form a flexible
education, although this new tools could pres- cloud-based learning platform (CBLP), which
ent digital literacy issues for both teachers and manages to orchestrate learning activities and tools
learners. Furthermore, the STEM report cites the for educational experience, and thereby automate
following: “Cloud-based collaboration tools allow many of the common tasks that the teacher and
STEM students to engage problems as teams, to learner face when using the CBTs for a course as-
interact and brainstorm solutions easily, and to signment. The CBLP is also known as a cloud edu-
craft reports and presentations; often, the very cation environment (CEE) (Hernández, Linares,
same tools can be used to support both global and Mikroyannidis, & Schmitz, 2013). This chapter
local collaboration.” Cloud-based tools (CBTs), examines the current CBTs from an educational
also known as Web 2.0 tools, are usually highly perspective, and raises the need of a CBLP that
interactive tools with collaborative features. These is flexible in terms of the integration of multiple
CBTs use cloud computing to scale their tools to CBTs and their corresponding mechanisms for
hundreds of thousands of users, and they have orchestration. Consequently interoperability is key
added interoperability features through opening for the proposed approach. Thus, the background
the application program interfaces (APIs) to en- section gives a short review of Web interoperability
able consumers to use their technology, as well as in educational systems. This research presents a
to compose new and innovative systems, which proposal of a highly flexible Web interoperability
includes the creation of new educational experi- by using advanced Semantic Web technologies
ences. In this sense, Hernández, Schmitz, Mik- that are both simple and robust to use (Hernán-
royannidis, Delgado, and Chao (2013) emphasize dez & Güetl, 2015). These technologies provide
in the perspective that including interoperability a simple way to define a CBT API specification
features enables a wide range of possibilities to that is machine processable (i.e. it can be used by
107

a tool consumer (TC) without the need to create to enable a CBLP. Along those lines it is relevant
custom interfaces to use it). In other words, there to mention that, in today’s participatory culture
are no custom programs required to make use of where students are used to social networks, a
the CBT API. This important aspect enhances the large diversity of content sites, to the interaction
adoption of CBTs in educational environments, and sharing that being online produces, (Jenkins,
both from the technical and pedagogical point of 2006) defined 12 skills that educational environ-
view. In this chapter, one application domain has ments should foster:
been chosen, which is the online document editor
that will be used later in the evaluation section. 1. Play — the capacity to experiment with one’s
To enable the CBLP, it is important to introduce surroundings as a form of problem-solving.
the Cloud Interoperability Service architecture, 2. Performance — the ability to adopt alterna-
which uses the Semantic Web technologies to tive identities for the purpose of improvisa-
recognize and interoperate CBTs’ APIs. In order tion and discovery.
to use such architecture, the CBTs’ providers must 3. Simulation — the ability to interpret and
use a Semantic Web layer in their APIs, which is construct dynamic models of real-world
not widely used yet. Thus, an intermediary layer processes.
has been included to establish communication. 4. Appropriation — the ability to meaningfully
Then, the Cloud Learning Activities Orchestra- sample and remix media content.
tion system is presented, which realizes a CBLP 5. Multitasking — the ability to scan one’s
by extending any virtual learning environment environment and shift focus as needed to
(VLE) with an interaction interface that presents salient details.
and manages the CBTs for education. 6. Distributed Cognition — the ability to in-
Following the STEM report on the importance teract meaningfully with tools that expand
of MOOCs, the evaluation section focuses on a mental capacities.
MOOC with over 9,000 learners, which makes 7. Collective Intelligence — the ability to pool
use of the presented CBLP and the corresponding knowledge and compare notes with others
interoperability technology. Future research and toward a common goal.
conclusions are given at the end of the chapter. 8. Judgment — the ability to evaluate the reli-
Lessons learned and future research aspects con- ability and credibility of different informa-
clude this book chapter. tion sources.
9. Transmedia Navigation — the ability to
follow the flow of stories and information
BACKGROUND across multiple modalities.
10. Networking — the ability to search for,
CBT for Education synthesize, and disseminate information.
11. Negotiation — the ability to travel across
This section reviews some of the pedagogical gaps, diverse communities, discerning and respect-
challenges and issues related to cloud-based tools ing multiple perspectives, and grasping and
(CBTs) in educational settings based on the work following alternative norms.
by (Conole & Alevizou, 2010). Hence, flexibility 12. Visualization — the ability to interpret and
is required in educational environments, which, create data representations for the purposes
in this context, is focused on the integration of of expressing ideas, finding patterns, and
CBTs and the construction of corresponding identifying trends. (Jenkins, 2006)
management controls to orchestrate them in order
108

In this sense, Jenkins (2006) also suggests that nity to find better and more granular con-
these skills have high educational potentials with trols over the educational experience.
opportunities for a diversity of learning scenarios. • Staff Incentives and Rewards: The feel-
Therefore, having multiple CBTs that provide ing of ownership and control over the
practice for such skills in any type of knowledge teaching practice is crucial.
domain is highly important. However, as James • Sharing Good Practices: Mechanisms to
(2008) and McPherson (2008) describe, there are share and adopt good practices among the
associated tensions because the boundaries are educational community.
blurring between the producers and users of such
CBTs, including issues of ownership, authorship, In the remainder of the chapter a cloud-based
openness, expert authority and amateur creativity. learning platform (CBLP) is presented that helps
All of these require better organization for deploy- to enable the success factors such as scaffolding,
ing Learning Activities with CBTs. This demands guidance, understand the learner experiences
enhanced interoperability with the CBTs, by being (through learning analytics), develop support
able to control their deployment, in contrast to structures and improve the CBTs usage based on
just launching the CBT or simply sending a link good practices. From the perspective of Learning
for learners to use it. Orchestration for Technology Enhanced Learn-
Following the above mentioned ideas, there is ing, a comprehensive review by (Prieto, 2011)
evidence that the success factors for the adoption of describes the main aspects to consider that are
CBTs in education are (Conole & Alevizou, 2010): relevant for this proposal:
• Scaffolding and Guidance of Teachers: • Design and Planning: A key component

An important factor is to provide teachers of orchestration is designing and planning,
with effective support regarding how to use which includes the traditional instruction-
such tools in their courses. This includes al design and instructional planning, and
guidance on designing courses, Learning also encompasses the technological tools
Activities and what the role of the teacher that move the learning process towards the
should be, in moving from a traditional lec- desired learning outcomes. Therefore, it
turer to a facilitator. is fundamental to have a means of educa-
• Strategic Alignment: The institution as a tional scripting, which refers to workflow
whole has to have a widespread alignment control in an online environment.
in order for these initiatives have a chance • Regulation and Management: A well-or-
of success. chestrated learning environment provides a
• Understand the Learner Experience: unified learning experience. Regulation—
The learner’s affective and emotional per- either external or internal—plays an im-
spective has to be taken into account, in or- portant role, which includes time manage-
der to enable the factors that engage them. ment, workflow, group management and
• Appropriate Support Structures: individual paths. Authors argue that it can
Effective support is a key factor, includ- be greatly enhanced through technological
ing simple means to enable the use of means.
such tools. Currently, the support of such • Adaptation, Flexibility and Intervention:
structures is weak within the current tools’ These include proper teacher participation
interoperability specifications and frame- to increase motivation, in addition to the
works. This leads the educational commu- act of adapting the original plans and de-
109

sign towards what the individual and group TC environment, in this process, an initial negoti-
need. Therefore, flexible educational envi- ated interface contract between both TP and TC
ronments are required. is required. The contract defined by both parties
• Awareness and Assessment: The concept involved includes information exchange details
of awareness is related to interventions, and the functionalities that both (TP and TC)
and is especially crucial in a distributed make available for execution. The specification
educational environment, as awareness IMS LTI v.2 uses JSON-LD (JSONLD, 2014)
enhances overall orchestration. Also, the for payload and expects REST-based requests.
use of assessments, both formative and Hernández, Gütl, and Amado-Salvatierra (2014d)
summative, can provide helpful insights to affirm that the specification does not include
learners about their own progress, and help details on how to define operations (e.g., CRUD
teachers to adapt their flexible educational operations) over resources (e.g., maps, ideas, us-
environment. ers, documents). Thus there is a need to provide
• Roles of the Teacher and Other Actors: a more sophisticated interoperability proposal the
This refers to the teacher’s new role of be- identified educational needs.
ing a guide and then moving towards more In this sense about interoperability, Hernández
active learner participation, like a learning- (2015) reveals as research findings that current
driven orchestration, with scenarios such specifications and architectures, that aim to solve
that the main learning goals are set by the interoperability in an educational environment,
teacher and the learning tasks and coordi- lack the possibility to clearly define resources,
nation are managed by students. operations, properties, etc. Furthermore, they do
not use current semantic technologies that are ca-
The aforementioned Learning Orchestra- pable of enabling machine-processable definitions
tion review aims to identify issues in the design of Web APIs, which will in best cases simplify
process of a CBLP, which again raises the need interoperability efforts.
for the ability to design and plan the educational In order to enable interoperability between
experience, as well as other issues ranging from systems that are capable of performing operations
management, adaption, flexibility, and interven- (e.g., CRUD operations), there is a need to design
tion during the execution of such an educational and develop customized interfaces for each tool
experience. These factors are considered in the that will be integrated in the CBLP. That is the
presented work. current approach in most interoperability systems
using traditional Web services technologies,
Web Interoperability for REST or others. Each new CBT planned to be
CBTs in Education incorporated in the VLE requires a custom API
interface, which involves a significant amount
The Learning Tool Interoperability specification, of programming effort, as well as a maintenance
in its current second version (IMS, 2010) is the effort with frequent changes and updates that take
most used standard for educational interoperability place in the CBT Web API as it is improved. In
between tools and a Virtual Learning Environment this sense Hernández, Gütl and Amado-Salvatierra
(VLE). It was designed to enable a tool consumer (2014c; 2014d) presented a new enhanced solu-
(TC), such as a VLE, and tool providers (TPs), tion which proposes a CBT Web API that uses
such as any CBT, to exchange information related JSON-LD (JSON-LD, 2014) and Hydra (Hydra,
to operation and execution reports. The specifica- 2014). This proposal will allow exposure of the
tion details how to implement a TP launch from a operations and properties of a given CBT. Based
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on that proposal an educational environment, such supporting them correctly is necessary. Hydra is
as VLE, will be able to be configured to consume a small but powerful addition to the current Web
and manage those operations and properties. APIs to describe CBTs semantically using Linked
The REST services that are traditionally used, Data and using a robust REST implementation.
lack of the use of sematic Web technologies for This is a powerful mechanism that enables discov-
interaction, which in great part hinders the change ery at run time of the Web API. Hydra provides
of having Web APIs provided with a machine- the possibility to create generic descriptions of
processable syntax, for this Hypermedia-driven CBTs. In addition, Hydra also provides the flex-
Web APIs (Hydra) (Hydra, 2014), defined an ibility for the TP to extend and support their own
innovative solution to this issue. Thus this ap- set of objects, operations and properties.
proach, as definded by Lanthaler and Gütl (2013), The use of Hydra vocabulary enables the
offers “a definition of a number of concepts, such possibility to create self-descriptive, hypermedia-
as collections, commonly used in Web APIs and driven Web APIs. They can fully use Linked
provides a vocabulary that can be used to describe Data expressivity with REST’s major benefits,
the domain application protocol of services.” such as scalability, evolution, and loose coupling.
Hydra uses JSON-LD to describe a Web API. Hydra models represent resources, properties,
This enables the CBT to publish its Web API and operations, among other useful classes for
using Hydra approach, and it can represent any describing Web APIs. In the following Section is
operations and properties that the CBT may have introduced a CBT example, that uses JSON-LD
and need to expose to the TC. and Hydra to describe its Web API, this is known
Using this approach, the CBT Web API will as API Documentation. In addition is introduced
provide its own API documentation, including an architecture capable of process Hydra-based
naming conventions, input and output data types, requests and responses.
and supported operations and properties. Thus
a system can be designed to inspect the CBT
Hydra Web API (i.e., a Web API that uses Hydra ENABLING A CLOUD-BASED
vocabulary to describe its resources, properties, LEARNING PLATFORM
operations, etc.) and discover all the available
operations at run-time. This single fact provides a This section covers the components required to
way to create a generic engine that will be capable build a flexible cloud-based learning platform
of discovering the Web API without any custom (CBLP). First, the Hydra-based API documenta-
programming. Consequently, adding a new CBT tion for a selected CBT is presented, which follows
to CBLP will require no further coding. Once the the Semantic Web technologies described in the
engine is deployed, the next step is to connect it previous section. Then the architecture that en-
to the VLE and interoperate with the CBT. ables Web interoperability between the CBTs and
JSON-LD and Hydra (Hydra, 2014) are select- the VLE is introduced. This includes a learning
ed in this proposal to support a semantic interop- orchestration environment for creating learning
erability approach. JSON itself is a widely used activities that are composed of multiple CBTs.
payload format and thus is quite straightforward
to further adop the proposed solution. Many TPs API Documentation for CBT
already have JSON payload; then those TPs are
able to adopt JSON-LD without too many changes The aim of this section is to a review the selected
over their existing Web API. Furthermore RESTful CBT application domain (which is online docu-
services are highly common in Web APIs, thus ment editors), then identifies the current Web API
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capabilities of such CBTs, and describes the this research focuses only in the online document
Hydra-based Web API equivalent for a specific processing CBTs available on the Internet.
CBT. The online editors are a common technologi- Office productivity suites are one of the most
cal trend in major office productivity suites such mature software available at this moment, but
as Microsoft Office, which has an online version still many new brands and versions come out to
of its desktop suite, known as Office Online and the market often. Firstly 21 tools were identified,
stored in OneDrive (formerly called SkyDrive) several of these were not considered because
(OneDrive, 2014). New players such as Google they are desktop applications and do not have
initiated with its own suite of office productivity a Web API available. It is relevant to mention
CBTs, which is originally named Google Docs, that research exposed here is required to have an
and now is Google Drive (Drive, 2014). Although openly available Web API. After a first elimina-
both identified solutions encompass many CBTs, tion, Table 1 lists the CBTs that are both online
Table 1. Selected document editor CBTs with interoperability features
Supported features per resource or object for each CBT
Crocodoc
Etherpad
Onedrive
hackpad
Draftin
Gdrive
Zoho
User Operation Login X x x x x X x
list files X x x x x X x
Properties Id X x x x x X x
Username X x x x
email address X x x x
pcture url X
File Operation create and upload X x x x x x x
Delete X x x x x
update resource X x x x
update content X x x x
Cpy X x x
Get and download file x x x x
share file x x x x
eport (plain text, text/html...) x x x x x
Properties Id x x x x x x x
Title x x x x
Labels x
Owners x x x
created date x x x
Editable x
last modifying x x
parent_id x x
API maturity level L4 L4 L3 L2 L2 L2 L2
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and have an open accessible Web API. Some of presented in Figure 1, which describes the two
them are standalone document editor, but others are resources of a document editor CBT: User and
full office productivity suites. These CBTs were Document. A User resource (which are learners
classified in groups of three main interoperability and teachers in this context), and its corresponding
features: interoperability response types (e.g., properties: userId, displayName, emailAddress. It
CSV, XML, or JSON), CBT API maturity level, also contains a collection of Files. A File represents
and authentication mechanism (e.g., OAUTH, an instance of a Document, in the graph referred as
OpenID, Auth URL). Doc. Over the User resource there are two direct
In terms of API maturity, CBTs were classi- operations de:RetrieveDocumentsOperation and
fied in four levels, with Level 4 (L4) the highest de:NewDocumentOperation.
maturity level for an open API, allowing service A Doc has the properties of fileId, title, de-
consumers to do almost anything with the CBT, scription, creationDate, downloadUrl and owners,
being able to manipulate almost anything within a which is a collection of Users. Other additional
document. Level 3 (L3) stands for an intermediate operations: owners_retrieve and export_links
maturity level in which still has access to most of operations.
the properties of a document, importantly has the
ability to edit the content of the document itself Cloud Interoperability
and just a few properties are not accessible and the Service Architecture
update resources operation is not available. Level
2 (L2) identifies a CBT that has access to the basic To enable Web interoperability between a VLE
properties of a document and some of the basic and CBT Web APIs, it is necessary to have an
operation, but it cannot update the content within interoperability layer that is capable of process-
a document. This is particularly important feature ing the CBTs that use Hydra, as outlined in the
because allows to create specialized scenarios previous subsection, and to process the Web
where is possible to automatically manipulate API is such a way that the VLE can make use
the content of the document, transferring content of it. This functionality is covered by the cloud
back and forth from the document to the VLE and interoperability service (CIS) (Hernández, 2015).
other CBTs. Finally, Level 1 (L1) implies a very The CIS architecture is compound of five layers
limited API, simple authentication, and a simple (see Figure 2).
embed of html editor or player. There are no CBTs Business Logic Layer: This is the core layer
that classifies into this category. of the CIS, which is in charge of automatically
From existing online document editor CBTs recognizing, understanding, and processing the
reviewed in Table 1, it has been chosen one of API Doc of a CBT. Its main four components are
the CBTs with a highest API maturity level, this in the following list.
is Google Drive. A higher maturity level enables
more interoperability features that can be used by 1. JSON-LD Processor (Lanthaler, 2014;
the teacher, to better achieve the educational needs Hydra Project, 2013): This is used to
already identified, such as management, adaption, deserialize a JSON-LD document (JSON-
scaffolding, guidance and others. LD, 2014), then it transforms its results into
A Hydra API documentation (API Doc) de- run-time objects that later will be handled.
scribes all the current resources, operations, prop- 2. Hydra Client: This adds the extra capabil-
erties and data types that a CBT supports through ity required to process a Hydra Web API
its Web API. The API Documentation using Hydra response.
for the Google Drive online document editor is
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Figure 1. Google Drive Document Editor API Doc graph representation based on Hydra
3. Business Logic Engine (BLE): This is de- Authentication Layer: This component is based
signed to automatically discover and process on the OAuth 2.0 token-based authentication
all operations and properties available in a mechanism (IETF, 2012). Moreover, not all the
given CBT Hydra Web API. CBT authentication mechanisms conform exactly
4. Embeddable API: Based on the results ob- with OAuth 2.0. Therefore, the CIS manages flex-
tained by the BLE, this creates a JavaScript- ible, configurable parameters that permit several
based API that can be embedded by any VLE combinations for the authentication process.
to operate the CBT, following the approach Communication Layer: This handles all com-
of the Functional Widget Interface (Soylu, munication between the CIS architecture and
Mödritscher, Wild, De Causmaecker, & the CBT Hydra Web API. The VLE will use the
Desmet, 2012). Embeddable API to send requests to the CBT,
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Figure 2. The CIS third-generation architecture taken from Hernández, Amado-Salvatierra, & Guetl,
(2013a)
which will send all communication through this (Google Analytics, 2015), by feeding the proper
layer. This design increases security and avoids data to it. The latter approach has certain advan-
the Same Origin Policy restriction (Hydra, 2014). tages, such as using the processing and reporting
Template Layer: This component provides the interfaces that Google Analytics provides. In
VLE a Web-based interface that uses the Embed- contrast, it also has limitations to what and how
dable API, which enables the teacher to control it processes and presents the information. One
the CBT features. This layer uses the BLE to interesting feature from Google Analytics has
automatically generate interfaces based on the been the user flow report, which has a graphical
available features from the CBT. representation of the learner’s behavior when using
Analytics Layer: This component tracks and the CBT in a given learning activity (see Figure 3).
records learners’ behavior and interaction data
within the CBT. In this context it is designed that Communication Process Handler
data can be processed in various ways. One of
the implemented approaches is to store the data Due the fact that JSON-LD and Hydra’s approach
in Google Fusion Tables (Google Fusion, 2015), for Web interoperability is very new (as of Febru-
which then allows further processing. Another ary 2015), it has not yet been adopted by major
approach developed is to use Google Analytics CBTs providers. In the best cases, those TPs are
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Figure 3. User flows graphic provided by Google Analytics
using only JSON as payloads. Therefore, the of many requests and response scenarios that deal
Communication Process Handler (CPH) has been with the CBT Web API. Although the CPH has
created, which forms a bridge between the current been improved over several experiences and CBTs
payloads of the CBT and the CIS that uses JSON- used, it requires a significant software develop-
LD and Hydra. The CPH acts as an intermediary ment effort if some of the CBT Web API require
layer, which allows the CIS to invoke a CBT Web a processing pattern that is not supported by the
API. The request and response model is described CPH. Therefore, it is seen as an intermediary
in the following steps: layer that can be discarded once the CBT Web
API uses Hydra.
1. Through the CIS, the VLE sends a request
to the CBT. Cloud Learning Activities
2. CPH identifies the CBT addressed, trans- Orchestration System
forms and finally sends the actual request.
3. The CBT responds in its supported format, With the above presented Web interoperability
and the CPH is capable of transforming that technologies, it is possible to enable Learning
response back into the Hydra format. Orchestration using different CBTs, as well as to
4. The CPH send back the response to the CIS, provide guidance, support, automation for setting
which then processes it and sends it back to the learning activities, and the ability to choose
the VLE. the desired pedagogy. As denoted by (Conole &
Alevizou, 2010), it can be used in various learning
The CPH provides a configuration manager activities such as case studies, guideline, narra-
that enables a highly flexible set of parameters and tives, models, patterns, and others. The cloud
processing directives that allows for the handling learning activity orchestration (CLAO) provides a
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simple yet comprehensive environment for teach- order in the course and not losing resources al-
ers to create learning activities that use CBTs. The ready submitted.
CLAO unified workspace environment consists
of the following layered architecture.
EVALUATION
1. The Learning Activities Orchestrator
(LAO): This provides the user interaction In this section, an evaluation of the CLAO to
and interface layer. It presents the learning demonstrate CIS applicability usage in a MOOC
activities created by the teacher. A learning environment is presented. The CLAO platform
activity can have multiple CBTs associated has been used in a good amount of MOOC
with it. Those CBTs are presented as a courses taught through the Telescope platform
learning path or workflow, and the professor (Telescope, 2014) (a Latin America initiative
could even request to meet certain thresholds similar to Coursera or EdX) at Galileo University,
before the next CBT is activated. A threshold Guatemala. The Telescope platform for MOOC
can be the number of ideas in a mind map, courses is managed by the Galileo Educational
the amount of text in a document, etc. The System (GES) Department, which is the area
LAO also can manage deadlines of the as- involved in all the educational technology R&D
signments and offer assignment submission, activities at the university.
which enacts the CLAO to close further For this evaluation, an experience with three
changes over the submitted CBT resource. courses (Hernández, Gütl, & Amado-Salvatierra,
The management of group work and assign- 2014b) with over 14,000 learners enrolled, from
ment of learning activities to learners can more than 15 countries, mainly from Latin
be automated, as well. America is presented. In this massive experi-
2. Learning Environment Connector (LEC): ence, the three courses using CLAO are taught in
This is a single interface to integrate the Spanish, using the xMOOC pedagogical approach
CLAO into the VLE. This includes single (cognitive-behavioral teaching model). The use of
sign-on management, user management, and CLAO in each of the MOOC course experience
assignments integration. is related to play learning activities (LA) using
3. The CIS: The CLAO uses the CIS for Web the presented CIS architecture and system. The
interoperability with CBT. courses use CLAO to provide the learning activi-
ties, which for each of the courses represent fifty
It is important to emphasize that the CLAO percent of them, these LA uses CBTs, such as the
keeps management rights (CRUD and sharing Google Drive Document editor and MindMeister
rights) over all resources from CBTs. This is mind map tool. The MOOC courses consist of
relevant for a learning activity that uses a CBT, four learning units (one unit per week); each unit
such as an online document, as the CLAO will includes a common MOOC course content and
create that online document resource in the CBT. organization such as short videos, reading content,
Therefore, the management rights belong to the forums for QA and several learning activities. More
CLAO. This allows for editors to give rights to a of this CBT and MOOC experiences at Telescope
specific set of learners and, after the due date of have been also presented in (Hernández, Gütl,
the assignment, take back those rights and leave Chang & Morales, 2014a).
read-only rights. In the experiences with real us- For this evaluation one of the courses in the
ers in the CLAO, these management rights over MOOC experience that used CLAO with the title
resources have been a key factor in maintaining “Community Manager” is presented. The selected
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course provides to the learner an introduction main concepts by representing them in a mind map
related to the basic skills needed to perform as an using MindMeister (see Figure 4). The emotional
account manager in social networks. This course and usability aspects for the CLAO were evaluated
was improved with an important addition; an in- with the Computer Emotions Scale (CES) (Kay &
duction phase was added at the beginning of the Loverock, 2008) and the System Usability Scale
course to get used to the learning environment (SUS), respectively. Regarding the CES, the 12
that includes the use of CLAO and therefore the items of the Computer Emotion Scale describe
CIS. For this edition nine thousand learners were four different emotions: happiness, sadness,
enrolled. This course was composed of four learn- anxiety and anger, as shown in Table 2. A total
ing activities, one for each learning unit played in of 272 participants that successfully finished the
one week each. The learning activity, performed at course completed the online survey. The findings
the CLAO, required learners to individually do the revealed that MOOC participants perceived low
following main steps: 1) Read about a the current anger and sadness as well as significantly higher
unit topic from the material provided; 2) create a happiness while performing learning activities
summary in Google Drive editor; 3) extract the using the cloud-based tools.
Figure 4. Description of CLAO learning activity process for both teacher and learner
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Table 2. MOOC Computer Emotions Scale 4-point Likert scale (0 to 3) (Kay & Loverock, 2008)
Emotion Explanation Value

Happiness When I used the tool, I felt satisfied/excited/curious. 1.79 (σ=0,84) (60%)
Sadness When I used the tool, I felt disheartened/dispirited. 0.56 (σ=0,84) (19%)
Anxiety When I used the tool, I felt anxious/insecure/helpless/ 0.59 (σ=0,70) (20%)
nervous.
Anger When I used the tool, I felt irritable/frustrated/angry. 0.43 (σ=0,65) (14%)
Regarding SUS, it shows acceptable results data available, it is possible to provide generic
with M=65.35 over 100 (σ=18.58), with a broad proximity models that in the next steps can be
range of opinion from 35 to 100. As negative assessed by the teacher, this in order to assess
aspects learners mentioned “didn’t know how automatically each individual resource created
to perform the learning activities, until I learned by learners. As a practical example, when using
the platform [CLAO]”, “Had troubles sending a mind map LA, learners create their own mind
the assignments”; as positive comments: “I map for a given assignment. Then, the proposed
liked the interactive, practical and mastering the proximity model system creates a series of mind
[cloud-based] tools”, “to get to know the CLAO maps based on common similarities that as a next
platform”, “I liked to make mind maps, it helps step is evaluated by the teacher. Thus, instead of
to understand better the concepts”, “the platform assessing thousands of mind maps in a MOOC,
[CLAO] to make the assignments, gain grades by the teacher needs to assess only a small amount
doing the its learning activities”. In summary it of them to provide a sample for the proximity
is considered that the experience is well accepted model system. The final step in the process will
among the learners. involve the system using those already assessed
mind maps as models and automatically assess
the real mind maps submitted as assignments by
FUTURE RESEARCH DIRECTIONS the learners. In contrast to the proposed automatic
assessment example, some types of tools such as an
There are open issues related to Cloud Based online document editor, need to have an evaluation
Tools (CBTs) that need to be evaluated, one of metric to avoid a highly difficult process to assess
this issues is related to the best assessment method automatically constituting itself in an important
that needs to be identified. Using the MOOC ex- research topic as a future work.
perience presented in last section as an example, Additional efforts are required to elaborate
the possibility to run semi or fully automatic generic and per-application domain-type vocabu-
assessments of CBT Learning Activities (LAs) laries to represent Learning Analytics models. It
is of high relevance in the sense that the manual is important to highlight that there is a need to
process of assessing thousands of assignment gather good amount of information, this is why it is
in such a massive environment it is impossible necessary to provide more access and information
to handle for a large scale. In fact, with a robust the CBTs’ Web APIs. Future work related to this
and complete CBT Web API, there is a strong topic shall include the creation of a statistical pre-
possibility to plan an extraction of all interaction diction dashboard to guide learning interventions
data and all the activities that has been done within while the learners are working on the activities,
the CBT interface, and with that information and as opposed to just summarizing behavior of the
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learners after course completion. The Learning addition, the CBTs providers need to open up the
Analytics proposals included in CBTs need to be Web APIs, allowing and continually increasing
deeply developed and evaluated to maximize the controls over every single resource and feature
potential of this CBLP approach. of their CBT, at this moment a great amount of
A remaining open question is on how the CIS the CBTs have limited features available in their
and the corresponding semantic interoperability Web API.
methods proposed can be used with LTIv.2 and Finally, one important issue that has not been
other standards. Both LTIv.2 and CIS benefit addressed in the CLAO and in general in this
from strong features and the intersection may proposal is the accessibility of CBTs, an impor-
provide a complete solution for unsolved issues. tant challenge to be evaluated for emerging cloud
They can be evaluated and combined to propose computing tools.
a new version of the specification or be used as
complementary approaches. For instance, with
IMS-LTI v.2, the use of the context concept to CONCLUSION
identify a class, course, etc., is of high value to
the CIS architecture. STEM trends identify that cloud computing adop-
In the meantime, as Tool Providers (TPs) evalu- tion is already happening; furthermore, the use of
ate and decide to adopt Hydra, the proposed CPH innovative Web 2.0 tools, which are called cloud-
is intended to play a major role, so it is foreseen based tools (CBTs) in this research, enable new
as an alternative enhancement to enable an API educational scenarios due to their interoperability
Documentation builder to simplify the developer’s features. A cloud-based learning platform (CBLP)
work to create and maintain tools or services that that integrates the use of CBTs is presented. The
are planned to be adapted to complain with Hydra CBLP focuses on major open issues of learning
proposal. This means that there is no further need orchestration, which are designing, planning,
to write JSON-LD and Hydra of existing Web managing, and adapting the educational experi-
APIs. Instead, developers build the Hydra-based ence. The CBLP interoperates with the CBT using
Web API using an automated process of recogni- an advanced Semantic Web technology, Hydra.
tion discovery and manual mapping of the Web This technology allows for the controlling of every
APIs to an API Doc. Another enhancement is in single operation and all resources available from a
the Template Layer to easily create management CBT API; furthermore, it does the interoperability
tools in the CLAO for each CBT to be included. automatically, without involving CBT-specific
A major obstacle for adoption of the outcomes code. It only requires defining the CBT API at a
of this proposal is to enable the current prototype higher level, and then it can be automatically pro-
technology to most common used VLE and CBTs, cessed. To build on that Semantic Web technology,
it is important to gain a real adoption momentum a cloud interoperability service (CIS) architecture
in the educational community, and also with the has been implemented, which uses a Hydra engine
technical developer community. The Communica- to automatically recognize and interact with the
tion Process Handler (CPH) serves as an interface CBT API. To enable current CBTs to integrate
with CBTs that do not respond with JSON-LD with the CBLP, it is necessary that the CBT API
and Hydra. Although the presented cases are well uses Hydra. Currently, none implement this new
supported by the CPH, the long-term maintenance technology; therefore, a communication process
of it is complex and cumbersome in terms of handler (CPH) has been implemented. The CPH
technical maintainability, due the changes that the serves as an intermediary layer, while the CBTs’
CBT Web APIs experiment through the time. In providers adopt Hydra.
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For the presented research, the online docu- Hernández, R. (2015). Cloud Interoperability
ment editor application domain has been chosen. Service Architecture for Education Environments.
Thus, 21 tools have been identified and analyzed, Journal of Universal Computer Science.
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Hernández, R., Amado-Salvatierra, H., & Guetl,
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C. (2013a). Cloud-based learning environments:
Drive editor has been selected. For that specific
Investigating learning activities experiences from
CBT, a Hydra-based API documentation has
motivation, usability and emotional perspective.
been created, which then is used with the CPH
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uses the CBLP is presented, and one of the CBTs Hernández, R., & Güetl, C. (2015). Towards a flex-
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International Workshop on Learning Technology
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123
Chapter 9
Context-Aware Cloud
Computing for Personal
Learning Environment
Feng Chen
De Montfort University, UK
Ali Al-Bayatti
Francois Siewe
ABSTRACT
Virtual learning means to learn from social interactions in a virtual platform that enables people to study
anywhere and at any time. Current Virtual Learning Environments (VLEs) are normally institution centric
and are designed to support formal learning, which do not support lifelong learning. These limitations
led to the research of Personal Learning Environments (PLEs), which are learner-centric and provide
lifelong access as well as the ability of a user to produce (share) and consume information resources
easily. In this research, a context-aware cloud based PLE architecture is proposed, which is driven by
a Context-Aware Engine to acquire, filter and interpret context information based on the preferences
defined in user profile, where cloud computing is taken as service infrastructure. An illustrative personal
learning scenario is investigated to demonstrate the proof of concept implementation. The results show
the benefits of the proposed architecture on resource utilisation and user experience.
1. INTRODUCTION they are designed to support formal learning;

teachers control the materials and services that
Virtual Learning Environments (VLEs) (Chavan, are made available to learners. These limitations
2004) in the last decade have brought about the that affect VLEs have led to the development of
greatest changes in the delivery of education allow- a new generation of VLE - the Personal Learning
ing learners to access multimedia course materi- Environment (PLE) (Attwell, 2007).
als. However, VLEs are still institution-centric;
DOI: 10.4018/978-1-4666-9924-3.ch009

Context-Aware Cloud Computing for Personal Learning Environment
PLEs require a flexible learning environment web-based methods and tools such as discussion
which enables people to study anywhere at any forums, chats and automated tests. Many of other
time. In this sense, PLEs are a type of pervasive definitions given are similar, and typically focus
systems (ubiquitous computing). A context-aware on a particular characteristic of VLEs.
PLE will be able to sense continuously the context VLEs have become popular in higher educa-
of the user and use this context information to tion in recent years, due to their ability to provide
adapt its services to changing situations in a calm additional and flexible solutions for students and
and non-obtrusive manner. Since cloud computing researchers. The learners need not attend tradi-
can provide wide access to broad storage of learn- tional, face to face activities in the classroom.
ing materials, facilities, and other services, cloud Instead, the teaching and learning are done in a
computing is becoming the preferred environment virtual space. The advantages of VLEs can be
for PLEs with large scalability, dynamic collabo- outlined below (Alharbi, 2013; Alharbi, 2014;
ration and flexible resource requirements. With Cheng, 1998; Kumar, 1998):
the significant advances in information and com-
munications technology, mobile cloud computing • VLEs can help institutions to reduce the
has emerged as one of the fast growing segments practical pressures of finding enough phys-
of the IT industries. Mobile cloud computing is a ical space and resources for them.
kind of cloud-based context-aware system. A key • Unlike in traditional learning environ-
challenge of the cloud based context-aware system ments, the learners may study course mod-
is the increase of information in a given context. ules at anytime and anywhere.
In this research, a cloud based context-aware • VLEs are more economic than traditional
PLE is introduced and implemented. The concept learning. Students can study from home
of the research arises from activities in cloud without going every day to a university and
computing, context-aware computing and PLE re- spending money on transport, etc.
search. This research will link these three research • VLEs can provide access to education for
themes and make significant new contributions. those who have experienced barriers to it in
It is novel and timely for software to be adapted the past, such as students who have special
to take advantage of the advanced cloud based needs (disability) or family commitments.
context-aware technology to support the develop- • Educators can use VLEs to manage cours-
ment of the PLE system. es, thus connect the course participants so
as to achieve both effective communica-
tion and collaboration. Via VLEs, students
2. BACKGROUND and lecturers can enjoy the convenience of
using the online delivery of materials and
2.1 Personal Learning Environments resources.
• VLEs make education available to the
2.1.1 From Virtual Learning broader population. Education is not re-
Environments to Personal stricted to only those students who are go-
Learning Environments ing to university, but is open to anyone who
is interested in being educated via VLEs.
The definition of Virtual Learning Environ-
ments (VLEs) was proposed by Chavan (2004), However, there are also some limitations
which defined a VLE as a software system used (Alharbi, 2013; Alharbi, 2014; Taraghi, 2010;
to deliver online education, taking advantage of Zhao 2010; Zubrinic 2008), as addressed below:
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• VLEs are not flexible and cannot address nology to a student who wishes to manage their
the specific needs of the learner. own learning. PLEs should support a learner in
• The courses and modules are available to four respects: to create and manage their learning,
students for a restricted time period. communicate with other learners and also integrate
• Educators are only responsible for set- formal and informal learning.
ting the goals of the courses; they cannot PLEs are defined by Loertscher (2011) as a
take into account the students’ individual specific virtual space designed by the user with
requirements. their individualised information, learning, social
and recreational needs. PLEs thus take advantage
Typically, a learner enrolled on a module or of new technology and tools.
course has access to the materials and services According to Attwell (2007), most research-
for that module or course for the duration of their ers agree that PLEs are best described as a new
enrolment, hence VLEs do not support lifelong approach to using technological innovations for
learning (Attwell, 2007). Because of the limita- learning. The study argues that if learners control
tions addressed above, researchers are seeking a their own learning, then the teacher has as-yet an
new generation of VLEs that will improve upon undefined role in the situation.
the current shortcomings. Therefore, research is In this research, PLEs are defined as a platform
now shifting away from VLEs and towards the use that has the ability to filter e-resources and predict
of Personal Learning Environments (PLEs). PLEs user preferences based on user context. This covers
avoid the limitations of VLEs by incorporating the use of a PLE for many purposes in addition to
novel features, such as allowing students to control traditional formal (institution-based) and informal
and utilise new type of applications. (private, non-institution-based) academic learning
(Alharbi, 2014).
2.1.2 Definition of Personal
Learning Environments 2.1.3 Features of Personal
Learning Environments
The Joint Information System Committee (JISC,
2014) defines PLEs as personal environments Some positive features of PLE framework are
that interact with institutional systems, presenting presented in (Wang, 2009), including person-
courses and related information in a way custom- alised, flexibility and usability. A personalised
ised to suit the individual, and allowing them to PLE framework should support a learner to create
assemble a set of tools and resources that suit the their own PLEs that are adapted to the learner’s
way they wish to learn. individual situation. With flexibility, a PLE frame-
Zhao (2010) defines PLEs as learning environ- work gives the learner the ability to integrate,
ments to provide the learner with a wide variety aggregate and combine different learning services
of different services and hand over control to the depending on their interests. Usability allows a
learner to select, use, and mash up the services learner to copy and paste elements to personalise
the way one deems fit. and control his/her PLEs with minimum effort.
Based on Wang’s (2009) discussion, PLE is Harmelen (2006) presented a set of dimensions
not an application, but rather, a description of that characterise the space of the PLEs as follows:
the process of learning from a variety of courses
and according to one’s personal, context-situated • Collaborative: A user may collaborate in
need. Thus one of the major objectives of PLEs teaching and learning activities;
is to widen access to education systems via tech-
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• Openness: An open system can be ex- that includes several new types of web applications.
tended easily. This dimension effects per- The concept of Web 2.0 began in a conference in
sonalisation, where a user has the ability to 2004, when O’Reilly introduced Web 2.0 for the
capture and use a URL in order to obtain first time. The main feature of Web 2.0 applica-
extra facilities. tions is that a user can communicate with his/her
• Control: Ownership of PLEs is shifted peers, interactively, using multi-media. Moreover,
from the institution to the learner and Web 2.0 technologies typically provide an Appli-
teacher. cation Program Interface (API), in order to make
• Institution Connectivity: PLEs support it easy for developers to build applications which
long-term activities where a learner can provide the two ways communication needed for
access to information any time. PLEs re- the collaboration nature of Web 2.0 applications.
quire connection to multiple institutions This is to make sure that two routes of direction
and continuing professional development are taken as one action between users (Taraghi,
through education. In such cases, PLEs 2010). A number of experimental PLEs make use
will interoperate with a variety of services. of the features offered by Web 2.0 applications.
• Online/Offline: It is important to support
both online and offline learning. 2.2.2 Context-aware System
• PLE Platform: Major platforms such as
desktops and laptops are not suitable for Context-aware systems are a type of pervasive
PLEs. The use of smaller platform (e.g. system, which was introduced by Weiser (1991).
PDA or smart phone) is considered better. Abowd and Dey (1999) defined a context-aware
system as a system that uses context to provide
2.2 Enabling Technology relevant information and/or services to the user,
where relevancy depends on the user’s task.
2.2.1 Web 2.0 Context-aware systems are able to gather con-
textual information from a variety of sources,
The first tentative PLE platforms to emerge have without explicit user interaction, and to adapt their
largely been based on Web 2.0. To the best of operations accordingly. Context-aware systems
our knowledge, none of the existing PLE archi- can also be easily integrated within any service
tectures have context-aware systems embedded domain, such as healthcare, commerce, learning
within their architecture taking advantage of the and transport. The applications of context-aware
two-way communication characteristics that these systems include a smart home where e.g. the light
provide as well as the ability of a user to produce turns off automatically if no one is in the room,
(share) and consume information resources easily. hence saving energy; a smart hospital ward where
However, these tend to consider PLEs as exten- the bed is aware of its patient health condition and
sions of VLEs and to regard PLE users as learners alerts a nurse timely in case of emergency; a smart
typically associated with institutions. PLEs can assisted living system to help the elderly people
support more than mere learning in education. and people with disabilities to have a happier and
They can also support users in any aspect of their more independent lifestyle; to name but a few.
lives that require them to find and utilise informa- In context-aware systems, the captured context
tion available on-line. falls under four basic categories: Identity, Loca-
It has been noted that Web 2.0 technologies tion, Activity and Time (Abowd & Dey, 1999).
provide a good platform for implementing PLEs These four categories are considered as a primary
(Murugesan, 2007). Web 2.0 is an umbrella term context that answers the questions of who, what,
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where and when. They also act as indexes to other computing resources (e.g., networks, servers,
information (i.e. secondary context) (Abowd & storage, applications, and services) that can be
Dey, 1999). For example, from a user’s identity, rapidly provisioned and released with minimal
other related information can be acquired such as management effort or service provider interaction.
phone number, address and list of friends. This
information represents what is meant by second- 2.3. Related Work on PLE
ary context. Accordingly, there are three types of Architecture and Implementation
sensors in any context-aware system (physical,
virtual and logical), and these are the elements 2.3.1 Existing PLE Architecture
of the system that gather the context information. and Framework
In this research, the emphasis will be on virtual
sensors which gather the information from virtual In 2005, the philosophy of a PLE began to emerge
space; virtual space here includes any systems from conversations with different groups of edu-
which produce information as a set of results. cational technologists. The first PLE architecture
was proposed and updated by Wilson (2007) as
2.2.3 Service Oriented Architecture shown in Figure 1.
and Cloud Computing The proposed architecture includes references
to formal and informal learning, work and leisure,
Along with the popularity of the Internet, a which has clarified the basic functionality of the
great amount of attention has been focused upon PLE. For example when a user needs to deal with
Service-Oriented Computing (SOC). SOC is photos, a suitable application (Flickr) is used. The
a computing paradigm that utilises services as weakness of this work is that it does not take into
fundamental resources for developing applica- account the user context. Furthermore, it is not a
tions. Because services provide a uniform and dynamic system. This means that it does not use
standard information paradigm for a wide range past history to predict future events.
of computing devices, they will be vital in the A PLE architecture proposed by Zubrinic
next phase of distributed computing development. (2008) is based on standard web services and
The developers can compose existing web service includes a web application that allows the user to
components to create new applications for complex manage his/her learning using distributed sources.
service requirements (Zheng, 2014). A framework for PLEs proposed by Chatti (2010)
Cloud is new technology for the intent of supports personalised, informal learning with
sharing distributed resources and coordinated lifelong-style network. The framework aims to
problem solving, distinguished from conventional help learners create their own learning with dif-
distributed computing by its focus on large-scale ferent learning services such as media, feeds and
resource sharing, innovative applications and widgets. Learners have ability to manage (add,
high-performance orientation. Marks and Lozano edit and delete), search and review their learn-
(2010) define a less technical and more customer ing, and are also able to visit other PLEs and
appealing definition of cloud computing as a style give their opinions. The architecture explicitly
of computing where computing resources are addresses informal learning, lifelong learning
easy to obtain an access, simple to use, cheap, and personalisation. One major drawback of this
and just work. Meanwhile, NIST (2015) gives an approach is that the user of the system is likely
academic definition of cloud computing as a model to receive excessive e-resources from the various
for enabling ubiquitous, convenient, on-demand applications, much of which will not be relevant
network access to a shared pool of configurable (Alharbi, 2014).
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Figure 1. PLE model (Adapted from Wilson (2007))
An architecture proposed by Zhao (2010) al- Colloquia is funded by the Joint Information
lows learners to have control over their learning System Committee (JISC), presented in (Liber,
by aggregating, managing, tagging, commenting 2000) and produced by the TOOMOL project.
and sharing their favourite resources. The major Colloquia uses peer-to-peer communication sup-
limitation is that it is little more than a concept at ported by an email server, and maintains informa-
this stage as it provides no information on how it tion concerning resources, students and activities.
could be implemented. Both teachers and students can participate in the
project. The two main ideas behind Colloquia are to
2.3.2 Existing Implementation of PLEs move students from traditional classrooms to group
conversations based on learning and to support
Research on PLEs is still at an early stage. Most of learners with mobile and personal tools, enabling
implementation projects are still at experimental them to work offline. One major drawback of this
stage. approach is that the application can only support
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learning without supporting other aspects of life, • It does not provide sufficient detail about
i.e. business aspects and social aspects. how it can be implemented.
The Manchester PLE includes servlet con- • It cannot predict user preferences.
tainers such as users, friendship, groups, activity • It does not apply artificial intelligence
feeds, tags, tag search and other search facilities, techniques.
underpinned by a Virtual File Store (Harmelen,
2013). It provides servlet and JSP (Java Server
Pages) authors with a variety of primitive op- 3. CLOUD BASED CONTEXT-AWARE
erations that support the implementation of an ARCHITECTURE FOR PLES
e-learning system. The application can be used
as either a VLE or a PLE and a user is able to use Context-aware systems are increasingly becoming
a system offline or online. The main weakness a reality with the proliferation of smart hand-held
of the Manchester PLE is that it does not use the devices such as smart phones and tablet computers,
information in a context-aware way. It is not able which are equipped with a variety of sensors that
to predict users’ interests. collect data upon the user context and use these data
The aim of the Portland PLE is to develop a to decide the appropriate adaptation to changes in
prototype PLE application for ICT-based software the user context. Context-aware systems are able
and curriculum content in order to meet the needs to gather contextual information from a variety
of adult learners with disabilities (Harrison, 2008). of sources, without explicit user interaction, and
The project supports online communication and to adapt their operations accordingly. A context
learning. The Portland interface is based on a in PLEs may be the user preferences, location,
learner profile established during the assessment. activities, physical and mental conditions, previ-
The project is designed to meet the individual needs ous knowledge in subject area, to name but a few.
of the target user. The learners with low literacy A context-aware system is suitable for building
levels are supported by symbol support text and PLEs due to the following reasons (Alharbi, 2014):
speech output. In (Pearson, 2010), Portland PLE
has been extended to adapt to meet the needs of • The context-aware system is able to reduce
any learner, not just in terms of disabled people. the needs of human attention. The users of
An Adaptable Personal Learning Environment PLEs do not have to change their profiles
(APLE) takes the concept of Portland in creating regularly because the PLEs will do that
an accessible, personalised and flexible learning based on the behaviour of the users.
environment, but the adaptability depends on the • The context-aware system is adaptable to
recognition of the learner with sensory and cogni- user needs. PLEs will be able to predict
tive functions. The weakness in this application user preferences based on previous using
is that APLE is not designed with the ability to habits.
automatically adapt to the current user context; • The context-aware system is able to pro-
it does not take into account the user’s context. vide relevant e-resources that are impor-
From above discussion, the major limitations tant for the users. The users of PLEs will
of the existing PLE architecture are: not receive an extortionate amount of e-
resources, only those that are relevant to
• It does not take into account the user them and their preferences.
context. • The context-aware system uses sensors to
• The user of the system receives excessive collect information without attention to
e-resources that might not be required.
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use. The PLEs are able to gather user con- represented in four layers: PLE Users Layer,
text from many different angles. PLE Applications Layer, PLE Services Layer
and Cloud Infrastructure Layer. There are also
Context-aware PLEs will be able to sense two crosscutting functions: System Management,
continuously the context of a user and use this Security and Privacy.
context information to adapt their services to
changing situations in a calm and non-obtrusive 3.1.1 PLE Users Layer
manner. Therefore PLEs accommodate a diverse
set of services that must provide flexibility and PLE Users Layer provides PLE User Interface
satisfaction to all users’ needs and objectives. (PLEUI) for the user to interact with PLEs. It is
With the significant advances in information and envisaged that the PLEUI will be deployed as an
communications technology, cloud computing has application on any end device e.g. smart phones,
emerged as one of the fast growing segments of tablets, Mac, or PC. The main functions of the
the IT industries resulting in substantial reduction PLEUI are:
in the infrastructural and manpower investment
(Subashini & Kavitha, 2011). Hence, cloud plat- • To allow learners to manage their own
forms can provide infrastructure, platform and profile,
software as a service that will collect context • To present learners any new information
information, conduct context analysis, manage gathered,
security and privacy; hence enable ubiquitous, • To allow learners to access independent
rapid, on-demand network access to a shared pool service providers,
of computing resources such as servers, storage, • To enable learners to access gathered in-
and applications. The benefits of cloud comput- formation from other user’s profile,
ing applied to e-learning are (Pena-Rios, 2012): • To coordinate all learners’
e-communications.
• The possibility to store, share and adapt re-
sources within the cloud. 3.1.2 PLE Applications Layer
• The increased mobility and accessibility.
• The capacity to keep a unified track of PLE Applications Layer (SaaS) consists of vari-
learning progresses. ous tools and independent applications. All these
• The use of resources such as synchronous tools and applications are constructed based on
sharing and asynchronous storage allows lower services, which will be introduced later.
the model to be available at any moment PLE Applications Layer as a portal runs these
that the student requires. tools and applications based on user requirements
and objectives. The main point here is that these
To the best of our knowledge, none of the tools and applications can communicate with each
existing PLEs have cloud based context-aware other, creating a comprehensive framework that
architecture. provides essence of intelligent learning on user’s
preferences. Therefore PLE Application Layer
3.1 The Reference accommodates a diverse set of software services
Architecture of PLEs to provide flexibility and satisfaction to all users’
needs. In this sense, the 3rd party companies can
The reference architecture of cloud based context- also develop their own tools and applications based
aware PLE is shown as Figure 2, which can be on the proposed reference architecture.
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Figure 2. The reference architecture of cloud based context-aware PLEs
3.1.3 PLE Services Layer Objectives. The user must be able to define policy
rules regarding the use of his/her profile. This
PLE Services Layer (PaaS) offers development enables the user to decide when, with whom and
environments for building, testing, and delivering what information they are willing to share.
PLE applications. Three services need to be de- Domain Context contains mainly information
veloped to support a reusable solution to simplify about domain context and is consisted of two
the development of PLE applications. This layer elements: Acquisition and Context History. Ac-
is the core of the proposed reference architecture. quisition is responsible for gathering or isolating
User Profile contains mainly information raw data originating from the independent service
about the user and is consisted of three elements: providers in the recourses and materials layer of
Personal Information, User Preferences, and User the architecture and send the data to the Context
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Reasoner. Context History is responsible for the services to access them will be stored and man-
storage of high-level context information that has aged in a cloud; and shared on-demand via the
been delivered to the user previously. Internet. These data may contain highly sensitive
Inference Engine is responsible for filtering personal information such as the user’s location,
and interpreting the e-resources gathered based on personal health information, and credit cards or
the users preferences. This filtering is performed bank details. Hence, it is paramount to ensure that
using the context history together with the user’s data are stored and exchanged securely in PLEs.
preferences in the User Profile and user’s feedback The security of cloud-based context-aware PLEs
provided by the learner. The main element in the is concerned with the protection of the confiden-
Inference Engine is Context Reasoner, which is tiality, integrity, authenticity, and availability of
responsible for using context information in an data, applications and infrastructures.
intelligent way, i.e. collecting and analysing data
to deal with all uncertain information to provide 3.2 A Walk-Through of Cloud
and predict required PLE services (Alharbi, 2013; Based Context-Aware PLEs
Alharbi, 2014).
In this walk-through, three major functions (stages)
3.1.4 Cloud Infrastructure Layer are identified: (1) explicit system registration by
the user, (2) detection of context reason about
Cloud Infrastructure Layer (IaaS) offers comput- context information, and (3) the generic stage to
ing resources such as storage, hardware, servers, act upon the context information. These functions
networking components. This layer connects a set are referred to as stages and a walk-though of each
of independent services including social network, stage is presented. The workflow of a PLE system
web 2.0 applications, formal and informal learn- is shown in Figure 3.
ing for example Facebook, YouTube, Personal
Calendar, IEEE Xplore digital library, academic 3.2.1. Stage 1: System Registration
libraries, blogs, web 2.0 applications and any
other set of resources. When a user logs on to a PLE service, the user
has to register and thereby create his/her user
3.1.5 System Management profile. The only way for the user to interact with
the PLE system is through the Personal Manager.
The PLEs should be easy to configure, recon- The Personal Manager will typically be deployed
figure and manage when deployed. The system as an application on mobile devices. The Personal
management functions need to be developed to Manager interacts with the Profile Manager and
easily change and adapt the system behaviour allows the user to manage (create, edit & delete)
during runtime. For example, Personal Manager his/her own profile. The User Profile includes
and Profile Manager need to be developed for following information:
system registration.
• Personal Information: includes standard in-
3.1.6 Security and Privacy formation, such as name, address, gender,
marital status and email address, which are
The PLEs should be provided with security and mainly static information.
privacy functions, such as encryption and au- • User preferences: information relating to
thentication. These functions should be provided the user’s various interests (materials). It
at the architecture level that context data and the is expected that the user’s preferences will
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Figure 3. Workflow of a PLE system
change over time and that the user will be Step 2: The Profile Detector will then interact
able to modify them directly. User prefer- with the User Profile in order to gather user
ences have different lifetimes associated preferences (context).
with them. User preferences are affected by Step 3: The Profile Detector will send a request
the user’s reaction to gathered information. to the Acquisition component to collect e-
• User Objectives: different user has differ- resources from different providers such as
ent objectives, which depend heavily on IEEE Explore, ACM and YouTube.
the learning outcome for each user. Step 4: Once Acquisition has received the e-
resources from a provider, it can forward the
3.3.2. Stage 2: Detection of Context gathered e-resources to the Detector.
Step 5: Once the Detector receives e-resources
There are five steps in the detection of context from Acquisition, it will determine if the
stage: e-resources are new for the user and should
be sent to Generic.
Step 1: If a user profile is in place, the user can
choose a ‘search’ option, which is avail- 3.3.3. Stage 3: Generic Stage
able on the Personal Manager. This search
request will automatically invoke the Profile The last stage is the Generic stage. The Generic
Detector. stage is invoked when it receives e-resources from
the Detector:
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Step 1: The Similarity component is responsible component that is unique to the PLE applications.
for checking that similar e-resources have not Formal modelling techniques are applied in this
been rejected before. A message should be research to implement the cloud based context-
sent to the Generator in order to create the aware PLEs. A novel computational model is
action. The Generator is the component that proposed using the Calculus of Context-aware
creates or produces a message based on its Ambients (CCA) (Siewe, 2011). CCA has been
input. The message should be delivered to proposed as a suitable mathematical notation to
the user via the Personal Manager. model mobile and context-aware systems, which
Step 2: The Personal Manager receives exter- can also be used to model any entity in a cloud
nal feedback from the user based on the system -- whether physical, logical, mobile or im-
e-resources which have been delivered. mobile - as well as the environment (or context)
This feedback will indicate how useful the of that entity. Moreover, specifications written
e-resources are to the user. in CCA are executable and thus, leading to rapid
Step 3: Feedback is analysed to increase the preci- prototyping and early validation of the system
sion of the user preferences. properties.
Step 4: The Prediction component uses Artificial
Intelligence (AI) to predict what specific 4.1 Computing Model
preferences user might prefer. The Prediction
component requires information from three CCA is a process calculus for modelling mobile
components: Accepted, Context Detector and context-aware systems. The main features of
and Profile Detector. When a preference is the calculus include mobility, context-awareness
predicated, the result of this step should be and concurrency. The concept of ambient is an
sent to the Generator, which is responsible abstraction of a place where computation may
for creating the action and delivering it to happen. An ambient can be mobile and can contain
the user via the Personal Manager. other ambients called child ambients organised
Step 5: Ultimately the user has to take the final in a hierarchical structure. An ambient can also
decision to accept or reject the new interest, contain a process specifying the capabilities of that
via the Personal Manager. Assuming that ambient, i.e. the actions the ambient is allowed
the user has accepted the predication of the to perform. This section presents the syntax and
system, the User Profile must be updated the informal semantics of CCA. Interested read-
accordingly. This step will be automatic ers can refer to (Siewe, 2011) for the full details
once the user has accepted the predication of the calculus.
from the system. Table 1 depicts the syntax of CCA, based on
three syntactic categories: processes (denoted by
P or Q), context-expressions (denoted by E) and
4. IMPLEMENTATION OF CLOUD capabilities (denoted by M). The simplest entities
BASED CONTEXT-AWARE PLES of the calculus are names. We let ỹ denote a list
of names and |ỹ| the length of such a list.
The proposed cloud based context-aware PLEs
have the same basic phases of any system’s devel- • Processes. The process 0, aka inactivity
opment life cycle. What sets the PLE application process, does nothing and terminates im-
apart from the majority (all) of typical web appli- mediately. The process P|Q denotes the
cations is that it is cloud based and context-aware. process P and the process Q running in
This research focuses on investigating one key parallel. The process (v n) P states that the
134

Table 1. Syntax of CCA
P,Q ７ = 0 P Q (v n )P ! P n P  {P } E ? M .P find x : E for P

M ∷= in n out α recv (y) α send (y) del n
α ７= ↑ n ↑ ↓ n ↓７ n ７ 
E ７ =True •n = m ¬E E1 E 2 E1 ∧E 2 ⊕E ◊E
C ７ =0 n C  C P |(v n )C
scope of the name n is limited to the pro- {x ← n } means the substitution of n for
i
cess P. The replication !P denotes a pro-
each free occurrence of xi, 0 ≤ i < x .
cess which can always create a new copy of
• Capabilities. Ambients exchange messages
P, i.e. !P is equivalent to P|!P. Replication
can be used to implement both iteration using the output capability α send (z) to
and recursion. The process n[P] denotes z to a location α , and
send a list of names
an ambient named n whose behaviours the input capability α recv (y) to receive
are described by the process P. The pair a list of names from a location α. The loca-
of square brackets ‘[’ and ‘]’outlines the tion α can be ‘↑’ for any parent, ‘n ↑’ for a
boundary of that ambient. The process {P} specific parent n, ‘↓’for any child, ‘n ↓’ for
behaves exactly like the process P, so the
a specific child n, ‘∷’ for any sibling, ‘n::’
pair of curly brackets ‘{’ and ‘}’ are used
for a specific sibling n, or ∈ (empty string)
simply as parentheses.
for the executing ambient itself. The mo-
• A context expression E specifies the condi-
bility capabilities in and out are defined as
tion that must be met by the environment
follows. An ambient that performs the ca-
of the executing process. A context-guard-
pability in n moves into the sibling ambi-
ed prefix E?M.P is a process that waits un-
ent n . The capability out n moves the am-
til the environment satisfies the context
bient that performs it out of that ambient’s
expression E, then performs the capability
parent. The capability del n deletes an am-
M and continues like the process P. The
bient of the form n[0] situated at the same
dot symbol ‘.’ denotes the sequential com-
level as that capability, i.e the process del
position of processes. We let M.P denote
n.P|n[0] reduces to P. The capability del
the process True?M.P, where True is a
acts as a garbage collector that deletes am-
context expression satisfied by all context.
bients which have completed their
A search prefix find x : E for P is a pro- computations.
cess that looks for a set of names n such
that the context expression E {x ← n }
In CCA, a context is modelled as a process
with a hole in it. The hole (denoted by ) in a
holds and continues like the process
context represents the position of the process that
P {x ← n } , where the notation
context is the context of. Properties of contexts
are called context expressions. The context expres-
135

sion True always holds. The context expression used to represent policies. Policy based Context
n=m holds if the names n and m are lexically Reasoner indicates what specific action should be
identical. The context expression • holds solely taken under special circumstances. These rules
for the hole context, i.e. the position of the process dictate the behaviour of the system. The workflow
evaluating that context expression. Propositional of policy based Context Reasoner is shown in
operators such as negation (¬) and conjunction Figure 4 (Al-Sammarraie, 2011).
(∧) expand their usual semantics to context ex- In CCA, the ECA model can be specified in a
pressions. The context expression E1|E2 holds for natural fashion using the context-guarded process:
a context if that context is a parallel composition ! α (x) . (e ∧ c ) ? a , where α ( x) is an input capa-
of two contexts such that E1 holds for one and E2 bility. The parameters e, c and a stand for event,
holds for the other. The context expression n[E] condition and action respectively. The event e and
holds for a context if that context is an ambient condition c can be represented as a context expres-
named n such that E holds inside that ambient. sion. The action a is a process or a set of pro-
The context expression ⊕ E holds for a context cesses. A more complex policy can be repre-
if that context has a child context for which E sented as a set of policies running in parallel. The
holds. The context expression ◊E holds for a specification of the policy enforcer with CCA can
context if there exists somewhere in that context be found in (Al-Sammarraie, 2011). With policy-
a sub-context for which E holds. The operator ◊ based management, a system is able to choose on
is called somewhere modality while ⊕ is aka
spatial next modality.
Figure 4. Workflow of policy-based context
4.2 An Implementation of Context reasoner
Reasoner in Context-Aware Engine
As mentioned in the previous section (See Fig-

ure 3), Context Reasoner is a main component
in PLE systems. Most of systems use Artificial
Intelligence (AI) system, e.g. Fuzzy Logic, Neural
Networks, Probabilistic Logic, Dynamic Bayesian
Network, to build the Context Reasoner (Alharbi,
2013; Alharbi, 2014; Kim, 2011). An alternative
way is to build policy based management system.
A policy is a predetermined action pattern
that is repeated by an entity whenever certain
system conditions appear (Saperia, 2002). A
management policy is used to specify dynamic
adaptable management strategies, so they can
be easily modified to change the management
approach without modifying the management
system itself. Most of the policy-based manage-
ment approaches use condition-action rules (aka
if-then rules). Some researchers deal the ECA as
a type of policy as it simply contains a condition
and action. In general, the ECA is a simple pattern
136

what entities to perform certain actions, how to plan. No doubt that PLE can suggest him having
and when to perform certain actions based on a rest when he feels tired.
pre-defined events and conditions.
4.3 An Example of PLE Application 5. FUTURE RESEARCH DIRECTIONS
In this section, a use case for the proposed archi- PLEs are still an active research area in the field
tecture and implementation is presented. In this of e-learning. Whilst PLEs, to date, have resolved
instance, the use case refers to the STEM (science, some of the drawbacks of VLEs, there remains
technology, engineering, and mathematics) aspect. unexplored potential for PLEs to cover more areas.
The use case study will show how the proposed Many issues need to be considered and the fol-
architecture and implementation will work in lowing offers scope for extending this research:
real world.
Student Stemer is a postgraduate student. He • To integrate the proposed approach with
finished his MSc study last year and has started different service providers, for example,
his PhD recently. His research area is software how the proposed architecture connects
engineering. Stemer will use the proposed PLE ap- with IEEE and ACM.
plication to gather e-resources relating to his PhD. • To integrate security mechanisms, tech-
The PLE application will run at the backend niques and constraints to come up with se-
(Cloud). Stemer interacts with the PLE applica- cure policy-based architecture.
tion through the Personal Manager. The Personal • To extend the implementation of the pro-
Manager is an application which can be deployed posed architecture on other components.
on mobile devices. The Personal Manager ap- • To investigate how the policy based meth-
plication can at least offer the following features: od can be combined with AI techniques.
• To investigate how CCA can be applied on
• To manage Stemer’s profile. cloud resource management.
• To provide recommendation for his study.
• To present new e-resources gathered by
Context Reasoner based on Stemer’s 6. CONCLUSION
profile.
• To access independent service providers. In this research, the developed approach “cloud
• To give the feedback (select /reject and based context-aware Personal Learning Environ-
rank). ment architecture” is presented. The proposed
• To interact with other users - define access architecture has unique features. It can be described
policy rules regarding the use of his profile as a system that is driven by the user, based on
by a third party user requirements. In addition, the architecture is
dynamic, with the ability to continuously change
Cloud based context-aware PLE can do more and adapt to the user’s preferences automatically.
than what we mentioned above. For example, The It is able to provide relevant e-resources that are
PLE can recommend the book he might want to important for the user. The PLE architecture is
borrow in the library, the lab session he might automatically responsive to each individual user
want to book. The PLE can recommend suitable on demand, and it is able to predict user prefer-
conference for him and even arrange the travel ences or interests. The automated refinement of
137

user requests for e-resources enables results to Chatti, M., Agustiawan, M. R., Jarke, M., &
improve over time. Specht, M. (2010). Toward a personal learning
This research established as its premise that environment framework. International Journal
a context-aware system could cover the current of Virtual and Personal Learning Environments,
limitations of PLE architecture. Context-aware 1(4), 66–85. doi:10.4018/jvple.2010100105
systems are able to gather contextual informa-
Chavan, A., & Pavri, S. (2004). Open Source
tion from a variety of sources without explicit
Learning Management in Moodle. Linux Journal,
user interaction and can adapt their operations
1(2), 78–97.
accordingly. The implementation of the proposed
approach is presented using formal specification Cheng, C. Y., & Yen, J. (1998). Virtual learn-
techniques. The Prediction component within the ing environment (VLE): A web-based collab-
proposed architecture has the ability to predict orative learning system. In Proceedings of the
contextual information, to learn, to reason and Thirty-First Hawaii International Conference
to be dynamic based on formally defined poli- on System Sciences (pp. 480-491). doi:10.1109/
cies. The cloud based context-aware architecture HICSS.1998.653133
that’s proposed in this research provides a vision
Green, S. J., Pearson, E. J., & Gkatzidou, S. (2009).
of future PLEs.
Formal specification of an adaptable personal
learning environment using prolog. In Proceedings
of the 1st ACM SIGMM International Workshop
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KEY TERMS AND DEFINITIONS Service Oriented Computing (SOC): SOC

is the computing paradigm that utilises services
Cloud Computing: Cloud computing is a as fundamental resources for developing applica-
model for enabling on-demand network access tions. Services are self-describing and computa-
to a shared pool of computing resources that can tional resources that support rapid, automatic,
be managed with minimal efforts. low-cost of distributed systems.
Context-Aware System: Context-aware Virtual Learning Environment (VLE):
System is a system that uses context to provide VLE: is a software system used to deliver online
relevant information and/or services to the user, education, taking advantage of web-based methods
where relevancy depends on the user’s task. and tools such as discussion forums, chats and
Personal Learning Environment (PLE): automated tests.
PLE provides the learner with a wide variety of Web 2.0: Web 2.0 describes World Wide Web
services and hands over control to the learner to sites that use technology beyond the static pages
select, use, and mash up the services the way one of earlier Web sites. Examples of Web 2.0 include
deems fit. In this research, PLE is defined as a social networking sites, blogs, wikis, folkson-
system that has the ability to filter e-resources and omies, video sharing sites, hosted services, Web
predict user preferences based on user context. applications, and mashups.
Policy: A policy is a predetermined action
pattern that is repeated by an entity whenever
certain system conditions appear.
140
141
Chapter 10
Free and Open Source Cloud
Computing Technology
Lee Chao
University of Houston – Victoria, USA
ABSTRACT
This chapter covers the free and open source cloud computing technology and its application in Web-based
IT education. It discusses the difficulties in teaching online IT courses. One of the technologies that can
be used to overcome these difficulties is cloud computing. This chapter focuses on cloud based online
teaching infrastructure created with free and open source cloud computing. It provides some strategies
in developing various cloud based computer labs for hands-on practice required by IT courses. A case
study is used to illustrate the use of the free and open source cloud technology in e-learning.
INTRODUCTION Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), and Platform

as a Service (PaaS) (CloudTweaks, 2010). These
Today, it is necessary for many organizations to de- cloud services are designed to meet an organiza-
velop and manage Internet based IT infrastructure. tion’s computing requirements.
Through such IT infrastructure, an organization’s
employees across the world are able to access the • Software as a Service (SaaS): Instead of
software provided by the organization. Based on installing software on each local computer,
their needs, the organization’s contractors are able this cloud service allows an organization
to implement their own virtual IT infrastructure by to provide the software which is accessible
using the resources provided by the organization. through the Internet. The users with proper
Internet based IT infrastructure can also provide a authentication are able to remotely access
collaboration platform for developers to participate the software through the Internet. With
in an IT project anywhere and anytime. SaaS, an organization may also subscribe
Cloud computing is the technology that is software provided by other organizations.
designed to support such online IT infrastructure. • Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS):
The cloud computing technology provides three Instead of constructing IT infrastructure on
types of the services, Software as a Service (SaaS), physical networks, servers, and database
DOI: 10.4018/978-1-4666-9924-3.ch010

Free and Open Source Cloud Computing Technology
storage devices, this cloud service provides BACKGROUND

virtualized servers, networks, data storage,
and other necessary devices. The custom- Subscribers of a public cloud pay for the usage of
ers of an organization can subscribe these cloud services. Therefore, the public cloud sub-
virtualized networks, machines, and devic- scribers do not have to develop their own physical
es to construct their own IT infrastructures IT infrastructure to support their own computing
which are accessible through the Internet. needs. The public cloud subscribers may not have
Again, an organization can subscribe IaaS total control of where to store their data. It is pos-
provided by other organizations. When sible that several public cloud subscribers share the
subscribing the IaaS service from other same storage device. Sometimes, the data may be
organizations, the organization can signifi- stored somewhere far away from the local region.
cantly save the cost of constructing its own This nature of the public cloud may cause some
physical IT infrastructure. concern of data security. On other hand, public
• Platform as a Service (PaaS): When a cloud providers are often the enormous IT orga-
team of developers working together on nizations such as VMware, Amazon, IBM, and
an application project, it is ideal for these Microsoft. The IT infrastructure built to support
developers to work collaboratively on the the public cloud is robust enough to handle large
same IT infrastructure and in the same lo- and intense computing tasks. It provides backup
cation. However, the developers may have and restoration mechanisms so that the comput-
to work at different locations across the ing resources are highly dependable and highly
world. In such a case, PaaS provides an available on the public cloud.
organization with a Web-based application Although cloud computing provides a flexible
development platform. With PaaS, the de- and efficient computation platform, it can present
velopment team can work collaboratively a great challenge for small or non-profit organi-
on designing, developing, testing, deploy- zations if they develop and maintain their own
ing, upgrading, and hosting Web-based ap- cloud based IT infrastructure. The private cloud
plications. Like SaaS and IaaS, the orga- requires the organization to create a physical IT
nization can subscribe PaaS from another infrastructure to host the cloud services. Highly
organization. skilled IT service technicians are needed to develop
and manage the private cloud. In addition to the
When an organization provides cloud ser- cost of highly skilled IT technicians, many small
vices for its own use, such a cloud is called a organizations or non-profit organizations are not
private cloud. The private cloud is built on top able to cover the cost of hardware and software
of the organization’s existing IT infrastructure. to support the private cloud. On the other hand,
The organization’s IT department develops and the charges for the public cloud services may
manages the cloud services. The subscribers of also be too high for many small organizations
the cloud services must be authenticated by the and non-profit organizations. For example, the
organization. All the data on the private cloud cost for some of the public cloud SaaS, IaaS, and
can be stored in a private data center located in PaaS packages are:
the organization’s network.
On the other hand, when an organization pro- • Microsoft Office 365: Microsoft Office
vides cloud services for the public to subscribe, 365 is typical of SaaS. For an organiza-
this type of cloud is called a public cloud (Velte, tion of 25 users, the annual subscription
Velte, & Elsenpeter, 2009). fee of Microsoft Office 365 is $150/user
142

(Microsoft, 2014a). Notice that the cost is may not be able to pay for the cloud services to
the annual cost. That is, if the organization support its computer science department.
is to use the service for three years, the cost To be able to catch up with the trend in the
on the three-year usage of Microsoft Office IT industry, it is required that IT education in-
is $450 per user. For 25 users, the three- stitutions develop computer labs where students
year subscription will be $11,250. can conduct hands-on practice on cutting-edge
• VMware vCloud Hybrid Service: technologies. In today’s e-learning environment,
VMware vCloud Hybrid Service is an these computer labs should be available around the
example of IaaS. The cost for the virtual clock and should be accessible anywhere around
private cloud is summarized as below the world. Cloud computing is able to meet these
(VMware, 2014): Server with 20GB vRAM requirements. By examining the IT courses, an IT
and 5GHz CPU, $642/month; Support, education institution may require the following
$128/month, 2TB standard storage, $120/ cloud services.
month; network bandwidth, $229/month;
each public IP address, $25/month; 1TB • SaaS: IT courses such as Computer
data protection, $430/month; 1Gbps direct Programming and Multimedia
connect network, $75/month; each offline Development require software that can
data transfer, $250/month. Suppose that an be used to create and test programming
organization subscribes the server with the code. For these courses, SaaS is needed to
default network and data storage service provide the programming software. With
as above, the annual cost will be $22,788. SaaS, students can remotely access the
The service above assumes that the orga- software to work on their programming
nization will share the physical computing projects.
and data storage devices with other organi- • PaaS: IT courses such as Database Systems
zations. If the organization wants its own and Application Development require a
dedicated cloud, the cost can be 10 times client-server structure to host both the
higher. front-end and the back-end of a database
• Microsoft Windows Azure: Microsoft system. Sometimes, students are grouped
Windows Azure can be considered as into teams. For example, in each team, one
PaaS, although it also provides SaaS and student is responsible for the development
IaaS. According to Bailey (2013), it costs of a database as the back-end, one student
$2031.12/month for a “Small SharePoint is responsible for the development of a
Development or Testing Farm or Box in Web page as the front-end, and another
Azure” plan which includes a 3-virtual- student is responsible for the middleware
machine farm created on Windows Azure which is used to implement the business
and application development software such logic. Therefore, these students need PaaS
as the SQL Server database management which provides a collaboration platform.
package. The annual cost is about $24,373. With PaaS, the front-end, back-end, and
the middleware can be constructed on a
When compared with the cost of implementing virtual machine farm linked with a virtual
a physical IT infrastructure, the cost of creating a network. The PaaS platform allows these
cloud based IT infrastructure is lower. However, students to work on the same project even
the cost is still too high for many small or non-profit if they are at different locations.
organizations. For example, a small university
143

• IaaS: IT courses such as System hands-on practice for various IT courses (Chao,
Administration and Network Management 2009).
require hands-on practice on the server Due to the advantages of cloud computing,
side. The students are required to create education institutions have paid a lot of attention
their own networks to link multiple virtual to this technology. As early as 2009, Nicholson
machines. They will install the server op- (2009) pointed out that cloud computing at uni-
erating system and application software. versities aims at reducing “IT complexity and
They will enforce the security measures cost”. The feasibility of cloud computing was
and conduct the server side management also investigated by Fox (2009) who reported
tasks. IaaS is ideal for supporting this type that the cloud technology was used to support
of courses. With IaaS, the students can online classes. As a new computing platform,
create their own networks. They can add cloud computing has attracted a lot of attention
servers to or remove servers from the net- from education institutions. The challenges and
works. To allow the students to learn about benefits of cloud computing in experiential and
the management of servers, they need to student-centered learning practices were examined
be given the administrator’s privilege. by Chang and Guetl (2010) who considered cloud
Without harming the physical network, computing more suitable for classes involving
IaaS allows the students to work on the interactive videos, virtual worlds, modeling and
virtual networks with the administrator’s simulations, and Web 2.0 tools. The cloud technol-
privilege. With IaaS, each student’s virtual ogy is particularly useful in lab construction (Chao,
network can be isolated from other net- 2011). The cloud based computer lab is able to
works created by other students. Or, the in- meet most of the hands-on practice requirements
dividual networks can join together to form in an IT class (Chao, 2011).
a super network. Although cloud computing is such a promising
technology, as described earlier, not all education
Even though many education institutions may institutions are able to provide cloud services for IT
not be able to afford to implement their own private education, partially due to the cost. Therefore, the
clouds or to subscribe public cloud services, the free and open source cloud technology can play a
demand for the cloud technology is very high. As significant role in helping education institutions to
computer labs are necessary for IT education, the implement their own cloud computing platforms.
Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technol-
ogy (ABET) (ABET, 2005) requires that each IT
education institution must have its own computer FREE AND OPEN SOURCE
lab. Further, e-learning requires that the students be CLOUD TECHNOLOGY
able to perform hands-on practice on the Internet.
To reduce cost and to get a deep understanding There are many free and open source cloud tech-
of computer systems, education institutions have nologies available to education institutions and
a long history of using open source software to small businesses. Although some of these free
support hands-on activities. Open source software cloud technologies have some time limit, they
has been used for rapid and inexpensive lab de- are still valuable resources for education institu-
ployment (Corbesero, 2006). McAndrew (2008) tions. A class assignment usually does not last
taught cryptography with open source software. more than one semester. Some of the free trial
The Linux technology has been used to support cloud services are good enough for students to
complete their assignments. Based on the types
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of services provided, the free cloud services can is that, it is either provided by the third party or
be categorized into free personal cloud service, it is set up by an individual; the storage device
Software as a Service (SaaS), Infrastructure as a should be accessible by the consumers through
Service (IaaS), and Platform as a Service (PaaS). the Internet or through a mobile network. Some of
The open source cloud technologies are often the the personal clouds may also provide application
software package used to construct the private software for the consumers to use. The personal
cloud. cloud is ideal for the consumers who use mobile
Personal Cloud Service: Personal cloud devices. Because of the limited storage space on
service aims to serve home consumers. Mostly, mobile devices, the personal cloud has attracted
the personal cloud offers storage space for the hundreds of millions of mobile device users. The
consumers to store their personal data. Through personal cloud is particularly useful for mobile
the Internet or mobile network, consumers can learning classes. There are some free personal
store and retrieve their personal data anywhere clouds available on the market. Table 1 lists some
and anytime. Therefore, the personal cloud is of the personal cloud providers.
often called personal cloud storage, mobile cloud Table 1 only lists a few personal clouds. One
storage, and pocket cloud storage (Techopedia, may find many such types of cloud services avail-
2014). The storage space can be provided by a able on the Internet. Such types of clouds have a
third party which is just like a public cloud or lot of useful application in IT education. Instruc-
the storage space can be set up by an individual tors are able to use personal clouds to distribute
which just like a private cloud. The key concept course materials. Students can use personal clouds
Table 1. Free personal clouds
Name Free Feature

Amazon Cloud 5GB Storage It supports PCs, Macs, and Apple and Android devices. It provides apps for file transfer. It
Drive provides Amazon Cloud Player used to stream music and manage multimedia files. It is the
best when used with Amazon Kindle Fire devices.
Apple iCloud 5GB Storage It works with iTunes for music management. It also provides apps for email, mobile
backup, and location awareness. It is the best when used with Apple mobile devices such
as iPhones and iPads. It can also work with Windows 7 and Windows 8.
Bitcasa 10GB Storage It works with Windows 7 and 8. It also provides apps for Mac, Android, iOS, Windows
Phone and RT. Data transfer can be done through a browser.
Box 5GB Storage It is designed for business-collaboration. It provides apps for mobile work flow
management, project collaboration management, Windows/Mac PCs file synchronization,
and so on. It supports Windows, Android, and iOS devices.
Google Drive 5GB Storage; It allows users to share any types of files such as documents, music, images, and videos.
30GB for It synchronizes the Windows, Chrome OS, Android, and Apple’s iOS files. It provides the
Education cloud based office software Google Docs.
JustCloud Free (Limited It offers free no obligation cloud storage. Its upload speed is fast and has the limit on file
Time) size as 5MB. It provides free iPhone, iPad, Android and BlackBerry apps, so users can
backup and access files from anywhere at any time.
MediaFire 50GB Storage It supports files run on Linux, Mac OS X, and Windows PCs. It also supports Android and
iOS devices. Although it provides 50GB storage per user, it has a limit of 200MB per file.
Microsoft SkyDrive 25GB Storage Through the IE browser, users are able to access and share different types of files stored on
SkyDrive. SkeyDrive can be integrated with Windows 8’s file system so that users can use
SkyDrive just like another hard drive. SkyDrive works with cloud-based office software
Office Web Apps and other Microsoft application software.
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to store photos and data collected from a field • SaaS can be used to support hands-on
trip. Most universities use a Web-based learning practice in an online computer lab.
management system (LMS) such as Blackboard • SaaS provides email service and social
to host and manage their online courses. Due to network service for students and faculty
the limitation of storage space, many universi- members.
ties restrict faculty members on uploading large • SaaS provides the class management soft-
files to class Web sites. For IT education, course ware for instructors and students to track
materials often include some large files such as the students’ performance.
an operating system installation DVD disk. In
such a case, the personal cloud provides a solu- For business, SaaS is the best bet for small
tion. As shown in Figure 1, a 2.6GB file has been and mid-sized businesses that do not have skilled
uploaded to the free Ubuntu One personal cloud technicians to manage the application software
for students to share. and are not able to pay for the high upfront capital
Software as a Service (SaaS): As described expenditure on the IT infrastructure to support the
in the Personal Cloud Service section, in addi- application software. Some applications of SaaS
tion to storing and distributing course materials, in business are listed below:
some of the personal cloud services also offer
free application software. Google Docs is this • Customer Relationship Management
type of software; it can be used to create reports (CRM): This type of SaaS manages cus-
and write term papers. This kind of cloud based tomer contact information, accounts, public
software is a typical example of SaaS. SaaS has relations, recruitment, customer outreach,
wide application in education and business. The customer support, customer feedback, and
following are some ways of applying SaaS in contract management. Its function is simi-
education: lar to that of a customer management of-
fice. Even better, The SaaS Web site can
• Through SaaS, students and instructors can be accessed anytime and anywhere. SaaS
subscribe electronic course materials and allows a subscriber to build a customized
textbooks. Web interface for interaction. It may also
• For teaching and learning, students and in- allow subscribers to generate reports and
structors can subscribe software packages, run statistics.
such as the office package, software devel- • Workforce Management: SaaS allow
opment package, or security package. subscribers to develop business applica-
tions such as an information system for
Figure 1. Sharing large file on personal cloud
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human resources. It offers software for conditions for free usage and the features provided
managing applications such as employee by the SaaS.
salaries, employee management, health- Nowadays, SaaS is a 14 billion dollar business
care management, and so on for those and is growing. Table 2 only lists a few SaaS
small to mid-sized companies that are not services. As an example, Figure 2 illustrates the
able to implement their own IT infrastruc- SaaS database package Microsoft SQL Azure
ture to support these software packages. Web interface.
• Finance Management: SaaS has many Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS): Through a
applications for accounting. It provides hypervisor, IaaS offers virtual machines, virtual
software for expense reporting, travel networks, virtual data storage, and other virtual
booking, payroll, and so on. For the finance devices for subscribers to create their own IT
industry, SaaS also provides software for infrastructures. Since a computer lab is the place
consumer lending and loan processing for where students can conduct experiments, IaaS is
many small to medium-sized banks. very useful for the computer lab construction. In
• Productivity: Productivity software is IT education, the requirements for computer labs
used to produce documents, presentations, are so diverse. It is very expensive to meet all the
databases, charts, and spreadsheets. SaaS requirements. Also, the construction of a physical
provides software for word processing, computer lab is time consuming and it is not secure
spreadsheet application, and chart produc- to allow students to perform administrator’s tasks
ing. For many small businesses and self- on the physical network. Although IaaS is great for
employed individuals, the productivity education institutions, it is too expensive for many
software provided by SaaS means big sav- education institutions. Therefore, the focus of this
ings for their business operations. section is on free and open source IaaS (Table 3).
• Business Intelligence: SaaS provides soft- When applied to networking related IT courses,
ware to support business intelligence. The IaaS provided by a public cloud has a drawback.
software provided by SaaS can be used for It is difficult for students to change the server’s IP
data collection, data analysis, data storage, address provided by the cloud provider. Courses
and report presentation. The business in- such as Networking or System Administration can
telligence provided by SaaS is particularly be fully supported by the IaaS created on a private
suitable for computation intense tasks such cloud or hybrid cloud. Implementing a private
as big data processing, data mining or on- cloud requires upfront expenditure on software
line analytical processing (OLAP). and hardware. On the other hand, most education
institutions may already have the IT infrastructure
To support business, SaaS has a wide range of in place. In such a case, the private cloud can be
applications. The above only lists a few commonly implemented with free software or open source
used applications. Today, almost in every business software. Table 4 lists some vendors that provide
aspect, one can find some SaaS applications for software for developing private clouds.
running a successful business. OpenStack has been adopted by many Linux
Like personal clouds, there is also a lot of distributions, such as Ubuntu Linux, Red Hat
free SaaS available. For example, Google Docs Linux, and SUSE Linux for private cloud develop-
has been used by many education institutions for ment. Figure 3 illustrate the VMware vCloud Di-
teaching and learning. Table 2 lists some free rector Web interface. Through the Web interface,
or open source SaaS. Table 2 also describes the each student can access her/his virtual machines
and virtual networks.
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Table 2. Free SaaS
Name Free Feature

DeskAway (2014) Free for 1 project It is a web-based project collaboration service that provides teams with a central location to easily
with 2 users and organize, manage and track their projects.
can store files up to
25MB
Easy Projects (2014) Free for one user This is project management SaaS. It can help a development team to get better organized. It gives the
team a better view of the job progress, availability of resources, and profitability of the project. It helps
the subscriber to get the project completed on budget and on time.
Apple iCloud Some of the apps free iCloud provides the app iWork for free. iWork includes Pages for document processing, Numbers for
on new iOS devices data analysis, iMovie for video management, Keynote for presentation management, and iPhoto for
photo management (Hamburger, 2013).
IBM Cloud Academy Over 20 free Through its cloud computing environment, IBM allows college professors to use the software in its
(IBM, 2014) software packages for software product portfolio. The software includes Rational Application Developer for WebSphere,
professors Rational Team Concert for collaborative management, Rational Software Architect for unified design,
modeling and development platform, DB2 and Informix for database management.
Datadog (2014) Up to 5 hosts for free It is business intelligence SaaS. It provides the data analytic platform designed for IT operations and
development teams of all sizes. It allows multiple teams to work collaboratively on IT infrastructure
issues.
Microsoft Windows Five months free for Windows Azure offers Microsoft Business Productivity Online Suite (BPOS) and CRM Online. It also
Azure (2010) education, $200 for provides the database management software SQL Azure, SharePoint for integrating employees’ PCs
general public and mobile devices, Office365 for office productivity, MyVault for email archive, and many more. In
addition, Windows Azure brings many third party apps such as SAP App and Power BI. Also, Windows
Azure provides Windows Azure Software Development Kit for subscribers to create their own SaaS
applications.
Google Apps for Free for education It provides the cloud based software Google Docs, Gmail, Calendar, Sheets for data analysis and project
Education (2014) tracking, Slides for presentation editing, Sites Shared workspaces for classes, faculties and clubs, Vault
for discovering and archiving Google Education Apps, and many more.
Open Office (2014) 100% Free It opens all Microsoft Office formats. It can be used to create text files, PDF files, and presentations. It
can also be used to manage spreadsheets and databases, and edit images. It may lack customer support
and some programming features such as micros.
Yurbi (5000 Fish, Community edition It provides business intelligence software and database management system software.
2014) free
Zoho (2012) Free for personal use Zoho has a list of applications such as Zoho CRM (3 users free), Zoho Project (1 project free), Zoho
Mail Suite (3 users free), Zoho Meeting (one-on-one free), Zoho Reports (free for 100,000 rows and 2
users), Zoho Discussions (2 forums free), Zoho Docs (1 GB free), Zoho People (up to 10 users free),
and more.
Figure 2. SQL Azure Web interface
148

Table 3. Free IaaS providers
Name Free Feature

Amazon Web Free Tier: EC2 The Amazon Web Services free tier offers a wide range of infrastructure services. With these services,
Services (2014) 750 hours/Month, subscribers can create virtual machines, host new applications, store data, test remote access, and many other
5GB S3 storage and cloud services.
100MB database
HP Public Cloud Free for 90 days The HP cloud provides Linux instance with a MySQL database and 50 GB block storage. Subscribers can
(2014) develop and test an application on either a Windows or Linux instance. The HP IaaS can be used to archive
files and backup critical data.
GoGrid (2014) $100 free credit It allows subscribers to choose virtual machines installed with free Windows Server 2003 and 2008 and
Linux. It provides 10GB cloud storage. Subscribers can get 100 Mbps secure private networks, and free
with each account. The provided firewall allows the subscriber to choose SSL VPN, or IPSec VPN. It allows
the subscriber to control the infrastructure via the Web-based customer portal, iPhone app or API. It also
provides IP addresses, DMZ, and much more.
Joyent (2014) Two-month free Joyent provides a high performance cloud infrastructure for hosting applications. It integrates the Web
trial on a 1GB storage service with the computer service to process and store large datasets. Joyent’s SmartDataCenter 7 is a
SmartMachine complete private cloud management platform that can be used to deploy elastic cloud infrastructure.
Microsoft Windows Five months free for Windows Azure offers Windows and Linux virtual machines, apps, and infrastructure using Microsoft-
Azure (2010) education, $200 for managed data centers in 13 regions around the world. It provides virtual networks that enable subscribers
general public to create logically isolated networks in Azure. The virtual networks can be securely connected to the
subscribers’ on-premises resources. Windows Azure also provides Mobile Service for creating backend
solutions to power the subscribers’ mobile apps and to accelerate mobile app development.
SoftLayer (2014) Free for one month SoftLayer’s IaaS creates computer systems or networks directly installed on hardware rather than within the
host operating system; therefore, it has better performance. Its data centers and network points are connected
by a high-speed private network worldwide. It allows subscribers to configure hardware such as CPU cores,
RAM, and storage.
Dimension Data $200 free credit Its public cloud offers customizable virtual servers running Windows or Linux operating systems and secure
(2014) cloud networks. It provides up to 10 TB of block-based storage and up to 16 CPUs and 128GB RAM per
server. Subscribers are able to access the public cloud through Web-based user interface or REST-based API
for easy automation and integration.
Table 4. Free and open source software for private cloud development
Name Free Feature

VMware (2014) Two-month free trial VMware provides a number of software for developing private clouds. It offers vSphere which includes ESXi
and 250$ annual used as a hypervisor for hosting virtual machines, vCenter for managing virtual machines, vSphere Client
license fee for for remote access, and so on. It also offers vCloud Networking and Security for load balancing and network
education and small management, vCloud Director for cloud management, vCloud Connector for migrating virtual machines
business between private and public clouds, and so on.
Microsoft (2014b) Free for education From the DreamSpark website, students can download Windows Server 2012 R2 which provides the
Dreamspark virtualization tool Hyper-V, SQL Server 2014 for database management, Visual Studio 2013 for application
development, and many other application development tools. Microsoft also provides System Center 2012 R2
(free for 1 year) for unified management across private cloud and public cloud Windows Azure environments.
Eucalyptus (2014) Open source Eucalyptus is a free and open source cloud management platform. With Eucalyptus, users can manage
multiple cloud providers and hybrid clouds. Eucalyptus can be used to build Amazon Web Services (AWS)-
compatible private and hybrid clouds.
OpenStack (2014) Open source OpenStack is a free and open-source cloud management platform for deploying clouds. It is primarily used
as an IaaS solution. OpenStack is built to support various public clouds such as Amazon Web Services and
Windows Azure. OpenStack supports commonly used open source hypervisors such as KVM and Xen for
developing virtualized IT infrastructure.
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Figure 3. VMware vCloud Director Web interface
Platform as a Service (PaaS): The advantage system, design of the database system based on
of cloud service is particularly useful for support- the requirements, development of the database
ing team projects. PaaS provides a Web based system according to the design, deployment of
platform for a team of developers to work on a the database system, and project evaluation. Once
project together. In IT education, PaaS provides a the database system is implemented, the database
platform for supporting group activities in courses administrator will perform tasks such as database
such Software Engineering, Web Development, management and the development of data analysis
and Database Systems. To reduce the financial services. A database related course covers these
burden of education institutions, we aim at the contents. The case study illustrates the use of a
available free or open source PaaS (Table 5). virtual lab to support IT courses such as Database
Figure 4 illustrates the Windows Azure Systems in an education institution.
Management Portal which is a GUI interface for Requirement Analysis: For the cloud based
managing SaaS, IaaS, and PaaS. database system development, we need an envi-
As shown in Figure 4, the Windows Azure ronment that can be remotely accessed through
Management Portal can be used to create cloud the Internet around the clock and from anywhere.
services, mobile services, virtual machines, net- For the database design, we need a GUI interface
works, databases, storage locations, Web sites, to view and modify the definitions of database
reports, and so on. It can also be used to manage objects and the relationships among the database
remote access to the projects hosted by Windows objects. For the database development, we need
Azure. tools to create database objects, tools to manage
database objects, tools to populate database tables
and views, and tools to query the data stored in
CASE STUDY: VIRTUAL LAB FOR the database objects. We also need tools to move
DATABASE MANAGEMENT data in and out of a database. For the database
deployment, we need tools for testing database
A database system is considered as the heart performance and reliability, tools for the database
of an information system. To develop such a deployment, tools for migrating databases between
complicated system, it takes five major steps, the server in the cloud and the server in the private
requirement analysis for the to-be-built database network. We may also need a virtual machine to
150

Table 5. Free and open source PaaS
Name Free Feature

DeskAway Free for1 project It is a web-based project collaboration service that provides teams with a central location to
(2014) with 2 users and easily organize, manage and track their projects.
can store files up
to 25MB
AppFog (2014) Free for one month AppFog is based on the open source Cloud Foundry platform. It is a multi-language and
multi-framework PaaS. It is designed for multi-cloud deployment, including private clouds.
AppFog supports programming languages such as Java, Ruby, PHP, Python, Node.js, Scala
and Erlang. It offers MySQL, PostgreSQL, Redis, and RabbitMQ for database management. It
supports Git, SVN and Mercurial for code management.
Red Hat 3 small gears and It is open source based PaaS. It offers a wide variety of languages, databases, and components.
OpenShift (2014) 1GB of storage per This PaaS can be offered in three forms: OpenShift Online (cloud-based hosting service),
gear are free OpenShift Enterprise (private PaaS) and OpenShift Origin (open source application hosting
platform). System administration tasks such as virtual server provisioning, configuration, and
scaling can be done automatically by OpenShift. It also supports Git for code management.
OpenStack Open source OpenStack is a free and open-source cloud management platform for deploying clouds. It is
(2014) primarily deployed as an IaaS solution. OpenStack is built to support various public clouds
such as Amazon Web Services and Windows Azure. OpenStack supports commonly used
open source hypervisors such as KVM and Xen for developing virtualized IT infrastructure.
Google App Free for the first It is designed for distributed Web application development. It supports programming
Engine (Google 28 instance hours, languages such as Java, Python, PHP and Go, and provides a SDK for each of the supported
Cloud Platform, 1GB of storage and languages. It also provides a plugin for Eclipse. The PaaS provided by Google App Engine
2014) 1GB of inbound/ offers managed infrastructure and runtime environments that are guaranteed to scale. It
outbound traffic provides a transactional, schema-less data store, Datastore, used to handle data management.
per application per
day.
Microsoft For education, five For software development, it provides a SDK. It uses Visual Studio to create and deploy
Windows Azure months free. For applications. In addition, it supports programming languages such as .NET, Node.js, PHP,
(2010) public one month Python, Java, and Ruby. For data storage, it provides the relational database SQL Azure as
free with $200 well as the non-relational storage Table Storage, Blob Storage, and Queue Storage. For the
credit. project management, it provides a Web interface as well as the command interface PowerShell.
host the application development software and to • Business Scenario: The instructor pro-
support other cloud services. It is also important vides one or more business scenarios for
that the free usage period can cover the hands- the students to interpret the collected in-
on practice for the whole semester. Among the formation in technical terms and figure out
available free public cloud providers, Windows the relationships among the objects that
Azure provides an environment which provides they keep track of.
SaaS, IaaS, and PaaS. For education institutions, • Data Model: Then, the students are asked
Windows Azure provides five-month free usage to represent the objects and their relation-
which is long enough to cover an entire semester. ships with a data model which serves as
Therefore, this case study is based on Windows the blueprint for the future database. Once
Azure. the data model is created, it can be used
Design: For the Database Systems course, to verify if the future database will meet
the hands-on practice for the design phase may the database requirements by the business
include the following activities: scenario. It may take several rounds of
modifications before the design goals can
be achieved logically.
151

Figure 4. Windows Azure Management Portal
• Physical Design: The physical design Azure in the cloud and SQL Server in the
specifies the physical components of the local area network.
project. Based on the data model, identify
the cloud technologies and services for the Figure 5 illustrates a data model designed for
database development. For data model pre- the Database Systems course.
sentation, SQL Azure provides a utility for Development: The third phase of the project is
database table design and GUI presentation the development of the database system. During
of relationships among tables. SQL Azure the development phase, the students will perform
supports the SQL language for creating the following tasks.
and managing database objects. It also pro-
vides Web based remote access tools such • Create an account on Windows Azure, set
as Remote Desktop and Web interface. For up remote access, create a virtual machine
database application development, Visual with Visual Studio installed, and configure
Studio is the package that can be easily SQL Azure for the database development.
integrated with SQL Azure. The Visual • Based on the data model, create database
Studio package can be installed on a local objects such as a user defined database,
machine or on a virtual machine provided tables, indexes, views, procedures, federa-
by Windows Azure. Both SQL Azure and tions, triggers, and so on. The students will
SQL Server provide database migration also practice how to populate the database
tools for database migration between SQL they created and practice how to insert, up-
date, and delete the data stored in a table.
152

Figure 5. Data model designed for hands-on practice
They will also query the data stored in their remote access. For the cloud based project, there
database. is no need to test infrastructure security, database
• Once the database is created, the students backup and recovery, and system redundancy
will create a Web based interface as a da- for reliability. Windows Azure automatically
tabase application. The database applica- replicates the database into three copies and save
tions may include Web based forms and the copies to three different storage devices. The
reports which are backed by the database. students will use the database migration tool to
migrate the database created on SQL Azure to
As described above, the development of a SQL Server installed on a home computer or on a
cloud based database takes less effort than the virtual machine. Figure 7 illustrates the database
development of a physical database on a local IT management portal provided by Windows Azure.
infrastructure. Figure 6 illustrates the database Evaluation: The last phase of the database
objects created on SQL Azure. system development is the evaluation phase. Its
Deployment: Once the database is developed, purpose is to find out the impact of the database.
the next phase is the deployment phase. At this For the evaluation, a checklist can be drafted as
phase, the students will get hands-on practice on below:
tasks such as database system testing and man-
agement, database migration, technical support, • Check if the performance is satisfactory.
project documentation and training. The testing • In addition to the relational database, check
process may involve the testing of the database, and if non-relational data storage is needed.
virtual machine availability and performance. It is • Check if more remote access mechanisms
also necessary to test the database applications and need to be added.
153

Figure 6. Creating database objects on SQL Azure
Figure 7. Database management portal
154

• Check if the database applications work ronment has been established to support courses
with the database smoothly. such as Database Systems. Since database related
• Check if more security measures need to topics are required in IT education, the solution
be enforced. described in this chapter is meaningful to all edu-
• Check if the database users have proper cation institutions that offer IT education.
permissions.
• Check if the users are satisfied with the in-
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157
Section 3
Teaching and Learning in the
Cloud Environment
159
Chapter 11
Cloud Computing for
Teaching and Learning:
Design Strategies
Bay Arinze
Drexel University, USA
Cheickna Sylla
New Jersey Institute of Technology, USA
Onuora Amobi
LearnAboutTheWeb.com, USA
ABSTRACT
Cloud-based courses are now in widespread use by universities and other educational institutions. The
cloud-based approach to course delivery is now used to provide scalable, granular educational content
and training to millions of students asynchronously and synchronously in an innovative, effective man-
ner. In the case of universities, more variables are under their control, such as student enrollment and
student use of course elements. For universities with a focus on STEM-related programs, courses are
offered to multiple categories of students with a mix of face-to-face and distance learning approaches,
and the courses are often also open to the general public under different contracts. These universities
typically aim to offer specially designed programs to companies and the general public who have diverse
requirements and challenges. Aided by advances in cloud computing platforms, STEM focused-educational
programs are increasingly adopting cloud-based learning systems to meet the diverse needs of their
students. In this chapter, we discuss the motivation behind leveraging the cloud for STEM based higher
education. We use the case study approach and examine two cases. The first is a large private university
with 18,000 students and the second is a for-profit private educational company offering courses mainly
to the general public. We examine best practices that are involved in developing such systems, progres-
sive delivery mechanisms for course presentations, setting up the required cloud infrastructure and the
operational use of the entire system. The aim is to give researchers and developers deeper insights into
the development of successful private cloud-based STEM-based educational offerings.
DOI: 10.4018/978-1-4666-9924-3.ch011

Cloud Computing for Teaching and Learning
INTRODUCTION Many colleges have done this out of competitive

necessity and in order to compete globally for stu-
Higher education is being transformed by the dents, similar to their peers. Indeed, colleges move
introduction of information technology, changes programs online no longer competitive advantage,
in attitudes towards college-based education and but to survive in a globalized, hypercompetitive
the deployment of new business models in edu- environment. As more and more articles appear
cation (Gentzoglanis, 2012). STEM education is casting doubt on the economic value of a college
particularly important in creating a workforce that education, pressure is being brought to bear on
will enable the United States to be competitive the higher education supply chain and the cost
into the 21st century. reductions that are afforded by online educational
The term “STEM” refers to the collection of programs.
academic disciplines of Science, Technology, En- Educational institutions deploy cloud comput-
gineering, and Mathematics. The term also relates ing support to advanced digital learning, thus we
to educational policy and curriculum choices from can expect serious transformations of the curricu-
k-12 through college that aim to improve competi- lum from the traditional mode of delivery. For too
tiveness in science and technology development. long we have tried to understand digital learning
STEM education and policy impact workforce by classifying courses as either online, hybrid or
development, the economy, national security and face-to-face. The aim of using new cloud-based
immigration policy. models is to achieve functional convergence of
Cloud computing is a form of distributed the physical and virtual campus, which ultimately
computing systems that accomplishes sharing of will lead to few distinctions between face-to-face
heterogeneous computational resources, including and online courses.
hardware, data and software among multiple end This is motivated by the recognition that
users. However, it has distinct adoption require- because of individual circumstances, one mode
ments for organizations (Pastore, 2014). Cloud may have advantages for a given student at a given
computing has evolved to become a dynamic time. Students could engage in a course remotely,
and scalable computing and storage platform in a face-to-face environment or they can chose to
that is suited to the demands and needs of online participate in a converged combination of the two.
students, including adult learners. This is because If the discipline lends itself to cloud computing-
cloud-computing seems much easier to adopt and supported multiple delivery options, educational
use due to its relatively affordable costs and wide institutions try to provide their students as many
availability and accessibility on the Internet. opportunities as possible to engage the course
This chapter seeks to discuss the increasing materials while preserving the personalized in-
widespread use of cloud computing in STEM- teractions between the instructor and the students.
related educational environments providing details
on the benefits and challenges related to its use. Private Educational
Traditional college education has been of the Providers and MOOCs
in-class, university-based variety, where face-to-
face meetings have been the norm. However, over In tandem with these pressures, private non-
the last decade in particular, there has been an traditional providers have also entered the online
explosion in online education, with the majority educational market, offering even greater variet-
of colleges across the United States now offering ies of specialized web-based training formats. A
degree programs that can be partially or fully well-known example of a non-traditional educa-
completed online. tional provider is Phoenix University, with 112
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worldwide campuses and 100 degree programs Infrastructure

offering Associate, Bachelor’s, Master’s and even
Doctoral degrees. It has over 300,000 students, Linn (2010) believes that Grid Computing technol-
250,000 of whom are in mainly Associates and ogy gives educators the ability to manage more
Bachelors programs and the balance attending complexity and content in modern-day curricula.
graduate programs. Although delivering the Indeed Grid Computing technology and cloud
majority of its programs in online modes, it is a computing in particular may be the only approach
wholly owned subsidiary of Apollo Group Inc., to effectively manage the continuously increasing
a publicly traded Phoenix-based corporation that demands of education. Indeed, the superior eco-
owns several for-profit educational institutions. nomics offered by cloud-computing in particular
Other institutions have added to new models are contributing to their widespread adoption at
of online higher education through their use of all levels of STEM education.
Massive Open Online Courses or MOOCs. Pioneer The advanced collaborative STEM laboratory
universities included such institutions as Harvard described by Estes et al., (2014) for example,
University, Stanford University, University of depended on cloud-based services for many func-
Pennsylvania and MIT. Their courses are profes- tions and this directly affected its success. Storing
sionally created and delivered free to anyone who and accessing articles and files were some of the
registers for them. While they can be taken free of crucial functions supported by cloud computing.
charge, they do not come with the corresponding There are many types of cloud-based educa-
degrees or certificates. tional software used by educational providers,
That model may be changing however, with including STEM-based ones. For example, Mi-
the University of Wisconsin now allowing stu- crosoft Office 365 Education is currently used
dents to take online-courses such as MOOCs by 110 million students, faculty and staff, for
and then take assessment tests at the university to enterprise-quality communication and collabora-
receive credit. A study from Stanford University’s tion tasks (Dulaney, 2013). The IBM Academic
Learning Analytics group however, indicated that initiative portal also, is an IBM-hosted website
only 8% and 5% of the students who took their with 3 million students, 25,000 faculty staff from
undergraduate and graduate MOOCs respectively 5,000 institutions globally.
actually completed them (Mackay, 2013). Most Another company, Blackboard (with their
students (over 70%) in both cases appeared only flagship product, BBLearn), serves approximately
interested in reviewing courses to satisfy their 17,000 schools and organizations and has as its
curiosity. customers, 75% of colleges and universities and
In regard to infrastructure, the old adage that more than half of the K-12 districts in the United
“technology makes applications possible” is in- States. Significantly, the latest incarnation of
structive. Cloud computing is a major enabling Blackboard now is deployable via the public cloud.
technology for both commercial and not-for-profit This software as well as hundreds of others are now
online courses of all varieties. Most MOOCs and used widely for web-based and/or web-supported
other varieties of online courseware use a cloud course deliveries, and are increasingly effective
based computing infrastructure to host and deliver tools for STEM education.
their courses.
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Student Expectations increasing focus on STEM at the highest levels of

education. In addition, the number of Science and
To succeed in this new educational delivery Engineering Bachelor’s degrees awarded annually
framework, institutions must demonstrate a com- rose from 398,602 in 2000 to 589,330 in 2012.
mitment to develop a converged model of delivery In 2007, about a third of all first-time freshmen
that takes into consideration how digital learning at 4-year institutions planned to major in STEM
occurs so colleges can better accommodate the areas when they started college. The proportion
learning styles of their students. In this model, all rose gradually to 40% in 2011 but then declined
students are expected to demonstrate equivalent to 39% in 2012 (NSF, 2015).
outcomes regardless of the delivery mode. Also, There are also gender disparities in the students
academic standards will be consistent because selecting science and engineering majors. There
course content and learning outcomes can be were thus 46% of men seeking such majors in 2012,
made independent of the delivery mode. While compared to 34% of women. However, 297,539
full convergence won’t be appropriate for every women attained STEM-based degrees in 2012,
subject, more often than not digital learning will outstripping the number earned by men - 291,791.
have some impact on all courses. The issue is not so much the absolute number
When it comes time to measure student learn- of STEM degrees awarded by US universities, but
ing colleges seek to take advantage of students’ the relative number when compared to the United
digital learning artifacts to perform document- States’ major competitors. In the figure below, the
based analysis. All students are held to the same Accenture Institute for High Performance shows
standards for academic excellence, engage in the 5 countries that graduate a higher proportion of
same discussions, do the same homework, and take students in STEM areas than the US.
the same exams. A cloud computing-supported Up to 41% of all degrees awarded by Chinese
digital classroom can be brought to the remote institutions in 2011 were in a STEM subject, al-
learner in real time, so he or she can participate most twice the proportion of UK STEM degrees
in the class in an equivalent - though not neces- and three times those awarded in the US. China
sarily the same way as those physically present. currently lags behind only the United States in
This is the ultimate aim of online course delivery. the number of science and technology journals
published annually, and is expected to overtake
the US in scientific output within few years, ac-
THE NEED FOR STEM EDUCATION cording to a recent study by the Royal Society
(2011), the UK’s science academy.
The United States has a compelling need to create The challenge is therefore very clear for the
a STEM-based workforce in order to remain com- United States, namely that leadership in STEM
petitive in the 21st century. Cataldo (2014) states areas is not a given. Other nations continue to
that America’s K-12 education institutions are not catch up and increase the sizes of their educational
teaching the computer science and cybersecurity pipelines that are producing workers in STEM
skills required to produce a technologically-savvy fields that will enable them to catch up and pos-
21st century workforce. The consequence of not sibly surpass the United States technologically
producing this required workforce will be an ero- and economically.
sion of US competitiveness in this century. STEM-based education, being the precursor
The National Science Foundation (NSF) states of appropriately trained workers for knowledge
that most doctoral degrees (about 58%) are awarded based skills of tomorrow, is vitally important for
in Science and Engineering fields, illustrating the all nations. In fact, one of the interesting facts
162

Figure 1. STEM degrees as % of all degrees in 2011 (Source: Accenture Institute for High Performance)
about STEM-based training in the US is that many proach also allows both for-profits and nonprofits
students in STEM-based programs actually hail to reduce the costs of the STEM-based course
from China, India and other economic competi- offerings.
tors who return to their countries and take their
skills with them.
The United States can therefore be seen as CLOUD BASED ONLINE
facing three challenges; the first is to increase LEARNING FOR STEM
the number of students in STEM majors in a
cost-effective way; second, to improve the quality There is now a rich and growing set of cases
and availability of STEM educational programs; that are beginning to provide insights into how
and third, to reduce attrition in STEM programs cloud architectures can be used effectively to
and to attract and retain those who graduate with support STEM-based education and curricula.
STEM degrees within the US workforce. For example, IBM has partnered with St. Thomas
The first two topics are covered in remaining University (STU) to deliver innovative classroom
sections of this chapter. Increasing the number of curricula and collaborative research projects
students in STEM programs is one outcome of utilizing a cloud-based architecture (IBM, 2014).
online, cloud-based course delivery methods that To this end, IBM is delivering six virtualized
allow students a location- and time-independent servers and working with STU to educate and
access to STEM education. The cloud-based ap- train students on how to utilize cloud computing,
163

provision servers, and move workloads. A single There are three main cloud-based approaches
physical server may host multiple ‘virtual serv- used to create courseware, namely; Infrastructure-
ers’ in this architecture, with the virtual servers as-a-service (IaaS), Platform-as-a-service (PaaS)
sharing the resources (hard drives, RAM) of the and the most popular, Software-as-a Service or
physical machine. SaaS. Most cloud offerings are of the SaaS variety,
Enrollment in physical sciences at STU report- with software packages providing turnkey systems
edly increased by 30 percent and the university for universities and other organizations.
credits its cloud computing investment for helping Universities typically gravitate towards
it retain more students as well. In a single year, comprehensive Learning Management Software
the retention rate across STU’s science disciplines (LMS) like the previously mentioned Blackboard,
increased by 30%. which is the market leader with their BBLearn
In its recently developed 20/20 Strategic Plan, product. Other options in this category exist how-
the New Jersey Institute of Technology has recently ever, such as Moodle, Pearson E-College, Sakai,
embarked on an ambitious vision and framework MyEdu and Lore.
for leadership in Digital Learning (2013). This For those with smaller budgets, capable
plan is motivated by the recognition that over LMSs can be used on such low-cost cloud-based
the past twenty years, disruptive technologies content-management platforms as WordPress.
have transformed many parts of the American These are SaaS-based options that have powerful
economy, improving efficiency and expanding capabilities, but can be deployed for only hun-
services while reducing overall costs. This also dreds of dollars. Examples of WordPress-based
illustrates how institutions of higher learning are LMSs are Sensei, Train-Up, and WP-Courseware.
exploring ways that IT can transform higher edu- LearnAboutTheWeb, the customized LMS case
cation to reach more students, improve learning discussed below, was created on the WP-Course-
effectiveness and reduce costs. ware platform.
Current students, who are also viewed as i- Finally, the major MOOCs, namely Coursera,
Generation-Students, expect an integrated digital edX and Udacity have developed powerful (ex-
learning environment, in which they similarly op- pensive) customized software that enable them to
erate at home and at work, will also be embraced handle hundreds of thousands of students seam-
in the classroom. Many US institutions of learn- lessly across many subjects and colleges.
ing hope to take full advantage of the cloud and While non-STEM based offerings exist on
the Web to meet these expectations. The hope of all these platforms, the predominant number of
these institutions is to support a digital learning courses are in the STEM fields. In the next section,
environment that will improve the student learning we examine LearnAboutTheWeb.com (LATW), a
experience and maximize effective instructional for-profit MOOC with several thousand students.
delivery for all stakeholders. Based on Yin’s (1981) case approach, our
Cloud architectures are playing an increas- organizing framework for this case research is
ingly critical and essential role in STEM-based organized around the process of STEM-based
education by becoming the major infrastructure development and the structure of STEM-based
choice for course delivery. Whether it is MOOCs, learning tools. We use two cases, one being a large
private or public universities, or accredited or private university with over 18,000 students and
non-accredited courses, the cloud is often the another being a private, for-profit training website
default choice. open to the general public.
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THE DREXEL LEARN CASE STUDY • Media Library: For various instructional
videos and multimedia.
Drexel University is a private research university • Grade Book: To manage and disseminate
with three campuses in Philadelphia, including student scores and grades.
a medical school. The University offers over 70
full-time undergraduate programs and accelerated This list is not exhaustive, but merely represen-
degrees. At the graduate level, the university of- tative of the Drexel University’s BBLearn-based
fers over 100 masters, doctoral, and professional system that has allowed to successfully the delivery
programs, many available part-time. of thousands of courses to tens of thousands of
Drexel is nationally known for its cooperative students not only across the United States, but
education program (co-op) which is ranked as across the world. At Drexel University, BBLearn
one of the best in the United States. Students can has become an integral part of the university’s
take up to three 6-month co-ops at participating course delivery for both online and face-to-face
employers before they graduate. Up to 1,600 cor- courses. This deep integration of all types of
porate, governmental, and nonprofit partners in course delivery modes has been accomplished
28 states and 25 international locations participate using BBLearn and represents convergence of
in the Drexel co-op. learning types that is becoming common in higher
Drexel University uses the BBLearn course education and in STEM-based courses in particular
management platform to deliver online based (see Figure 2).
education to complement its campus-based face-
to-face courses. This system - Drexel Learn, is
hosted by the Office of Information Resources THE LEARNABOUTTHEWEB.
and Technology and is fully integrated with the COM CASE STUDY
major university IT portals for students and faculty.
All Drexel course sections are created in LearnAboutTheWeb.com is an example of a for-
Drexel Learn each term and are available for profit cloud-based MOOC developed by a private
Faculty to activate and use. Student enrollments organization, and not by a college. However, the
are automatically fed into Drexel Learn allowing course offerings are also available to universities
faculty to augment their face to face classes or in a co-branded format. The case study approach,
run completely online classes. as illustrated in Figure 3, describes the real-life
Drexel Learn has a massive feature list, in- experience and challenges of online course devel-
cluding: opment on a cloud-based platform in a STEM area.
LearnAboutTheWeb.com (LATW) has as
• Announcements: By faculty to students. its overall course objective, training students to
• Chat: Allowing real-time chats by class progress from ideas all the way through the suc-
participants. cessful execution and maintenance of an online
• Discussions: Either open discussions or business. It followed a detailed modular custom
private group-based ones. methodology consisting of 9 steps or categories
• Mail: Allowing mail to be sent among stu- of activity, as follows:
dents and teachers.
• Course Content: Such as articles, assign- 1. Introduction: Basic concepts (What is
ments, videos. HTML, History of the internet etc.).
• Assessments: Including exams and 2. Brainstorming or Research (How to validate
quizzes. your idea for an internet business).
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Figure 2. The Drexel Learn Portal (Source: Drexel University)
Figure 3. LearnAboutTheWeb.com
3. Web Design (What your business or brand 9. Site Maintenance (How to stabilize and
should look and feel like). optimize the performance of your online
4. Web Development (How to actually build business or brand).
the business or brand site).
5. Buying a Website (How to negotiate and These steps represent best-of-breed approaches
get the best value for a web business if you to online entrepreneurial activity showing an ef-
choose to go that way). ficient path to building an online business. Learn-
6. Outsourcing (How to get talent to be a force AboutTheWeb.com is also 100% built based on
multiplier on your behalf). the 9 modules defined earlier in this document.
7. Web Marketing (How to attract visitors to The site is live and enables anyone to enroll
your online business or brand). online for instructions. It has one free and three
8. Monetization (How to convert those visitors paid membership plans.
to customers). In addition to the instructional tools on the site,
students on the system have access to a live forum,
166

a blog, a cloud storage account, a free premium • Detailed instruction documents for each
WordPress theme and the ability to take and save module.
notes on the system. • Detailed and graphically rich PowerPoint
The system basically combines instructions, documents for each module.
tests and quizzes, tools and videos in a central loca- • 600+ Quiz questions and answers for all 9
tion. The site is 100% functional and has handled modules combined.
thousands of visitors and hundreds of registered • Over 178 best practice tool descriptions.
users. Here are technical and functional elements • Over 100 licensed videos.
of the web application. • A comprehensive online functional
Learning Management System to assist
Functional Design with instruction and testing.
• Professional web designers were used to The system is therefore a comprehensive

create the overall look and feel, plus a pro- online business training and education system
fessional web developer to help build the with components that have been licensed out to
framework. colleges and universities, the general public and
• Professional writers were used to modify businesses. The system was developed over 4
the content to fit into a web portal. Offshore years at a cost of about $60,000 and currently has
teams inserted all the graphics and per- several thousand members.
formed data entry.
• A video team was engaged to put promo-
tional and instructional videos together. DISCUSSION
Technical Design So far, this chapter has covered the need for STEM-
based education within the United States and
• The system is a WordPress instance that new approaches to provisioning such courseware,
resides on a dedicated server with 16GB of including a variety of cloud-based approaches.
Ram. The system uses WordPress for con- A major issue with provisioning STEM courses
tent management. online is the impact on costs. Generally, cloud-
• The system uses WP Courseware for course based options can create new business models to
and quiz management. providers of educational programs that greatly
• The system uses a combination of reduce the cost vs. traditional classroom/instruc-
WordPress and Wish list Member for au- tor models. So why, some may ask, doesn’t every
thentication and authorization. The system student seeking a STEM-based education seek out
uses Amazon Cloud front to host the li- these new options? The major reason is accredita-
censed videos. tion/certification.
• The system uses Clickbank for affiliate It is one thing to take a course at a MOOC or a
management and credit card processing smaller educational outfit, but course completion
does not generally come accompanied by a college
The material on LATW therefore comprises: degree or college credits. That however, is the
overwhelming reason that students attend college.
• A modular online marketing methodology/ Without college credits leading to a degree from
process. an accredited college, students of online courses
167

cannot compete for jobs that have a college degree developing both online and face-to-face instruc-
or degree-certified courses as requirements. tions. Such technologies and methodologies must
Will this change? It has already begun to. include anthology builders for comprehensive list
Lawson and Katsomitros (2012) describe an In- of course learning topics, the semantic segmenta-
ternet education provider, straighterline.com that tion of multimedia learning objects (regardless
offers online courses for $99/month and has some of courses), and the search, and the personaliza-
30 partner colleges that accept the credits toward tion of learning objects. Once technologies and
their qualifications. They state that, methodologies are conceptualized, the related
tools must be adapted to every course.
if this unbundling of credentials from provision This comprehensive approach will enable and
became generalised, the business model on which help students to build upon existing knowledge
universities have been built becomes unstuck. as they are being introduced to unfamiliar mate-
rial, by creating subject specific searches of all
In other words, as non-traditional educational course contents. This approach requires a cloud
providers begin having their credits accepted computing view and paradigm shift as it changes
by colleges or even better, by employers (who the way students learn by making course content
are increasingly thinking about testing for the more organized, more interactive (with active
specific knowledge aptitude of their new hires, URLs everywhere needed and connected to all
rather than accepting the transcript accumulated key resources, such as library, learning/tutorial
college credits as done conventionally), then centers), and instantly accessible while adding a
there will be a real threat and clear alternative to whole range of individual options. In such systems,
the expensive traditional college model. This is students are able to fill gaps in their previous
likely to be one long-term future development in learning instantly by integrating search results into
higher education and that will significantly affect their current studying (Oria et al., 2012).
the traditional educational model positively and An important aspect of convergence is the need
negatively. Overall, it will likely result in more to link and integrate all aspects of course deliv-
STEM-ready students for the workforce and a ery including the multimedia teaching materials
positive for the US economy. (slides, videos and textbooks) used in all courses
Therefore, US universities are fully aware based on a comprehensive semantic ontology. The
of the fact of shifting paradigms, and some like need for convergence also recognizes the socio-
Drexel University and NJIT have begun to take technical importance and nature of digitized learn-
actions to converge their face-to-face and online ing (Whitworth et al., 2008). Thus, the semantic
course offerings to keep control over the ground linking of the multimedia course materials will
shift already taking place. The last section of this enable students to search and access multimedia
chapter discusses the convergence problem and and interactive course materials based on the
offers some suggestions about the implementa- content, medium and learning styles, enabling
tion lessons. flexible personalized learning; hence semantic
linking will provide a full integrative education
Convergence of Online and (see Figure 4).
Face-to-Face Instruction Mott (2009) outlined an architecture for LMSs
in higher education representing the convergence
To achieve technical convergence, cloud comput- and integration of various educational modes
ing-based technologies and related methodologies sought by many universities today. Leveraging
are recommended for supporting, evaluating and the cloud and social networking apps, they all
168

Figure 4. An open institutional learning network (Source: Mott, J.)
possess core instructional tools for course de- To achieve these goals, cloud-based course
livery. Whether they are comprehensive LMSs tools must be developed to enable instructors to:
like Drexel Learn or privately-owned system like (1) segment and annotate learning media based
LearnAboutTheWeb.com, contemporary LMS on their learning contents across all courses, (2)
architectures utilize elements of Mott’s model build appropriate ontologies for annotating and
to enable forward-looking integrative education. querying the learning environment, (3) access
Integrative education is a process by which the lecture content tailored to their student learning
curriculum is transformed into a student-centered styles, (4) use linked multimedia learning systems
learning environment while maintaining high stan- (based on best pedagogical practices), and (5)
dards of instruction and assessment. Through this connect to a full array of university resources
process, the curriculum is re-designed to identify (i.e., library, tutorials and learning centers, other
the knowledge, skills, professional practices, and related courses in all university programs, etc.)
the methodology for outcomes’ assessment of to support and enhance the learning experience.
each academic degree or certification. The LMS
links core knowledge, skills, and professional
practices to curricular-based problem solving CONCLUSION
methods at the level of the course and its syllabus;
creates convergence between synchronous and To achieve the lofty goals of integrative learn-
asynchronous learning; and provides milestone ing, US universities should strive to use the full
educational experiences that reflect research and potential of Cloud computing and other enabling
industrial practice. technologies (mentioned earlier) to create an
169

environment that fully supports digital learning the new realities of higher education to survive
as part of their institutions’ DNA. This could be and thrive into the future.
accomplished by: (1) implementing an effective
LMS infrastructure to support digital learning, (2)
deploying pilot tests to explore the feasibilities of REFERENCES
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172
Chapter 12
Engaging Students in
Conducting Data Analysis:
The Whole-Class Data Advantage
Virginia Oberholzer Vandergon Dorothy Nguyen-Graf

California State University – Northridge, USA California State University – Northridge, USA
John Reveles Mike Rivas

Norman Herr Matthew d’Alessio

Brian Foley
California State University – Northridge, USA
ABSTRACT
Computer Supported Collaborative Science (CSCS) is a teaching pedagogy that uses collaborative web-
based resources to engage all learners in the collection, analysis, and interpretation of whole-class data
sets, and is useful for helping secondary and college students learn to think like scientists and engineers.
This chapter presents the justification for utilizing whole-class data analysis as an important aspect of
the CSCS pedagogy and demonstrates how it aligns with the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS).
The chapter achieves this end in several ways. First, it reviews rationale outlined in the NGSS science
and engineering practices for adapting 21st century technologies to teach students 21st century sci-
ence inquiry skills. Second, it provides a brief overview of the basis for our pedagogical perspective for
engaging learners in pooled data analysis and presents five principles of CSCS instruction. Third, we
offer several real-world and research-based excerpts as illustrative examples indicating the value and
merit of utilizing CSCS whole-class data analysis. Fourth, we postulate recommendations for improv-
ing the ways science, as well as other subject matter content areas, will need to be taught as the U.S.
grapples with the role-out of new Common Core State Standards (CCSS) and NGSS. Taken together, these
components of CSCS whole-class data analysis help constitute a pedagogical model for teaching that
functionally shifts the focus of science teaching from cookbook data collection to pooled data analysis,
resulting in deeper understanding.
DOI: 10.4018/978-1-4666-9924-3.ch012

Engaging Students in Conducting Data Analysis
INTRODUCTION and whole-class data analysis as it is gathered in

inquiry based classrooms.
Science education in the United States is about to Recognizing that science is the systematic
undergo one of the most significant shifts since it study of the structure and behavior of phenomena
was overhauled in response to the Soviet Union’s in the physical and natural world through obser-
launching of Sputnik I in 1957. After Sputnik, vation and experimentation, it is clear that there
our nation’s science curricula were renovated should be an emphasis on inquiry. This should be
to meet the evolving needs of a technologically modeled in the classroom as it would be practiced
threatened society. As we entered the 21st century, in a research laboratory setting. The National
it was recognized that the U.S. was once again Science Education Standards were developed
behind in the teaching and learning of the core by the National Research Council to “promote a
concepts needed to build a strong foundation in scientifically literate citizenry”. The Standards
life-long learning including in science (NCES, frequently encourage the use of inquiry in the
2013). The problems in science education in this science classroom, defining it as:
country are all too familiar. Conditions have hardly
changed since the 1989 report “Science for All A multifaceted activity that involves making obser-
Americans” (AAAS, 1990). Science classes are vations; posing questions; examining books and
often still taught by underprepared teachers in a other sources of information to see what is already
highly didactic manner that does little to promote known; planning investigations; reviewing what is
understanding of science or the nature of scientific already known in light of experimental evidence;
knowledge (McNeill & Krajcik, 2008; Newton, using tools to gather, analyze, and interpret data;
2002). These issues might contribute to the fact proposing answers, explanations, and predictions;
that American students still lag far behind other and communicating the results. Inquiry requires
leading countries in science achievement, which identification of assumptions, use of critical and
will inevitably result in a looming shortage of logical thinking, and consideration of alternative
science/technical workers in the U.S. (Augustine, explanations. (NRC, 1996, p. 23)
2007; OECD, 2010). The majority of American
students are still taught in large urban schools We recognize that ideally all science class-
that often lack adequate science instructional rooms should provide hands-on activities that
resources and tend to have low student expecta- are driven by inquiry and that allow students
tions (Tal, Krajcik, & Blumenfield, 2006). The to investigate phenomena, test ideas, make ob-
need to update 21st century teaching in the U.S. servations, analyze data, and draw conclusions.
has led to the introduction of the Common Core Unfortunately, students in science classrooms still
State Standards (CCSS) and the Next Generation spend most of their time on data collection at the
Science Standards (NGSS). These standards are expense of analysis and interpretation (Alozie
already changing the way teachers will be required & Mitchell, 2014). In other cases, when there is
to teach as well as the what they will need to teach. time for analysis, it remains topical in nature and
With such mandated changes quickly approaching, is teacher-led rather than in-depth and student-
increasing effort is being invested in how teach- centered (Levy, Thomas, & Rex, 2013). With the
ers will be required to teach students 21st century introduction of NGSS, teachers are required to do
skills. This chapter focuses on the how of the in-depth data analysis so that students can develop
new standards implementation by bringing cloud skills to analyze, interpret, and communicate
technology to K-20 science classrooms to teach inquiry findings using evidence based reasoning
NGSS and CCSS through the use of collaboration (NGSS Lead States, 2013).
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Science Inquiry: Emphasized feedback and hints, educational games and to

in the NGSS Framework connect students to scientists. In 2010, Lee et al.
published a paper linking technology and inquiry
The Framework for K-12 Science Education (NRC, in the science classroom. They described how
2011), the document guiding the creation of the changes to the curriculum for an inquiry class-
NGSS, identifies eight practices of science and room should involve certain knowledge change
engineering that are essential for all students to principles such as making science accessible to
be able to utilize: all learners, making thinking visible, collaboration
with students, and promoting life-long learning.
1. Asking questions (for science) and defining They found that well-designed inquiry units im-
problems (for engineering). proved students’ understanding of science content
2. Developing and using models. and students maintained their knowledge and used
3. Planning and carrying out investigations. it in future courses. They noted that the success
4. Analyzing and interpreting data. of the student depended on the success of the
5. Using mathematics and computational teacher (emphasizing the importance of profes-
thinking. sional development (see below)). All the teachers
6. Constructing explanations (for science) and studied by Lee et al. (2010) used technology daily
designing solutions (for engineering). or weekly to accomplish inquiry in the classroom.
7. Engaging in argument from evidence. One of the ways that technology contributes to
8. Obtaining, evaluating, and communicating inquiry is that it can enhance collaboration between
information (Appendix F of NGSS). students. In the literature, this approach is called
Computer Supported Collaborative Learning
Developing strong lessons that meet the needs (CSCL) and it focuses less on introducing new
of today’s students means that teachers need to activities to a classroom, but instead seeking to
incorporate the eight practices of science and en- enhance the work students already do in class
gineering into their own science teaching practice. (Suthers, 2006; Scardamalia & Bereiter, 2006).
NGSS makes it clear that a substantial emphasis In science classrooms, this involves using pooled
is placed on science process skills and scientific data analysis which allows students’ thinking to
explanations (Reiser, Berland, & Kenyon, 2013). be visible where they can “see” outliers, trends,
and patterns in data as “real science” does. This
Science Inquiry: Facilitated ability provides a powerful learning tool that af-
by Technology fords opportunities for students to recognize their
own errors when participating in data analysis
At the same time as the NGSS are being intro- activities. It is clear that technology tools can help
duced, technology is becoming more prevalent in teachers adapt to the new requirements by support-
classrooms. Previous research on teaching science ing the core practices in the NGSS. The purpose
with technology has shown that technology can be of this chapter is twofold: a) To provide specific
an effective support for science inquiry and learn- research-based examples of technology tools and
ing. Projects such as WISE (Slotta & Linn, 2009) their use in science classrooms, and b) to analyze
and LeTUS (Hug, Krajcik, & Marx, 2005) have the value of supporting science teachers in the
demonstrated the potential of technology when use of such technology to facilitate their students’
used effectively. Computers have been used for development of essential 21st century skills that
simulations or scientific visualization to provide they will need to enter the evolving job market.
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BACKGROUND 2. Teachers check on students’ understanding

often. Formative assessment helps teachers
The authors of this chapter have worked together as know which students are struggling and
a team of university scientists and science educa- when the entire class needs to slow down or
tion researchers for over 15 years to prepare both speed up. Instant polling with quickwrites
in-service and pre-service K-12 science teachers (live student written responses to teacher
in content and pedagogy. Through these years, questions) and online forms provide much
we have evolved our own teaching practices and more effective assessment than traditional
have seen the importance of integrating technol- questioning. This is so because all students
ogy into both our University teaching as well as respond to each question and results are im-
into our Professional Development (PD) institutes. mediate, thus allowing teachers to address
We recognize the value of transforming the way student needs in real time. Teachers can
science is taught and the need to integrate technol- also use collaborative documents on mobile
ogy as a pedagogical tool to create engaging and devices to quickly collect and assess student
interactive science classrooms. Building on the diagrams or visualizations (see adjacent
literature concerning computer supported collab- chapter in this book; Herr & Tippens, 2013).
orative learning (CSCL) (see Stahl, Koschmann, 3. Data from experiments and simulations is
& Suthers, 2006), we provide a focus for the sci- pooled. Students can get much more out of
ence classroom and call our approach Computer the analysis of a large data set compared
Supported Collaborative Science (CSCS) (Herr to when they are limited to their own data.
& Rivas, 2010; Rivas & Herr, 2010). The CSCS Having students pool their data allows them
model employs freely available cloud-based tech- to see trends and helps them learn to identify
nologies (e.g., Google Docs, Microsoft OneDrive, outliers and correct errors instantly rather
etc.) to promote student collaboration and whole than turning in flawed results (d’Alessio &
class data analysis. Lundquist, 2013). Google forms and spread-
sheets allow teachers to collect data in the
The Five Principles of cloud. Therefore, this data is captured and
CSCS Instruction students can then collaborate on the analysis
of this data at various times during and after
We have identified five key principles that can experimentation.
help teachers implement collaborative documents 4. Collaborative data analysis is empha-
in science classes (Foley & Reveles, 2014): sized. Many science teachers focus on the
hands-on part of labs and, for a variety of
1. Information is shared with the class online. reasons, shortchange the data analysis. We
Teachers need to post information for the agree with the NGSS that the analysis and
class on their website, so it is accessible to conclusions are indispensable to authentic
students and parents at all times. Student science inquiry. Pooling data on an online,
work is often posted online for the class, so collaborative spreadsheet instead of a paper
students can give feedback to each other and worksheet leads classes to access the data
share ideas. Sharing increases the account- easily and to do authentic scientific analysis.
ability for students to do quality work and Students are working off the same data set
ensures that previously covered topics can and can compare results with each other and
be quickly accessed so prior work is always decide on the merits of any particular way
“alive” (Bereiter & Scardamalia, 2010). of making sense of the data.
175

5. Students’ explanations are shared and com- in pre-service and in-service capacities to model
pared. Explanations are a key part of the and demonstrate our CSCS pedagogy. While we
NGSS but rarely discussed in classrooms believe strongly in the transformation of science
(Songer & Gotwals, 2012). Collaboration classrooms with technology, we recognize that
tools allow students to share their explana- there are some issues that may arise when utilizing
tions and get feedback on their ideas and technology in the classroom. Having a one-to-one
writing. Shared conclusions allow for further device for each student is ideal but not always
discussion and the consensus building that realistic. Recently, a large urban district (Los
is essential for inquiry (Berland & Reiser, Angeles Unified School District) tried an iPad
2009). Tools like Google Moderator allow rollout with mixed results (Blume, 2013). We
students to think about the quality of differ- feel that some of the issues with the rollout might
ent explanations and come to consensus as have been avoided if teachers had been trained
to the best one (d’Alessio, 2014). in advance regarding ways to use technology to
engage students around science activities and les-
The theme through all these principles is col- sons. The infrastructure also has to be in place to
laboration. Collaboration in science includes both have a smooth transition for allowing consistent
the exchange of ideas and of data. Our adjacent and safe access to cloud-based technologies via the
chapter in this book describes how the exchange internet (Shirley et al., 2011). With that said, we
of ideas enabled by CSCS provides teachers with also feel that over the next few years these issues
the opportunity to conduct Continuous Forma- will be resolved in the following ways: a) As a
tive Assessment (CFA) that can be used to adjust result of the increasingly ubiquitous presence of
instruction immediately; this is most clearly seen needed technology in classrooms to administer
in Principle 2 (see adjacent chapter in this book; new standards-based assessments, b) districts
Foley & Reveles, 2014; Herr & Rivas, 2010; will update their internet connections because of
Herr, Rivas, Foley, Vandergon, & Simila, 2011a improved technology application and therefore
and 2011b). This chapter emphasizes Principles speed will improve, c) a new generation of teacher
3 and 4 though all principles are touched on in candidates will graduate with experience in using
the examples given below. technology in their teaching and progressively see
The CSCS principles are not meant as a com- it modeled in their credential coursework, and d)
prehensive definition of good science teaching. with the rollout of the NGSS and CCSS, profes-
Rather, they articulate key instructional tech- sional development opportunities will expand
niques that support collaborative science using to include using technology to teach to the new
technology tools. It is also important to us that standards in ways that allow teachers to update
the principles not burden teachers with additional their skills and experience.
responsibilities. Using these techniques, teachers Another real issue in U.S. classrooms is the
can efficiently create a classroom environment that diversity of learners. Many students today come
is evidence-rich and stresses data interpretation, from homes where English is not primarily spo-
evaluation, and explanation especially as it is ken and where parents often have little more than
integrated into inquiry-based classrooms. an 8th grade education and do not have adequate
resources for helping their children. Also, K-20
Issues American classrooms are increasingly more inclu-
sive of students with varied learning disabilities.
Throughout our collaborative efforts, the authors This makes having an engaging classroom more of
have been working with 6-12th grade teachers both a challenge. We believe that the CSCS pedagogy
176

can help relieve the burden of these realities be- Example 1: Genetics, Using
cause all students can remain engaged with class Pooled Data to Discover
content and all learners can participate, as we will Trends and Patterns
outline below. English Language Learners (ELLs)
and learners with disabilities will be able to par- A great way to engage students in a unit on genetics
ticipate and feel like true scientists themselves. is to start by asking them some questions about
In order to address these issues, the authors how they look (their phenotypes). Traditionally,
have taught CSCS lessons in their own University this was either done by asking students to raise
classrooms as well as to in-service teachers in their hands to certain questions such as “Raise your
Professional Development institutes. The teacher hand if you can roll your tongue like a taco” or
participants of the PD institutes have applied CSCS “Raise your hand if you have attached earlobes”
principles in elementary, middle, high school, and or it was done as a paper and pencil worksheet. In
university classes with multiple science topics order to adapt the CSCS pedagogy into this lesson,
(d’Alessio & Lundquist, 2013; Herr, Rivas, Foley, a Google survey/form can be created with students
Vandergon, & Simila, 2011a & 2011b). Below responding to whether they have attached earlobes
we focus on lessons the authors and some of our or not, whether they can roll their tongues, whether
participating teachers have used in their courses. they have a widow’s peak etc. Images of these traits
can be either projected on a screen at the same
time or embedded within the survey. Figure 1 is
EXAMPLES OF DATA ANALYSIS: such a survey. After students input all their data,
REAL-WORLD AND RESEARCH- the teacher can then show/project the result page
BASED ILLUSTRATIONS (it is suggested that the teacher hide the column
with names to make it a more anonymous environ-
Cloud-based collaborative forms, spreadsheets ment) and a discussion can ensue about what the
and documents are tools that can be used to results indicate. Data is captured electronically and
implement inquiry learning in the STEM class- allows the teacher to use the same survey across
room and the basis for our CSCS pedagogy. In multiple class periods and even across years, thus
this section, we discuss five examples of how creating larger pooled data sets where sample size
students can pool their data, perform statistical gets bigger and bigger. Students can then look at
analyses, and interpret trends in large-group data a bar graph (see Figure 2) that is generated from
gathered as they participate in inquiry lessons. this data to pictorially show the results of the aver-
The examples presented here are modified from ages; these averages will change slightly as more
classic labs and activities previously carried out data is input but the general trend will remain the
in a non-technology classroom setting. They are same. If this data was gathered by hand-raising
from different science disciplines and show how or paper and pencil, then the graph would either
teachers can make data analysis visible to students have to be done taking up classroom time by the
by emphasizing the scientific process to engage teacher or outside of class time and therefore not
all students in the NGSS science and engineering shown to students until the next class. However, by
practices. utilizing a CSCS approach, instantaneous data is
now presented in a way that allows the instructor
177

to get at misconceptions in inheritance patterns of the other phenotype if both traits are inherited
by asking deeper-level probing questions drawn in the same individual. When this exercise is done
from the data. One standard question might be on paper, a teacher is limited to the sample of the
to ask the students to do a quickwrite (a Google class and usually to the day that the exercise is
spreadsheet where students respond to the question used in class. Though the exercise would still be
at the top of the column, their name is indicated engaging using the CSCS version which allows for
separately in a row) about which traits they think a more complete exercise providing opportunities
are dominant and why they use evidence from for all students to participate and for all students
the graph (see Figure 3). A large majority of to have an opportunity to see how patterns and
the students define dominance as the traits with trends can be interpreted.
the higher percentage of individuals expressing
the phenotype. They mistakenly assume that the Example 2: Chemical Reactions,
higher the percentage the more dominant the Using Pooled Data to Explore
trait. With this misconception, students in this the Effect of Variables
example choose tongue rolling as a dominant trait
and refer to traits like having a widow’s peak as a Another example comes from a chemistry lab in
recessive trait (it turns out that both of these are which students explore chemical reactions and
dominant traits). Sometimes, the teacher can then what happens to the reaction rate when you change
leave it at that and go on to teach about Mendel parameters. An important understanding in doing
and how his four conclusions shaped the study any experiment is emphasizing the control and
of genetics. One of Mendel’s conclusions is the the experimental variable. In this lesson, students
Principle of Dominance and Recessive traits. work in groups of 3, following the directions as
Because the above exercise is carried out in the outlined in Figure 4 and traditionally they would
cloud, the teacher can then bring back the graph do a lab write-up with paper and pencil or take
(even if it is a week later) and re-ask the ques- down notes in their lab notebooks. Each group
tion on which traits are dominant based on what would perform all the experiments within their
they now know about genetics. Most students own groups but would never fully understand the
then figure out that you cannot tell which trait is importance of a control variable because they have
dominant and which is recessive without doing nothing to compare it to. Using CSCS, students
crosses and looking at parental types and offspring follow the directions as outlined in the figure and
so that you can see what trait gets masked in a they enter their results in a Google form such as
generation (see Figure 3). With the ability to go shown in Figure 5. Each group then performs the
back to the data set, students are able to see the first reaction (control) with the same parameters
difference between the common misconception and all start at the same time. Once the data is
they previously may have had and what they now entered, theoretically all the data should be on
understand about dominant and recessive traits. top of each other since all groups have the same
Students can now take this further and go home parameters. Then all the groups are assigned a
and ask these same questions of their parents. variable to change in their next experiment. Each
They can use the same data to help dispel the group does about 3 reactions resulting in a class
common misconception that dominant traits are worth of data. Once all students have completed
dominant because there is a greater percentage of their set of reactions and clean-up has occurred,
individuals in the population that show that trait, data analysis can proceed (note: since everything
rather than the correct definition that dominant is in the cloud it doesn’t matter if this occurs now
traits are dominant because they mask the effect or at the next class meeting). A few samples of
178

Figure 1. Screenshot of the Google form-survey called Genetics Phenotype Survey for measuring phe-
notypes in individuals
179

Figure 2. Bar graph of data collected from the Genetics Phenotype Survey (Figure 1). Data collected
from 282 individuals.
what students’ data looks like before analyses are Students can then retry the control experiment
shown in Figure 6. again to get a class-averaged control for everyone
As students look at the data, they begin to see to use as a comparison (see Figure 7). They then
the importance of having control and experimental can continue on with their variables and have a
variables, how to interpret graphs with regards more accurate comparison of the reactions using
to chemical reactions, and how graphs change different variables.
when a parameter is manipulated. Establishing
a control is important because the experimenters Example 3: Hurricanes, Using
need a baseline to compare their variations to in Datasets from Databases
a chemical reaction. for Hard to Capture Data
In the first part of the experiment, even though
all the groups are given the same procedure and Although it is relatively easy to conceive of how
parameters, many groups do not get the same inquiry lessons can be used in a laboratory-based
data results. Usually, this is the case (see Figure science class such as chemistry or physics, it is
6) and a beneficial conversation on experimental more challenging to see how they may be employed
techniques (reading thermometers, initial tem- in field-based classes such as earth science where
peratures, measurement of reactants, time to read, one can not change independent variables to study
etc.) can be discussed. Often, teachers assume that changes in dependent variables. Fortunately,
their students know, and sometimes the students however, there are numerous large, free databases
themselves think they know how to use the tools that can be used to engage students in inquiry
given to them and may not have the time to review learning. For example, the National Oceanic and
the importance of their proper scientific use. By Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) maintains
doing the controls first and then by stopping and a data base on hurricanes (coast.noaa.gov/hurri-
looking at the data results, it becomes clear that the canes) that can be used to study hurricane behav-
students need to be reminded how to read a ther- ior. Each student can select a historic hurricane
mometer and how to take correct measurements. to investigate and, by examining the animation
180

Figure 3. Quickwrite example with first question asked as students observe the graph presented in Figure
2 and second question asked after learning content on Mendel’s conclusions in Genetics
of the hurricane track, can record such things as their data using an online form, and the data is
season (August, September, etc.), highest speed collected in a cloud-based spreadsheet in which
(over land or over sea), origin (northeast Atlantic the rows represent individual hurricanes, while
Ocean, Central Atlantic, etc.), path (does it hook the columns represent hurricane characteristics
clockwise, counter-clockwise or go straight), (path, landfall, origin, etc.). Rather than analyz-
landfall (Florida, Georgia, etc.), and relations of ing a specific hurricane in isolation, students look
pressure and speed (proportional, inversely pro- for patterns in the class data, Figures 8 represent
portional, no relationship). Each student submits the data collected by 184 students isolating each
181

Figure 4. Directions students will follow in order to establish the change in temperature in chemical
reactions that have different variables
data question into a bar graph. In some examples, Example 4: Osmosis, Pooled
students will notice that North Atlantic hurricanes Data for Statistical Testing
occur in the late summer (see Figure 8), start in
warm waters in the Gulf of Mexico, the Caribbean The “power” of a statistical test is the ability of
Sea, and the tropical Atlantic Ocean as far east as that test to detect an effect if an effect actually
the Cape Verde Islands (see Figure 9) don’t cross exists. In other words, it is the ability to correctly
the equator (see Figure 10), tend to veer clock- reject the null hypothesis when it is indeed false,
wise (see Figure 11), and often make landfall in and correctly accept the alternative hypothesis
the southeastern United States (see Figure 12) at when it is indeed true. Although it is desirable to
which time wind speed decreases significantly increase the sample size for statistical purposes,
(see Figure 13). Rather than being told these facts, it is not necessarily desirable from a curricular
students discover them by observing large data perspective. Requiring students to collect large
sets from real hurricanes studied by them and sample sizes may indeed improve the predict-
their peers. Patterns in data suggest underlying ability of experiments in STEM classrooms, but
causes and, once students have discovered pat- may also introduce an element of tedium while
terns by examining whole class data collected simultaneously robbing time from other valuable
in cloud-based collaborative spreadsheets and activities. Fortunately, however, it is possible to
graphs, they are better prepared to discuss the increase the sample size without these negative
underlying causes for these patterns such as dif- side effects if we pool data from all students in
ferential heating, pressure gradients, latent head the class.
of condensation, and the Coriolis effect.
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Figure 5. Screenshot of partial Google form used to collect data on the chemical investigations as out-
lined in Figure 4
183

Figure 6. Graphs of the controls for the chemical investigations as outlined in Figure 4 (also see Figure 5)
Figure 7. Note what happens to the graphs when groups fix their data that was presented in Figure 6
184

Figure 8. Output of data from a Google form collected by students looking at when hurricanes occur
Figure 9. Output of data from a Google form collected by students looking at where hurricanes occur
185

Figure 10. Output of data from a Google form collected by students looking at the path hurricanes take
during their run
Figure 11. Output of data from a Google form collected by students looking at the direction of a hur-
ricane’s path
186

Figure 12. Output of data from a Google form collected by students looking at where hurricanes hit land
Figure 13. Output of data from a Google form collected by students looking at the speed of hurricanes
on land and in the water
187

Genetic and environmental factors introduce of the tissue), the tissues neither shrink nor swell.
significant variability into any biological popula- Thus, one can infer the osmotic concentration of
tion. Thus, the results from an experiment on one tissues by placing them in a series of solutions
organism may yield different results than an experi- of increasing osmotic concentration, plotting the
ment on another organism in the same population. percent of weight gained or lost in each solution
To make generalizations about populations, it is as a function of the molarity of the solution, and
necessary to collect data on random samples from looking for the molarity at which there is no change
within that population. The greater the sample size, in weight. Figure 14 is a plot of actual student data
the greater the statistical power to detect if effects from 19 lab groups. One can see significant vari-
actually exist. One of the most common ways to ability in the data due to variability in the tissues,
determine the osmotic concentration of tissues is to techniques, and experimental errors. For example,
submerge samples in different solutions of varying the outlier at 0.4M solution is an obvious case of
concentrations. If placed in hypertonic solutions, experimental error. If lab group 19, which reported
the tissues will shrink over time as water leaves this measurement, tried to draw a conclusion on
the tissues to enter the solution and, if placed in the osmotic concentration of the potatoes based
hypotonic solutions, the tissues will swell as water solely on their own data, they would not have seen
leaves the solution to enter the tissues. If, however, a trend and would not have been able to make a
these tissues are placed in isotonic solutions (ones conclusion. By contrast, if lab group 19 had seen
in which the concentrations are the same as that their data in the context of the whole class data,
Figure 14. Student data from weighing potato slices that have been placed in different solutions and
plotted as a whole class data set
188

they would have likely recognized that their value their own data and techniques in light of class
was an outlier and would have re-examined their patterns and trends.
data or re-measured.
Table 1 shows that there is substantial vari- Example 5: Exothermic and
ability in the data. Students can examine their Endothermic Reactions,
data in light of the whole class data and then go Using Pooled Data to
back to Figure 14 and compare it with the trend Encourage Metacognition
line for the entire population which indicates an
average osmotic concentration of 0.3 M (the point Education in STEM-related courses benefits
where the trend line crosses the x-axis, indicat- when students become more metacognitive during
ing that the tissue and solution have the same investigations and experiments. Metacognition is
osmotic concentration). By pooling their data in the process of thinking about one’s own thought
collaborative cloud-based spreadsheets, students processes, and students who are metacognitive will
not only learn that they can increase the statistical reflect not only on their own thought processes,
power of an investigation, but can also examine but also upon the data that they obtain through
Table 1. Data inputted by 19 groups of students measuring the percentage of gain or loss of a potato
slice after it was placed in solutions of different molarities. This data is plotted in Figure 14.
0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1

12% 0% -7% -12% -17% -25%
6% 0% 2% -11% -12% -13%
3% 2% -3% -6% -7% -16%
4% -1% -12% -18% -20% -22%
7% 0% -2% -8% -13% -13%
7% 5% -10% -4% -5% -7%
5% -2% -9% -12% -17% -17%
6% 1% -4% -9% -14% -15%
8% 3% -4% -12% -16% -17%
7% 4% -5% -10% -13% -16%
13% 7% -5% -14% -12% -21%
9% 6% -8% -12% -13% -12%
6% 7% -9% -6% -7% -12%
9% 0% -4% -13% -15% -21%
5% 0% -6% -7% -8% -9%
13% 11% -6% -15% -17% -20%
11% 6% 0% -16% -18% -18%
6% -3% -9% -20% -21% -21%
7% 0% 29% -20% -14% -22%
1% 8% -7% -12% 2% -16%
9% 4% -6% -13% -13% -17%
10% 4% -6% -9% -15% -17%
189

investigation. Metacognitive students reflect on 4. NaCl + H2O → Na+(aq) + Cl-(aq) (Dissolving

their data to see if it is reasonable before they table salt)
proceed to interpret such data. Although it is 5. CaCl2 + H2O → Ca+ (aq) +2Cl-(aq) (De-icing
possible to reflect on one’s data in isolation, it roads)
is more effective to reflect on one’s data in the 6. NaHCO3(s) + HCl(aq) →H2O(l) + CO2(g)
context of whole-class data. If students enter their + NaCl(aq) (Neutralization)
data into a collaborative, cloud-based database, 7. CH3COOH(aq)+NaHCO3(s)
then they have the advantage of comparing and →CH3COONa(aq)+H2O(l)+CO2(g)
contrasting their data with that collected by their (Baking soda & vinegar)
peers. Major discrepancies in data may indicate 8. C 12 H 22 O 11 + H 2 O (in 0.5M HCl) →
significant findings, or simply poor technique or C6H12O6 (glucose) + C6H12O6 (fructose)
inaccurate reporting. Metacognitive students will (Decomposing table sugar)
analyze these discrepancies to see if perhaps they 9. KCl + H2O → K+(aq) + Cl-(aq) (Dissolving
had poor techniques, misreported their data, or potassium chloride)
indeed found something significantly different 10. NaCl + CH 3COOH(aq) → Na +(aq) +
than their peers. The following activity illustrates CH3COO- + HCl (Preparing HCl to clean
how collaborative cloud-based data can be used tarnished metals)
to encourage self-reflection and metacognition.
Students were asked to determine if the follow- Figure 15 shows real class data from such an
ing series of chemical reactions were endothermic investigation. Note that, although only one group
or exothermic. Students used probes to measure the collected data from all reactions, everyone was able
change in temperature as chemicals were mixed to see multiple measurements for each reaction
because of cloud-based data pooling. As students
1. CaO(s) + H2O(l) -→ Ca(OH)2(s) (Lime + examined their data, they noticed discrepancies in
water) value, sign, and number of significant digits. The
2. NH4NO3(s) + H2O (l) → NH4+(aq) + NO3-(aq) shaded cells indicate reactions that students re-
(Ionization of ammonium nitrate, a fertilizer) investigated as they saw the data appear. Teams 1,
3. HCl(dilute) + NaOH(dilute) → H2O + NaCl 2 and 5 noticed potential problems with their data,
(Neutralization) and changed their entries after noting either errors
in measurement or reporting. By contrast, group
Figure 15. Student data on temperature change (using probes) during a chemical reaction. Each of the
reactions is outlined in the text. Shaded boxes indicate outliers that the student groups then reassessed.
190

7, did not re-examine their data until prompted to the same slides but embedded some of the CSCS
by the instructor. As students become more ac- tools, i.e. quickwrites, iPad drawings and think
customed to sharing and pooling their data, they pair share activities where she gathered formative
become more metacognitive, reflecting not only assessment data and had more interactions with
on their techniques and reporting, but also their the students. The students took a short exam on
interpretations. the subject the week before and the week after
class. Both classes failed the pretest exam but the
traditional teaching class scored higher. The post
RESULTS OF CLASSROOM exam shows that the CSCS class gained more on
DATA POOLING average (46%) than the traditional class (22%). A
single lecture is a small teaching sample, but this
All of the above are examples of ways the CSCS data suggests that CSCS instruction using online
pedagogy can be used in science classrooms. Over collaborative documents was much more effec-
the last several years, we have been modifying tive for learning biology content than traditional
our CSCS pedagogical model as we learn lessons instruction. At the level of an entire course, the
from teaching in university classrooms as well as students in a science content course for pre-service
in the summer PD we are doing with 6-12th grade elementary teachers used CSCS to evaluate the
teachers. Our hope is that these teachers then go on quality of their pooled data and physical inter-
to utilize CSCS tools in their 6-12th grade science pretations of their results in real-time throughout
classrooms. We are looking for gains in content the semester. As a result, these students were able
knowledge in science. In order to test content to analyze data and construct explanations that
knowledge, we did an initial screening with uni- were more expert-like than the students who did
versity students comparing CSCS or lack of CSCS not use CSCS in the same course (d’Alessio &
instruction for one lecture in an undergraduate Lundquist, 2013).
Biology course (the lecture was on glycolysis and Since 2010, we have been working with in-ser-
cellular respiration) between two different classes vice science teachers on using CSCS instruction.
(see Figure 16). In Class 1, the instructor used They were excited about the potential of the new
only a PowerPoint and talked straight from the tools, but only a few (22% in 2010) of the teachers
slides providing no time for interaction between reported that they had computers in their classes
the students. In Class 2, the same instructor used that allowed them to put these pedagogical tools
Figure 16. Pilot data comparing a class taught using CSCS instruction in class collaboration via Google
Docs to one taught using traditional lecture-style instruction
191

to practice (see section on issues above). Recently, use of CSCS in the past) in using collaborative
we have seen a slight increase in computers in technology during our summer workshop when
the classroom (29% in 2013). However, a great they were able to “practice” what they learned in
deal of interest in our CSCS pedagogy continues CSCS immediately in a clinical site setting. We
to develop as districts make plans to provide all also surveyed teachers in our summer programs
students with devices (tablets or laptops). One of before the workshops and then at the end of the
the most appealing aspects of the CSCS pedagogy following school year (N=15 teachers completed
is that educators are encouraged to use their own both surveys). Figures 18 and 19 show some of
favorite inquiry lessons as a basis for engaging their the positive effects we are seeing (i.e., teachers
students in cloud-based data analyses. Therefore, are spending less time with the textbook and
they do not need to “throw out” lessons that have more time analyzing data in the classroom). The
worked for them in the past. Rather, they learn transformation of teachers’ practice away from
to utilize the CSCS pedagogy to enhance and textbooks and towards data analysis is exactly
update their lessons to engage their students in the change called for by the NGSS. These ideas
21st century skills. are further described in the teachers’ comments
Our first attempt to train teachers on CSCS used in Figure 20.
traditional PD models with teachers coming to the
university for summer workshops. As is found in
many PD’s, the teachers left excited about what CONCLUSION
they learned and appeared willing to try the new
pedagogy or use the new tools in July but, when Science education in the U.S. is at a pivotal point
school started in August, they became less con- in history as we prepare our students to become
fident and mostly went back to their traditional both educated and productive 21st century citi-
way of teaching (Darling-Hammond, 2006). In zens. The rollout of more Computer Supported
order to address this, we began to integrate more Collaboration results in more engaging student-
clinical teaching into our summer PD. Teachers centered classrooms. In this chapter, we outlined a
participating in the PD now teach a CSCS modi- pedagogical approach called CSCS that helps K-20
fied lesson to groups of middle school students instructors use cloud-based technology to engage
enrolled in enrichment summer school courses on all learners in collaborative data analysis that is
the University campus. This approach has been more akin to the true nature of doing science. We
more successful at preparing teachers to use CSCS presented several illustrations of modified CSCS
in the classroom. Figure 17 shows how teachers science lessons that emphasize whole-class data
gained confidence (often the limiting factor in the analysis and can be applied within any classroom
Figure 17. Data from CSCS PD (2012). Each data point is a specific CSCS computer skill (e.g., creating
online surveys) with teachers’ average confidence level before and after PD.
192

Figure 18. Teacher self-report of frequency of textbook use before and after CSCS training (N=15 su
2012/sp 2013)
Figure 19. Teacher self-report of frequency of data analysis activities before and after CSCS training
(N=15 su 2012/sp 2013)
context. CSCS allows students to clearly see trends ship of their work, and e) all students are able to
and patterns, to analyze larger data sets, to correct participate regardless of learning styles or learning
their misuse of tools, input data, and see the value roadblocks that might appear. Consequently, we
of the inquiry lessons. As such, we have shown believe that students in the large urban schools
that, through the application of whole-class data that our teachers serve will also begin to perform
analysis, students are: a) more engaged with the better on standardized tests. Therefore, using the
science content being learned, b) they collaborate CSCS model in classrooms will help decrease the
with one another more readily, c) they are more U.S. achievement gaps particularly in the STEM
clearly able to see the scientific process they are and STEM-related fields.
engaged in, d) they are more likely to take owner-
193

Figure 20. Teachers’ comments on CSCS one year after attending CSCS PD
Another critical aspect of the work presented forward to providing these opportunities to teach-
in this chapter is the training of in-service science ers in a variety of subject matter content areas.
teachers. None of this will happen unless there is
quality PD. We feel that our PD model (which in-
cludes clinical site training) significantly improves FUTURE RESEARCH
the ways teachers teach science that aligns with
the new NGSS standards. Our evidence indicates Continue Research on CSCS-CSCL. As the issues
that teachers are more confident when utilizing with technology get resolved in more and more
CSCS despite issues with existent technology classrooms, it will be easier to collect student ar-
infrastructure and the availability of computers. In tifacts and compare results on standardized tests.
the future, these issues will ultimately be resolved, As a result, this will help us in guiding our next
thus resulting in a transformation of classrooms steps in the use of the CSCS pedagogy. We believe
that will benefit all students. Additionally, we will that more students are engaged and are learning
be able to see growth in the ability of CSCS-taught content in classrooms that are using CSCS tools
students to participate fully in science using CSCS than in non-technology classrooms and we feel
tools for whole-class data analysis. Teachers will that we will be able to support these claims as we
be well-equipped to bridge current achievement gather more evidence.
gaps—especially with students who come from Expand our Pedagogical Approach. We will
underrepresented populations in urban school set- continue to look at this research strand and have
tings—to make content knowledge accessible to recently been funded by the Bechtel Foundation
students who may approach learning in different to do just that. With this new funding, we intend
ways. In doing so, we will better prepare the next to begin providing a model for instruction in other
generation of citizenry who will invariably be content areas (i.e., Math, History, Special Ed., and
expected to: a) use technology with competence, so forth) as well as strengthen the career pipeline
b) work in collaborative groups, and c) critically for STEM teachers in secondary education. Provid-
apply what they are learning and doing in a myriad ing competent new teachers for our local schools
of public and private industries, universities, and will help create CSCL classroom environments
school settings. Lastly, we believe that the CSCS more quickly. We have a large-scale evaluation
model can be extended across disciplines and look project underway with outside top evaluators
194

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198
Chapter 13
Hands-On Learning of
Cloud Computing
Marta Beltrán
Universidad Rey Juan Carlos, Spain
ABSTRACT
Professionals with deep knowledge about cloud computing are in high demand in the industry these days.
This knowledge should comprehend concepts related to models, technologies, techniques, frameworks,
interfaces and tools needed to design, develop, deploy, integrate and manage cloud-based architectures.
Universities are trying to offer different undergraduate and graduate courses teaching these contents at
different levels, aimed at students’ development of strong practical skills to deal with the new paradigm
in real-world environments. In this chapter, a hands-on learning approach is proposed to achieve this
goal, considering an essential element of this approach - the use of cloud simulators. A survey of open
source cloud simulators is provided, presenting an exhaustive comparison of the existing alternatives
and determining an appropriate set of criteria to decide the best simulator for each learning objective.
Furthermore, two examples of hands-on contents are presented using these simulators.
INTRODUCTION systems and to develop applications on a cloud,

to design and to program algorithms taking
In recent years, educators have faced the challenge advantage of the paradigm, to make decisions
of training their students for a world in which the regarding the applicability of cloud computing in
cloud paradigm is increasingly widespread. The different scenarios or to evaluate the suitability
cloud model is not a revolution but an evolution of certain models and providers, to mention only
which implies advancement in technology, man- some examples.
agement and business (Buyya, 2011). While the Many university courses about cloud comput-
involved technologies are not completely new, ing have appeared last years, but most of them focus
there is a strong need of academic education on fundamental concepts that help the students
related to their integration and use in the new in understanding the new paradigm but may not
environment. provide them with practical skills which prepare
Future, professionals need skills and capaci- them to face the typical challenges of their future
ties in their curricula which allow them to deploy positions in the industry and to succeed in a rap-
DOI: 10.4018/978-1-4666-9924-3.ch013

Hands-On Learning of Cloud Computing
idly evolving field. In other words, considering sities. Section 3 presents current alternatives to
the usual levels of mastery, the current courses propose hands-on experiences to students learning
achieve the level of familiarity but not the levels about cloud computing. Section 4 analyzes the
of usage or assessment. most important open source cloud simulation tools
Hands-on learning, i.e. learning by doing, has currently available, while Section 5 compares all
therefore become a very interesting approach to these solutions, proposes a set of decision criteria
teach cloud computing in STEM (Science, Tech- and evaluates the current limitations of these tools.
nology, Engineering and Mathematics) university Section 6 gives two examples of hands-on learning
programs. Although there are a plethora of defini- contents designed using these simulators. And
tions of hands-on learning, it can be assumed that finally Section 7 summarizes the most important
a hands-on approach requires students to become lines for future work and conclusions.
active participants in their learning process instead
of passive agents who listen to lectures or attend
to seminars. Laboratory exercises and activities BACKGROUND AND CONTEXT
are traditional methods of giving students hands-
on experiences. One of the most important initiatives to establish
But, how should a cloud laboratory be de- international curricular guidelines for under-
signed? How can students have hands-on ex- graduate programs in computing is the IEEE/
periences with the different service models and ACM Computer Science Curricula. In its last
service deployments? Ideally, they should be able version (Computer Science Curricula, 2013),
to work with private, hybrid, and public clouds this document states that, at a broad level, the
at infrastructure, platform and software levels. expected characteristics of a computer science
The problem is that such complete laboratories graduate should include awareness of the broad
represent a too important investment for many applicability of computing, understanding plat-
universities. The TCO (Total Cost of Ownership) forms ranging from embedded micro-sensors to
of an ideal cloud computing laboratory includes distributed clouds.
the total cost of acquisition but also its operating The Computer Science (CS) curricula build
costs, and it makes this type of practical teaching a curricular structure through a tiered set of core
unviable in many cases. topics, where Tier1 topics are considered essential
This chapter presents different alternatives for all CS programs, Tier 2 and Elective topics
to overcome these difficulties, focusing specifi- can be covered or not. The uncovered topics
cally on open source cloud computing simulators, are usually included in the advanced courses of
making the proposal of this chapter relevant to a graduate and master programs. Considering the
variety of institutions. The most widespread cloud proposed body of knowledge, Cloud Computing is
simulators are presented, including a thorough included explicitly (as Topic 1, Topic 2 and Elec-
comparison of their features. And a set of general tive contents) in the following knowledge areas:
criteria is provided for choosing the most appro-
priate tool depending on the learning objectives • Information Assurance and Security.
for each course. • Networking and Communication.
The rest of this chapter is organized as follows. • Parallel and Distributed Computing.
Section 2 discusses the usual contents related to • Social Issues and Professional Practice.
cloud computing in the academic curricula and
summarizes the approaches of some interesting In addition, the areas of System Fundamentals
courses about cloud concepts in different univer- and Operating Systems include the most important
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concepts about virtualization and the Computa- system design issues, virtualization technologies,
tional Science, Platform Based Development and resource management and power management, and
Programming Languages areas include the most secure computation in the cloud. The pre-requisites
important concepts about service orientation. are Algorithm Analysis and Data Structures, and
As a conclusion, a student of a well designed CS Operating Systems Concepts. And the hands-on
program will have fundamental competency in projects have been based on Google, Amazon,
cloud computing. But building courses for diverse Microsoft and SalesForce.com services.
audiences, not just for CS students, is essential A graduate level cloud-computing course
for making cloud computing accessible to a wide is taught at San Jose State University (Moh &
range of professionals. Given the importance of Alvarez-Horine, 2013). The course is based on
the new paradigm across many disciplines, the a traditional curriculum including lectures, stu-
offering of an introductory course is essential in dent presentations, and group research projects,
all Science, Technology, Engineering and Math- introducing cloud computing from an academic
ematics (STEM) programs. perspective focused on distributed system models,
For universities that want to teach more than virtual machines (VM) and virtualization, cloud
the minimum, specific and advanced courses about platforms and architectures, service-oriented ar-
cloud computing could be included in almost all chitectures, cloud programming and software envi-
fields, CS and STEM, because cloud-related skills ronments. It includes eight hands-on labs working
are becoming more important for promoting suc- with private clouds (Eucalyptus and OpenStack)
cessful professional practice in a variety of career and public clouds (Amazon and GoGrid).
paths. Taking this context into account, different Cloud computing has been introduced in the
examples of courses covering Cloud Computing undergraduate education at the Michigan Tech-
topics in CS and STEM degrees can be analyzed. nological University (Wang, Hembroff, Cerier,
In the Carnegie Mellon University in Qatar, & Perrault, 2011). There is a project to teach the
there is an introductory Cloud Computing course basic concepts and introductory knowledge of
(Rehman & Sakr, 2011). Lectures are the main cloud computing in the computer systems and
form of content delivery for the course, covering network administration program. This project is
cloud computing fundamentals, virtualization, entirely based on hands-on experiences, consisting
MapReduce and Hadoop, and distributed stor- of building two IaaS clouds using commonly avail-
age. Guest lecturers cover topics such as func- able equipment and open-source cloud computing
tional programming, application performance software components, Eucalyptus for the first and
and diagnostics, and cloud business model. The Xen Cloud Platform for the second.
pre-requisites are Systems Review, Parallel Com- A ten week long Cloud Computing module
puting Fundamentals and Distributed Systems can be found at Surrey University (Gillam, Li, &
and Storage. And the hands-on exercises are four O’Loughlin, 2012). This module combines discus-
programming projects using Hadoop MapReduce sions of the principles and key characteristics of
on a private cloud infrastructure that has been set Cloud Computing with a series of practical exer-
up in partnership with IBM. cises and an implementation-based coursework.
The University of Texas at Dallas offers a Cloud It follows a very practical approach, including six
Computing course focused on technologies for weeks of hands-on sessions introducing students
Infrastructure as a Service, Platform as a Service, to a public Platform as a Service (Google App
Software as a Service and Physical Systems as a Engine), a public Infrastructure as a Service (Ama-
Service. Therefore, it covers topics such as Hadoop zon Web Services) and a private Infrastructure as
MapReduce for big data computing, cloud storage a Service (with an Eucalyptus cloud).
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A curricular module of 24 hours to cover to do in designing cloud-related contents that train

architecture/system level topics which can be in- students to be more than beginner users of cloud
cluded in different graduate courses is offered at computing. The main challenges that need to be
Universidad Rey Juan Carlos (Beltrán, Guzmán, faced can be summarized in the following:
& Palomero, 2013). The main objective of this
module is to enable students to be fully prepared • There should be a unified view of the pre-
for their future careers, understanding the archi- requisites, essential contents and goals of
tecture/system aspects inside the cloud paradigm Cloud Computing introductory courses
and being able to manage the technology, not and of the most typical specific and ad-
only from the point of view of the user (with a vanced courses.
shallow knowledge of this level more focused • The essential topics of these courses should
on programming and managing) but also from always achieve a balance between theory
the point of view of the provider. In this case, and application.
the hands-on exercises (12 hours) are performed • These topics should be developed with
using the CloudSim platform. flexibility to work across CS and STEM
The Cloud Computing course of the Carnegie fields.
Mellon University in Qatar is an introductory on- • Successful course design and materials
line course covering the topics of data centers, should be available for instructors in order
virtualization, cloud storage, and programming to provide them with a model of how rel-
models. The pre-requisites are only the knowl- evant units and modules have been incor-
edge of computer systems and fundamentals of porated in different programs.
Java programming. The hands-on exercises are • Theoretical contents should prepare stu-
four projects using MapReduce on a public cloud dents to succeed in a rapidly evolving area.
(Amazon Web Services). • Application contents should follow a
The University of Illinois at Urbana-Cham- hands-on approach, preparing students for
paign offers a Cloud Computing MOOC in the professional practice, not only as cloud us-
Coursera platform. In this case, it is basically a ers or consumers but also as cloud provid-
course designed to teach core distributed sys- ers, developers, brokers, enablers, regula-
tems and networking concepts underlying cloud tors, etc.
computing paradigm. Anyway, these concepts • Institutional needs and resource constraints
are used to analyze, design, and implement new should be taken into account when provid-
cloud computing systems and to write new cloud ing different alternatives to propose hands-
applications. The hands-on experience is pro- on experiences.
vided to students making them implement some
of the learned concepts in template assignments
programmed in C++ language. This course has CLOUD COMPUTING
a part two, deepening into concepts like con- KNOWLEDGE AREAS
currency control, stream and graph processing,
scheduling, Distributed File Systems or security. In this section, different technologies, concepts,
These two courses do not teach how to use cloud models, perspectives, methodologies and tools
computing systems but how they are designed, related to cloud computing are categorized in
built and managed. 6 knowledge areas or fields of specialization in
Taking into consideration these entire courses’ order to facilitate the partition of contents between
syllabi, in our opinion, there is still much progress different courses (introductory and specific/
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advanced) when cloud computing is included in of management mechanisms should be

CS and STEM programs: studied. Finally, integration and interoper-
ability should be introduced because they
1. Fundamental Issues: This is the area that enable hybrid deployments and avoid vendor
includes the key attributes of cloud com- lock-in.
puting, the essential characteristics of the 5. Cloud Security and Compliance: This area
paradigm and the underlying technologies, as includes understanding common security
well as the service and deployment models. risks, threats and vulnerabilities related to
2. Architecture of the Cloud: This area covers cloud environments, as well as possible solu-
how to build, manage, optimize and evaluate tions for data security, identity management,
cloud-based architectures. “Building” topics authentication, specific security or privacy
range from the data center design (including level agreements definition, etc. Available
networking and communications) to issues specific certifications and tools for Audit,
such as Green Computing or Autonomic Assertion, Assessment, and Assurance
Computing. “Managing” topics are related to should be considered too.
physical and virtual resources management, 6. Cloud Economics and Legal Issues: This
different levels of provisioning, cloud federa- area is concerned about the economic and
tion, recovery mechanisms or SLA manage- legal benefits, costs and risks of cloud
ment. Finally, “Optimizing & Evaluating” computing. Therefore, it includes business
topics cover performance issues, i.e. how to models analysis, commercial considerations,
quantify and optimize performance figures enterprise cloud computing and governance
such as availability, reliability, scalability, models, contracting and billing issues, ju-
etc. risdictional viewpoints, etc.
3. Software Development on Cloud
Platforms: In this case, the focus is the Usually the first three knowledge areas are
development of applications and services considered to design introductory courses in CS
on cloud architectures, therefore, analyzing and STEM programs, while the rest of the areas
best practices in architecting cloud-based are used to build specific and advanced courses
software and available programming models. (as well as the topics of the first three areas that
With the increasing importance of data- are not included in the introductory courses; the
intensive applications, programming mod- contents considered fundamental or not depend
els like MapReduce should be considered. on the curricular structure).
Software testability and benchmarking are
included in this knowledge area too.
4. Migration to the Cloud, Integration and ALTERNATIVES FOR
Interoperability: This area includes issues HANDS-ON TEACHING
related to migrating (not developing from
scratch) an asset to the cloud. The concept As it was mentioned in the Introduction section,
of asset is introduced because this area is courses about cloud computing with a hands-on
focused on resources other than software learning approach have a need for adequate com-
(machines, information systems, data, etc.). puting resources. The needs of these courses often
The process of migration itself but also ROI extend beyond traditional infrastructure and may
calculations, decision making methodolo- include specialized large-scale hardware (comput-
gies, organizational readiness and change ing and networking), middleware and software.
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Moreover, institutions need to consider the grow- Public cloud providers such as Amazon,
ing heterogeneity of computing technologies that Microsoft and Google offer special education
can be used as a platform for coursework and the programs in order to provide their infrastructure
growing speed of their evolution. and/or platform free of charge or with important
That is the reason why it is very interesting discounts in academic environments. This is the
to have different alternatives to propose hands- reason why this alternative is one of the most
on experiences. These alternatives guarantee the adopted in the courses previously analyzed.
flexibility needed to perform this kind of practical Finally, it has to be pointed out that there has
exercises independent of the institution nature, been a significant proliferation of simulation
geographical or cultural environment, size or tools in education environments in the last de-
constraints. Furthermore, these alternatives cover cade. These tools, unconstrained by temporal or
the teaching of cloud computing, interacting with geographical barriers, allow professors to design
the paradigm with aforementioned different roles: hands-on experiences with low economic costs,
consumer, provider, developer, enabler, broker incorporating new models and technologies as
or regulator. soon as they appear. Furthermore, this kind of
If possible, private clouds are a very good solution enables professors to teach to remote or
option to propose hands-on exercises. This kind on-line students, for example, in Massive Open
of private infrastructure allows students to gain Online Course (MOOC) formats.
experiences with designing, deploying, configur- Some professors consider exercises performed
ing, managing, troubleshooting, and integrating with these simulation tools not really hands-on
cloud architectures. Open source products such as experiences when compared with exercises per-
Eucalyptus, Xen Cloud Platform, OpenStack and formed on private or public clouds. But, on one
OpenNebula allow us to perform relatively easy hand, cloud simulators are everyday more used
deployments, although the private cloud option is in workplaces for prototyping, decision making,
usually the most expensive due to hardware (serv- bottleneck detection, etc. And, on the other hand,
ers and communication hardware) costs. And it the general conclusion from several empirical
makes it difficult to organize efficient hands-on studies (Corter, Esche, Chassapis, Ma, & Nick-
exercises with large groups of students or on-line erson, 2011) is that learning outcomes depend
and remote students. on the hands-on approach and on the different
Another option could be using one of the cur- patterns of work and collaboration regardless of
rently available cloud testbeds, such as OCT or the laboratory or infrastructure format. Indeed,
OpenCirrus. The first initiative is managed and the rest of this chapter will introduce the most
operated by the Open Cloud Consortium (OCC) interesting tools for cloud computing teaching and
and it includes data centers belonging to different some experiences obtained using them.
universities and research centers of the USA. The Before that, Table 1 maps the knowledge ar-
second is managed and operated by Intel. Unfortu- eas identified for cloud computing teaching with
nately, this kind of testbeds are not very frequent the alternatives for hands-on cloud computing
nowadays and they are devoted to advance cloud teaching. As this matrix summarizes, on one
computing research (in the second case, funded by, hand, private and public clouds allow students to
or in collaboration with Intel) but not to teaching apply their knowledge in the fundamental issues,
cloud computing. Their extension, as happened software development, migration, and security and
in the case of former grids dedicated to teaching, compliance areas. A private cloud provides also
would facilitate the design of hands-on exercises the low level access needed to complete exercises
in many CS and STEM programs. in the architecture area, while public deployments
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Table 1. Hands-on tools appropriate for each cloud computing knowledge area
Simulation Tool (If

Private Cloud Testbed Public Cloud
Available)
1. Fundamental X X X X
2. Architecture X X X
3. Software dev. X X X X
4. Migration X X X
5. Security X X X X
6. Economics and legal X X
are not suitable for this kind of exercise because academic or teaching-oriented) simulation tools.
virtualization and the offering of resources As the industry needs professionals prepared for
through APIs hide important system-level details cloud-related occupations, we strongly encourage
from students. On the other hand, testbeds and professors and institutions to develop partnerships
simulation tools are used to enable students to with the industry focused, at least, on providing
experiment with aspects at very low level and/or students with the real world environments needed
related to a need of a high level of control over to learn to apply their knowledge.
the architecture. Therefore, these alternatives are
often selected when the students need to propose
and to evaluate architectural changes, to build CLOUD COMPUTING SIMULATORS
prototypes of new solutions for provisioning, to
find and to solve new security vulnerabilities or This section introduces the more interesting
to propose and to validate brokering or billing simulation tools currently available to propose
models, to mention only some examples. It has hands-on experiences to cloud computing students
to be considered that, as it will be introduced in at different levels.
the next section, different simulation frameworks
at different levels are currently available; that is GroudSim
the reason why, in theory, all cloud computing
knowledge areas can be practiced on simulation GroudSim is a grid and cloud system simulation
environments. toolkit for scientific applications (Ostermann,
As a conclusion, a proper combination of all Plankensteiner, Prodan, & Fahringer, 2010). It is
possible alternatives should be found to cover an event-based simulator developed in Java that
the application aspects of all cloud computing requires one simulation thread with independence
knowledge areas. It is clear that hands-on learning on the number of simulated entities. This tool
of cloud computing could greatly benefit from provides a comprehensive set of features for in-
university-industry collaboration. All possible frastructure-level simulation from computational
alternatives for proposing hands-on experiences and network resources, job submissions or file
for students can be improved using industry agents’ transfers to background loads and cost models. In
infrastructures and systems: having access to their addition, simulations can be parameterized and
private clouds, jointly building hybrid clouds and are easily extendable by probability distribution
testbeds, freely accessing the services offered by packages for failures which normally occur in
public providers or using real-world (instead of complex environments.
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This simulator can be easily integrated with capability of modeling replicated VMs sharing
the ASKALON middleware (Ostermann, Planken- incoming workload as well as dependencies
steiner, Bodner, Kraler, & Prodan, 2011), which between VMs that are part of a multi-tiered ap-
provides a high-level abstraction for program- plication. This is a very interesting feature since a
ming complex scientific workflow applications. wide range of business, e-commerce, government
ASKALON allows developers to use textual XML and web applications follow the n-tier reference
or graphical UML diagrams to represent work- architecture (specifically, the three-tier architec-
flows in order to facilitate transparent scheduling ture) and not all the simulation frameworks allow
and execution of applications on the GroudSim us to consider this kind of application architecture.
simulated grid and cloud systems or on real world DCSim simulations allow users to observe
systems. and to measure, for example, SLA violations,
consumed power, number of VM migrations,
SPECI number of active hosts and active host utilization.
SPECI (Simulation Program for Elastic Cloud CloudSim and Its Extensions
Infrastructures) is a simulation tool focused on the
performance and behavior of cloud data centers Perhaps CloudSim (Calheiros, Ranjan, Belo-
(Sriram, 2009) from a very specific point of view: glazov, De Rose, & Buyya, 2011) is the most
consistency in middleware policy distribution. It popular simulation tool currently available for
has been developed based on the SimKit package cloud computing systems, both in teaching and
for discrete event simulation in Java. In fact, the in research environments. It is an event driven
implementation of SPECI is split in two packages, simulation framework, open source and developed
one represents the data center layout and topol- in Java with a layered architecture. Therefore, it
ogy, and the other one contains the components can be easily extended with new functionalities.
for experiment execution and measuring. CloudSim supports the simulation of large scale
There is an improved version of this simulation cloud computing data centers, allowing the simula-
tool, SPECI-2 (Sriram & Cliff, 2011). In this new tion of network topologies and message-passing
version, some simplifications in the data center applications, as well as the modeling and simu-
models have been corrected in order to improve lation of energy-aware computational resources.
simulation results (information about the Google This framework gives support for user-defined
data center design has been used to make these policies for application and virtual provisioning,
corrections). Furthermore, some issues in the and allocation of physical resources. And further-
simulator design have been optimized to decrease more, it allows users to simulate the federation of
its computing and memory resource requirements. clouds, a very special feature not present in the
rest of current simulation tools except in SimIC,
DCSIM introduced in this section a little later.
As mentioned before, this framework is one of
DCSim is an extensible simulation framework the most popular, and, as it can be easily extended,
for simulating data centers in Infrastructure as a plethora of projects and new tools related to
a Service environments (Tighe, Keller, Bauer, CloudSim have emerged these last years. Some
& Lutfiyya, 2012). Specifically, it is designed of the most important are:
to simulate resource provisioning mechanisms.
This tool allows us to simulate transactional and • CloudAnalyst (Wickremasinghe,
continuous workloads. Therefore, it provides the Calheiros, & Buyya, 2010): This tool al-
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lows evaluating the performance and cost application processing attributes of these
of large-scale distributed applications devices, considering the mechanism of run-
through a flexible and configurable GUI. time partitioning of elastic mobile applica-
This evaluation can be done repeatedly and tions and determining resource utilization.
generating charts, tables and reports dur- But it can be integrated with CloudSim to
ing the simulation time, obtaining results evaluate off-loading scenarios, therefore,
related to data center performance, users’ environments in which cloud infrastructure
quality of experience and costs. It has been is used to overcome mobile device limita-
typically used to analyze the behavior of tions (both in computing power and in en-
large Internet applications with a huge ergy aspects).
number of users such as social networks. • CloudMIG Xpress (Fittkau, Frey, &
• NetworkCloudSim (Garg, & Buyya, 2011): Hasselbring, 2012) and the CDOSim plu-
Despite its attractive features, CloudSim it- gin: This extension is focused on simulat-
self cannot be used to model very complex ing the migration of software systems to
data centers or sophisticated application PaaS or IaaS-based cloud environments.
models. NetworkCloudSim is an exten- It can automatically transform the system
sion of CloudSim which supports model- and Java application model to a CloudSim
ing of real cloud data centers improving model to enable integrated simulation of
the network modeling and of generalized different cloud deployment options regard-
real-world applications improving the soft- ing future costs, response times or SLA
ware modeling (such as HPC, e-commerce violations, for example.
or workflows).
• WorkflowSim (Chen, & Deelman, 2012): To summarize, the CloudSim framework is
This package extends the CloudSim frame- oriented to model and to simulate the infrastruc-
work by introducing the support of work- ture level of cloud computing scenarios, focusing
flow preparation and execution. on performance, cost and energy models and on
• EMUSim (Calheiros, Netto, De Rose, enabling the simulation of federations of clouds
& Buyya, 2012): This tool allows us to but without offering a GUI. Some of the presented
combine emulation and simulation in extension projects and tools allow us to improve
cloud contexts to test the behavior of the networking model and/or the application model
cloud applications. The idea is to evaluate in order to use this simulator in realistic scenarios
real software artifacts running on mod- or in contexts of increasing importance such as
els of hardware artifacts, in this case, on Big Data or Mobile Cloud Computing. The rest
CloudSim-simulated cloud architectures. of these extensions are focused on providing some
• MR-CloudSim (Jung, & Kim, 2012): This kind of GUI or on building layers over CloudSim
tool extends the CloudSim framework in to model and to simulate aspects different from
order to include the modeling and simula- the cloud infrastructure.
tion of MapReduce applications. Therefore,
it allows users to simulate application pro- GreenCloud
cessing in parallel large data sets.
• SmartSim (Shiraz, Gani, Khokhar, GreenCloud (Kliazovich, Bouvry, Audzevich, &
&Ahmed, 2012): This simulation toolkit Khan, 2010) is a packet-level data center simula-
has been developed for modeling smart tor developed in C++ and focused on evaluating
mobile devices; therefore, it simulates the the energy costs of data center operation. This
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simulation tool extracts, aggregates, and helps in SimIC

understanding all the information about the energy
consumed by computing and communication ele- The SimIC framework (Sotiriadis, Bessis, An-
ments of data center equipment. The networking tonopoulos, & Anjum, 2013) allows users to
model of GreenCloud is one of the most detailed simulate inter-cloud activities in which multiple
in all the currently available tools, and one of its cloud systems collaborate in distributing service
key strengths is that this simulator provides full requests among different data centers. It is a dis-
support for TCP/IP protocols and packet level crete event simulator developed in Java (built upon
energy models implemented for all data center the SimJava package) capable of simulating users,
components. meta-brokers, local brokers, data centers, hosts,
hypervisors and virtual machines. Additionally, it
iCanCloud can model and simulate meta-scheduling policies,
resource discovery and scheduling mechanisms,
iCanCloud is a simulation platform focused on the or VMs allocation, re-scheduling and migration
simulation of a wide range of cloud computing strategies.
systems and their underlying architectures with Recently the functionalities of the SimIC
a customizable level of detail (Núñez, Vázquez- toolkit have been extended to incorporate Internet
Poletti, Caminero, Castañé, Carretero, & Llorente, of Things devices (Sotiriadis, Bessis, Asimako-
2012). The main objective of iCanCloud is to poulou, & Mustafee, 2014).
predict the trade-offs between cost and perfor-
mance of a given set of applications executed in
a specific hardware, and then provide users with COMPARISON, SELECTION
useful information about such costs. Furthermore, CRITERIA AND LIMITATIONS
the E-mc2 extension (Castañé, Núñez, Llopis,
& Carretero, 2013) is a formal framework inte- Table 2 summarizes the main features of the
grated into the iCanCloud simulation platform simulation tools and frameworks presented in the
for modeling the energy requirements in cloud previous section: programming language used to
computing, providing methods for obtaining the develop the simulator, type of distribution license
energy consumption of each hardware component (although this chapter is focused on open source
in the cloud architecture. projects available free of charge), the existence
This simulation tool provides a user-friendly of a GUI, the simulation level, the existence of
GUI to help users in the generation and custom- complementary tools adding functionalities to
ization of complex models and in the execution the basic simulator, and the capabilities to model
of simulations. It also provides a POSIX-based and to simulate costs, energy consumption and
API and an adapted MPI library for modeling and network topologies.
simulating applications. But programming new Simulation response times have not been
applications directly in the simulation platform included in this comparison because it has to be
is not the only method for modeling the software pointed out that, with all these simulation tools,
layer in iCanCloud, other alternatives such as the execution of simulations takes from seconds
traces of real applications or graphs can be used. to minutes on commercial hardware (specific
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Table 2. Simulation tools comparison
Language License GUI Simulation Complementary Cost Energy Network

Level Tools Model Model Model
GroudSim Java Open No Infrastructure ASKALON Yes No Limited
Source (for scientific (middleware)
app.)
SPECI Java Open No Data center - No No Very
Source limited
DCSim Java Open No Data center - Yes Yes No
Source
CloudSim Java Open No IaaS (and higher CloudAnalyst, Yes Yes Yes
Source levels with NetworkCloudSim,
complementary WorkflowSim,
tools) EMUSim,
MR-CloudSim,
SmartSim,
CloudMIG Xpress,
etc.
GreenCloud C++ Open Yes Data center - No Yes Yes
Source (TCP/IP)
iCanCloud C++ Open Yes IaaS E-mc2 Yes No Yes
Source (energy model)
POSIX-based API
and an adapted MPI
library
SimIC Java Not No Inter-cloud IoT extension Yes Limited Yes
distributed
yet
high performance architectures are not needed The absence of a GUI (Graphical User In-
to obtain simulation results in reasonable times). terface) is another feature shared by almost all
The simulations with GreenCloud and with some simulators; only GreenCloud and iCanCloud
of the CloudSim extensions (NetworkCloudSim, provide users with an interface to interact with the
for example) usually have the largest response simulator, mainly for configuring and executing
times (minutes instead of seconds) because they simulations and for obtaining and interpreting
are packet-level simulators, while the rest of the results.
discussed tools are discrete-event simulators and But the fundamental difference between all
therefore do not need to build and process small these simulators is whether or not they enable
simulation objects individually. us to model costs, energy consumption and/or
It can be observed that almost all the analyzed network topologies. Another interesting feature
simulators allow users, in their basic versions, to nowadays is also the capability of simulating
model and to simulate cloud computing systems at federated clouds (provided by CloudSim and
the lower levels, therefore, data centers and infra- SimIC at this moment). The level of detail and
structure layers. Complementary libraries, pack- accuracy allowed for these models make suitable
ages, tools and middleware are often developed or not each simulator for certain specific teach-
to extend their functionalities, and to model and ing objectives; the requirements are different
simulate cloud systems at higher levels (platform to simulate a resource provisioning mechanism
and/or software). on a provider’s infrastructure or to simulate the
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number of SLA violations in a SaaS context, for working with students without experience
example. Although it has to be considered that all with simulators. Any tool that makes it
the presented simulation tools are developed in easier for them to configure, to run, and to
Java or C++, they are easily extensible by profes- interpret simulations must be perceived as
sors and instructors to change default behaviors, to an important value.
enrich existent models or to add new models and 4. Capability to Model Cost, Energy
functionalities (even GUIs) appropriate for their Consumption, Network Topology, and/or
students. This is one of the main advantages of Cloud Federation: As it has been mentioned
all the considered open source tools (besides their before, these are important features of simu-
zero cost), the availability of their whole code to lators that need to be carefully considered
customize it if necessary. depending on the teaching objectives. For
When a professor or instructor faces the chal- example, if a hands-on experience about
lenge of selecting one or more simulation tools green policies wants to be proposed, a simu-
to prepare cloud hands-on experiences for her lator capable of modeling and simulating
students, the selection criteria considered to make energy consumption with enough level of
this decision should include the following: detail should be selected.
1. Simulation Level: Different simulation As a conclusion, Table 3 maps the presented

tools allow users to model different aspects simulation tools to the cloud computing knowledge
of cloud systems, depending on the teaching areas introduced before. It can be observed that the
objectives; the best tool should be selected. considered set of simulators cover all the possible
For example, if a hands-on experience about teaching objectives of the field except in the case
brokering policies wants to be proposed, a of the security and compliance area.
simulator capable of modeling and simulat- The first restriction of currently available
ing these policies should be selected. simulators can be observed in Table 3: They do
2. Programming Language: As the profes- not provide a solution to model and to simulate
sor and probably the students may need to security and compliance aspects of cloud comput-
read, to change and/or to develop code for ing. All the hands-on experiences related to this
the hands-on experiences, a tool based on knowledge area must be proposed with private or
the preferred programming platform (Java public clouds or testbeds until a new simulator or
or C++) should be selected. an extension to an existing one is proposed.
3. Existence of a GUI and Usability: This is In addition, two important limitations of the
a very important criterion, especially when analyzed tools have been detected. First, their
Table 3. Simulation tools appropriate for each cloud computing knowledge area
GroudSim SPECI DCSim CloudSim GreenCloud iCanCloud SimIC

1. Fundamental X X
2. Architecture X X X X X X X
3. Software dev. X X X X
4. Migration X
5. Security
6. Econ. and legal X X X X X X
209

usability must be improved, mainly, GUIs and EXAMPLES OF CONTENT DESIGN

user-friendly interfaces are needed to extend
simulation tools as the useful solution they really As it has been discussed in the previous section,
are to design hands-on experiences for STEM there are currently a number of useful open source
students at different levels. Second, although simulation projects that allow us to design hands-
almost all simulators are focused on data centers on experiences for cloud computing learning.
and on the infrastructure layer, they must improve Some of them allow professors and instructors to
their flexibility to enable the modeling of real propose exercises and experiences in very specific
heterogeneous data server components such as contexts. For example, GroudSim can be used to
servers, sensors, mobile devices, communication understand the behavior of a scientific applica-
links, switches, etc. And also the modeling of tion on a cloud system, DCSim can be used to
different brokering policies, load balancing and understand resource provisioning mechanisms,
provisioning mechanisms, billing philosophies, GreenCloud can be used to illustrate the basics of
application architectures (for example, it is very Green Computing or SimIC can be used to observe
difficult to model multi-tier applications with the collaboration of different cloud providers in
current simulators), etc. a federated environment. But perhaps, the two
At this moment, almost all the effort to obtain most versatile tools are CloudSim and iCanCloud.
this flexibility is in professors and instructors That is the reason why they have been chosen to
who may extend available tools to support the propose two different examples in this section.
functionalities they need for their students. But In these two examples, our recommenda-
cloud simulators should improve their basic or tion is to use a constructivist approach for the
core design to provide most of these capabilities. exercises; therefore, rather than guiding students
In this direction, it would be very interesting to step-by-step during the simulation (except in the
create an active cloud simulation community (as first experience, always design to teach the stu-
it has emerged in other knowledge areas) to share dents how to use the simulator and to help them
experiences, extensions, models or new simulation understand the basic concepts); it is better to ask
tools, for example. students to make predictions and to justify them,
Our experience using these simulators (any of prior to executing the simulation in order to see
them) is that effective use of cloud simulators can what happens. It is also very important to incor-
require significant preparation by the professor porate post-simulation discussion and analysis,
or instructor who must thoroughly understand including time for students’ reflection, showing
the selected simulation tool (how it works, how them the limitations of the selected tools and
it models the simulated resources, which are the the possible differences with results that would
limitations of these models, etc.) and prepare the have been obtained in real-world scenarios. This
hands-on experiences considering the teaching is specially the pedagogical purpose of the final
objectives and understand the selected tool. This projects proposed in the following examples, in
may imply changing some source code to modify which the students are asked to propose creative
a default behavior or even creating new code to and new solutions for specific problems.
add needed functionalities.
210

Table 4. Introduction to cloud computing

Remember that, if possible, the best option
would be to propose hands-on experiences for Knowledge Total Topics
students based on more than one of the possible Area Hours of
alternatives aforementioned (private clouds, Coverage
testbeds, and public clouds), complementing the Fundamental 20 Definitions and key
issues attributes of cloud
exercises and labs in different environments to computing. Essential
cover all the contents and approaches. But given characteristics of the
paradigm. Underlying
the focus of this chapter, in the following examples, technologies (grid
only simulation tools have been used. computing, SOA,
virtualization, utility
computing, and autonomic
Fundamental Course Example computing). Service and
deployment models. Current
applications and future
The “Introduction to Cloud Computing” course trends.
is an example of introductory course designed Software 10 Development of application
for undergraduate STEM degrees. The official development on and services on cloud
cloud platforms architectures. Best practices.
pre-requisites should include introductory no- Available programming
tions about programming, computer organization/ models.
architecture and networking. This is a one semester Cloud security 5 Common security risks,
and compliance threats and vulnerabilities
course (14 weeks), with 2 hours of lectures and related to cloud computing.
in-class activities a week (seminars and confer- Cloud 5 Economic and legal
ences, readings, cases, discussions, presentations, economics and benefits, costs and risks
etc.) and 2 hours of hands-on experiences a week legal issues of cloud computing. The
importance of the SLA.
(based on a cloud simulator). The structure of the
course is summarized in Table 4.
In this case, the iCanCloud simulator has been
GUI to configure and launch simulations
selected to design these exercises, allowing one
and to interpret the obtained results. Due
to put into practice all the course contents except
to the fact that iCanCloud is developed on
the security and compliance aspects.
top of OMNeT++ (a component-based
C++ simulation library and framework,
• Assignment 0 (3 weeks): The main ob-
primarily for building network simulators),
jective of this assignment is to familiarize
the students should understand the basics
the students with the iCanCloud frame-
of this framework too.
work. In fact, this exercise is not consid-
• Assignment 1 (2 weeks): The main ob-
ered for the lab assessment because it only
jective of this assignment is to understand
requires the download and installation of
how users execute their jobs on the cloud
the simulation framework and the execu-
and how they pay for it. The students work
tion of different examples (built from the
with different kinds of applications (some
cloud, users, virtual machines and applica-
from the simulator repository, some pro-
tions repositories included in the simula-
vided by the professor or instructor) which
tor) with the development environment.
illustrate how users’ jobs are executed on
During the lab sessions dedicated to this
the rented virtual machines with a pay-per-
project, the students should also locate the
use model. In this assignment, the default
source files that they will need to modify
virtual machine appliances are used (iCan-
in future assignments and learn to use the
211

Cloud simulator provides a repository with Advanced Course Example

the models of existing AMIs, or Amazon
Machine Images, in Amazon EC2 service). The “Architecting the Cloud” course is an example
• Assignment 2 (3 weeks): The main ob- of advanced course designed for undergraduate
jective of this assignment is to understand or graduate STEM degrees. The official pre-
how the next job of a user is selected to requisites should include advanced notions about
be executed on the cloud, and how the computer organization/architecture, operating
virtual machine instances where that job systems, and networking. This is a one semester
will be executed are chosen. iCanCloud course (14 weeks), with 2 hours of lectures and
provides the implementation of one hy- in-class activities a week (seminars and confer-
pervisor, the BasicHypervisor, but it also ences, readings, cases, discussion, presentations,
provides a hypervisor API which can be etc.) and 2 hours of hands-on experiences a week
used to design custom hypervisors. In (based on a cloud simulator). The structure of the
this assignment, the students must com- course is summarized in Table 5.
pare the BasicHypervisor with other two In this case, the CloudSim simulator has been
hypervisors provided by the professor or selected to design the labs, allowing us to put this
instructor (this implies understanding the tool into practice of all the course contents, again
abstract class called CloudHypervisor in except the security and compliance aspects.
the simulator), the CostBasedHypervisor
and the TimeBasedHypervisor. The first • Assignment 0 (2 weeks): The main ob-
implements policies trying to minimize the jective of this assignment is again to fa-
cost for the user while the second tries to
minimize the response time of the job. A Table 5. Architecting the cloud
comparison of the behavior of an applica-
tion execution with these three hypervisors Knowledge Total Topics
must be performed by the students. area Hours of
Coverage
• Assignment 3 (3 weeks): In this assign-
Architecture of 20 Data center design. Green
ment, the students have to modify the de- the cloud data centers. Physical
fault behavior of the simulator creating and virtual resource
management: load
their own virtual machine appliances, pro- balancing, scheduling,
posing their own policies for the hypervi- provisioning and allocation.
SLA management and
sor module and modeling new applications performance issues. Cloud
following the guides and requisites provid- federations.
ed by the professor or instructor. Migration 10 Integration of public and
• Final project (3 weeks): Once students to the cloud, private clouds in hybrid
integration and deployments. Standards
understand the fundamental issues of cloud interoperability and best practices for
computing and know how to use and mod- interoperability.
ify the iCanCloud simulator, in this open Cloud security 5 Building secure clouds:
and compliance tools, standards and
project they are asked to propose topics of best practices for “audit,
their specific interest to work in their final assertion, assessment, and
assurance”.
project, using if necessary the extensions
and complementary tools for this simulator Cloud 5 Enterprise and market
economics and cloud computing. Service
discussed in previous sections. legal issues life cycle management.
Governance models.
212

miliarize the students with the selected nism) and to compare the time-shared and
simulation framework. It only requires the space-shared alternatives available for the
download and installation of the simulation VmScheduler and for the CloudletScheduler
framework and the execution of different policies.
examples (included in the simulator) with • Assignment 3 (3 weeks): In this case, the
the Eclipse development environment. students have to modify the simulator de-
During the lab session dedicated to this sign, developing their own policies for ef-
project, the students should also locate the ficient resource utilization and provision-
source files that they will need to modify ing at different levels following the guides
in future projects and learn to interpret the and requisites provided by the professor or
results returned by the simulator using the instructor.
console (remember that in this case there is • Final Project (3 weeks): One of the ad-
not a GUI available). vantages of the CloudSim framework is
• Assignment 1 (3 weeks): The main objec- that it implements generic provisioning,
tive of this assignment is to understand the management, brokering and billing tech-
different components of a data center, their niques that can be easily extended by stu-
performance figures and their relation- dents. In this open research project, they
ships. Different simulation scenarios with are asked to implement new brokering pol-
increasing complexity are proposed to un- icies related to SLA fulfillment and to add
derstand the abstract classes DataCenter, an inter-cloud provisioning policy in the
Host (physical machine or server), Vm CloudCoordinator entity needed to simu-
(virtual machine), DataCenterBroker and late a federation of clouds. From here, stu-
Cloudlet (this is how users’ applications, dents with specific interests are allowed to
tasks, jobs and services are called in this propose different topics to the professors to
simulator) and their behavior. complete their final projects using if neces-
• Assignment 2 (3 weeks): The objective of sary some of the CloudSim extensions and
this exercise is to understand the policies complementary tools introduced in the pre-
for efficient resource utilization and provi- vious sections.
sioning at different levels implemented in
the CloudSim framework. Students have to
handle and understand the abstract classes CONCLUSION AND
VmAllocationPolicy (to create VM instanc- FUTURE DIRECTION
es on hosts that match the requirements of
the users’ applications), VmScheduler (to The recent expansion of the cloud computing
allocate processing elements to VMs in paradigm has motivated universities and higher-
one specific host) and CloudletScheduler education institutions to include cloud-related
(to share processing power among cloud- topics in STEM curricula. Cloud-related contents
lets executing on a virtual machine). must be carefully designed to achieve an optimum
Different simulation scenarios are pro- balance between theory and practice, between
posed by the professor or instructor to un- traditional passive learning methodologies and
derstand the default VmAllocationPolicy hands-on experiences.
implemented by CloudSim (called Simulation tools can provide students with
VmAllocationPolicySimple because it is the opportunity to understand, observe, engage
based on a First Come First Served mecha- with, experiment and explore cloud computing
213

concepts in different knowledge areas (up to six of the new flexibility to propose more realistic
different cloud computing knowledge areas have experiences to students and spending less time in
been identified in this chapter) regardless of the their preparation. A simulator capable of model-
characteristics and limitations of their institutions. ing security and compliance aspects in cloud
There are other alternatives to design hands-on computing environments (or an extension for an
exercises such as using private and public clouds existing simulator) is needed. And finally, a cloud
or cloud testbeds, but they are not applicable to a simulation community including academic and
wide range of institutions mainly due to economic research institutions, professors and instructors,
limitations or to the number (if huge) or nature students and industry agents would be very useful
(if remote or on-line) of students. for pedagogical purposes.
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217
218
Chapter 14
Screencasts in Mathematics:
Modelling the Mathematician
Robin Hankin
AUT, New Zealand
ABSTRACT
A screencast is a video recording of a computer monitor display, together with voice-over. This teaching
technique has multiple advantages including the ability to model the thought processes of a mathematician
in a context in which content may be repeated at will. Anecdotal evidence suggests that screencasts can
be a very effective teaching tool, especially for providing model answers. Here, screencasts are discussed
from a pedagogical and curriculum perspective using student feedback statistics as data. Specifically,
screencasts offer a teaching resource that has value for many traditionally difficult groups of students.
For example, poorly engaged students are well-served, as the barriers for participation are low; and
high-achieving students benefit from the directed narrative. All students valued the ability to view mate-
rial multiple times at will. The chapter concludes with some observations about how the overall learning
environment might be improved in the context of undergraduate mathematics.
INTRODUCTION BACKGROUND
In the teaching of undergraduate mathematics, The educational value of a traditional lecture

one commonly stated aim is to explicitly model has been questioned many times in the literature
mathematical thinking, that is, to provide an on various grounds by Biggs and Tang (2011),
example of a working mathematician. This is Bergsten (2007), and others. Criticisms of the
relatively easy in the discipline of mathematics lecture format include: the tendency to turn the
because, uniquely, a mathematics lecture involves audience into passive listeners rather than active
the lecturer actually doing mathematics, rather participants; the dishonest presentation of math-
than merely talking about it. In this chapter I ematics as a linear predetermined progression
will discuss the issue of specimen answers in the rather than a “social activity coloured by creativ-
context of modelling. ity and struggle”; and poor comprehension of the
material by the audience.
DOI: 10.4018/978-1-4666-9924-3.ch014

Screencasts in Mathematics
Mathematics, however, appears to be qualita- One might characterise lecture-style proof

tively different from other subjects in the sense as being more familiar to the lecturer than the
that the essence of a mathematics lecture is a proofs used in research, but the idea is the same.
mathematician doing, rather than talking about, The criteria for acceptance are identical. It is
mathematics. Consider, for example, a lecture on here that Bergsten’s (2007) criticism of lectures
survey engineering. This will comprise the teacher as pre-formed linear sequences becomes evident;
discussing, explaining, and perhaps illustrating genuine mathematics research as a process is
various aspects of surveying. At no point does a generally characterized as being frustratingly
lecturer actually perform any action that might iterative and bedevilled by confusion and other
be described as surveying: he does not even go cognitive impairments.
outdoors. It is a common philosophy of teaching
It is also interesting to observe that, when a (Shulman 2005) to model the behaviour of a
mathematics lecturer does talk about mathemat- mathematician; this is made easier by the fact
ics (for example, mentioning the history of the that mathematics teaching is, at least in theory,
subject), such discussion is invariably short, and perfectly aligned in the sense of Biggs and Tang
presented “for interest”; it stands out like a sore (2011). Consider Cauchy’s theorem, a crucial
thumb; the students stop writing. They know that requirement for many branches of modern math-
it’s not real mathematics, it’s just the lecturer mak- ematics; its proof is regarded as the highlight of
ing light conversation by way of a break. Hartley many undergraduate courses in complex analysis.
and Hawkes (1983) – a standard mathematics The Cauchy’s theorem component of a course will
textbook – illustrates this perfectly. Chapter Five have the following features:
opens with a gentle and chatty introduction: “a
module . . . turns up in many seemingly unlikely • Learning objective: prove Cauchy’s
guises . . . such an apparently all-embracing ob- theorem.
ject will suffer from some of the defects of great • Teaching activity: prove Cauchy’s theorem.
generality . . . the reader’s progression will be • Assessment task: prove Cauchy’s theorem.
from the specific to the general and back to the
specific again”. The chapter introduction culmi- While the above exhibits perfect alignment,
nates in a sharp “Now down to work!” and the observe that an additional alignment exists: the
style immediately reverts to the default: formal, Teaching Activity, if properly performed, involves
axiomatic mathematics. the student proving Cauchy’s theorem. This is
Thus, during a mathematics lecture, the math- a good example of functioning knowledge for
ematician actually performs genuine mathematics. a mathematician (Biggs & Tang, 2011, p. 162).
The teacher will actually prove mathematical state- In most subjects, controlled examinations are
ments and explicitly creates (or at least verifies) not aligned with high-level learning objectives
knowledge in front of the students as part of a live (Biggs & Tang, 2011, p. 227) and place the stu-
performance. It is worth noting that the process of dent under strict time constraints. This has led to
mathematical proof used in a lecture is identical suggestions that where learning objectives include
to that used by a professional mathematician. It the need to work under pressure, conventional
is also worth noting that, when performed cor- examinations are more suited to performance
rectly, the audience members will perform genuine assessment. However, observe that a mathemat-
mathematics along with the lecturer in the sense ics examination is arguably a peculiar type of
that they actually prove mathematical statements. performance assessment: an examination question
219

asking for a proof of Cauchy’s theorem obliges Specimen Answers

the student to undergo the internal experience
of proving the theorem; the student is assessed One standard component of many university
on their ability to furnish evidence that they can courses, including mathematics, is the setting of
indeed experience, at will, the sudden shocking assessment questions, followed after the students’
flash of insight that mathematicians call “proof”. attempts by a set of model answers (or specimen
This evidence is typically provided through a answers) which show the desired answer. Speci-
highly formalized written performance. Observe men answers are defined by Huxham (2007) as
that the performance itself is not assessed, as it ideal responses [to examination questions] which
is an internal experience: it is only the written would receive 100% of the marks, generated by the
evidence that the learning objective has been tutor. Huxham points out that specimen answers
achieved that is assessed. furnish, in addition to a ‘correct’ response, the
Given that a mathematics lecture is a perfor- level of detail required for course credit. Given
mance of genuine mathematics, how does the that whiteboards afford a very satisfactory medium
mathematician model mathematical thought in by which to model mathematical thoughts, how
such a way as to be visible to 200 undergradu- does the provision of specimen answers sit in
ates simultaneously? The answer, for hundreds this context? Biggs and Tang (2011, p87) argue
of years, has been to use a blackboard or more persuasively that providing specimen answers is
recently its functional equivalent, a whiteboard. counterproductive from the perspective of deep/
Most teaching institutions instinctively appreciate shallow learning; specifically, they encourage ac-
the pedagogical value of whiteboards in the context tivities at the lowest levels in the SOLO taxonomy
of mathematics, but occasionally one encounters such as memorization or simple identification;
pressure to “modernise” and eschew whiteboards they encourage “learning to the exam” in that
in favour of multimedia technology. The signature they encourage a surface approach to examination
pedagogy (Shulman 2005) of whiteboards in math- questions (for example, they indicate precisely
ematics is well-described in the following quote, the level of detail required for course credit, not
which was part of an institution-wide discussion something generally associated with deep learn-
of teaching technology: ing). However, such specimen answers can, at
least in theory, stimulate higher-level activity
The key delivery of the material is to interact with (an example would be a student wondering how
the students using a whiteboard. The proof of a the lecture content would lead to that particular
result or a theorem, or the solution of a problem, technique).
all need take place on such a secondary medium. Provision of augmented specimen answers
Students seeing the “master at work”, explaining goes some way to mitigating these defects. This
his or her thought process, is in itself a major teaching resource comprises a specimen answer
component of the learning process. Without [ie a minimal-full-credit response], conventionally
such freedom to interact with students by using written in red ink, together with additional text
a whiteboard, we are denied an opportunity to (in blue) provided “for revision”, not needed for
present our craft in a suitable way (J. E. Hunter, full exam credit. This division is itself conducive
personal communication, April 15, 2013; slight to higher-level learning: the student is forced to
copyediting) ask where and why the red text ends and the blue
220

begins (of course, the demarcation is revealed by downloaded the screencasts. This agrees with
the student (re-) reading and understanding the Winterbottom (2007) who reported figures in
question, not a bad outcome). the 58-88% range. It is more difficult to assess
Even augmented specimen answers suffer from the number of students who actually viewed the
one defect. They are polished pieces of work; the screencasts. However, the number actually viewing
creation process is invisible to the student. As the screencasts is likely to be high on the grounds
Smith and Hungwe (1998) point out: “if guessing that the default action, on clicking the screencast
and the resulting cycle of inquiry does not become link in a browser session, is to view the screencast
visible to students, they are left with only public immediately. Further, each screencast is at most
mathematics—the carefully crafted propositions 5 minutes long (many are much shorter), and not
and polished arguments they see in their texts”. too onerous to view, at least casually. Yee (2010)
Creating specimen answers in front of stu- considers sub-five minute screencasts and states
dents, perhaps during a lecture, goes some way that “such an approach has multiple benefits,
to remedying these defects. The students see the including a more narrowed focus and increased
thought processes, explicitly discussed. They see likelihood that students will find time to view the
the mistakes the mathematician makes and how videos” [my emphasis].
they are dealt with: detecting and correcting errors, Learning of all types is much more effective
both computational and cognitive, is a big part of when it involves active participation rather than
many intended learning objectives. consumed passively (Pratton & Hales, 1986) and
Combined with the advantages of augmented one potential pitfall of screencasts is that they are,
specimen answers, this is a potent teaching tool. I like lectures, easy to watch and not engage with.
can wonder out loud (and ask the students) whether Although the easy style of screencasts does have
a certain piece of text should be red or blue. Bor- advantages (large percentage of student uptake,
derline cases are fascinating—and instructive, as see above), a screencast is not nearly as effective
they focus attention on the precise relationship if watched passively.
between question and answer. The educator can One good indicator that the students are not
make public the flash of insight that constitutes passively watching is their taking active control
a proof, and this is a very valuable modelling over the timeline of the video (Sugar, Brown &
exercise. However, the creation is still defective Luterbach 2010). The students value the ability to
in that the process is modelled only once, and pause the recording while watching, and rewind;
students can miss details or important points. A this allows them to review material at their own
screencast, discussed below, nullifies this defect. pace. Having said that, one clear advantage of the
screencast is the low barrier to participation: even
the most poorly-motivated student can passively
SCREENCASTS watch a five-minute screencast.
Biggs & Tang (2009) suggest that such issues be
A screencast is a video recording of a computer considered using the “Robert and Susan” device:
monitor display, together with voice-over. With Robert and Susan are respective personifications
increasing accessibility of technology, screen- of the stereotypical under- and properly- motivated
casts are becoming easier both to create and to student. In a lecture situation we have “Susan
view. Screencasts appear to be a popular teach- working at a high level of engagement . . . Robert
ing resource with viewing figures for one large taking notes and memorizing” (Biggs & Tang,
first year course at AUT standing at around 77%: 2009, p. 6). I would suggest that screencasts help
that is, over three-quarters of the class actively the Roberts and the Susans in different ways:
221

Robert can at least passively watch, while Susan Mathematics examinations are typically closed
reproduces the underlying thought processes. in the sense that there is only a very narrow range
of responses which can give full credit. There is
Screencasts Elsewhere in Education little scope for creativity. Students clamour for
model answers to assignments and in-course tests,
Screencasts occur elsewhere in education; one as well as to previous examinations.
notable example would be the Khan Academy It is possible to produce model answers of
(Thompson 2011) which is a freely accessible varying sophistication. The straightforward model
online resource comprising educational scre- answer has yielded to an augmented model answer,
encasts covering a wide variety of topics (Noer which contains colour-coded notes for revision,
2012). Other providers would include Coursera usually verifications that an answer is correct
and Alison, among many. These and other online (via cross-checking with a different method); it
resources are noted as providing high-quality is possible to consciously model a professional
source materials to students. However, in the research mathematician by analysing a different,
current context, such resources are typically not unasked, question.
tightly coupled—in either content, notation or ap-
proach—to specific undergraduate units of study. Unexpected Negative Outcomes
of Distributing Screencasts
Issues, Controversies, Problems:
Unexpected Outcomes of Many authors such as Winterbottom (2007) ex-
Distributing Screencasts press concern that screencasts could decrease lec-
ture attendance, and state that screencasts should
As discussed above, screencasts can help the not be viewed as a replacement for face-to-face
Robert and Susan problem. Falconer, deGrazia, teaching. Here I discuss whether this has in fact
Medlin, and Holmberg (2009) consider this and occurred and, if so, whether it matters. There is
state: an important distinction between screencasts and
webcasts. A webcast is a video recording of a
Screencasts of example problems can be superior lecture; not discussed here.
to written solutions because students can listen Massington and Harrington (2006) consider
to the instructors explain the problem-solving whether availability of online material depresses
strategies that they use. Research has shown that lecture attendance. He concludes that it does not,
when given just the final written solution to a stating that students’ attitudes to teaching and
problem, good students use the solutions differ- assessment is a more important determinant of
ently than poor students. The good students use attendance.
the solutions to justify the individual steps in the Pondering this issue highlights a long-standing
solution to gain a deeper understanding, whereas uncertainty about the purpose of lecture atten-
the poor students tend to just follow the steps dance, especially in the presence of online course
without connecting the solution to the concepts. material such as screencasts but also including
With screencasts, all of the students are able to streamed video-recording. Many authors consider
hear an expert’s explanation and understand how university lectures from a pedagogical viewpoint
each step in the solution relates to the underlying but there is almost nothing published which con-
principles. (p. 286) siders the function of a lecture from a sociological
perspective. T. Clear (personal communication,
222

October, 2013) is one of the few thinkers who con- CONCLUSION

siders the conventional lecture in this context and
states that a lecture, viewed as a social construct, The primary consideration is whether screencasts
has four functions which cannot be achieved by achieve anything that regular lectures do not. I
online delivery: think they do. First of all, students watch them
(77%), and appear to do so as active, engaged learn-
• A lecture structures the student’s working ers. Students can, and do, watch the screencasts
day and creates a regular timetable during as active participants, and active participation is
which the subject is at least thought about. generally held to improve learning. Students have
• A lecture requires physical presence; it the opportunity to observe genuine thought pro-
brings together a large number of people, cesses of a professional mathematician, together
all in a similar position and with a similar with the ability to view the material multiple
relationship to the subject, and thereby cre- times at will. In this sense at least screencasts are,
ates a student group identity. I suggest, an unqualified success.
• A lecture is a live theatrical performance,
and can be enjoyed as such.
• A lecture is an interactive teaching medi- REFERENCES
um: students can ask questions in real time.
Bergsten, C. (2007). Investigating quality of
These are valuable functions for a lecture to undergraduate lectures. Mathematics Education
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Costa, A. L., & Kallick, N. (2000). Discovering
FUTURE RESEARCH DIRECTIONS and exploring habits of mind. Alexandria, VA:
Association for Supervision and Curriculum
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Falconer, J. L., deGrazia, J., Medlin, J. W., &
their pedagogical use are uncertain. For example,
Holmberg, M. P. (2009). Article. Chemical En-
do screencasts model mathematical thinking more
gineering Education, 43(4), 286–289.
effectively than live lectures? If so, are there any
beneficial aspects of live lectures that may be Huxham, M. (2007). Fast and effective feedback:
incorporated in to screencasts? Does screencast- Are model answers the answer? Assessment &
ing of specimen answers mitigate the deficiencies Evaluation in Higher Education, 3(26), 601–611.
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224
225
Chapter 15
Support for Cloud-
Based Mobile Learning
Kritika Verma
ICAI, India
Sonal Dubey
RGPV, India
M. A. Rizvi
NITTTR, India
ABSTRACT
Cloud based mobile learning (m-learning) is emerging as one of the most important branches of cloud
computing, and is still in its infancy. These days, there are two emerging archetypes in Information and
Communication Technologies (ICT) for learning. The first one is the anytime, anywhere, on-the-move,
to be called the mobility archetype, and the second one is the cloud computing. Both archetypes are
radically transforming the way we learn, communicate, access, and utilize information resources, and
connect with peers and colleagues, thus affecting all aspects of education. This chapter delivers an
introduction of the evolution of cloud based m-learning, benefits and characteristics of cloud based m-
learning. It also canvasses the current scenario of m-learning utilizing the cloud, various challenges for
implementing the m-learning system on the cloud. It further confers technologies used for cloud based
m-learning. It also considers a brief look at methods for creating m-learning content and experiences,
suggested by various researchers and concluded with the future aspects of the cloud based m-learning.
INTRODUCTION of ways: people can use mobile devices to get

access to educational resources, connect with
Mobile learning or m-learning involves the use others, or create content, both inside and outside
of mobile technology, either alone or in combina- classrooms. As mobile devices are gradually
tion with other information and communication converging into Individual Information Centers,
technology (ICT), to enable learning anytime m-learning becomes a viable learning channel
and anywhere. Learning can unfold in a variety that would fit the living style of today.
DOI: 10.4018/978-1-4666-9924-3.ch015

Support for Cloud-Based Mobile Learning
The term mobile learning (m-learning) has usage, is being widely deployed for several ap-
various meanings. Even though m-learning is plications in many organizations. It is envisioned
related to e-learning and distance education, it is that, in the near future, cloud computing will have
different in its focus on learning across contexts a significant impact in the mobile based teaching
and learning with mobile devices. M-learning learning environment also, enabling its own users
can also be defined as “any sort of learning that to perform their tasks effectively with less cost.
happens when the learner is not at a fixed, pre- Summarizing cloud computing according to
determined location, or learning that happens the NIST (2011), cloud computing is a model for
when the learner takes advantage of the learning enabling convenient, on-demand network access to
opportunities offered by mobile technologies”. In a shared pool of configurable computing resources
other words, m-learning decreases the limitation (e.g., networks, servers, storage, applications, and
of learning location with the mobility of general services) that can be rapidly provisioned and re-
portable devices. leased with minimal management effort or service
M-learning refers to the use of mobile or wire- provider interaction.
less devices for the purpose of learning while on The significant momentum and attention have
the move. Typical devices used for m-learning been attracted by both cloud computing and m-
includes cell phones, smart phones, handheld learning, but still they were treated as separate
computers, tablet PCs, laptops, and personal media entities, with little work accomplished in their
players, etc. M-learning is any sort of learning that synergy. The integration of the cloud computing
takes advantage of learning opportunities offered and m-learning was viewed in terms of accessi-
by mobile technologies. The main objective of m- bility and mobility features of cloud computing.
learning is that the learners can get the knowledge This creates m-learning based on cloud comput-
from the centralized shared resources at anytime ing, to be called m-learning. M-learning is at the
and anywhere they like free of cost. Increasing intersection of mobile computing and e-learning
penetration of mobile phones, personal digital as- conveying e-learning through mobile devices using
sistants (PDAs), and smart phones have redefined wireless connectivity; this intersection includes
and accelerated the growth of mobile learning—or the use of desktops as well as laptops. M-learning
m-learning. There are three ways in which learn- provides powerful features and functions such as
ing can be considered mobile—in terms of space, mobility, reachability, localization, flexibility,
in different areas of life, and with respect to time and motivational effects due to self-controlling
(Townsend, Bond, & Zimmermann, 2013). and better use of spare time.
It is the era of the emergence of a connected, M-learning provides the potential to provide the
mobile society, with a variety of information right information to the right people at anytime and
sources and means of communication available at anyplace using portable learning devices. Thus,
home, office, organizations and in the community m-learning can be summarized in a single state-
at large. To be always connected there are many ment – “deliverance of education or any learning
ways like mobile, tablet, etc. via any portable devices” (Goundar, 2010). M-
Although cloud computing has established learning and cloud computing are two of today’s
itself as a novel paradigm, mobile devices have buzzwords in the academic and business worlds.
unique characteristics and capabilities that are not An m-learning environment works as an
inherently made part of a cloud and this new ad-hoc interface between the students and their learn-
infrastructure is based on mobile devices. Despite ing objectives, and provides different modes of
the attention acquired, cloud computing, with learning. The m-learning environment supports
its dynamic scalability and virtualized resource
226

several learning strategies and different ways of M-learning combines e-learning and mobile com-
communication, interaction, and collaboration. puting. It has the benefits of mobility and its sup-
In addition to major cloud infrastructure porting platform. M-learning is a means to enhance
providers, such as Google, Rackspace, Amazon, the broader learning experience. M-learning is a
Microsoft and IBM, more and more third-party powerful method for engaging learners on their
cloud data service providers are emerging which own terms. M-learning is the acquisition and use
are dedicated to offering more accessible and of knowledge distributed and facilitated primarily
user-friendly storage services to cloud customers. by electronic means. It may include the use of
In cloud based m-learning, learners can access web-based teaching materials and hypermedia in
content, such as text-based documents, audio, and general, multimedia CD-ROMs, websites, discus-
video files, over the cloud via their mobile devices sion boards, collaborative software, e-mail, blogs,
(such as tab, smart phone, laptop, etc.) connected test chat, computer aided assessment, educational
with the Internet (such as GPRS, UMTS, HSPA, animation, simulations, games, learning manage-
WiFi, WiMAX, or LTE) (Rao, Sasidhar, & Kumar, ment software, electronic voting systems and
2010) as shown in Figure 1. more, with possibly a combination of different
methods being used. E-learning is an approach to
facilitate and enhance learning through and based
E-LEARNING VS. M-LEARNING on both computer and communication technology.
M-learning is learning accomplished with the
The term ‘m-learning’ has traditionally been use of small, portable computing devices. These
defined under the pretext of a device’s perceived computing devices may include: smart phones,
physical capability. That is, m-learning has been personal digital assistants (PDAs), palmtops and
equated with any e-learning module that can run similar handheld devices. There is some debate
on a portable device. on the inclusion of tablet and laptop computers.
E-learning is a subset of distance learning and Often, wireless two-way internet connection is as-
m-learning is a subset of e-learning. E-learning and sumed as an integral component. M-learning is the
m-learning have become extremely important buzz idea that a student can learn from any place at any
words of the educational technological revolution. time using portable learning devices. M-learning
Figure 1. The concept of cloud based m-learning
227

Figure 2. Perspective of learning paradigms (Georgiev et al., 2004)
or ‘mobile learning’ is any sort of learning that content can provide the ability to access critical
takes advantage of learning opportunities offered information and support materials regardless of
by mobile technologies (Zamani & Abu, 2014). location. The differences between e-learning and
M-learning is not only the function of portabil- m-learning are further discussed in Table 1 on the
ity within an e-learning spectrum. This requires basis of a few parameters (Behera, 2013).
moving beyond the superficial definition and
examining m-learning’s attachment to device ca-
pabilities in conjunction with learner context and THE EVOLUTION OF M-LEARNING
design elements, all of which are essential factors
in defining mobile education and its distinction Evolution of m-learning can be classified in eras
from e-learning. of 10 years duration for better understanding as
M-learning is a subset of e-learning. Their described in Table 2 and Table 3. In current sce-
relationships are shown in Figure 2. nario people are on the move and are demanding
The primary differences between m-learning access to materials and information anytime and
and e-learning are categorized as: timing, infor- anywhere via the Internet on the mobile devices.
mation access, context and assessment. It is now At the same time, there is increasing use of mobile
possible to deliver course content across various technology in different sectors of society to meet
platforms using a mobile browser. This alternative the needs of people on the move. Younger genera-
method has the potential to be more effective and tions are using mobile technologies and mobile
gain wider acceptance by users over computer- devices to access information and multimedia
based e-learning. This alternative t method of materials for learning and to communicate with
content delivery has the potential to optimize time friends. They readily accept technology and con-
management, make mandatory training more ac- sider technology to be part of their lives. Because
cessible, and can help improve readiness. Mobile of the increasing use of mobile technologies in
228

Table 1. Comparison of e-learning and m-learning
Parameters E-Learning M-Learning

Location of learning In classroom or Internet labs Anywhere, anytime
Device used Uses fixed, wired devices such as PC’s Uses wireless communication devices such as smart phones,
microcomputers and PDAs.
Educational change More text and graphics based learning More voice, animation and graphics based learning
Communication between Passive, Asynchronous, Scheduled Instant, Synchronous, Spontaneous

educator and learner
Communication between Face-to-face, Dedicated time for group meeting, Flexible, No dedicated time for group meeting; possible 24 x 7,
learner and learner Specific location, Audio-teleconference is common No geographic boundaries, Audio and video-teleconference is
possible
Communication channels’ Low protection levels as learners use more than one More protection as learners use their own devices to connect with
protection device others
Resource sharing Difficult to transfer books and files between individual Bluetooth and IR technologies make resource sharing among
learners learners more easy
Feedback to learners Mass/standardized instructions, Benchmark based Customized instructions, Performance and improvement based
grading, Asynchronous and at times delayed grading, Both asynchronous and synchronous
Assignments and Tests In class or on computer, Standard test, Restricted Any location, Individualized test, Any amount of time possible,
amount of time, Dedicated time, Usually delayed 24 x 7 Instantaneous, Instant feedback possible
feedback
Presentations, Assignments Observation and monitoring in lab, Usually use of Observation and monitoring from remote location, Automatic
and Exams one language, Class based presentations, Mostly translation in many languages possible, 1-to-1 presentations with
individualized, component based group work much richer communication, Simultaneous collaborative group
work
society and by the younger generation, learners 1990, and improbability does not exist now. Table
demand course materials be delivered on mobile 3 shows that in recent years learning systems are
technologies to be accessed from anywhere any- made user friendly, fault tolerant and approachable
time. As learners move from one location to the to the distinct user with parameters like portability,
other, they must be able to use the infrastructure in durability, availability, etc. All those parameters
the different locations to access learning materials. are clubbed and compared, which shows the scene
Hence, learning materials must be designed for of learning system of different eras.
easy access by the nomadic learners using mobile
technology regardless of where they are located
and which network infrastructure they are using CURRENT SCENARIO OF
to access information. M-LEARNING UTILIZING CLOUD
Table 2 categorized various technologies which
were used in various eras in the technology based In terms of applied technologies and commu-
teaching and learning. nication protocols, in general, two methods of
Table 2 shows the year by year improvement m-learning are followed till now:
in the technology of learning systems. After
analyzing the evolution of technology based 1. SMS based;
learning which was categorized in Table 2, some 2. WAP based.
parameters of learning systems were identified,
and their existence within the learning systems in SMS based: In this, learners gain informa-
different eras is mentioned in Table 3; for example, tion from subscribed SMS at the service center,
heterogeneity is present in learning systems since
229

Table 2. Evolution of learning systems in different time period
Eras Evolution/ Technological Development

1940-1950 • Hypertext like device called Memex was used.
• Human - machine communication was introduced.
1950-1960 • First televised college credit classes were offered.

• Programed instructions were developed.
• Adaptive teaching system was developed.
• Broadcasting of the lectures started.
• PLATO (Programed Logic for Automated Teaching Operations) system was developed.
1960-1970 • Online training system was proposed.

• The first authoring system for developing lessons and courses on a computer system was produced.
• Improved PLATO system with two methods to teach (i) Tutorial logic (ii) Inquiry logic was developed.
• COURSEWRITER for online interactive Computer Assisted Instruction systems was introduced.
• Telesecundaria, a system based on satellite TV was set up.
• Time-shared, Interactive, Computer-Controlled, Information Television (TICCIT) system was described.
• ARPANET now it is known as Internet was developed.
• The Havering Computer Managed Learning System was developed.
1970-1980 • Successmaker, a K–12 learning management system was into practice.

• TLM (The Learning Manager) was originally called LMS (Learning Management System) was released.
1980-1990 • Viewdata (videotex) system, called OPTEL was developed.

• An interactive online educational development and delivery system was implemented.
• Online Learning Circles were offered.
• Networked Educational Online System (NEOS) was developed.
1990-2000 • The SmartBoard was introduced.

• In 1992, the first full motion video MPEG compression methods was developed and full motion video becomes available for all
manner of digital programs.
• The “Interactive Learning Network” ILN 1.5 was developed.
• Open LMS was developed.
2000-2010 • Moodle was developed.

• The first XML LMS / LCMS were launched.
• ILIAS 2.0 was released.
• The open-source course management system was released.
• Moodle version 1.0 was released.
• LON-CAPA version 1.0 was released.
• SCORM 1.2 was released.
• OLAT 4.0 was introduced with features like XMPP, RSS, SCORM etc.
• Chamilo open source was released.
2010- till date • Simultaneous authoring, immediate access enabled tools were launched.
• Cloud services came into practice.
Table 3. Comparison of different parameters of learning system
Parameters 1940- 1950- 1960- 1970- 1980- 1990- 2000- Present

1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010
Ease of Use NO NO NO NO NO YES YES YES
Efficiency NO NO YES YES YES YES YES YES
Elastic Scalability NO NO NO NO NO NO YES YES
Fault Tolerance NO NO NO NO NO YES YES YES
Durability NO NO NO NO NO YES YES YES
Improbability YES YES YES YES YES YES NO NO
Portability NO NO NO NO YES YES YES YES
Availability NO NO YES YES YES YES YES YES
Heterogeneity NO NO NO NO NO YES YES YES
230

however, no real-time communications between is discussed below. Table 4 presents the contribu-
learners and the educators. tions and limitations of a few research works on
WAP based: Not enough WAP sites are built for m-learning systems based on the cloud.
education, so it is limited in resources; however,
the data transmission efficiency is too low for
users to use in learning and is too expensive. Due ARCHITECTURE OF M-LEARNING
to the flaws, it is so hard to become the popular SYSTEM USING CLOUD
trend, which restricts the growth of m-learning.
The cloud technologies have covered the short- The general architecture of the m-learning system
age, leading to the important changes in m-learn- using the cloud is shown in Figure 3. In Figure 3,
ing. Within this context, most of the educational mobile devices like smart phones, tablets, PDAs,
resources are stored on the cloud, users access etc. are connected to the mobile networks via base
them across the internet, and thus no SMS and stations (e.g., Base Transceiver Station (BTS), ac-
WAP based data transmission is used any more. cess point, or satellite) that establish and control
While in a virtual learning community, learners the connections and functional interfaces between
choose a field suitable for their needs, and then the networks and mobile devices. Mobile users’
develop their own special skills, share knowl- requests and information (e.g., ID and location)
edge, cooperate and help each other in learning. are transmitted to the central processors that are
Still, because of the shortage of resources and connected to servers providing mobile network
technologies, the present learning communities services. After that, the subscribers’ requests
are still attached to some education institutions. are delivered to a cloud through the Internet. In
Their coverage, composition, content and study the cloud, cloud controllers process the requests
strategies are all restricted by the superior insti- to provide mobile users with the corresponding
tutions. Under cloud circumstances, users can cloud services. These services are developed with
utilize the applications and resources, which the theories of virtualization, utility computing,
are all integrated on the cloud, to establish their and service-oriented architecture (e.g. web, ap-
own learning communities and find cooperators plication, and database servers). The details of
in every field. cloud architecture could be different in different
In m-learning, the cloud plays a crucial role environments.
because data sharing is a very important aspect of
this learning system, so the cloud is responsible Suggested Cloud Based
for data sharing security and also for the load Model of M-learning
management during the peak hours without af-
fecting the network band access. Organizations During the literature review, we find that various
of all sizes are using mobile devices for learn- researchers have developed m-learning models.
ing based on cloud technology because there is But there were a few things which were not con-
no longer the need for large infrastructure and sidered in those models. There is a big thrust to
support costs. So, under the cloud environment, develop a new model which is strong and justi-
there is no other requirement for mobile devices fied, and fulfils the needs of users at large. Thus
except the computing power to run the browser to overcome these drawbacks, using some of the
and so a general mobile is enough to meet this implemented works, a new model has been sug-
requirement. Thus, these days, a lot of research gested which is shown in Figure 4.
work is going on in this field. Some of the work
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Table 4. The contributions and limitations in the related research works
Authors Title of Paper Contribution Limitations

Lim, Tina, MansorFadzil, Mobile Learning via Proposed implementation of High cost, limited number
NorziatiMansor SMS at Open University m-learning via short message of characters in a single
Malaysia: Equitable, service (SMS). message, use of text message
Effective, and Sustainable only and late delivery of
SMS.
Masud et al. Enhanced m-learning with Presented an m-learning Restricted processing power,
cloud computing: The architecture based on cloud. input capability, limited
Bangladesh case resources and memory
capacity, small screen.
Chen, Shaoyong, Min Lin; Research of Mobile Developed a cloud based Limited data computing
Huanming, Zhang; Learning System Based on m-learning system model and power and no validation of
Cloud Computing described the functional design the work.
and framework for the system.
Lee and Salman The Design and Designed and developed It supports only android
Development of Mobile standalone client/server platform, low network
Collaborative Learning application of m-learning using transmission rate.
Application Using Android android platform.
Saranya and Vijaylashmi Interactive Mobile Live Proposed a design of an The system is not attached to
Video Learning System in interactive live mobile video any educational institution.
Cloud Environment learning system in cloud System installation, updates
environment. and maintenance on low
storage space mobile device.
Ferzli, Rony, Ibrahim Khalife, Mobile Cloud Computing Presented Mobi4Ed mobile No assessment to quantify
Educational Tool for educational tool to take and validate the usefulness of
Image/Video Processing advantage of cloud. The tool the tool.
Algorithms processes complex and large
computations and image and
videos.
Paduri and Conradie Mobile Cloud Framework Described a conceptual Provides a generic view of
Architecture for Education framework for educational cloud the cloud architecture for the
Institutions architecture design. educational institutions.
Lee, Jae Dong, Jong Application for Mobile Illustrated a model for m-learning The model is not clearly
Hyuk Park Cloud Learning system based on cloud and its described in detail in the
application. It is an effort to paper.
enhance the m-learning system.
Masud and Haung A Cloud Based m-learning Suggested a new architecture for The relevant aspect related
Architecture for Higher mobile based distance learning to design and development
Education system in an extended cloud of the architecture not clearly
environment enriched with mentioned.
mobiles and wireless devices
Mao, Jin Social Media for Learning: Conducted a study that The research purpose and its
A Mixed Methods Study recommend that social media is a methodological aspects not
on High School Students’ helpful learning tool. indicated clearly.
Technology Affordances
and Perspective
Gómez, Sergio, et al. Context- Aware Adaptive Proposed a context -aware Android platform
and Personalized Mobile adaptive and personalized dependency and there is no
Learning Delivery m-learning system, namely the real time communication
Supported by UoLmP Units of Learning mobile Player between learners.
(UoLmP) aiming to support
semi-automatic adaption of
learning activities.
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Figure 3. General architecture of cloud based m-learning
Figure 4. Proposed m-learning model on the cloud
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The m-learning applications are accessed CLOUD LEARNING

by the end users via the above proposed model MANAGEMENT (CLM)
through the SaaS layer of the cloud. The proposed
m-learning model on the cloud can be divided into The CLM stands for Cloud Learning Management,
the following layers: a word coined by us. The CLM on mobile at its
simplest refers to an infrastructure where both the
1. The Software as a Service (SaaS) Layer: data storage and data processing happen outside
This layer provides the management of the of the mobile device.
content and the administration. The content The CLM on mobile is defined as “the system
has two parts the content development and which moves the computing power and data storage
the content accessibility. It provides the away from the mobile devices and into powerful
assessment and evaluation facility for the and centralized computing platforms located in the
client who uses it and the interaction ser- clouds, which are then accessed over the wireless
vice is there for the client and the provider connection based on a thin native client”.
to transfer information. This layer is also CLM allows leaders of learning and develop-
responsible for all the interactions of a user/ ment functions, who may not be technologists,
client on a machine to the cloud and with the to present a viable option and discussion point to
several other machines. The connectivity is their learners. If one is not using or considering
provided through the wireless network. The a CLM, he/she is missing out on one of the most
machines in the client layer can be tablets, valuable opportunities to deliver a comprehensive
mobile phones, laptops etc. learning solution to the institution.
2. The Platform as a Service (PaaS) Layer: Learning professionals continue to accept
This layer provides the Task Scheduler - here cloud technology as faster than any other area
it is used for scheduling of various tasks due to the convenience, reduced administration
submitted by the client through the SaaS, and better user experience. Learning systems are
QoS Monitor which is used to monitor the critically important to maintain the ongoing health
parameters working according to the need, of an organization. As a result, learning systems
Load Balancer- is present here in PaaS to are an ideal candidate for the switch to cloud
maintain a proper delivery system, Backup technology. In this chapter, we will use cloud
Recovery System- is there to prevent the loss based m-learning for the term CLM on mobile.
of data, Resource Management – as well as
the OS and Middleware System is there for
the convenience of the client/user. FUNCTIONAL DESIGNS
3. The Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) OF CLOUD LEARNING
Layer: This layer gives more flexibility MANAGEMENT (CLM) SYSTEM
when dealing with the Hardware layer but
through the virtualization. This layer is ac- A CLM on mobile should have the following
companied with various features like the functional features:
virtual machines and servers and virtual
storage. The hardware components present 1. Provide Hierarchical Management and
in this infrastructure layer are computers and Software Support: The CLM system is
servers, databases and networking. divided into two parts:
a. Hierarchical management, and
b. Software support.
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They are managed by a professional team in varied social demands for knowledge. At
the cloud terminal. For the clients, the manage- the same time learning resource is more
ment entrance is focused on a particular subject abundant, and all kinds of learning request
or a particular field of management. Hierarchical are satisfied when the learner’s own learning
management ensures the learning quality of clients. data is stored and shared in the cloud.
The cloud provides all the learning software 5. Provide the Mobile Interactive Zone:
needed for the clients with bare machine, and the The user can interact with trainers or other
software is constructed above the various standards learners to view published articles, video
and protocols. Thus all kinds of people can con- and chat, anywhere by moving the device.
duct m-learning shaking off the many troubles for When the user is not online, mobile phone
learners to install, download or upgrade software, short message and instant communication
make learning going well with high efficiency. is to notify users to view and their related
The system can also allocate operating system and information. Learners can also create a
unified maintenance by the “cloud” for every user, multi virtual community for the exchange
avoiding incompatibility between the operating of learning. (Khan, Chen, & Wang, 2014)
system and the learning software. Users do not
need to buy expensive mobile devices of better
configuration and performance; the most common CHARACTERISTICS OF CLOUD
cell phone does the job. BASED M-LEARNING
2. Provide Dynamic Storage Space: Learners M-learning is about self-actuated personalization.

can store and withdraw all of the resources Technology like a cloud, tablets, smart phones,
in the cloud at any time without worrying apps, and access to the Internet are lubricating the
about the sufficiency of free storage space, shift to cloud based m-learning, but a truly im-
loss of information which not only enrich pressive m-learning environment builds on cloud
the learning resources, but also achieve the goes beyond the tools for learning in the lives and
sharing of resources, to the largest extent communities valued by each individual learner.
without the limitation of time and space. The cloud based m-learning has the following
3. Provide Dynamic Data Service: The data characteristics:
include the original data, semi structured
data and the processed structured data. The • Accessibility: A cloud based m-learning
system must be able to provide intelligent environment is about access to content,
service such as the massive sharing, mining, peers, experts, portfolio artifacts, credible
searching, management, analysis and so on, sources, and previous thinking on relevant
in which learners will not be “lost”. In ad- topics. The information is easily accessible
dition, the system must revise and convert from anywhere and whenever the learners
format of dynamic teaching content into need to use it.
the information release form supported by • Availability: With access to the cloud, all
terminal for equipment self-adaptation. data sources and project materials are con-
4. Provide Ubiquitous Resources: Exploitation stantly available, allowing for previously
of learning resources is no longer confined inaccessible levels and styles of revision
to certain educational institutions and edu- and collaboration.
cators. So, CLM must do the work, thereby • Asynchronous: Among the most power-
realizing a variety of resources, to meet the ful principles of cloud based m-learning
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is asynchronous access. This allows the • Learner Centered: M-learning based on

learning environment to move anywhere, the cloud is heavily people-oriented, which
anytime in pursuit of learning. It also meets the individual needs of learners.
enables a learning experience that is in- Learners in the “cloud” select suitable re-
creasingly personalized: just in time, just sources and can track their learning prog-
enough, just for me. ress and outcomes.
• Authentic: Cloud based m-learning envi- • Low Cost: M-learning using cloud also
ronmental feature provides authenticity to makes a low-cost access terminal possible,
learning that is nearly impossible to pro- because software, applications, and data
duce in a classroom. are all operated in the cloud servers. This
• Blending: A cloud based m-learning en- low cost, accessibility can greatly benefit
vironment will always represent a blend- developing regions.
ing of sorts–physical movement, personal • Permanency: The information remains on
communication, and digital interaction. cloud unless the learners purposely remove
• Context-Awareness: The environment can it.
adapt to the learner’s real situation to pro- • Discipline: Reduces student indiscipline
vide adequate information for the learners. and unrest problem.
• Collaborative Interactions: From social • Storage and Sharing: Learning outcomes
learning perspectives, learners can col- and resources can be stored in the “cloud,”
laboratively build common knowledge which provides almost unlimited store
through frequent and convenient interac- and computation capacities. Documents
tions with the help of cloud network. can be commonly edited and shared in the
• Diverse Environment: As learning envi- “cloud,”
ronments change constantly, that fluidity • Self-Actuated: With asynchronous access
becomes a norm that provides a stream to content, peers, and experts comes the
of new ideas, unexpected challenges, and potential for self-actuation.
constant opportunities for revision and • Playful Learning: It is one of the pri-
application of thinking. Audiences are di- mary characteristics of progressive learn-
verse, as are the environment data is being ing, both a cause and effect of an engaged
gleaned from and delivered to. mind. In a cloud based m-learning environ-
• Flexible Learning: M-learning based on ment, learners are encountering a dynamic
cloud allows users to switch applications and often unplanned set of data, domains,
easily and rapidly, using the one that suits and collaborators, changing the tone of
their needs best. Learners have the ability learning from academic and compliant to
to access data from home, on holiday, or personal and play (Townsend, Bond, &
via the commute to and from work. Zimmermann, 2013).
• Interactivity: The learners can interact
with peers, educators and experts efficient-
ly and effectively through different media. BENEFITS OF CLOUD
• Large Mass Covered: Large numbers of BASED M-LEARNING
students can be engaged in cloud based m-
learning that is based on modern technolo- The cloud based m-learning offers a number of
gies, which users use in everyday life. benefits to the users. Some of the main benefits
are described as follows:
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1. Cost Savings: First and foremost, it costs ef- and consistent performance across the va-
fective. By paying regular monthly fees, even riety of computing, storage and application
small organizations, schools and universities, services.
can provide cloud based m-learning services 7. Increased Sharing: As learning resources
without spending large set-up costs for infra- stored in clouds are shared across different
structure as well as the human capital costs institutes more educational resources are
of installation, configuration and ongoing available for cloud based m-learning users.
maintenance (Hirsch & Ng, 2011). In addi- In addition, novel applications and services,
tion, they do not need to instantly maintain which improve collaboration, can be imple-
and upgrade hardware or software. mented, such as collaboration tools between
2. Universal Reach: Cloud based m-learning learners of different institutions.
solutions are robust enough to connect with 8. Flexibility: Cloud based m-learning is also
users wherever they are on the planet as long flexible and allows for adjustments, depend-
as a mobile network is available. This gives ing upon learners’ needs. Since it is accessed
users the ability to drive more learning to through subscription, the user does not need
more people with lowered wait times and a to know where the learning sources are.
better overall learning experience. 9. Secure Environment: Application-level
3. Rapid Elasticity and Scalability: Cloud security ensures only authorized, authen-
provides rapid elasticity and scalability to ticated users are able to access, view and
the mobile based learning programs. These report upon their own data from the cloud
systems with the help of cloud are able to based learning system.
maintain its performance even if concur- 10. Data Protection: It ensures the security of
rent learner numbers suddenly increase or data as it moves from the user, across the
decrease. In addition, a user can ‘stretch’ Internet to the cloud provider, and back.
and ‘release’ the capacity as per the need. It also covers the safety of data within the
4. Speedy Deployment: Cloud based m-learn- cloud provider’s infrastructure. A secure,
ing solutions can be up and running almost monitored infrastructure ensures that unau-
immediately. In many cases, self-service thorized persons are not able to break into
features even allow learning and develop- the network infrastructure and harvest data,
ment professionals to deliver learning to content, or disrupt the service.
hundreds of participants within minutes. 11. Device Independence: The learners are no
Patches and updates are applied with little longer tethered to a single device or network.
or no disruption to the learning experience. Move to a portable device which is a mobile
5. Enhanced Reliability: The cloud enables a phone, and users’ applications and docu-
higher level of reliability at much lower cost. ments are still available. There is no need
In desktop computing, a hard disk crash can to buy a special version of a program for a
destroy all the valuable data of a user, but a particular device, or to save the document
portable device crashing in the cloud does in a device-specific format.
not affect the storage of user data. 12. Support Services: Licensing a cloud-based
6. Better and Consistent Performance: With learning solution provides user with access to
fewer overfed programs dominating users’ additional resources that act as an extension.
mobile memory, mobiles in a cloud environ- Support services in cloud extend beyond just
ment boot and run faster. The cloud-based technical and customer support to include
learning management system provides fast
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personalized, fast, intelligent and 24 x 7 Technical Challenges

support services to assist learners.
13. Software Updates: One of the software- The mobile learners on cloud have serious con-
related advantages in cloud based m-learning cerns about technical challenges. The limited
is that learners are no longer faced with memory, connectivity and battery life is the one of
choosing between obsolete software and the major issue which is the main obstacle for the
high upgrade costs. When the application users of m-learning systems based on the cloud.
is web-based, updates happen automatically Some common challenges are highlighted below:
and are available the next time user log on
to the cloud. • Limited memory, connectivity and bat-
14. I mp rove d D o c u m e n t Fo r m a t tery life: Handheld device has limited in-
Compatibility: In the cloud based m- ternal storage capacity. Additional RAM
learning, user has more compatibility for for the storage may be added to devices, but
opening the files, applications easily, with it takes longer time to retrieve data from
the support of the cloud as cloud platform external memory. Whereas, ROM cannot
provides compatibility with maximum be increased. Other important challenges
formats. are connectivity of the devices with the
15. Encouraging Interaction: The combina- network and the battery life of the devices
tion of portability and well-designed mobile as with strong and long battery life more
applications of learning based on cloud cre- data can be accessed for long duration and
ate an environment that encourages online for this to be implemented properly, one
students to interact with the course content, need a strong connection to the network.
as well as with classmates and instructors. The quality of the mobile networks might
16. Better Social Collaboration: Social col- not be adequate for delivering satisfactory
laboration is best conducted by the cloud; user experience via the collaboration be-
blogs, file sharing, and social document tween mobile devices and cloud services.
collaboration create great opportunities for • Screen size, resolution, key size, con-
productivity. There is seamless compatibility suming vs. creating: A typical screen size
with social and collaborative tools and fea- of handheld mobile device is 8-15 cm long
tures, while using the cloud for m-learning. and 6-8 cm wide, with the presentation
17. More Autonomy: The cloud grants more usually being in portrait mode but some-
autonomy to the user and learning organiza- times in the landscape. Resolutions vary
tion. It increases self-learning. The learners and may or may not involve back, front, or
can learn at their own pace (Kitanov, Stojan, side-lit images with color. As the content
Davcev & Danco, 2012). must fit in all screen sizes with intact reso-
lution so the images or the videos appear
clearly to the targeted audiences and also
CHALLENGES IN CLOUD BASED the key size should not be a restriction to
M-LEARNING SYSTEM operate a particular object. Another chal-
lenge is that PDAs are more useful for con-
The challenges in the cloud based m-learning suming content than creating content.
system can be divided into two categories as show • Capability for users to visualize mobile
in the following: phones for learning: Educators’/learners’
competence in using mobile phones for
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the m-learning is an important challenge. today needs to be made compatible with

The learners/educators might not be neces- iOS, Android, Windows and other operat-
sarily ready to fully move into the mobile ing systems running in excess of devices.
space for their learning/teaching. To make There are different standards to follow.
the m-learning applications compatible Additional technical challenge that any m-
and properly visualize as per the different learning program faces is the device format
users’ is another challenge. support. So the significant challenges of m-
• Bandwidth bottleneck: This is one of learning are partly due to this diversity.
the biggest issues because the resource • Interoperability: It becomes an important
for wireless networks is much more lim- issue when mobile users need to interact
ited than wired networks. Mobile users with the cloud. Standard protocol, signal-
may not be able to connect to the cloud ing, and interface for interacting between
to obtain a learning service due to traffic m-learning users and cloud would be re-
congestion, network failures, and mobile quired. Compatibility among devices for
signal strength problems. Handling wire- web interface could be an issue.
less connectivity with highly heteroge- • Legacy Content Conversion: It is a big
neous networks to satisfy the requirements task to move existing e-learning material
(always-on connectivity, on-demand scal- or resources to the mobile platform. As
ability, and energy efficiency) is a difficult part of this conversion there are several
problem. cost implications to be considered such as
• Content’s security: To provide secure maintenance and hardware costs. Also cre-
authentication, transmission, processing, ating multiple variations of the same learn-
storage, recovery and destruction of data ing course to run on different gadgets will
in m-learning learning based on the cloud multiply the cost.
is a big task. It should be maintained at • Lack of control of applications: Learners
both ends - while storing and transferring are no longer in full control of applications
the data in the cloud environment and at as learning materials are stored on the
the user end. Mobile devices are exposed cloud and computations are performed on
to numerous security threats like malicious the cloud.
codes and their vulnerability.
• Plagiarism issues: With the availability of Social and Educational Challenges
information everywhere and ease of shar-
ing, educators and administrators should Apart from technical challenges, the m-learning
worry about the authenticity and the origi- systems on cloud have some social and educational
nality of the products such as homework, issues which are highlighted below:
projects, exams, and research work.
• Frequent changes in device technologies: • Cost barriers for end users in developing
The mobile devices and cloud technologies countries: Cost of mobile learning can be
are changing day-by-day. The features are seen from a different point of view ranging
being updated or added very frequently. from the cost of the technology (programs
So, it is hard to keep up with the changes used for the development of m-learning
and provide consistent m-learning. system based on the cloud) and the infra-
• Varied operating systems, standards, structure (devices used to run the mobile
and file formats: Cloud based m-learning application). The student needs to have a
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smart phone and able to pay for unlimited • Lack of constraint on learning timeta-
data access. ble: Generally, there is no fixed timetable
• Acceptability: One critical issue in the for the learners to follow for their learning
success of the mobile learning implemen- activities. They can access the learning
tation and usage of the technology for material at will.
teaching and learning is the teachers/learn- • Privacy of information and content: Data
ers acceptance and readiness to use the encryption must be considered. Location
new technology. based services (LBS) and GPS can cause
• To support m-learning across several privacy issues for mobile users, as it pro-
contexts/functionalities, etc.: Changing vides private information such as their cur-
technology may quickly render some de- rent location. This problem becomes even
vices obsolete, making it harder for learn- worse if an adversary knows users’ impor-
ers to keep up with changing trends. Many tant information. Thus, the geographical
learners may be unable to load coursework and logical location of the users must be
and participate in mobile messaging dis- taken into account.
cussions because their devices are not • Distraction in learners’ private and edu-
compatible with the latest software and cational lives: The usage of the wireless
websites. Internet without any supervision might
• Managing process: Making the decision lead learners to join unconstructive groups,
to add or move to cloud based m-learning involve in gaming, watching needless vid-
options means a change for everyone in- eos, etc.
volved, including learners, educators, and
administrators. The transition needs to be In many respects, issues or challenges related
well planned and coordinated before the to the implementation or incorporation of m-
development begins. learning in any organization are similar to those
• Developing a suitable theory of learning for e-learning. To what degree one can implement
for the mobile era: There is a challenge any significant change like this depends on the
to set out a theory of m-learning mediated following three items: organizational culture,
by technology, which can provide require- professional development and support, and the
ments for the software, hardware, commu- availability of the resources, in this case mobile
nications and interface design of a hand- devices in general.
held learning resource.
• A conceptual difference between e-
learning and m-learning: M-learning is CONVERTING EXISTING
not a mere function of portability within M-LEARNING APPLICATIONS
an e-learning spectrum. There is a concep- TO CLOUD
tual difference between the two: E-learning
is an approach to facilitate and enhance Several things should be considered while moving
learning through and based on both com- an application to the cloud. Major points that need
puter and communication technology. to be addressed are (see Table 5):
M-learning is learning accomplished with
the use of small, portable computing de- • Application Compatibility: Analyze if
vices. M-learning combines e-learning and the application is architecturally fit for the
mobile computing. cloud before moving.
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Table 5. The migrating methodology (Mindtree,

Cloud Requirements for Existing
2014)
Application Migration
Analyze Strategize Implement
To successfully migrate their existing applications
• Is it beneficial? • Identifying • Migrate
• What can be alternate • Validate to the cloud, enterprises should find a cloud ser-
done? approaches vice provider who is able to offer the following:
• Business • How to
analysis implement
• Impact analysis • Planning • Legacy Infrastructure Support:
Traditionally, architectures are not built to
operate in cloud environments, legacy ap-
• External / Internal Dependencies: Check plications often require infrastructure such
if there are any external application depen- as IBM System p servers, the VMware
dencies and need to analyze and if those ESX hypervisor, and enterprise-grade stor-
are accessible through the cloud. age in order to run properly.
• Application Integration: Checks whether • Migration Services: Migrating existing
the candidate application is integrated with applications to cloud demands significant
other on premise applications and shared requirements collection and a cohesive
services. migration strategy. Your cloud provider
• Database Compatibility: Analyze wheth- should offer these services to help ensure
er the existing database is best fit to mi- the success of your migration.
grate to the cloud. • Enterprise Success Stories: Any provider
• Application Maintenance / Management: can trot out a list of customers, but are those
Identify how the logs are maintained and customers representative of your own busi-
where they are stored. ness and its needs? The right cloud pro-
• Scalability / Elasticity: Identify whether vider for your application migration effort
the application design supports scalability should have extensive experience helping
as the cloud supports it. like enterprises with similar projects.
• Compliance Requirements: Check if • Application-Level SLAs: The reason an
there are enterprise compliance and regu- existing application is still around is be-
lations that govern whether the data can cause the business still depends on it, and
be moved/stored outside the organization’s applications that the business depends on
control. must deliver adequate levels of perfor-
• Cost: Verify whether the moving applica- mance and availability. Enterprises should
tion is cost-effective for the organization. demand application-level SLAs when mi-
• Security: Clarify whether the same level grating existing applications to a cloud
of security can be provided after migrating environment.
to the cloud in terms of:
◦◦ Data security,
◦◦ Authentication, TECHNOLOGIES USED FOR
◦◦ Authorizations. CLOUD BASED M-LEARNING
The growth of the cloud based m-learning system

will be enhanced by a wide range of enabling
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technologies and standards. Some of the standards ▪▪ Integrate into the application,
and technologies are explained here: the possibilities of future web
services.
• SCORM: SCORM stands for “Sharable ▪▪ It offers a mod for Moodle and
Content Object Reference Model”. plug-in for WordPress.
“Sharable Content Object” indicates that ▪▪ It works with any rapid e-
SCORM is all about creating units of online learning authoring tool, plus
training material that can be shared across Dreamweaver or any other web
systems. SCORM defines how to create course solution – one can cre-
“sharable content objects” or “SCOs” that ate the course, zip it with the
can be reused in different systems and con- SCORM wrapper and upload it
texts. “Reference Model” reflects the fact into the cloud.
that SCORM is not actually a standard. ▪▪ Push – Pull, it allows user to
SCORM is not written from the ground up. launch from the “cloud” and
Instead, SCORM simply references the ex- receive reporting functionality
isting standards and tells developers how from people who take the cours-
to properly use them together. Specifically, es from anywhere OR it can pull
SCORM governs how online learning con- course data from users’ open
tent and Learning Management Systems source LMS and push back data
(LMSs) communicate with each other. to users’ open source LMS with
◦◦ SCORM Cloud: SCORM Cloud is reports built within the “plug-in
a product that has the possibility to or module”.
be a game changer in the m-learning ◦◦ SCORM Authoring: SCORM Driver
industry. SCORM Cloud features makes any learning content compli-
include: ant. As a developer or content author,
▪▪ Ability to upload SCORM com- one can still create learning materials
pliant courses into the cloud. with the subject matter as per need,
▪▪ Launch courses from within using the preferred technologies. The
the SCORM Cloud with report- Driver quickly, automatically adjusts
ing features built into the cloud to each learning standard. It has ex-
(DEPLOY and REPORT). cellent compatibility means it works
▪▪ It can download users’ SCORM everywhere. User can convert content
courses from the “cloud” to go on its own, or the driver does it for
into his LMS/. them. SCORM Driver is free for non-
▪▪ Ability to take SCORM compli- commercial use.
ant courses, including SCORM ◦◦ SCORM vs. xAPI: Despite the many
2004 from a portal, online learn- educational advantages and innova-
ing community, social learning tions that m-learning offers to the
platform or solution, a group. user, there have been serious devel-
▪▪ It can test users’ course content opmental hurdles to overcome. For
to verify that it is SCORM 2004 all intents and purposes SCORM is
compliant. a highly effective component of e-
learning, but, what works for e-learn-
ing does not guarantee a successful
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translation to m-learning. SCORM guidance to display them—thus the need

has its own limitations. for the new version of the CSS standard.
• Hypervisor: Another enabler for cross-
Collecting and interpreting data through an platform m-learning applications is an em-
expanding context of learning activities requires bedded hypervisor, which allows a web ap-
a more sophisticated tracking model specification. plication to run on any smart phone without
Many experts are turning to the Experience API being aware of the underlying architecture.
(xAPI/Tin Can) as that tool (Cox, 2011). The hypervisor permits other software to
While the end goal of SCORM and xAPI is run in a virtualized environment of cloud.
essentially the same, to track Learner Activities, Mobile platforms require the hypervisor to
xAPI is much less restricted in achieving this ob- be built.
jective. xAPI is defined as a restful web service, • Cloudlets: A cloudlet is a trusted, re-
meaning it is prepared for a “less connected” en- source-rich computer or cluster of com-
vironment. In SCORM, generally the courses are puters that’s well-connected to the Internet
web content (html, flash, or other, but viewed in and available for use by nearby mobile
a browser). In xAPI, the courses can be anything devices. A cloudlet is a small, simple de-
from web content to mobile applications or even vice that resides nearby—maybe in a cafe.
desktop applications. Reporting in xAPI is also When required, the device downloads user
more open through the use of a Learning Record data from a centralized location, allowing
Store (LRS) rather than SCORM content that are local access by the user and so reducing
tied to a Learning Management System. latency. When finished, the user data can
be returned to the centralized location, if
• HTML5 and CSS3: HTML5 is an im- essential. This process occurs invisibly to
portant step for mobile web learning ap- the user, except that the user is pleased
plications based on the cloud. HTML is with faster response. Using a cloudlet also
a document publishing markup language simplifies the challenge of meeting the
that provides a means of specifying web peak bandwidth demand of multiple users’
page elements such as headings, lists, interactively generating and receiving me-
text, tables and photos. HTML5 also al- dia such as high-definition video and high-
lows specification of offline support, which resolution images.
makes local storage possible, helping with • Web 4.0: Web 4.0 is also known as symbi-
connectivity disruptions. It also includes otic web. The symbiotic web is interaction
image and video features, enabling graph- between humans and machines in symbio-
ics and video without plug-ins. HTML5 sis. It allows building more powerful inter-
feature enhancements in forms specifica- faces such as mind controlled interfaces.
tions benefit mobile based applications. In
addition, HTML5 often comes with a geo-
location API. CSS3 works with HTML5 SOME CLOUD BASED
to specify how elements of a page should M-LEARNING CONTENT TOOLS
be rendered. HTML tells a web browser
what to display, and a CSS tells the web Cloud-based m-learning management systems are
browser how to display it. New elements very interactive and are scalable for organizations
in the HTML5 specification call for new large and small. Organizations, with these systems
can expect to engage more learners and provide
243

a rich learning experience. Some authoring tools ◦◦ Litmos is available from any device
and cloud based m-learning management systems with an internet connection.
and their features are discussed briefly below: ◦◦ Any business user can create content
easily and quickly.
• Moodle in the Cloud: The word Moodle is • Rapid Intake: It is another cloud-based
an acronym for Modular Object-Oriented collaborative course authoring tool. It
Dynamic Learning Environment. Moodle provides
is a widely adopted open source LMS, also ◦◦ Desktop and Mobile Joint Publishing.
known as a course management system ◦◦ Integrated Project Management
(CMS) or a virtual learning environment System.
(VLE), which supports both small and ◦◦ Animation, graphics, branching,
large deployments and includes various scenarios, videos, streaming video,
Web 2.0 technologies, course management games, and much more.
tools, online assessments, integration with ◦◦ SCORM, AICC, and Tin Can
repositories and electronic portfolio soft- compliant.
ware, integration with plagiarism detection • GoMo Authoring Tool: GoMo Learning
tools, and other features. A great advantage is a multi-device m-learning authoring
of using Moodle is the lenience of content tool. It delivers the same content to mul-
creation, including chats, forum, question- tiple platforms, optimizing it to each kind
naires, tasks, etc. If Moodle is hosted in the of device. Publish m-learning applications
cloud, no big investments are needed. For to various devices -Android, Apple and
learners, they do not need to buy mobile BlackBerry and create multi-device learn-
devices that have huge storage space and ing for desktops, smartphones and tablets.
strong computation ability. All they need GoMo comes with a range of different
to do is access the learning materials with assets, to create users’ own engaging m-
their mobile devices via the Internet. For learning applications.
education institutions, they do not need • Mobl21: Mobl21 is an m-learning applica-
to purchase expensive web servers to host tion that supports a dynamic, unstructured
their learning management systems and way of learning. By means of Mobl21,
no need to hire an information technology educators can develop content that learn-
team to maintain and update these systems. ers can access from their mobile devices,
• Litmos Author: It is the cloud-based allowing them to study at their own pace
collaborative course authoring software. and thus, perform better. Mobl21 gives
Litmos Author’s powerful, flexible plat- students instant access to valuable learn-
form helps instructional designers and ing material, anywhere, anytime. Mobl21
content owners collaboratively create in- also helps educators to easily create learn-
teractive courses built on proven learning ing material, and publish to multiple users
patterns, regardless of their skill levels. or groups. Additional tool features enable
Some of its features are:- educators to track and monitor content ac-
◦◦ All SCORM compliant content works cess and view test performances.
perfectly in the Litmos LMS. • eQuick: eQuick enables quick learning.
◦◦ There is no long-term contract and no User can produce an m-learning activ-
setup cost. ity by using text, image, sound or video.
Participants can interact by selecting an-
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swer alternatives presented in the course. relies on the cloud that can be accessed anytime,
User can also create basic tests using anywhere, from any device. Applying the cloud
eQuick. architecture on the m-learning system has many
• ReadyGo WCB: It is an m-learning au- advantages such as availability and elasticity of
thoring tool, which presents complete resources. In this chapter, we have proposed an ef-
support for HTML5, including facility to fective m-learning model along with Cloud Learn-
run audios and videos without a plug-in. ing Management (CLM) in the cloud environment
This allows m-learning courses to run on which reduces the weaknesses of other models.
all mobile and tablet devices, including, The cloud is an open area and much work can
iPad, iPhone, Android, Windows Mobile, be done with it. In the future, the proposed model
etc. with a standard web browser. User can of m-learning on the cloud can be implemented
build four level courses, structured naviga- and the enhanced features provided by its imple-
tion, tests, surveys and even an application mentation can be tested for better work.
for tablets.
• mLearning Studio: This cloud-based
solution is an easy-to-use m-learning de- REFERENCES
velopment solution. Anyone can build
m-learning materials and publish to both Behera, S. (2013). E- and m-learning: A compara-
HTML5 with cross-platform support for tive study. International Journal on New Trends
Apple iOS, Android, and Blackberry, as in Education and Their Implications, 4(3), 65–74.
well as PC and Mac browsers. User can Cox, A. P. (2011). Mobile cloud computing:
upload converted images, audio, and video Devices, trends, issues, and the enabling tech-
as well as interactive quizzes and other ac- nologies. Retrieved June 29, 2015, from http://
tivities through easy form-based templates. www.ibm.com/developerworks/cloud/library/
• Hot Lava Mobile: This m-learning solu- cl-mobilecloudcomputing/#ibm-pcon
tion allows user to rapidly develop con-
tent and deploy it on all popular mobile Goundar, S. (2010). Cloud computing: Opportu-
devices and tablets including Android, nities and issues for developing countries. Diplo.
iPad, iPhone, Symbian, Windows and Retrieved June 29, 2015, from http://archive1.
BlackBerry. It uses PowerPoint to develop diplomacy.edu/pool/fileInline.php?IDPool=1335
rich mobile content and also has plug-in to
Khan, J., Chen, Y., & Wang, M. (2014). Mobile
add assessments, surveys, quizzes, and rich
cloud learning for higher education: A case study
media such as streaming video and PDFs.
of Moodle in the cloud. The International Review
of Research in Open and Distributed Learning,
15(2).
FUTURE RESEARCH DIRECTIONS
AND CONCLUSION Kitanov, S., & Davcev, D. (2012). Mobile cloud
computing environment as a support for mobile
An entire world of knowledge can now be made learning. Paper presented at the conference
available to educators and learners through Cloud Computing 2012: The Third International
m-learning. Nowadays, the m-learning system Conference on Cloud Computing, GRIDs, and
Virtualization.
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Kumar, K. (n.d.). Migrating an existing on premise Tata Communications. (2010). Moving from
application to Windows Azure Cloud. Mindtree. legacy systems to cloud computing. Retrieved
Retrieved from http://www.mindtree.com/sites/ from http://microsites.tatacommunications.com/
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existing-on-premise-application-to-windows-
Townsend, M., Bond, J., & Zimmermann, J.
azure-cloud.pdf
(2013). Learning in the cloud: 10 factors to con-
Liu, C. (2013) Analysis on the design patterns of sider. Skillsoft. Retrieved June 29, 2015, from
cloud computing in mobile learning systems. In http://www.skillsoft.com/assets/white-papers/
Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference whitepaper_cloud_learning.pdf
on Computer Science and Electronics Engineer-
Zamani, A. (2014). The Impact of the cloud based
ing (ICCSEE 2013). Paris, France: Atlantis Press.
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doi:10.2991/iccsee.2013.288
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SCORM Explained. (n.d.). Retrieved from http:// ence and Software Engineering, 4(1), 569-574.
scorm.com/scorm-explained
SCORM vs The Tin Can API. (n.d.). Retrieved from
http://tincanapi.com/scorm-vs-the-tin-can-api
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Chapter 16
Cloud Computing:
An Agent of Promoting Interdisciplinary
Sciences, Especially Information
Science and I-Schools – Emerging
Techno-Educational Scenario
Prantosh Kr. Paul

Indian Institute of Engineering Science and Technology (IIEST), India
ABSTRACT
Cloud is, in today’s age, one of the important and valuable names not only in computing but also in all
most all the fields of science, technology and engineering and even in several branches of humanities and
social science—the reason behind this is its ultimate benefit of virtualization and elasticity of IT products.
This is actually a type of virtualization; here computing is geared up with the wonderful virtual platform
which provides a remote accessibility of hardware, software, IT resources, as well as application pack-
ages. Interestingly, ‘Cloud’ also supports the green agenda of the organization and society. There are so
many subjects and domains gaining or injecting the cloud benefit to their services. The information field
and domain is more close to the computing and information technology, but it has another core agenda
of information activities, which include collection, selection, organization, processing, management,
and dissemination of information; here, cloud plays a potential and healthy role.
INTRODUCTION large, profit making or nonprofit making. During

the 1940-70’s, computing speed was slow and
Cloud computing is a kind mechanism or tool non-flexible but later, after the development of
treated as a platform for easy, flexible resource the Internet and the integration of several applica-
sharing. Here, resource sharing includes hardware, tions to this platform, it was popularized. During
software, IT applications as well as software the 1990’s and 2000’s, the traditional arena of
packages and all other content and facet. After the computing was changed due to the virtualization
Internet, this is the most advanced computing used technology which promotes and provides hard-
by almost all the organizations and institutions ware, software, IT application resource sharing
whether it is private or governmental, small or by online services.
DOI: 10.4018/978-1-4666-9924-3.ch016

Cloud Computing
Connection between some subjects regardless age. During the first generation of computing and
of domain, direct and indirect connections with onwards, computing was very slow and elasticity of
the main facet or sub field is called interdisciplin- the computing was not so much heavy. Right from
ary domain. The information field is actually big mainframe computers to personal computers,
a vast domain and field of computing with so single user to client server architecture has been
many subjects which are directly and indirectly emerged recently. Today, client service or several
responsible for the information activities and more computing made a revolution of computing and, in
clearly information transfer cycle. The informa- the IT world, where several IT application sharing
tion field may be automated, supported by many is possible to the client by the servers.
core computing and IT applications or it may be The distributed computing changed the entire
included in some more advanced intelligence tools IT and computing solution and services. Soon
for information sharing and storage. However, the after this, the cloud computing concept emerged
information field may also be supported by many with several facilities and features on the anytime
knowledge organization tools such as indexing, and anywhere basis. Fortunately, price was also
abstracting, classification, cataloguing, and so on. a matter during the initial stages of introducing
More importantly, cloud computing may be most cloud computing in most of the organizations or
beneficial in terms of advancing the information institutions. Virtually, this is more transparent to
field by fulfilling its main aim and objective in users and applications, and able to build in multiple
an intelligent way. ways. The degree of computing utilization also
Cloud computing is an architecture which mobilized by cloud computing services where
has a virtualization principle and also provides one provider provides all types of data storage,
online and round-the-clock computing platform hardware, software to its client through strong
and services. As the information field needs help Internet connection.
so that cloud computing is needed for so many Informatics is another name in the contem-
activities. More clearly, information technological porary world; it is responsible for information
tools such as monitor, printer, database as well as processing and management with technological
other applications and packages are possible to tools and engineering principles. Information
avail in a cost effective and green context. Hence science is also similar to informatics, but it is
ultimately, the information field as well as infor- much wider and also includes some more aspects
mation schools may save costs on IT applications of information such as information & its values
using cloud computing which does not require in information foundations and others (mainly in
extra software, hardware and IT packages, due society & community aspects) & without ignoring
to the third party solution. the practical foundation of ‘strong’ computing
Hence, information schools or the information application and integration. All the disciplines
field not only is getting information support from which are related to information are called infor-
the cloud but also other support of technologies mation field, and the school or academic wings
for virtualization. Advanced information services engaged in such activities are called information
are positively possible to gain up with cloud sup- schools or i-schools in short. Practically, IT and
ported technologies. advanced computing are an integral part of such
a domain, due to their interdisciplinary property.
Cloud computing is helpful in fulfilling the ob-
BACKGROUND jective of information science and other domains
of information in many ways. Academically, it
Cloud - a name of business, entertainment, educa- is true that programmes on the cloud are not at
tion, family, politics, social development in modern all offered by any leading i-schools (as per web
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Cloud Computing
review of leading i-schools which are listed at learn about core types). Regarding Cloud Com-
www.ischools.org); but huge potentials are there puting types it may denote that, Cloud computing
to introduce some programmes related to cloud & may be public or private or ‘combined of these
informatics. Hence, this chapter explores aspects two’, which is called hybrid cloud computing
of cloud computing, its needs and values with a (Martin, 1998; Paul, Chaterjee, & Karn, 2012). It
special reference to its implementation in infor- saves initial cost as it is provided by a third party.
mation science and the i-schools world. Virtually, Cloud computing is applicable not only for profit
chapter is also proposing some programmes in the making organizations, but also for nonprofit and
interdisciplinary point of view of ‘cloud & infor- government organizations due to several benefits
mation’ and academic programmes are proposed and features. The cloud architecture uses less hard-
both in western as well as Asian points of view. ware, computers, IT delivery and most importantly
side-by-side (i.e. parallel) limited software and
hand based applications (depicted in Figure 1).
CLOUD COMPUTING:
FUNDAMENTALS
CLOUD COMPUTING: FEATURES
Cloud computing is a kind of service science that
is based on service oriented architecture which Cloud computing is actually a kind of online and
helps in virtualization of IT resources including Internet based information technology services
hardware, software, IT applications and packages which provides computing and other information
with the help of a dedicated platform (see Fig 3 to technology features to the client. Though offline
Figure 1. Basic aspects of cloud computing, virtualization and its stakeholders
249

Cloud Computing
cloud is also an important name in this regard, similar organization so that there is no such
cloud computing is actually much larger than need of packages of products and this gives
virtualization technology and a combination of us the ‘pay-for’ approach.
some more platforms and computing architectures • More and more services as well as benefits
such as utility computing, grid computing, and are positively possible with the help of the
some more related technologies. Cloud comput- cloud through the dedicated and sophisti-
ing provides so many technologies and services cated Internet connection. Hence it comes
in respect of software, hardware, security, and with the benefit of round-the-clock services
databases as shown below (see Figure 2): available with greater broadband features.
• Cloud computing & virtualization more
• Cloud computing implementation and in- importantly give us the feature of no long
tegration require heavy hardware as well as term commitment and also allow dynamic
equipment inside companies, and here the allocation.
third party and so called ‘the data centre’ • Moreover, it is providing sustainable infor-
basically provides services to the clients. mation technology services and eco friend-
Therefore, space management is a big & ly computing or simply green information
healthy aspect. technologies, as it uses fewer computing
• As hardware and software are basically devices or only a ‘data centre’ or ‘dedicat-
purchased by the third party company and ed centre’ that serves a whole network of
Figure 2. Cloud computing and its role at universities
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Cloud Computing
Figure 3. Core model and types of cloud computing
clients by various deployment models and mainly universities, now is positively possible to
hence minimizes software, hardware, and deploy clouds (depicted in Figure 3).
other IT application packages.
• It reduces risks and centralizes mainte-
nance from each and every type of orga- INFORMATION FIELD AND
nization. Hence the user can scale up or I-SCHOOLS: BASIC
down the services depending upon the re-
quirement of the organization. Information fields are most valuable and emerging
• Moreover, depending upon requirements domains these days. Information is the extension
and needs, workload may be moved from of Data and convey much meaning than that and
one server to another. responsible for almost all the sector and knowledge
• Mobile computing is another service which field. Information as well as content is the pillar
is promoted by cloud computing and simi- of any kind of organizations and institutions, and
lar services. technology too. Thus, the importance of informa-
tion fields has created a domain-based school or
field, i.e. ‘information school’. Hence, Informa-
ACADEMIC DOMAIN AND CLOUD tion fields are the domains which are directly as
well as indirectly related to information activities
Computers and information technology products which include collection, selection, organization,
are the most important integral part of most aca- processing, management & dissemination of
demic domains whether it is science, engineering information.
or technology or even commerce, business studies Owing to the extreme importance of informa-
or humanities or social science. Computing is also tion, several academic units around the world have
a common field in most of the academic domains established information schools (i-schools) on the
and disciplines around the world. Students and line of some other schools such as IT Schools,
academic communities from history, manage- B-Schools, & so on. The common domains and
ment to sociology—also study computers these disciplines of information schools are information
days for their better academic practice. Hence, the science, information studies, computer science,
information field obviously deals with computing computing, information technology, knowledge
and several IT applications as well as products and management, and some other domains which
there is an urgent need and utilization of ‘cloud directly and indirectly work with disciplines like
computing’ models rendered. Higher education, management science, psychology, communication
251

Cloud Computing
science, and so on. I-schools actually gained popu- centric educated professionals & emerged so many
larity in the beginning of the 1990’s and gradually information-technology-community centric aca-
developed as an important field. Today apart from demic and research activities. It is a fact that the
the USA based schools, some more countries and core and main subject of information schools is
territories have also started information schools information science or related domain (depicted
in their academic wings or university systems in Figure 4). And the core subjects of i-schools
like UK, Australia, South East Asia, Canada, and are information processing, management & dis-
so on. Information schools in some universities semination of information; and more structurally
have evolved as new academic and research units information transfer cycle, information sharing &
(some i-schools build consortiums and details are dissemination (White, 1997; Paul, 2012).
provided at www.ischools.org). Some universities The conventional tools and techniques are
merged these related departments and combined now updated with several IT and computing
them into information schools. As these schools tools. Moreover, information science and related
are dedicated to the combination of information domains are not only related to information centric
and technologies, hence all are in urgent need of foundations and organizations such as informa-
information technology products which include tion centres, documentation centres, libraries,
virtualization and cloud computing. Still the most data centres, information analysis centres, and
popular domain of i-schools is information sci- others. Practically, it is now a widely accepted
ence, and there is an urgent need & utilization of domain and applicable in almost all the domains
cloud computing into this field; such aspects are of academics and professional sectors, and in
illustrated in the next section. the business communities. Some technologies
such as the database technologies, multimedia
technologies, networking & communication tech-
CLOUD VIS-À-VIS ‘INFORMATION nologies, software technologies are also integrated
SCHOOLS’ PERFORMANCE in organizational activities, and here comes the
need of information science or i-school based
It is already illustrated that information schools programmes. And here a possible integration in
are mainly responsible for producing information this regard is depicted in Figure 5.
Figure 4. The foundation of information and core areas for which cloud computing may be deployed
252

Cloud Computing
Figure 5. Cloud computing and its relationship with information science and other aspects of information
Moreover, cloud computing and other informa- Practically, almost all the domains of informa-
tion technologies may be positively deployable in tion science are responsible for so many informa-
these organizational information and technology tion foundation based activities, which include but
centric solutions as well as services. As cloud not limited to the following.
computing is a virtualization of hardware, software
and other IT resources, it has a healthy potential
in the fundamentals as well as advanced informat- INFORMATION FOUNDATION
ics activities. These are some of the core areas
where cloud computing in information fields are Information foundations are organizations which
applicable: computer science, information science, are mainly responsible for the information founda-
information system, library science, information tion ranging from collection, selection, organiza-
studies, communication studies, IT, and so on. tion, processing, management & dissemination
253

Cloud Computing
of information and similar objects with several ness towards this changes, it may bring healthy
platforms and formats. Information foundations information culture and may ultimately include
include information centres, documentation cen- the following (but not limited to):
tres, data centres, information analysis centres,
libraries, and community information kiosks, and • To coordinate among small information
so on (Pau1 & Dangwal, 2012). Virtually, these in- foundations such as information centres,
formation foundations may positively utilize cloud documentation centres, data centres, infor-
computing and similar virtualization technologies mation analysis centres, and others.
in their wings of operation. Services including • To coordinate and share information,
in-house as well as off-house are positively pos- books, documents and even other resourc-
sible with the help of cloud computing. Users of es including hardware, software and other
information and others may avail cost effective IT applications.
and fast services round-the-clock with the inclu- • To work as a cloud data centre for small in-
sion of such advanced systems into the exiting formation foundations in respect of provid-
IT based or traditional information management. ing information technology services with
smarter and more effective way.
• Practically, the management and admin-
INFORMATION NETWORKS istration may also become beneficial with
the integrated cloud in to their day to day
Information networks are information entities operation. Hence POSDCORB, the main
which are much larger than the exiting and earlier foundation of an organization, is also posi-
concept and this is the communication between tively upwards with this ‘virtual friend’ of
small information centers or similar information the time.
centers. This type of information object or founda-
tion works as a grid of information system in an
electronic environment (Wersig, G., & Neveling, TRADITIONAL AND ELECTRONIC
U, 1975 & Paul, P. K., & Sridevi, K. V, 2012). INFORMATION MANAGEMENT:
India is a leading knowledge capital in the world, CLOUD PERSPECTIVE
and here thousands of information and computer
networks are active in institutes, enterprises, foun- It is already learned that information science tra-
dations, academic institutes and other levels of ditionally deemed as an information domain and
universities. Among leading information systems gradually developed as a techno-informatics one.
and networks, some popular and important ones Virtually, still information science positively and
include but limited to: largely employed in the information foundations
and hence apart from the above illustrated activi-
• National Information System for Science ties, cloud computing is also positively possible
and Technology (NISSAT). to bring the umbrella of following information
• Education and Research Network. science activities:
• National Informatics Centre, and so on.
• To introduce the fuzzy logic based infor-
But it is a fact that still organizations and mation retrieval system and also for the
institutions engaged in such professions are not preparation of indexing and abstracting
fully inspired with these technologies and systems systems in a cloud environment.
(Paul, Chaterjee, & Karn, 2012). If unwilling-
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Cloud Computing
• In popular and as-usual information servic- with other domains due to its activities. More-
es like Document Delivery Service, Current over, it is mostly computing depended and thus
Awareness, Selective Dissemination of requires support from so many fields of computing
Information. and allied technologies, which include database,
• The employer in this respect may be the multimedia, web technology and other support-
Graphical User Interface based search en- ing tools and technologies for better and healthier
gines for intelligent information retrieval. information transfer and information sharing. The
• To interact with the websites of informa- concentration of computing with information
tion schools (i-schools) as well as other science (the most valuable & popular domain
related organizations such as information of i-schools) creates so many nomenclatures of
centre, information systems, and so on. information science like information science
• In the journal and consortium systems (human computer interaction), information sci-
(which are electronic based), this may be ence (web technology), information science (big
applicable. Here e-books, e-journals, and data technology). But it is a fact that there is a
other knowledge formats may also be inte- healthy potentiality of information science with
grated into the cloud, both public and pri- cloud computing and such integration (as well
vate clouds. as application) is possible in the following ways:
• In collection, selection, organization of in-
formation as well as knowledge resources • Integrating cloud computing & virtual-
(mainly from the remote places), cloud and ization as optional/modular in the pro-
virtualization technologies are positively grammes of ‘information schools’.
possible to be included. • Creating specialization of cloud comput-
ing in traditional information science pro-
Thus, after analyzing such integration of grammes as listed in Table 1.
the cloud with the information science practice • Or even full-fledged information science
domain, it is positively illustrated that cloud & cloud computing related specializations
computing vis-à-vis information science may be with potential science, emerging and man-
mentioned as: agement degrees/subjects (listed in Table
1, Table 2, and Table 3).
1. In Traditional Information Foundations and
also into Modern Foundations. Here, IST denotes ‘Information Science &
2. In advancement of Modern Information Technology’, which is much more advanced no-
Services. menclature of the information field. Most impor-
3. In other sectors where IT is needed and tantly, here another flagship programme has been
information is crucial. proposed, i.e. Post Doctorate in the Information
Sciences with Cloud Computing. However, cloud
computing may be illustrated with some other
POTENTIAL INTERDISCIPLINARY domains for complete and sustainable growth of
INFORMATION DOMAIN AND the information science programme and whole
CLOUD COMPUTING PROGRAMME: ‘information school’ programme. Some possible
EDUCATIONAL POTENTIALITY domains are illustrated below.
IST (Information Science & Technology) deals • Cloud Computing & Web
with so many specializations and focuses. In the • Cloud Computing & Big Data Management
most traditional focus, information science deals
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Cloud Computing
Table 1. Possible programmes of cloud and information science
Information Science and Cloud Vis-à-Vis Possible Academics in the ‘I-Schools’(Applied Science)
BS/BSc-Information Science/IST/Informatics (Cloud Computing/Informatics)
MS/MSc-Information Science/IST/Informatics (Cloud Computing/Informatics)
MPhil (Science)-Information Science/IST/Informatics (Cloud Computing/Informatics)
PhD (Science)-Information Science/IST/Informatics (Cloud Computing/Informatics)
DSc (Post Doctorate) Information Science/IST/Informatics (Cloud Computing/Informatics)
Table 2. Possible programmes of cloud & information domain in engineering (other than US based
education system)
Information Science & Cloud Vis-à-Vis Possible Academics in the ‘I-Schools’ (Engineering)
BE/BTech-Information Science/IST/Informatics (Cloud Computing/Informatics)
ME/MTech-Information Science/IST/Informatics (Cloud Computing/Informatics)
MPhil (Engineering)-Information Science/IST/Informatics (Cloud Computing/Informatics)
PhD (Engineering)-Information Science/IST/Informatics (Cloud Computing/Informatics)
DSc/DTech/ D.Engg (Post Doctorate) Information Science/IST/Informatics (Cloud Computing/Informatics)
Table 3. Possible programmes of cloud & information domain in management sciences
Information Science & Cloud Vis-à-Vis Possible Academics in the ‘I-Schools’ (Management Sciences)
BBA/BBM (Cloud & Business Analytics)
BSc- Enterprise Informatics & Virtualization
MBA/MMA (Cloud Management)
MSc (Decision Making & Cloud)
MPhil/PhD- (In all such disciplines)
• Cloud Computing & Advance Networks as BE/ME/MTech/PhD (Engineering) in Cloud

• Cloud Computing & Informatics Informatics/ Cloud Information System. These will
• Cloud Computing & Information Science ultimately be helpful for faster as well as smarter
• Cloud Computing & Green Informatics information management services, which are al-
• Cloud Computing & Green Information ready illustrated. Moreover, all these programmes
System need to be engaged in the ‘industrial-academia’
• Cloud Computing & Green Information nature with some modules and/or other academic
Science ingredients in the curriculum as Traineeship, In-
ternship, etc. for real life training and hands-on
Like the existing domain, these have also a experience in cloud informatics building. The
potentiality to offer with the nomenclature of BSc/ DSc/D.Engg programmes may be an academic or
MSc/MPhil/PhD (Science) in Cloud Informatics/ may be professional in nature which should inte-
Cloud Information System or Engineering stream grate with professional practices/project work, etc.
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Cloud Computing
FUTURE RESEARCH and some cloud computing model is not energy

POTENTIALITY (SOLUTIONS efficient and thus does not support green comput-
AND RECOMMENDATIONS) ing; thus strategies to integrate this aspect is very
important. Cloud computing may also be slower
Information science (IS) is an old domain but still in some cases, as every cloud client first needs
emerging towards more interdisciplinary in nature to request or send data to its provider and, based
and to serve a wider community and audience. on the programme service, the provider needs to
Earlier, information science was only responsible send data or services.
for the information solution and it only used some Information science earlier was a neutral
knowledge organization tools; however, those days domain and today so many other domains are
are gone and today so many new technologies in- emerging which directly communicate with in-
tegrate with information science. And this way, so formation services. And such integration brings
many new domains have emerged, and combined some more new domains and fields which include
& built an Information-Technology-People centric medical information science, bio informatics,
domain called ‘Information Science & Technol- geo informatics, health informatics, and chemo
ogy’ or simply IST. Moreover, such advances in informatics, and so on. Finally, as these domains
academics result in a new school domain called (medical, health, bio, chemical, etc.) depend on
I-Schools. And such schools are truly IT & com- information and technological solution so that such
puting dependent but having a social touch. Cloud domains may also be positively possible to adopt
computing is positively possible to integrate with the benefit of cloud computing and virtualization
these academic curriculums, directly or indirectly. leading to IaaS (Infrastructure-as-a-Service), PaaS
Fundamentally, cloud computing becomes a mod- (Platform as-a-Service), SaaS (Software-as-a-
ule of most i-school programmes or information Service), and SaaS (Security-as-a-Service) for
science programmes. However, there is a huge more flexible and smarter solutions. Information
potential towards the implementation of cloud scientists and interdisciplinary researchers around
computing in the information science as a full- the world are engaged in many interdisciplinary
fledged specialization. Interestingly, like other activities for building smarter informatics, and
emerging domains, a new age programme on cloud here cloud computing is possible to bring in an
informatics, cloud information system and other advanced way.
cloud & informatics centric programmes emerge
to deliver knowledge, services and manpower to
the information world. REFERENCES
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Cloud Computing
Pau1, P. K., & Dangwal, K. L. (2012) Green IT applications and packages with the help of a
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Paul, P. K., Chaterjee, D., & Karn, B. (2012)
it is a public private cloud computing model.
Information science education and research:
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gwal, K. L. (2012). Computer and information Interdisciplinary: Relationship between or
science (CIS) education in the universities of among the domains generally treated as Inter-
India: Emphasizing central universities – a brief disciplinary Science. Moreover, the domain or
study. International Journal of Marketing and subject which are much close or available with
Trade Policy, 01(04), 277–284. other domain.
I-Schools: Hence, Information fields are the
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it is called Public Cloud Computing.
Cloud Computing: Cloud computing is a

kind of service science that is based on service
oriented architecture which helps in virtualization
of IT resources including hardware, software,
258
Section 4
Security and Access Control in
Cloud Computing
260
Chapter 17
Assessing Security with
Regard to Cloud Applications
in STEM Education
Ihssan Alkadi
Southeastern Louisiana University, USA
ABSTRACT
There are many steps involved with securing a cloud system and its applications (SaaS) and developed
ones in (PaaS). Security and privacy issues represent the biggest concerns to moving services to external
clouds (Public). With cloud computing, data are stored and delivered across the Internet. The owner of
the data does not have control or even know where their data are being stored. Additionally, in a multi-
tenant environment, it may be very difficult for a cloud service provider to provide the level of isola-
tion and associated guarantees that are possible with an environment dedicated to a single customer.
Unfortunately, to develop a security algorithm that outlines and maps out the enforcement of a security
policy and procedure can be a daunting task. A good security algorithm presents a strategy to counter
the vulnerabilities in a cloud system. This chapter covers the complete overview, comparative analysis of
security methods in Cloud Applications in STEM Education and the introduction of a new methodology
that will enforce cloud computing security against breaches and intrusions. Much light will be shed on
existing methodologies of security on servers used for cloud applications in STEM education and storage
of data, and several methods will be presented in addition to the newly developed method of security in
cloud-based servers, such as the MIST (Alkadi). Not only can cloud networks be used to gather sensi-
tive information on multiple platforms, also there are needs to prevent common attacks through weak
password recovery, retrieval, authentication, and hardening systems; otherwise hackers will spread
cyber mayhem. Discussion of current security issues and algorithms in a real world will be presented.
Different technologies are being created and in constant competition to meet the demands of users who
are generally “busy”. The selling point of these technologies is the ability to address these demands
without adding more to any workloads. One of the demands often discussed is that users want to have
DOI: 10.4018/978-1-4666-9924-3.ch017

Assessing Security with Regard to Cloud Applications in STEM Education
their digital information accessible from anywhere at any time. This information includes documents,
audio libraries, and more. Users also demand the ability to manage, edit and update this information
regardless of physical location. Somewhat recently, mobile devices such as laptops, tablets, and smart-
phones have provided these abilities. This is no small feat as vendors and providers have reduced the
size of these devices to increase mobility. However, as the amount of personal information that users are
wanting to access has grown exponentially, manipulation and storage of it require more capable devices.
To meet increased demands, increasing the capabilities of mobile devices may be impractical. Making
mobile devices more powerful without technological advancement would require that the device be larger
and use more resources such as battery life and processing power to function properly. Storing all of
a user’s information on a mobile device that travels everywhere also adds vulnerability risks. The best
technical solution to having a user’s information accessible is some sort of online storage where there
is the convenience to store, manipulate and retrieve data. This is one of the most practical applications
for the concept of cloud computing in STEM education. As storage capabilities and Internet bandwidth
has increased, so has the amount of personal data that users store online. And today, the average user
has billions of bytes of data online. Access is everywhere and whenever is needed. As everyone started
doing so, people want their data safe and secure to maintain their privacy. As the user base grew in size,
the number of security issues of the personal data started to become increasingly important. As soon
as someone’s data are in the remote server, unwanted users or “hackers” can have many opportunities
to compromise the data. As the online server needs to be up and running all the time, the only way to
secure the cloud server is by using better passwords by every user. By the same token, the flaws in the
password authentication and protection system can also help unwanted users to get their way to other
people’s personal data. Thus, the password authentication system should also be free from any loopholes
and vulnerabilities.
INTRODUCTION • Services and support to a wide range of

students, teachers, and potential customers.
Cloud computing has been the center of a lot of • A large number of course materials and
attention and implementation priority over the past academic support tools to instructors,
ten years. Its immediate, important implementa- teachers, professors, other educators, and
tion and use has been very prominent. its eminence university staff.
is due to its powerful infrastructure and feasible • A variety of diverse service environments.
platform. However, its use and implementation has • Operating cloud infrastructure as an eco-
faced some notable complications; as a byproduct nomically viable model.
of popular use and demand, it brought on many
questionable security challenges that need to be On the other hand, many risks and challenges
addressed and resolved, especially in STEM educa- of cloud computing for STEM education relate
tion. Universities and STEM divisions are trying to its relative newness and the underdevelop-
to apply cloud computing to solve problems that ment of the marketplace for cloud services. In
relate to increasing computing complexities and STEM education, besides the technical and cost
storage. Cloud computing systems serving users considerations, there are some other factors that
within STEM’s environment must at least involve influence the decision to adopt cloud computing.
the following factors and provide maximum se- Some of these risks and challenges involve the
curity for the following capabilities as: following points:
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• Security: Security and privacy represent the ers that store the amount of required data. Also,
biggest concerns to moving current exist- cloud storage does have the potential for security
ing services to external clouds. With cloud challenges. This has been seen in the past years
computing, data are stored and delivered and could be seen years to come unless enforcing
across the Internet. The owner of the data the security potential and eliminating breaches
does not have control or even know where and threats.
their data are being stored. Additionally, Security of the traditional server platform has
in a multi-tenant environment, it may be been applied to the cloud platform with good re-
very difficult for a cloud service provider sults, but still there are certain alarming issues that
to provide the level of isolation and associ- remain to be resolved. These issues allowed many
ated guarantees that are possible with an security breaches and caused havoc and mayhem
environment dedicated to a single customer. to data owners and cloud providers whether it’s
◦◦ Interoperability: A universal set of public, private, or Hybrid type. These are serious
standards and interfaces have not yet loopholes and vulnerabilities. The objective of this
been defined, which represents a sig- chapter is to address the critical security challenges
nificant risk of vendor lock-in. in cloud application in STEM education and the
• Control: The user does not have total control hardening of the following:
over the cloud environment and the data. It
varies significantly. 1. Availability.
• Performance: As the access to the cloud is 2. Total cost of ownership.
done via the Internet, latency is introduced 3. Intrusion detection/prevention.
into every communication between the user 4. Current security methods in the cloud.
and the cloud environment. 5. Alkadi’s MIST security method (Alkadi, I.
• Reliability: Many existing cloud infrastruc- et al, 2013).
tures rely on hardware that is known to fail 6. Comparative analysis of current and future
unexpectedly. security methods in the cloud.
7. The future of security in the cloud.
There are many benefits to using cloud stor-
age and the most notable is file accessibility.
Files stored in the cloud can be accessed at any BACKGROUND
time from any place so long as you have Internet
access. Another benefit is that cloud storage Data which are processed into information is a
provides organizations, such as STEM education powerful measure to derive knowledge ultimately.
institutions, with remote backups of data which Once knowledge is derived, power is manifested.
reduce costs associated with disaster recovery. That is exactly what hackers attempt to do. Dis-
Unfortunately, the biggest disadvantage to cloud cussion of the current needs and concepts that
storage is that users are limited by bandwidth. If must be enforced in order to prevent such security
your Internet connection is slow or unstable, you breaches especially in the cloud is further provided.
might have problems accessing or sharing your Security hardening and authentication is important
files. STEM education institutions that require a in enforcing intellectual property rights, personal
large amount of storage may also find that costs data, and private information. The main impor-
increase significantly after the first few gigabytes tant aspects of securing the cloud are to enforce
of data stored, paying for a third party that offers encryption tools of data, guard against denials of
a cloud storage service or buying enough serv- service (DoS) attacks, and benefit from clustering
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of servers to apply the safe fail-over while using testing (Krutz, 2010; Alkadi et al., 2015) whereby
virtualization as the key element of the cloud es- the network is tested for vulnerability, reliability,
sential platform. As a cloud system administrator, and dependability by applying an attack through
he/she must establish security measures to combat simulated malicious source by an ethical hacker
threats, covert analysis, inferences, and vulner- who is certified by the E-Commerce Council
ability (Erl et al., 2013; Krutz, 2010). The most (Krutz, 2010). It is an important field right now
important and fundamental elements of reducing and penetration testing tools are available to enable
the potential threats of future security breaches in cloud system administrators to breakdown (code
the cloud are to be aware of the following: walkthrough) and better understand the code writ-
ten by malicious hackers to target their systems.
1. Disgruntled employee or malicious insider A lot of techniques known as reconnaissance are
(Erl et al., 2013). used to establish and assess the vulnerabilities of a
2. Social engineering. network. Krutz (2010) lists the tools for this as port
3. Trusted or anonymous attackers (Erl et al, scanners, vulnerability scanners, and password
2013). crackers. Password cracking is used a lot and it
4. Traffic eavesdropping. is especially successful with weak passwords and
5. Improper or insufficient security controls when brute force is used or words are derived from
when installing and implementing the cloud word database. Unfortunately, there are many web
system. based password cracking tools that hackers and
6. Weak and very highly easy-to-crack malicious individuals use to penetrate the cloud
passwords. infrastructure. There are many other programs that
7. Flaws or lack of intrusion detection/preven- exist and are very harmful and dangerous to the
tion implementation. cloud network such as Trojan horses, Spyware,
8. Missing or lack of auditing trails or logs. Malware, and the late Shellshock, not to mention
9. Improper handling or placing passwords the SQL-Injection attack.
around workstations. One of the few problems with implementing
10. Missing or inadequate procedures and rami- and utilizing the cloud is that the entire networks
fications for shoulder surfers, phishing, and of the cloud (private, public, or hybrid) have bal-
dumpster diving criminals. looned in size and have become a vast haven for
potential malicious attacks and criminal activities
To secure the cloud is to make certain that as in selling information, blackmailing, abusing
vulnerabilities are not exploited by constantly data off individuals and embezzling companies,
and immediately installing operating system and and perpetrating STEM education institutions’ and
cloud software patches and updates. Data must sometimes government’s valuable and sensitive
be backed up on hourly/daily basis and sufficient data. Eventually the purpose of the perpetrator is
methods need to be installed to guard against and to inflict harm and damage on the individual sec-
prevent compromising the user’s data. This task tor (governmental, educational, or private). It is
is not easy but it is achievable. There are many also to be noted that as the cloud is implemented
factors that go into this task. One is physical and used a lot, the security threats will increase
security of the cloud infrastructure, preferably too. Traditional security threats such as DDos,
using biometrics, steel gates, HVAC, and voice Spyware, Malware, Phishing, SQL injection, and
or retina activation entry checking procedures. Social Engineering are also major candidates for
Second is the hardening of authentication and security threats in the cloud platforms. Cloud
password resetting/retrieval. Third is penetration Security Alliance (CSA) is an excellent source for
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making the cloud safer and less security failure also a viable restriction. The tendency now with
prone. The main thing is to establish a secure the main concept of the cloud is to share and
cloud for different STEM users. somehow protection is not highly enforced. The
Traditional security algorithms have to be used emphasis here is to continuously design software
rigorously but more advanced and new creative for the cloud with complete complex design to
algorithms have to be developed also. It is not that solve security holes and beef up the design of a
there are not enough current security algorithms, secure cloud. The concept here is not to compli-
but more creative algorithms have to be constantly cate matters but to improve security. Security is
created to keep up with different new security not just about making sophisticated software or
threats and breaches in the cloud. It is not a onetime hardware; it is a combination of elements, such
issue; it is an ongoing one. For example, antivirus as risk assessment, risk anticipation, risk mitiga-
companies have to constantly provide solutions tion, and risk validation. In the cloud platform, it
and updates to newly and ongoing viruses that are is not about single diskless workstation only, it is
being written hourly/daily. The same holds true for about the following: Routine updates and backup
the cloud. Data leakage and credential cracking of your cloud servers, always know that the threats
are so serious, and there should be more security are coming from “bad guys” who are really really
tools to handle such important issues. good and proven that. Take for example the recent
It is a well-known fact that the traditional breaches of the Sony servers, the JP Morgan, Home
platform and cloud platform have to use encryp- Depot, and the iCloud. So do not underestimate
tion as a mechanism to combat security breaches the bad guys. Also, make it a routine to train your
and assure data protection. Whether you use IT and employees about new security updates and
symmetric, asymmetric, or double encryption, breaches. Knowing the different types of threats,
it is important to have more creative and strong and security offered by both the cloud software
techniques of securing data. Hashing is also used and the operating system is vital. One of the most
a lot in keeping data secure in the cloud. troubling areas of security is that cloud users do
not change their passwords as often as required.
Also practice and improve their privacy and
MAIN FOCUS OF THE CHAPTER improve their practices in dealing with their own
protection from breaches. It is hard but you have
Issues, Controversies, Problems to do your homework. Always look out for files
with weird names, fishy email, untrusted software,
There are many issues here, and it is not just monitor processes in the system, and upload with
using those encryption techniques and PKI as FTP oriented systems that are secure. Even bet-
security enforcement. It is about using advance- ter, make sure that you are always aware of the
ment and enforcement of security. Using Single most current security breaches and self-educate
Sign-on (SSO) (Krutz, 2010) is a good method, yourself on this category.
but it is important to educate and train users on The issue of Total Cost of Ownership (TCO), in
how to better choose passwords (combinations of its entirety, the most overlooked, and at the same
symbols, letters, and numbers). Also there have time is micromanaged and controversial element
been many problems with the fact that data are of cloud computing. Not only does it allow room
accessible from anywhere on the cloud given that for arguments and debates, but it empowers either
you have the logon credentials correctly. Having a the cloud hosting parties or the opposing the use of
time-out mechanism is necessary, and authentica- cloud parties. You have to also consider the rules
tion when logging in from multiple locations is and policies as well as legitimate regulations and
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governing federal/state laws as well. Some users flood of login attempts, then prevention must take
like the freedom and convenience of sharing and place. Either shut down that port or make sure that
storing data on the cloud but others are hesitant your firewall is set correctly both hardware and
in doing so due to data sensitivity or security. It software wise. The account should be suspended
is not a matter of different views or opinions, it in suspicion of too many login attempts in case
is a matter of the whole process of migrating to of one account only. Otherwise, bring the port/
the cloud and the costs incurred or continuously network down and restart it. You cannot help
sustained in maintaining the price of data privacy, when you have problems in the underlying op-
data sensitivity, data backup, hardware and soft- erating system or vulnerability such as the Bash
ware, and the cloud infrastructure. It is evident that ShellShock incident. Always encourage your cloud
migrating to the cloud will be a cause of concern clients to use https or establish a SSL certificate in
and a need for risk assessment. Also, it involves all your cloud forms (private, public, or hybrid).
the indirect and direct costs of implementation and Cloud system administrators should always be
use of the cloud systems at the specific hosting or on the lookout for malicious attempts for entry
private sites. The cost incurred in hardware and or malicious software that is being downloaded.
software purchase, installation, and continued Constant monitoring of the cloud network should
maintenance and the revenue that is obtained later always be established 24 hours constant. There
will have a major effect on the TCO. are many forms of making the cloud secure and
Always be keen on using the most potent are well practiced (Vacca, 2013). However, vir-
and fastest antivirus, antimalware, antispyware tualization vulnerability is an ongoing issue and
software there is; hence, on cloud, security starts needs to be addressed and more methodology of
with its cloud software and the operating system prevention of data tampering should be enforced
beneath it. So, intrusion detection and intrusion and developed. Disaster Recovery Emergency
prevention (ID/IP) software that is used in the Plan (DREP) should be the general protocol to
traditional setting is encouraging as it is currently protect the cloud. In the private cloud, there should
used in the cloud platform, but the issue here is be strict policies and tighter security procedures
that there are three types of clouds, private, pub- to protect the intellectual property and sensitive
lic, and hybrid and that by itself poses a need for data. The controversial issue here is the recurrent
more sophisticated and profound ID/IP software. or sometimes intermittent common flaws in the
A lot of cloud based logon requirements need to operating system hosting the cloud. Private cloud
be advanced and take more actions when an intru- control is a little bit easier than that in a public or
sion is detected. My MIST algorithm will specify hybrid cloud. The reason is that you can custom
more harsh actions that need to be exercised by the tailor additional forms of cloud security. For
cloud system administrator. In my own opinion, example, 1) deterrent controls are set in place to
there should be consequences for both hackers and prevent any purposeful attack on a cloud system,
crackers. Hackers should be banned for life from 2) preventative controls upgrade the strength of
accessing any type of computer/network as well the system by managing the vulnerabilities (e.g.
subjected to more severe punishment sentences. Alkadi’s MIST 4.0 discussed in the next section),
Crackers will be penalized with multiple charges 3) corrective controls are used to reduce the ef-
as well as subject to prison sentences. fect of an attack, and 4) detective controls are
A history file should be kept to always be on used to detect any attacks that may be occurring
the lookout for any type of copycats to prevent on the system. In the case of public clouds such
them from accessing or attempting to sign into the as SkyDrive, Google Drive, Dropbox, iCloud,
cloud. Once an intrusion is suspected by constant Amazon, and the like, you should have security
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policies and disaster recovery procedures to enable • Local law and jurisdiction affect how and
data availability. The question is the location and what kind of data can be stored by cloud
the security of data. It will require more rigorous clients.
security algorithms for these cloud service provid-
ers to be developed or released soon. The question is how to engulf both the security
The most common problems with cloud of the operating system and the cloud software. It
security are threats, breaches, inadequate au- is theoretically easy but technically challenging.
thentication, and addition on developed security A few recommendations to improve the security
hardening programs that can be a second layer in different services of the cloud are presented
of added protection. Firewalls and securing the at the end.
perimeter are excellent, but what conventional
social engineering, screen shots of every attempt, 1. Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS): IaaS
malicious code that can read password fields, not is a model in which enterprises or organi-
enough use of antivirus programs to lessen or zations outsource their equipment that is
prevent phishing and even better tracking adware. used in their IT department. An example
All these problems cause havoc and mayhem and of the outsourced equipment such as stor-
will affect the reputation and client’s loyalty of age, hardware, servers and networking in
the cloud. Nothing is more controversial than the which service provider owns, operates, and
actual dependability and reliability of the cloud maintains. Use in-house added security ap-
for its clients. Cloud based secure connection plications must be tested thoroughly. These
and server access are very crucial in establishing applications will force users to comply with
the necessary cloud transactions and utilities. As the front end before getting to the core use
important as it is to strengthen the underlying of the security offered in the cloud IaaS and
operating system such as Linux/Unix, Mac OS, cloud operating system software.
and Windows to boost the security of the cloud, 2. Software as a Service (SaaS): SaaS is of-
it is also important to have your own in-house fered as a service on demand. In this model,
and host based additional security in the cloud. cloud providers install and operate applica-
Also, you must continuously patch and improve tions in the cloud and users can access the
the virtualization software, cloud agent, and the applications through the Internet. Also, this
three services of the cloud that need to be con- model allows a single instance of an applica-
stantly revamped and sometimes produce newer tion to run on the cloud and serve multiple
releases sooner than cloud clients anticipate. Cloud users or client enterprises. This is a tough
experts have predicted that, in 10 years, 80% of area since control is basically at the back end
the businesses will be on the cloud. The use of of the software provided and controlled by
secure cloud computing in universities has many the company through the cloud. One thing
benefits such as accessing the file storages, e-mails, to do is sniff the network and monitor the
databases, educational resources, research applica- activity of the clients using the SaaS.
tions and tools anywhere and anytime for faculty 3. Platform as a Service (PaaS): PaaS is a
members, administrators, students and other users platform in the cloud where applications can
on demand, but bear in mind the following: be developed and executed. In the PaaS ser-
vice, developers can control the application
• Every cloud is susceptible to intrusion. development and deployment. In addition,
• Use of cloud computing will always have PaaS enables the developers to create custom
its own potential risks. web applications and deliver them quickly to
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users. This is hard to control due to the load to overcome; however, even with these problems,
and the task on both the software developers cloud computing is still one of the most advanta-
and their companies as well as the develop- geous practices in computing we have. That being
ers of the tools and software/program that said, it is understandable why many consumers are
the programmers use to design web based now switching over to cloud computing systems.
applications and their deployments. Take for They offer a myriad of advantages from speed to
example the security fault like SQL injection; cost. The cloud computing systems are greatly
where do you place the blame for this? Is it improving the speed of our systems and, since
the front-end or the back-end? My recom- time is money, people are jumping at the chance
mendation different than the normal IPsec to speed up the time it takes for them to interact
and SSL protocol is to establish a secret with their systems. Also, cloud computing offers
pass code for only the developers and the an enormous benefit in the area of cost. It is ac-
development application tool providers, such tively reducing cost for companies and consumers
as ASP.Net; randomly send it and verify it since the total cost of ownership of the system
as if it was a secret phrase, if you will. The is reduced because cloud computing offers the
secret phrase should be protected and double ability to reduce the amount invested in hardware
encrypted and not stored in any location on and software greatly. However, with its great
both parties. Of course, this needs additional advantages, it does have one great disadvantage
testing and careful implementation after very and that is in the form of security with the cloud
rigorous, clever and immaculate coding. Do computing system. Security has always been an
not discount URL encoding, but establish integral part of computing and has always been an
additional protection. important problem with computing. However, this
has now become almost more of a problem with
Risk assessment is the first step of security in cloud computing because of its easiness and ease
the cloud. You need to address policies, threats, of access. Security is overall an important part of
access, and disaster recovery. Securing the cloud cloud computing where data and information is
infrastructure perimeter is the top and best thing being stored at a large rate and all of the data as
you can do for your cloud clients as providers. well as their systems have to be protected. Now,
Constant monitoring and awareness by training there are some security systems in place but they
and updating the cloud network infrastructure is are not as protective as they should be and leave
so vital and needs to be a top priority for your large gaps of security coverage in the system. A
cloud security. It is not just about periodic test- few of the current security techniques will be
ing, penetration testing, software patching, and further explained as well as their flaws.
operating system updates, it is about eliminating Some of the current security techniques do
the risk of threats that can be done by securing their best to keep systems secure; however, there
the infrastructure with custom made additional are still problems with these techniques and, in
defensive layers such as the MIST which will be order for cloud computing to be truly beneficial,
demonstrated in the section below. the techniques need to be addressed and improved.
One of the current forms of security is network
security. Network security is one of the main
SOLUTIONS AND points of security considering that the cloud is
RECOMMENDATIONS on the Internet or connected to some form of net.
Currently, some of the security associated with
Since cloud computing is in its infancy, there are a the Internet security is firewall security, which
great number of problems or hiccups it still needs protects the cloud infrastructure from both internal
267

and external sources. It protects against several virtualization. Though hypervisors have security
different attacks such as denial of service, and issues, they are hard to fix, thus leaving them open
it filters the ports and addresses. Another part to security vulnerabilities.
of network security is security configuration by Since there are multiple levels of security on
which different protocols and levels of security the cloud, some of them do not just cover physi-
are configured to better customize security for the cal instances of security but also virtual areas of
user. Another integral part of network security security. Therefore, a large virtual area of security
is transfer security, which deals with network and concern is with data security. The cloud holds
transfers; a large portion of security needs to a large amount of data that need to be secured. This
focus on protecting transferred data. These data is sometimes a hard task to accomplish, but it is
are susceptible to many attacks such as man in attempted in three different ways with data secu-
the middle, sniffing, and spoofing. Another area rity; the first way is cryptography. Cryptography
of security in cloud computing are interfaces. is a practice used to secure data through various
Interfaces control the levels of security when ac- regulations. This is extremely vital when trying
cessing the cloud; there are three different types of to protect data. The next way of data security
interfaces used when accessing the cloud. The first protects data by data redundancy. It may seem
one is the API interface to access the virtualized counter intuitive to have the same data you are
resources of the cloud and they must be protected trying to protect in multiple places, but some data,
to minimize malicious attacks. Another form of especially the vital data, need to have a backup
interface is the administrative interface, which in case of problems. However, the backup data
is used to remotely control cloud resources. The still have to be protected. The final way in which
third form of interface is the user interface, which data security is important is when it comes to
is used as a level of control when exploring cloud data disposal. When data are deleted, they must
resources. One of the most important aspects of be removed in all places and securely removed as
interfaces is authentication, which is the basis of to ensure no files or backups are left on the disk.
control in security. Authentication is the means Another important area in cloud computing is
by which certain security clearance is given in a governance. Governance is important because it
cloud system. This is done by giving users accounts relates to losing security control. When transfer-
on the system with different levels of security. ring to the cloud, companies lose control over the
Another feature of security when dealing with data as to where they are stored and how they are
cloud computing is virtualization security because stored. Also, when converting to the cloud, the
the cloud is made up of virtualized servers; a company loses control over security and poli-
good bit of security detail is placed on securing cies. Another area of security not dealing with
the virtual machines. This is done in two ways; the physical aspect is compliance. Compliance is
the first is isolation. Since all cloud systems are important when talking about service availability.
virtual machines (VMs) using the same resources, One of the current ways in which this affects cur-
it is important to make sure that there is a certain rent security is when the cloud system is attacked
level of isolation between each virtual machine. and the loss of service occurs. Loss of service is
If the VMs are not isolated, there could be a one of the most important problems caused by
good chance to have a data leak or some sort of lack of security. One final problem dealing with
exploitation. Another area in which virtualization current security in cloud computing are the legal
security is important is with the security of the issue. Though it seems like a strange source of
hypervisor. The hypervisor can be very vulnerable security, a good portion of concern is placed in
considering it is the main software component of legal issues when talking about cloud computing
268

security. One such legal issue would be provider The initial question selection was:
privilege. These are problems with data security
caused by malicious providers. Another legal issue 1. What is your favorite car brand?
in concern is the location of data storage, which will 2. Which country would you like to visit one
cause legal problems due to jurisdiction. Though day?
current security is being used, there are a number 3. What is your lucky number between1-100?
of problems with it and it needs to be actively
updated in order to ensure it stays secure. As a These questions will have generic answers.
method of added protection and improved security, The important thing these improvements achieve
you can use preventive controls to enhance and by doing this was to prevent the user from manu-
make your cloud infrastructure resolute against ally doing the security question and answer, and
malicious outsiders and reduce the vulnerability more importantly put our work within the research
and possibility of users’ data being compromised. scope of this work.
When you sign up with an account in a bank or Additionally, for those three questions, a ran-
any organization, you are asked to setup traditional dom list of fifty possible answers will be populated
security questions. The deficiency here is that on the answer selection screen (see Figure 1).
the answer is checked with the help of regular To solidify the efficiency of MIST 4.0, a new
expression engines; meaning the answer provided layer has been added that will not allow the user
by a user should match what was set during the to try resetting his/her password more than five
initial setup. By nature, human beings tend to times. There are three questions to answer in a row
forget the exact answer and it is often the same and you have five chances to get it right. If the
as typing a password. While typically users need user fails to choose the correct answer for any of
more tries to type in a password to access their the security questions, he/she will be redirected to
records, it is evident that giving hints to access the home page and will have to start over again.
your account can be useful but with strict restric-
tions enforced. The MIST is an implementation
of a secret question and answer system that uses Figure 1. User is prompted to choose answers to
predetermined questions with a number of pos- security questions
sible answers for each question. Alkadi’s MIST
algorithm had been improved from MIST 1.0 to
currently MIST 4.0. It was originally designed
to show the answer that the user set up among a
group of fifty other similar answers. For example,
if a user set his security answer as “What is your
birthplace street address?”, the MIST security
algorithm was able to take any regular answer
from the user. “But the problem arises when the
custom answer among the group of fifty buttons
had to be shown. A weakness was discovered for
how the first iteration created the similar answers
for a custom question setup. Through trial and
error and some careful consideration, the current
iteration has determined and maintains persistent
three questions for all accounts”. (Alkadi, 2015)
269

For each wrong answer provided for any of those web application that was written in PHP. Instead
three security questions, one chance out of five is of just using the basic installation of OwnCloud,
lost. If the user cannot make it through using all of changes were made to fit the MIST. All of the
the five attempts, his/her account will be locked technologies used in this implementation are free
down and he/she will not be able to continue with of monetary cost and open source. Below are the
the password reset process. The user will have brief descriptions of the technologies that are used
to contact the administrator for getting access to to develop our application implementing the MIST.
his/her account again (Alkadi, 2015).The first Since the listed software is mostly well-accepted
version of the MIST algorithm utilizes VMware’s open source software, links to these applications
virtualization platform that was on the following are not included in this chapter. The copyright
Hardware: Dell PowerEdge Server, RAID 1 Data protection for these technologies will be closely
Store. The hypervisor VMware ESXi 5.5.0 was analyzed to determine if the copyright protection
used to manage the server’s virtual machines. for all or part of the MIST will be open source as
The operating system used was Debian which well (see Figure 2).
is a Linux distribution and well known server A blind intrusion test from a researcher with
operating system. When the web application for experience in the use of both social engineering
implementing the MIST algorithm was devel- and automated hacking techniques performed the
oped, there were different existing applications first iteration of testing which showed significant
and programming languages. PHP was used for weaknesses in the implementation. In the current
the server side programming language. PHP is an version of MIST 4.0, with three questions with fifty
open-source server side language which couples independent possible answers, the multiplication
very well with another open-source database principle indicates that there are 125,000 possible
software -- MySQL. Another reason to use PHP is answer combinations. Further:
because changes had to be made to the OwnCloud
Figure 2. Answer selection in MIST
270

Figure 3. The MIST Project
BEST PRACTICES
1 1 1 1
* * = or 0.000008%
50 50 50 125, 000 Other than security algorithms, there are ad-
(1) ditional methods to create a more secure cloud
environment such as biometric encryption, cloud
This seems to be a reasonable strength for dependability analysis, collaboration-based cloud
a security algorithm. However, a survey or test computing security management framework, en-
must take place to ensure that the distribution cryption using asymmetric and symmetric keys,
of answers is even amongst all of the possible data leakage prevention, PKI applications, and
answers. For example, the “lucky number” an- homomorphic encryption.
swer is more likely to end on a user’s birth year,
graduation year, child’s birth year, or wedding day.
Some numbers such as 42 and 69 could also be FUTURE RESEARCH
chosen as a user’s lucky number. Through ques- AND DIRECTIONS
tion selection or answer refinement, the answer
distribution should be ideal in order to maintain A newer version of MIST 5.0 will be released by
the 0.000008% chance of selecting the correct the end of May. It will have 1) the even distribu-
answer (see Figure 3). tion of the answers and relativity of answers and
2) the susceptibility of the question to social
271

engineering from social media and other public out quite readily against random words such as
information. Another weakness in the current “quarter” or “around”.
implementation is that the displayed answers are
less than the number of possible answers. As a Scenario 2: User creates security question and
user attempts to reset the password for an account, user types in 49 incorrect answers to the
the MIST algorithm selects 49 random possible question.
answers in addition to the given answer. A browser
plug-in was developed to highlight answers that For this scenario, the user has ultimate control
were repeatedly displayed. Each wrong answer and can create imaginative questions with many
has a 50% chance of being randomly selected feasible answers that are incorrect. A major prob-
for display with each additional reset attempt. lem in this case is the time it takes for the user to
With each attempt, the number of possible cor- enter all the data. The user may become frustrated
rect answers was statistically reduced by half. A and begin to enter anything. Another problem is not
simple alteration could address this weakness by only storing the security question and its answer,
selecting the randomly chosen wrong answers but also the set of incorrect answers.
during setup and maintaining the same answers
displayed for each login attempt (Alkadi, 2015). Scenario 3: User creates security question and
More emphasis will be on the enforcement of the system “intelligently” selects 50 words from
MIST and its applications of many other server possible domain sets based on keywords
sites on campus. There should be more attention parsed from user question.
paid towards the double/triple authentication of
user’s login credentials when different IP addresses For example, if the question is “What color was
are used. Also, the lockout mechanism and policy …..?”, then 50 words will come from a COLOR
should be assessed more on different implementa- domain. If the question says “Who is ….”, “Who
tions and evaluations of results as well. was….”, “What is/was the name of the teacher,
parent, spouse, other person” or “Name the per-
Potential Issues with MIST son who…”, then choices can be selected from a
Security Algorithm domain of NAMES OF PEOPLE. If the question
reads “What is your favorite ____?” then whatever
Scenario 1: User creates security question and category makes up the blank, such as FOODS, can
system displays 50 random possible answers be used. Some questions may be numerical. For
chosen from a dictionary. example, “How many sisters do I have?” or “How
many people passed out at my wedding?” Answers
This scenario is quick for the user and easy to here would come from a domain of NUMBERS.
implement on a system, provided there is easy “What is my favorite ___?” is another one that
access to a dictionary of words. Words from could have domains associated with possible
the dictionary can be selected at random, and things to fill in the blank, such as song, movie,
the actual answer to the question is mixed with television show, activity, sport, etc.
random words. There may at times be questions that cannot
The problem with this solution is that some be easily parsed into domains such as:
questions will have answers that are particular to
a certain set or domain of concepts. If we asked, • “What item do I keep under my bed?”
for example, “Who is my best friend?” it is very • “What is my favorite expression?”
likely that a name such as “Johnnie” will stand • “What do I say every morning to my dog?”
272

In these cases, either use randomly chosen answer combinations as well as answer times and
words or ask the user to supply a certain number number of attempts allowed will be developed to
of likely but incorrect responses to the question, be more applicable to existing cloud computing
so that the list of words is not entirely random, technologies in the private sectors, education
making the answer easy to guess. Again, this re- sectors, and governmental sectors.
quires additional effort on the part of the user, as Our research will continue to be based on and
well as additional resources to store and process devoted to the development of cloud computing
the security question. security methods and techniques that are current
and advanced in compliance with the best security
Overview of Ongoing Research requirements for the cloud. Innovations will be
established and more research will be presented
1. Overview and future advantages and disad- and conducted at the governmental, STEM edu-
vantages of using secure cloud computing cation, military, and private and public sectors.
for Southeastern Louisiana University.
2. Update and make some new creative meth-
odologies for better security in the cloud CONCLUSION
computing field.
3. Cryptovirology is the study of using cryptol- This algorithm, MIST, has demonstrated a new
ogy to design powerful malicious software. technique for verifying the identity of users of
4. Cryptography is the encryption component of cloud computing resources during the process
cryptology and has been traditionally used to of identity authentication. The MIST algorithm
defend systems using encryption and public uses three previously determined questions with
key infrastructures (PKI). Cryptovirology at least 50 previously determined answers for each
makes use of cryptography as a mechanism question. These changes to traditional question
of attacking rather than defending. and answer systems provide the user with a much
easier way to verify their own identity while reduce
The MIST is not the only research to be conducted the susceptibility of the system to social engineer-
in cloud computing security. More deterrent ing techniques used to compromise security and
control, preventative control, corrective control user accounts (Alkadi, 2015). The MIST system
and detective control algorithms and mechanisms has been implemented and is currently in use at
should be additionally and continuously developed Southeastern Louisiana University as a way for
and updated to enforce the perimeter and the users of the OwnCloud system to recover their
layers of the cloud. In addition, more research passwords. It was implemented using primarily
will be directed towards the advancement and free and open source technologies. A new form
improvement of the traditional security techniques and advancement to the security and enforcement
that are used also in the cloud platform. It is not of user identity authentication will be implemented
feasible to say that cloud based security software and applied.
techniques are the only ones needed for securing
the cloud. The traditional security techniques are The Benefits of the MIST
still used on different cloud platforms (Linux. Mac Security Hardening and Cloud
and Windows). Computing Research
In the future, the details of the MIST imple-
mentation will be evaluated using experiments and • Protection from penetration and attack.
surveys of existing users. Additional question and
273

• Intrusion detection and prevention (IDS/ Alkadi, I., Alkadi, G., Yang, K. P., & Gill, M.
IPS). (2013). Enforcing anti-breaching of security in
• Password resetting. cloud computing by applying multiple methodolo-
• Password recovery. gies to enhance protection of cloud based grids/
• Password authentication. servers. India: IJERT.
• Secure cloud storage & sharing.
Erl, T. (2013). Cloud computing concepts, technol-
• Contribution to the field of cloud comput-
ogy & architecture. Westford, MA: Prentice Hall.
ing security.
• A hybrid security platform. Krutz, R. L., & Vines, R. D. (2010). A compre-
• Time out mechanism. hensive guide to secure cloud computing. India-
• Login check from different computer/IP napolis, IN: Wiley.
addresses.
Marinescu, D. (2013). Cloud computing theory
• User friendly.
and practice. Waltham, MA: Elsevier.
Just like cloud computing, cloud storage has also Vacca, J. (2013). Computer and information
been increasing in popularity recently due to many security. Waltham, MA: Elsevier.
of the same reasons as cloud computing. Cloud
storage delivers virtualized storage on demand,
over a network based on a request for a given
ADDITIONAL READING
quality of service. There is no need to purchase
storage or in some cases even provision it before
Behl, A. (2011). Emerging security challenges
storing data. You only pay for the amount of
in cloud computing: An insight to cloud security
storage your data are actually consuming. Cloud
challenges and their mitigation. Information and
storage means “the storage of data in the cloud”
Communication Technologies (WICT), World
where a company’s/University’s data are stored
Congress, IEEE, pages 217-222.
and accessible from multiple distributed and
connected resources that comprise a cloud. Any Chandrahasan R., Priya, S., & Arockiam, L.
device connected to this cloud can access the data (2012). Research challenges and security issues
over the Internet. in cloud computing. International Journal of
Finally, securing the cloud is not just a one Computational Intelligence and Information
time or continual process; it is a continuously Security, Vol. 3, No. 3.
evolving process. Cloud experts may not be happy
Chen, D. (2012). Data security and privacy
about it but that is the fact, and it is an ongoing
protection issues in cloud computing [ICCSEE].
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Computer Science and Electronics Engineering,
that are continuously attempting to break in, and
1, 647–651.
it is ultimately our unconditional devotion to our
research to stop them recurrently. Gonzales, D. (2014). Cloud computing bible: A
practical approach to cloud computing security,
cloud problems to be aware of. Amazon Media EU.
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KEY TERMS AND DEFINITIONS Cryptovirology:: The study of using cryp-

tology to design powerful malicious software.
Availability of the Cloud: Making sure the Cryptovirology makes use of cryptography as a
cloud server network is fail-safe and ready at all mechanism of attacking rather than defending.
times. MIST: A new technique for verifying the
Cloud Computing Security: The complete identity of users of cloud computing resources
strict engulfment of the cloud network, its re- during the process of identity authentication.
sources, user’s data, and the accessibility of it Penetration Testing: Techniques used to
in special continuously updated method and/ explore and test vulnerability of the underlying
or techniques that enable the cloud computing network.
network impenetrable. Total Cost of Ownership: The total direct and
Cryptography: The encryption component indirect cost and investment on the installation,
of cryptology and has been traditionally used to application, implementation, and the maintenance
defend systems using encryption and public key of the hardware, software, and the cloud.
infrastructure (PKI).
276
277
Chapter 18
Security Issues Related to Cloud
Applications in STEM Education
Yong Chen
Old Dominion University, USA
ABSTRACT
Learning based on cloud computing, denoted as cloud learning (CL) in short, is a disruptive innova-
tion and a current buzzword in education. It provides a learner-centered platform that benefits learners,
instructors, and education providers. However, because it requires the Internet and is built on cloud
computing, CL has inherent security issues. By analyzing the benefits and the security threats inherent
in CL, this chapter aims to help CL stakeholders in STEM Education (namely cloud service providers,
cloud content providers, and cloud users) to better understand the security issues inherent in CL from
the perspectives of confidentiality, integrity, and availability. The discussions about the risks that CL
stakeholders in STEM education incur as a result of prevailing security threats and system vulnerabilities
will help those stakeholders to assess the cost effectiveness of security countermeasures.
INTRODUCTION STEM education (Judd & Graves, 2012). However,

limitations in educational institutions’ information
STEM is an acronym that stands for Science, and communication technology infrastructures,
Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics. security concerns, and web technology issues
This conglomerate started as an educational have prevented online labs from being utilized
focus to improve U.S. teenagers’ interests and by STEM teachers (Gillet, De Jong, Sotirou, &
accomplishments in math and science (Kim & Salzmann, 2013). Furthermore, the computing
Park, 2012). According to Terkowsky, Haertel, capabilities of portable devices hinder the further
Bielski, and May (2013), three learning technolo- development of STEM education.
gies are recognized clearly as supporting tools for Cloud computing is “a model for enabling ubiq-
STEM education: remote labs, personal learning uitous, convenient on-demand network access to a
environments, and portable devices. For example, shared pool of configurable computing resources
scientific computational/visualization tools such (e.g., networks, servers, storage, applications, and
as Matlab and Octave have been adopted widely in services) that can be rapidly provisioned and re-
DOI: 10.4018/978-1-4666-9924-3.ch018

Security Issues Related to Cloud Applications in STEM Education
leased with minimal management effort or service computers, all types of mobile devices, satellite,
provider interaction” (Mell & Grance, 2011:p2). and even IP-TV” (Bai, Shen, Chen, & Zhuo, 2011,
It uses machines in large data centers to deliver p3460). Based on cloud computing, CL provides
services in a scalable manner (Wyld, 2009; Pa- a platform that benefits learners, instructors, and
quette, Jaeger, & Wilson, 2010). It is a disruptive education providers. On the one hand, it enables
convergence of the development of computing teachers to take advantage of cloud services to
power and data transmission and the use of the support student learning and innovation. Instruc-
Internet and mobile communication (Castells, tors can easily create teaching environments, can
2001). As a new supplement, consumption, and design teaching resources, and can organize teach-
delivery model for information technology, cloud ing activities in collaboration via CL. On the other
computing involves the provision of dynamically hand, CL allows learners to build personal learning
scalable and often virtualized resources over the environments for effective learning (Bai, Shen,
Internet (Knorr & Gruman, 2009). It aims to Chen, & Zhuo, 2011). CL is a learner-centered
provide flexible services, scalable computing platform that facilitates resource sharing and col-
applications, storage, and platforms in a transpar- laboration among learners anytime and anywhere
ent manner (Sun, Chang, Sun, & Wang, 2011). (Bai, Shen, Chen, & Zhuo, 2011; Masud, Huang,
Recently, because of advances in virtualization & Yong, 2011). Furthermore, education providers
(Staff, 2012), distributed computing with server are beginning to realize the benefits of CL as well
clusters (Barroso, Dean, & Holzle, 2003), and because they have recently been plagued by low
the availability of broadband Internet access budget and high costs (Bhatia, 2013).
(Atayero & Feyisetan, 2011), cloud computing Due to its architectural design and character-
has been developing at an amazing pace (Zhou, istics, cloud computing possesses a number of
Zhang, Xie, Qian, & Zhou, 2010) and has attracted security benefits, namely centralization of secu-
significant attention in diverse realms, such as rity, data and process segmentation, redundancy,
academia, industry, the government, and the and high availability (Zissis & Lekkas, 2012).
military. Specifically, this new computing model However, each component of cloud computing,
provides potential benefits for online learning including operating systems, storage, networking,
because cloud computing can reduce the costs of and virtualization, has its own inherent security
setting up and maintaining servers and networks issues (Atayero & Feyisetan, 2011). Especially
for online learning providers, can improve their because CL is built on cloud computing, which
infrastructures’ flexibility and scalability, can requires the Internet to achieve resource sharing
provide instructors and students flexible and and collaboration, security concerns about CL are
on-demand services (He, Cernusca, & Abdous, rising (Bai, Shen, Chen, & Zhuo, 2011).
2011), and can provide dependable data storage For the public cloud, the most cost-effective
and data sharing (Chandran & Kempegowda, deployment model of cloud computing, security
2010). Furthermore, Bai, Shen, Chen, and Zhuo is a big issue because the physical location of
(2011) point out that cloud computing can help cloud providers’ infrastructures usually traverses
instructors pay more attention to improving their many national boundaries (Atayero & Feyisetan,
teaching and can help learners to concentrate on 2011). Since learners’ individual private data
building and enhancing their intelligence. are stored on the other side of the Internet and
Learning based on cloud computing, denoted since services are offered by other parties (e.g.,
as cloud learning (CL) in short, is “a shared pool cloud providers and cloud content providers) in
of learning courses, digital assets, and resources, CL, security breaches, such as data leakage and
which instructors and learners can access via unauthorized access (Bai, Shen, Chen, & Zhuo,
278

2011), are very likely to happen. In response to computing has four deployment models: 1) the
increasing security threats, researchers have devel- public cloud, which is provided by a third party via
oped a number of countermeasures and solutions the Internet and is available to the general public
to improve security in CL. To date, the discussion or to large industry groups; 2) the private cloud,
of security risks of CL is disparate, fragmented, which is designed and managed by an information
and distributed among different outlets. System- technology department within an organization and
atic and extensive published research on security is available on private networks; 3) the community
in CL is still unavailable. The purpose of this cloud, which is shared by several organizations
chapter is to synthesize the related discussions and supports a specific community; and 4) the
in the literature, to provide an in-depth review hybrid cloud, which is a combination of public,
of the security aspects of CL, and to identify the private, and community clouds (Mell & Grance,
future trends and challenges to security in CL. 2011). As mentioned above, the public cloud is
This chapter aims to coordinate this information the most cost-effective deployment model of cloud
and to aid stakeholders to understand the state of computing. Figure 1 shows the service models and
the art in this fast-moving field. This chapter will deployment models of cloud computing.
offer necessary insights and tips so that stakehold- According to Reese (2009) and Buyya, Yeo,
ers can become proactive and knowledgeable as Venugopal, Broberg, and Brandic (2009), cloud
they mitigate the security risks found in cloud computing has the following strengths: 1) flex-
applications in STEM education. ibility/elasticity; 2) scalability of infrastructure; 3)
broad network access; 4) location independence;
5) reliability; 6) economies of scale and cost ef-
BACKGROUND fectiveness; 7) sustainability. Gens (2008) point
out that the biggest benefits of cloud computing
Cloud Computing are its fast and easy deployment, its pay-per-use
model, and the reduction of in-house information
Cloud computing has three service models: 1) technology costs.
software as a service (SaaS), which allows users
to use applications, but does not allow them to Cloud Learning
control operating systems, hardware, and network
infrastructure (e.g., Google Docs and Microsoft CL inherits the benefits of cloud computing. For
Office 365); 2) platform as a service (PaaS), example, CL is cost-saving, time-saving, scal-
which allows users to use a hosting environment able, easy to access, and easy to use. Moreover,
for running applications (e.g., Google App En- it is flexible and open to be customized. It also
gine and Microsoft Azure); and 3) infrastructures facilitates collaboration among learners (Bhatia,
as a service (IaaS), which gives users access to 2013). Stakeholders involved in CL, namely cloud
fundamental computing resources (e.g., Amazon providers, cloud content providers, learners, and
Elastic Compute Cloud and Rackspace)(Hirsch & teachers can all benefit from CL.
Ng, 2011; Mell & Grance, 2011). Therefore, the For cloud providers, cloud computing allows
stakeholders involved in CL include cloud provid- them to provide infinite computing resources on
ers (e.g., Google, Amazon, and Microsoft), cloud demand to CL content providers, to CL learners,
content providers (e.g., educational and learning and to teachers at a low cost.
organizations), and users (learners, instructors, and CL content providers, such as K-12, higher edu-
administrators). Many CL applications fall into the cation, continuing and adult education, and even
SaaS category (Bhatia, 2013). In addition, cloud corporate training, do not need to plan far ahead
279

Figure 1. Cloud definition framework

Source: Mell & Grance, 2011
on hardware provisioning. Metz (2010) explains with infrastructure, platform, and application
how the traditional information technology infra- services (Chen, Liu, Han, & Xu, 2010). It also
structure works: “When an institution develops or offers more scalable, fault-tolerant services with
deploys a new application, they first must jump higher performance (Zhou, Zhang, Xie, Qian,
through a number of hoops. For example, if an & Zhou, 2010). The high scalability offered by
institution decides they would like to install the cloud computing allows CL materials to run
learning management system Moodle, they might across all kinds of operating systems and plat-
have to order a server, wait for the vendor to ship forms, including mobile devices (Bhatia, 2013;
it, install the server in the data center, provision TeachThought, 2012). Furthermore, CL provides
an IP address for the server, set up the DNS for unlimited computing power for the completion
the new IP address, install the operating system, of various types of learning applications (Chen,
etc.” According to Bhatia (2013), currently more Liu, Han, & Xu, 2010). Learners and teachers
than half of educational institutions’ information in online learning usually worry about whether
technology budgets are spent maintaining infra- they are using different or outdated software.
structure, namely servers and storage devices. This issue can severely obstruct online learning
Cloud computing offers many institutions “a cost and can cost learners and teachers quite a lot of
effective solution to the problem of how to provide time and effort to fix. This, however, is not the
services, data storage, and computing power to a case in CL (Rao, Sasidhar, & Kumar, 2010). CL,
growing number of Internet users without invest- however, allows learners to easily access software
ing capital in physical machines that need to be that was previously expensive or unavailable via
maintained and upgraded on-site” (Rao, Sasidhar, their web browsers without paying any fee (Ercan,
& Kumar, 2012, p. 6). 2010). Learners can even access expensive and
CL users (learners and teachers) can access proprietary productivity tools free or at a low
files and applications stored in cloud anytime/ cost. In addition, the benefits of the hardware
anywhere. In terms of learning hardware and and software provided by CL make high quality
software, cloud computing can provide CL users learning resources accessible to learners around
280

the world, including those from rural parts of the be backed up and restored easily? Educational
globe (Rao, Sasidhar, & Kumar, 2010). Teachers institutions and users are cautious about storing
can focus on teaching and can spend less time on high-value or sensitive data and information in
technology issues and class administration. The the cloud. As mentioned above, cloud comput-
flexibility of cloud-based applications allows ing has its own inherent security issues in each
teachers to modify learning resources in real time of its components, including operating systems,
in response to learners’ needs (Bhatia, 2013). Other storage, networking, and virtualization (Atayero
than the benefits of hardware and software, CL & Feyisetan, 2011). Figure 2 shows the security
also facilitates collaborations among learners by issues in cloud computing.
making document sharing, viewing, and real-time Wei, Zhu, Cao, Dong, Jia, Chen, and Vasilakos
collaborative editing available (TeachThought, (2013) point out that security in cloud computing
2012). It encourages active learning and increased falls into two categories: cloud storage security
participation in online class activities by integrat- and cloud computation security. Cloud storage
ing with discussion and chat forums (Bhatia, 2013). security refers to the integrity of outsourced data
As Bhatia (2013) summarized, CL learners can stored on untrustworthy cloud servers, whereas
“access CL applications, view course materials cloud computation security refers to the correct-
and resources, participate in discussions and group ness of the outsourced computations performed by
activities, submit assignments, take quizzes and untrustworthy cloud servers. Cloud computation
tests, and receive feedback online using computers includes searches, transformations, selections, and
or mobile devices”(p2). access control decisions (Ryan, 2013).
In terms of STEM education, cloud-based col- Security has three basic requirements: confi-
laboration tools allow learners to engage problems dentiality, integrity, and availability (Adams &
as teams, to interact and brainstorm solutions eas- Blandford, 2003; Avizienis, Laprie, Randell, &
ily, and to craft reports and presentations (Johnson, Landwehr, 2004; Serb, Defta, Iacob, & Apetrei,
Brown, Cummins, & Estrada, 2012). Remote 2013; Weippl & Ebner, 2008). Confidentiality
labs can be integrated into cloud-based personal refers to the protecting of sensitive information
learning environments for learners to access eas- from access by unauthorized persons (Serb, Defta,
ily (Terkowsky, Haertel, Bielski, & May, 2013). Iacob, & Apetrei, 2013; Adams & Blandford,
2003) and the absence of unauthorized disclosure
Security in CL of information (Weippl & Ebner, 2008). Integrity
refers to “the protection of data from intentional
Because it is built on cloud computing, CL inherits or accidental unauthorized changes” (Serb, Defta,
all of the security issues possessed by cloud com- Iacob, & Apetrei, 2013, p2) and “the absence of
puting. Although cloud computing is thriving in the improper system alterations” (Weippl & Ebner,
mainstream, educational institutions are reluctant 2008, p2). It assures that “information and data
to apply a cloud-based system to enterprise users have not been accidentally or maliciously modi-
(Sheard, 2010). According to Takabi, Joshi, and fied or destroyed, and are in accurate, correct, and
Ahn (2010), security and privacy issues inhibit complete original form” (Raitman, Ngo, Augar, &
cloud computing’s wide acceptance in practice. Zhou, 2005, p2). Availability means the readiness
Security concerns about cloud computing have for correct service (Weippl & Ebner, 2008). It notes
been raised by scholars as well (e.g. Ritttinghouse that a cloud learning system can be accessed by
& Ransome, 2009; Jensen, Schwenk, Gruschka, authorized users whenever and wherever needed
& Iacono, 2009). Education researchers bring up (Serb, Defta, Iacob, & Apetrei, 2013; Zhou, Zhang,
concerns: Is the data saved in cloud safe? Can it Xie, Qian, & Zhou, 2010). And it assures that
281

Figure 2. Security in cloud computing

Source: Subashini & Kavitha, 2011
“information and communication resources are or illegal activities are hard to investigate because
readily accessible and reliable in a timely manner logging and data for multiple customers are co-
by authorized persons” (Raitman, Ngo, Augar, & located; and 7) long-term viability, which notes
Zhou, 2005, p2). that users’ data might not be accessible when
Brodkin (2008) points out seven security risks cloud providers are out of business.
in cloud computing according to a report from the
analyst firm Gartner: 1) privileged user access,
since storing data on clouds makes users lose the SOLUTIONS AND
direct physical, logical, and personnel control over RECOMMENDATIONS
them; 2) regulatory compliance, since external
audits and security certifications are missing for Security in CL requires confidentiality, integrity,
cloud service providers; 3) data location, which and availability. Stakeholders in CL, including
notes that because the exact physical location of cloud providers, cloud content providers, and cloud
users’ data is not transparent, jurisdictions and users, should take measures to improve security
commitments on local privacy requirements are in CL from these three perspectives.
not clear; 4) data segregation, which notes that
users’ data are not separated with encryption on Confidentiality
clouds; 5) recovery, which states that proper re-
covery mechanisms are not available to deal with Confidentiality in CL has twofold meanings: data
technological failure or disasters; 6) investigative confidentiality and software confidentiality. Data
support, which makes it clear that inappropriate confidentiality is correlated to user authentication
282

(Zissis & Lekkas, 2012), whereas software confi- to improve confidentiality (Zhou, Zhang, Xie,
dentiality refers to “trusting that specific applica- Qian, & Zhou, 2010). Furthermore, they should
tions or processes will maintain and handle the deploy strong virtual machine managers and op-
user’s personal data in a secure manner” (Zissis erating systems that ensure separation between
& Lekkas, 2012). processes to fix the multi-tenancy issue (Ryan,
Data stored in the cloud is usually intention- 2013). In addition, because CL content provid-
ally widely accessible by potentially insecure ers usually adopt cloud computing offered by
protocols and APIs across public networks (Cloud commercial cloud providers, commercial cloud
Security Alliance, 2011; Chen, Paxson, & Katz, providers should better understand the specific
2010; Christodorescu, Sailer, Schales, Sgandurra, security requirements of CL content providers
& Zamboni, 2009). Unauthorized access occurs (Alabbadi, 2011).
through the exploitation of application vulner- Second, CL content providers should add mask
ability or lack of strong identification (Zissis & data or de-identify data and should implement
Lekkas, 2012). For cloud providers, maintaining firewalls, take encryption and key management,
confidentiality for CL is a big challenge because or perform federated identity management (Mar-
the data and services offered by CL are often tin, 2009; McIrvine, 2010; SafeNet, 2010). Ryan
transmitted through public networks. Conse- (2013) proposes some similar solutions, such as
quently, the data and services are attractive targets authentication protocols, authorization frame-
for attackers (Tout, Sverdlik, & Lawver, 2009). works, and encryption. Among these measures,
In addition, once data are stored in cloud, they encrypting sensitive data before putting them into
can be accessed by employees in cloud provid- cloud is the simplest and most effective way to
ers and their subcontractors (Chen, Paxson, & improve confidentiality (Mircea & Andreescu,
Katz, 2010; Christodorescu, Sailer, Schales, 2011). However, in the encryption process, cloud
Sgandurra, & Zamboni, 2009; Cloud Security Al- content providers will face two challenges: one is to
liance, 2011; Laisheng, & Zhengxia, 2011). Such locate the data and the other is to decrypt the data,
a kind of third party access model might cause perform computation, and send the result back to
leaks of learners’ sensitive personal information learners. To deal with these challenges, Atayero
(Atayero & Feyisetan, 2011), research results, and and Feyisetan (2011) propose homomorphic en-
accounts of employees in CL content providers cryption, a scheme that enables learners to carry
(Mircea & Andreescu, 2011). Furthermore, in out any arbitrary computation on the hosted data
cloud computing, many users run processes on without letting cloud providers know the content
the same physical servers simultaneously. This of these data. In contrast, Mircea and Andreescu
multi-tenancy issue causes unauthorized access, (2011) argue that the aforementioned four mea-
as well (Rong, Nguyen, & Jaatun, 2013). Accord- sures should be combined and applied together.
ingly, cloud sharers (tenants) might be attackers Third, because CL users do not have control
(Chen, Paxson, & Katz, 2010; Christodorescu, over the physical servers in cloud, they cannot
Sailer, Schales, Sgandurra, & Zamboni, 2009; control their data that is stored in cloud. Due to
Cloud Security Alliance, 2011). the virtual separation of logical drives and the lack
In order to protect sensitive data in CL, mea- of hardware separation between multiple users on
sures should be taken from the perspectives of all a single infrastructure in cloud computing, data
stakeholders. First, cloud providers should invest remanence may cause the disclosure of private
and deploy up-to-date security technologies and data (Zissis & Lekkas, 2012). In order to prevent
practices (Ryan, 2013). Meanwhile, they should the leaking of sensitive data, CL users should ap-
adopt virtual physical isolation and cryptography ply authentication methods, such as ID/password,
283

public key infrastructure, and single sign-on, or Combining SSO and the Lightweight Directory
a combination of ID/password and biometrics Access Protocol (LDAP), a digital signature is
together to improve security (Chen & He, 2013; the strongest available authentication process
Jeong & Choi, 2012). (Zissis & Lekkas, 2012). In addition, according
to Zissis and Lekkas (2012), integrity along with
Integrity confidentiality can be improved by combining
an asymmetric and a symmetric cryptographic.
Integrity involves data, software, and hardware. It
refers to protecting data, software, and hardware Availability
from unauthorized deletion, modification, theft,
or fabrication (Zissis & Lekkas, 2012). Availability refers to data, software, and hardware
Users’ data are stored in cloud providers’ in- is available to authorized users upon demand
frastructure, so they are vulnerable to be altered (Zissis & Lekkas, 2012). CL is supposed to be
without owners’ consent, or to be lost by cloud available to learners and teachers 24/7 without
providers (Cloud Security Alliance, 2011; Chen, any interruption. This is a key selling point for
Paxson, & Katz, 2010; Christodorescu, Sailer, the cloud providers (Paquette, Jaeger, & Wilson,
Schales, Sgandurra, & Zamboni, 2009). Paquette, 2010). However, outages and natural disasters can
Jaeger, and Wilson (2010) note that “cloud provid- happen and can cause data, software, and hardware
ers must ensure that all precautions are taken to in CL to become unavailable. Table 1 shows some
guarantee that data within the cloud storage does cloud service outrages during recent years.
not become corrupt or altered” (p250). Although Furthermore, cloud providers could be merged
maintaining data integrity is a fundamental task or acquired or could go out of business (Atayero &
for CL (Zhou, Zhang, Xie, Qian, & Zhou, 2010), Feyisetan, 2011). These factors, mainly from cloud
cloud providers are still not able to provide a providers, can damage the availability of CL. In
system of monitoring and logs (Rong, Nguyen, order to improve the availability of CL, on the one
& Jaatun, 2013). hand cloud providers should adopt hardening and
Preventing unauthorized access is an effective redundancy strategies (Zhou, Zhang, Xie, Qian,
approach to the improvement of data integrity. & Zhou, 2010). On the other hand, CL content
Authorization is the mechanism by which a sys- providers should find backup plans by choosing a
tem determines what level of access a particular few cloud providers to mitigate availability risks
authenticated user should have in order to secure (Chandran & Kempegowda, 2010).
resources controlled by the system. Authorization
is crucial to assure that only authorized entities
can interact with data (Zissis & Lekkas, 2012).
As mentioned above, authorization should be
implemented by cloud providers by applying Table 1. Cloud service outages (Source: Atayero
ID/password, public key infrastructure, Single- & Feyisetan, 2011)
Sign-On (SSO), or combining ID/password and Cloud Service Outage Dates
biometrics together (Chen & He, 2013; Jeong Duration
& Choi, 2012). Furthermore, there are some Google Gmail and 24 hours Aug. 11, 2008
technologies that can be used to detect incorrect Applications
modifications. For example, the digital signature Windows Azure 22 hours Mar. 13-14, 2009
is a widely used technique for data integrity test- Amazon Simple 7 hours Jul, 20, 2008
Storage Service(S3)
ing (Zhou, Zhang, Xie, Qian, & Zhou, 2010).
284

CONCLUSION Avizienis, A., Laprie, J. C., Randell, B., & Land-

wehr, C. (2004). Basic concepts and taxonomy of
This chapter synthesizes the related discussions in dependable and secure computing. Dependable
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security aspects of CL, and identifies the future 1(1), 11–33.
trends and challenges to security in CL. It aids
Bai, Y., Shen, S., Chen, L., & Zhuo, Y. (2011).
CL stakeholders in understanding the state of
Cloud learning: A new learning style. In Multi-
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Takabi, H., Joshi, J. B., & Ahn, G. J. (2010). Se- KEY TERMS AND DEFINITIONS
curity and privacy challenges in cloud computing
environments. Security & Privacy, IEEE, 8(6), Availability: Availability refers to data, soft-
24–31. doi:10.1109/MSP.2010.186 ware, and hardware is available to authorized
users upon demand.
Terkowsky, C., Haertel, T., Bielski, E., & May, D. Cloud Computing: A model for enabling
(2013). Creativity@ School: mobile learning envi- ubiquitous, convenient on-demand network ac-
ronments involving remote labs and E-Portfolios. cess to a shared pool of configurable computing
A conceptual framework to foster the inquiring resources (e.g., networks, servers, storage, applica-
mind in secondary STEM education. In IT Inno- tions, and services) that can be rapidly provisioned
vative Practices in Secondary Schools: Remote and released with minimal management effort or
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Cloud Learning: A shared pool of learning Software Confidentiality: Trusting that spe-
courses, digital assets, and resources, which in- cific applications or processes will maintain and
structors and learners can access via computers, all handle the user’s personal data in a secure manner.
types of mobile devices, satellite, and even IP-TV. STEM: An acronym that stands for Science,
Data Confidentiality: Confidentiality cor- Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics.
related to user authentication.
Integrity: Integrity involves data, software,
and hardware. It refers to protecting data, soft-
ware, and hardware from unauthorized deletion,
modification, theft, or fabrication.
289
Section 5
Management and Evaluation
of Classes Supported by Cloud
Platform
291
Chapter 19
Inquiry-Based Learning
on the Cloud:
Alexander Mikroyannidis Andre Correa
The Open University, UK Universidade Estadual Paulista, Brazil
Alexandra Okada Peter Scott

The Open University, UK The Open University, UK
ABSTRACT
Cloud Learning Environments (CLEs) have recently emerged as a novel approach to learning, putting
learners in the spotlight and providing them with the cloud-based tools for building their own learning
environments according to their specific learning needs and aspirations. Although CLEs bring significant
benefits to educators and learners, there is still little evidence of CLEs being actively and effectively used
in the teaching and learning process. This chapter addresses this issue by introducing a European initiative
called weSPOT (Working Environment with Social, Personal and Open Technologies for Inquiry-based
Learning) for supporting and enhancing inquiry-based learning in STEM education via a cloud-based
inquiry toolkit. The chapter presents evidence of using this toolkit within a case study that investigates
how a secondary education community of students / co-learners selects information sources on the web
and identifies factors associated with the reliability of information sources during their collaborative
inquiry (co-inquiry) project in online environments.
INTRODUCTION System (LMS) is an online software application

offering facilities for student registration, enrol-
Learning Management Systems have dominated ment into courses, delivery of learning materials
e-learning for several years. They have been widely to participants, student assessment and progress
used by academic institutions for delivering their monitoring. Popular examples of LMS used by
distance learning programmes, as well as for sup- the academic as well as the business world include
porting their students outside the classroom. They Blackboard1, Moodle2, and CLIX3.
have also been established in the business sector However, the advent of Web 2.0 has altered the
as the mainstream platform for delivering training landscape in e-learning. Learners nowadays have
services to employees. A Learning Management access to a variety of learning tools and services
DOI: 10.4018/978-1-4666-9924-3.ch019

Inquiry-Based Learning on the Cloud Lessons Learned from a Case Study in Secondary Education
on the web. These tools and services are usually large autonomous system not owned by any edu-
provided by different vendors and in many cases cational organisation. In this system, the users of
are open and free. Repositories like Wikipedia4, cloud-based services are academics or learners,
YouTube5, SlideShare6 and iTunes U7 offer access who share the same privileges, including control,
to a wide range of learning materials for free. choice, and sharing of content on these services.
Augmenting and configuring the diverse and This approach has the potential to enable and
distributed Web 2.0 tools and services in order to facilitate both formal and informal learning for
address the needs and preferences of individual the learner. It also promotes the openness, shar-
learners are a significant challenge for modern ing and reusability of learning resources on the
online learning environments. web (Malik, 2009).
The transition from the traditional e-learning The CLE is enabled by the technological in-
approach of LMS to Web 2.0 e-learning solutions frastructure of Web 2.0, employing popular and
bears significant benefits for learners. It puts em- established technologies such as HTTP, XML,
phasis to their needs and preferences, providing and SOAP. This makes it an ideal platform for
them with a wider choice of learning resources the easy sharing of online resources, thus benefit-
to choose from. The European project ROLE ing not only learners, but also those who design,
(Responsive Open Learning Environments)8 has produce, and publish creative digital works for
explored this transition within a variety of learn- educational purposes. This is a critical requirement
ing contexts and test-beds (Kroop, Mikroyannidis, for achieving a sustainable knowledge community,
& Wolpers, 2015). One of the these test-beds has as not only consumers but also active producers
been provided by the Open University9 and con- are essential (Hu & Chen, 2010).
cerns the transition from formal learning, where The web services employed by the CLE have
courses are exclusively prepared and delivered by made a significant impact on the design and de-
educators, towards informal learning, where the livery of e-learning resources (Vossen & Wester-
learner is in control of the whole learning process. kemp, 2003). Unlike the traditional approach to
This transition is being implemented within the courseware delivery followed by the LMS, where
Open University test-bed as a transition from the the focus is on the aggregation of learning objects,
LMS towards the Personal Learning Environment the CLE supports composition. Courseware units
(Mikroyannidis & Connolly, 2015). can be represented by cloud services and invoked
The Personal Learning Environment (PLE) is within a workflow model (Anane, Bordbar, Fanyu,
a facility for an individual to access, aggregate, & Hendley, 2005). The composition and invoca-
configure and manipulate digital artefacts of their tion of these services offer greater flexibility in
ongoing learning experiences. The PLE follows designing and delivering learning paths.
a learner-centric approach, allowing the use of Inquiry-based Learning (IBL) brings together
lightweight services and tools that belong to and the PLE and CLE paradigms by enabling learn-
are controlled by individual learners. Rather than ers to take the role of an explorer and scientist
integrating different services into a centralised as they try to solve issues they came across and
system, the PLE provides the learner with a va- that made them wonder, thus tapping into their
riety of services and hands over control to her to personal feelings of curiosity (Bell, Urhahne,
select and use these services the way she deems fit Schanze, & Ploetzner, 2010). IBL supports the
(Chatti, Jarke, & Frosch-Wilke, 2007; Mikroyan- meaningful contextualization of scientific con-
nidis, Kroop, & Wolpers, 2015). cepts by relating them to personal experiences.
The Cloud Learning Environment (CLE) It leads to structured knowledge about a domain
extends the PLE by considering the cloud as a and to more skills and competences about how to
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carry out efficient and communicable research. Competences for co-learning and co-inquiry
Thus, learners learn to investigate, collaborate, can be represented by the “C” model shown in
be creative, use their personal characteristics and Figure 1, which is grounded on four foundational
identity to have influence in different environments concepts: digital literacy, communication-collab-
and at different levels (e.g. me, neighbourhood, oration, critical-creative thinking and scientific
society, and the world). literacy.
Co-learning (collaborative open learning) has The “C” model includes seven groups of skills
been taking place in informal ways mainly among described below:
users who master technologies in the context of
open platforms, resources and social networks 1. PLAN: Goals, time, priorities, challenges,
(Okada, 2007, 2013). Advanced skills and compe- pros/cons and self-management. Participants
tences are essential in order to take full advantage are able to identify common objectives and
of both co-learning and co-inquiry. Nevertheless, other requirements to achieve expected and
technological skills need to be developed in an unexpected outcomes during the process.
integrated way with scientific literacy skills and 2. USE: Various tools - search engines, hy-
for that, easy-to-use technologies integrated to a permedia, translators, notifications, upload/
collaborative online environment might be helpful download, tags, RSS feeds and applications.
in the different stages of co-inquiry. Participants are able to use open platforms
Co-inquiry is a cooperative process of raising by searching, aggregating, generating and
important questions with experts or specialists, disseminating content.
integrating relevant information and generating 3. SHARE: Questions, links, ideas, comments,
acceptable lines of thought based on scientific annotations and open content. Participants
assumptions and knowledge areas (Heron, 1996). are able to contribute to the platform includ-
This process requires and provides opportunities ing a diversity of files, messages and content
for developing essential skills in scientific inquiry: on wiki pages.
formulating scientific questions, defining meth- 4. MANAGE: Networks, support, organisa-
odologies, collecting data, implementing analysis, tion, feedback, interests, consensus, review
discussing result interpretations and communicat- and improvement. Participants are able to
ing research results with scientific explanations manage contacts and content for improving
for feedback, evaluation and dissemination. the collective discussion.
Co-learning based on co-inquiry aims at 5. ELABORATE: Mapping, interpretations,
the collaborative construction of knowledge, in analysis, synthesis, systematisation and self-
which co-learners are able to expand their social assessment. Participants are able to reflect,
networks, integrate open learning with collective co-produce and assess diverse types of col-
research and co-author collaborative productions. lective representations.
It is enriched through the interactive participation 6. DEVELOP: Scientific questions, literature
for co-creation and peer review in a much more review, methodology, procedure, analytic
open, critical and innovative way. Co-learners discussion, scientific production, peer-
as co-investigators play important roles, such as review and dissemination. Participants are
entrepreneurs aware of individual and collective able to improve their learning through a set
objectives and strategies, technical users of tech- of activities for scientific research.
nologies, proactive participants in open platforms, 7. CREATE: Theories, best practices, method-
interactive peers, reflective reviewers, scientific ologies, policies, higher impact, and derived
participants and innovative practitioners. research. Participants are able to disseminate
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Figure 1. “C Analysis Model”–Competences for co-learning and co-inquiry (Okada, 2014)
their co-authorships and exploit new work based Learning) is a European project, aiming
or studies through new publications and at propagating scientific inquiry as the approach
research opportunities. for STEM education in combination with today’s
curricula and teaching practices (Mikroyannidis, et
weSPOT10 (Working Environment with Social, al., 2013). weSPOT aspires to lower the threshold
Personal and Open Technologies for Inquiry- for linking everyday life with science teaching
294

in schools by technology. weSPOT supports relationships, discourse, personal motivation, as

the meaningful contextualization of scientific well as tacit over explicit knowledge. Social me-
concepts by relating them to personal curiosity, dia offer a variety of collaborative resources and
experiences and reasoning. In short, weSPOT facilities, which can complement and enrich the
employs a collaborative learner-centric approach individual’s personal learning space.
in secondary and higher education that enables weSPOT provides students with the ability to
students as co-learners to: build their own IBL environment, enriched with
social and collaborative features. This IBL envi-
• Personalise their IBL environment via a ronment offers cloud-based tools for orchestrating
widget-based interface together with their inquiry workflows, including mobile apps, learn-
peers. ing analytics support, and social collaboration in
• Build, share and enact inquiry workflows the context of scientific inquiry. These offerings
individually and/or collaboratively with allow students to filter inquiry resources and tools
other co-learners. according to their own needs and preferences.
Students are able to interact with their peers in
order to reflect on their inquiry workflows, receive
THE weSPOT PEDAGOGICAL and provide feedback, mentor each other, thus
APPROACH forming meaningful social connections that will
help and motivate them in their learning. From a
As we have learned from the ROLE project, what learner’s perspective, this approach offers them
is often missing from the PLE is not the abundance access to personalised bundles of inquiry resources
of tools and services, but the means for binding augmented with social media, which they can
them together in a meaningful way (Mikroyannidis manage and control from within their personal
& Connolly, 2012). weSPOT attempts to address learning space.
this issue by providing ways for the integration of It should be noted, though, that there is a signifi-
data originating from different inquiry tools and cant distinction between the user-centric approach
services. Most importantly though, weSPOT en- of the Web 2.0 paradigm and the learner-centric
ables the cognitive integration of inquiry tools by approach of weSPOT. This is because a social
connecting them with the student’s profile, as well learning environment is not just a fun place to
as her social and curricular context. Individual and hang out with friends, but predominantly a place
collaborative student actions taking place within where learning takes place and it does not take
different inquiry tools update the learning history place by chance but because specific pedago-
and learning goals of the students, thus providing gies and learning principles are integrated in the
them and their tutors with a cohesive learning environment. Quite often, what students want is
environment for monitoring their progress. not necessarily what they need, since their grasp
The Web 2.0 paradigm offers new opportunities of the material and of themselves as learners, is
for social learning by facilitating interactions with incomplete (Shum & Ferguson, 2010).
other learners and building a sense of connection In order to transform a Web 2.0 environment
that can foster trust and affirmation (Weller, 2009). into a social learning environment, students need
Social learning, according to Hagel, Seely Brown, to be constantly challenged and taken out of their
and Davison (2010), is dictated by recent shifts in comfort zones. This raises the need of providing
education, which have altered the ways we catalyse students with the affirmation and encouragement
learning and innovation. Key ingredients in this that will give them the confidence to proceed with
evolving landscape are the quality of interpersonal their inquiries and investigations beyond their
295

existing knowledge. weSPOT addresses this issue allowing teachers and co-learners to build
through a gamification approach, by linking the their inquiries out of mash-ups of inquiry
inquiry activities and skills gained by learners components.
with social media. In particular, this approach is • Co-learners can connect with each other
defining a badge system that awards virtual badges and form groups in order to build, share
to students upon reaching certain milestones in and perform inquiries collaboratively.
their inquiry workflows. This approach aims at
enhancing the visibility and accrediting of personal Inquiries in the weSPOT inquiry space follow
inquiry efforts, as well as raising motivation, per- the weSPOT inquiry model shown in Figure 2
sonal interest and curiosity on a mid-term effect. (Protopsaltis, et al., 2014). The weSPOT inquiry
model is based on six phases, placed within the
context that represents the phases that research-
THE weSPOT INQUIRY SPACE ers need to go through in order to conduct their
research. These six phases are: problem, opera-
The weSPOT inquiry space11 (Mikroyannidis, tionalization, data collection, data analysis, inter-
2014a, 2014b) is a personal and social IBL pretation, and communication. Each phase also
environment that reuses and extends the Elgg includes a number of activities to support teachers
open-source social networking framework12. The and co-learners in their inquiries through a sug-
weSPOT inquiry space has been built based on gestive “check list”. Participants can start from
the following requirements: the problem phase but also from any other phase
depending on their lesson focus. Not all phases and
• A widget-based interface enables the per- sub-phases need to be completed for a successful
sonalisation of the inquiry environment, inquiry. Teachers and co-learners can choose the
Figure 2. The weSPOT inquiry model
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ones that fit their needs. A detailed description components communicate with the APIs of REST
of the weSPOT IBL model can be found at the web services offered by external tools. Examples
weSPOT teachers’ online guide13. of such external tools are mobile apps that al-
The weSPOT inquiry space enables its users low students to collect different types of data
(teachers and co-learners) to create mash-ups of (photos, videos, measurements, etc.) with their
their preferred inquiry components, assign them smartphones and share them with other inquiry
to different phases of an inquiry, share them with members via the weSPOT inquiry space. A learn-
other users and use them collaboratively in order ing analytics dashboard visualises all the activities
to carry out an inquiry. When creating a new taking place within an inquiry, enabling teachers
inquiry, users are provided with a set of recom- to monitor the progress of their students and
mended inquiry components for each phase of students to self-monitor their progress. Teachers
the inquiry. They can then customise these sets of also have the ability to create and award badges to
components by adding, removing and arranging the students that have reached certain milestones
inquiry components for each phase of the inquiry. in an inquiry. These badges are displayed in the
As shown in Figure 3, the weSPOT inquiry profiles of the students.
space offers a variety of inquiry components to Figure 4 shows an example mash-up of inquiry
teachers and co-learners, enabling them to create, components for a particular phase of an inquiry that
edit and share hypotheses, questions, answers, explores the everyday uses of batteries. The phase
notes, reflections, mind maps, etc. Some of these is labelled “Discuss the findings” and corresponds
Figure 3. The component-based architecture of the weSPOT inquiry space
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Figure 4. A mash-up of inquiry components for discussing and interpreting the findings of an inquiry
to the “Interpretation / Discussion” phase of the component in order to provide answers to the key
weSPOT IBL model. In this phase, the members research questions of this inquiry and vote for the
of the inquiry use collaboratively three inquiry best answers. Finally, they create and share mind
components in order to discuss and interpret their maps containing interpretations of their findings
findings. They use the “Discussion” component via the “Mind maps” component.
to exchange their views asynchronously in dis- Users also have access to external resources
cussion forums. They also use the “Questions” and widgets and can use them in their mash-ups
298

together with the inquiry components offered by This research is based on qualitative content
the weSPOT inquiry space. These resources and analysis implemented on the online platform
widgets originate from external LMSs, such as weSPOT for inquiry-based learning projects.
Moodle or Blackboard. For this purpose, we have This study, conducted with 12 co-learners in a
implemented the IMS Learning Tools Interoper- Brazilian public secondary school, investigated
ability (LTI) specification14, thus allowing teachers information literacy skills for co-learning and
to include in their inquiries either course compo- co-inquiry. Although students are responsive of
nents from LMSs, such as discussion forums or the importance of using and comparing different
quizzes, or entire LMS courses. sources of information they seem not to be aware
Additionally, we have integrated an external of the reliability factors using the first results on
widget repository offered by the European project search engines or popular websites such as Wiki-
Go-Lab15. pedia which points to the necessity of developing
Go-Lab is a European project aiming to en- learners’ information literacy skills. Online envi-
courage young people to engage in science topics, ronments and teacher’s guidance are essential to
acquire scientific inquiry skills, and experience support co-learners in developing competences
the culture of doing science by undertaking active which they will use throughout their life and in
guided experimentation. Targeting students from their work, particularly related to collaborative
10 to 18 years old, Go-Lab offers the opportunity research and knowledge building.
to perform personalized scientific experiments In order to investigate how secondary co-
with online labs in pedagogically structured and learners search and select information sources
scaffold learning spaces that are extended with on the web, educators divided it into two differ-
collaboration facilities. The Go-Lab widgets allow ent phases, which comprised the use of different
users to perform certain IBL activities, such as research instruments for data collection:
create graphs to visualise the data that they have
collected and analyse them. • A structured inquiry project using the weS-
POT platform: online forum, questions,
data collection;
A CASE STUDY ON CO- • An online questionnaire containing 10
LEARNING AND CO-INQUIRY closed questions and 4 open questions.
The purpose of this case study is to investigate the In order to analyse school garden biodiversity,
use of a cloud-based toolkit and an IBL methodol- co-learners organised a discussion forum and
ogy within STEM education in a secondary school. mobile data collection for sharing pictures. The
As a starting point, both educators and learners forum was used in association with ARLearn, an
shared their research questions. Educators were application integrated to weSPOT that enables
interested in investigating how co-learners select co-learners to take pictures using their mobile
information sources on the web and identified fac- phones during field trips, so that co-learners
tors associated with the reliability of information could capture images and then discuss them in
sources during their collaborative inquiry (co- the weSPOT forum as the images captured on
inquiry) project in online environments. Learners their mobile phones were automatically sent to
were focussed on analysing biodiversity on their the weSPOT platform. Thus, co-learners took
school garden by identifying the influence of pictures of the school garden and then engaged
abiotic factors (Correa, Rabello, & Okada, 2014). in an online forum to answer two questions: (1)
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How many living species are present in the picture this purpose, their science teacher selected the 6
you took? (2) Which abiotic factors influenced the inquiry components in the weSPOT inquiry space
presence of these living species in this garden? (see Table 1).
Based on the first question in the forum, During the second week, co-learners were
educators also asked co-learners the following focused on the “operationalization”, “data collec-
questions: (1) “Supposing you did not know the tion” and “data analysis” phases. They reflected
meaning of species and/or abiotic factors, how on 10 activities using the inquiry components in
would you search for information so that you the weSPOT inquiry space described in Table 2.
could answer the previous questions?” and (2) In the third week of the inquiry, co-learners
“How would you confirm that the information you were focused on the “interpretation” (results)
collected is reliable?” Based on these questions phase and reflected on the 5 activities described
and the pictures taken with their mobile phones in Table 3. For this purpose, their science teacher
during the field trip to the school garden sent to selected 1 inquiry component in the weSPOT
weSPOT via the ARLearn app, six co-learners inquiry space (see Table 3).
shared their concepts related to the theme and the
information sources they would use in case they
did not know the answers. FINDINGS AND LESSONS LEARNED
During the second phase of the research a
questionnaire was adapted according to the “C” Evidence from interviews and interactions in
graphic of key competences for co-learning and weSPOT categorised in the “C” model (Figure 1)
co-inquiry focusing on students’ digital literacy shows that inquiry-based learning environments
skills (Okada, 2014; Okada, Serra, Ribeiro, & can be useful for supporting co-learners to man-
Pinto, 2015). The online questionnaire was de- age next steps towards social and self-learning by
signed using Google Drive Forms and sent to co- personalised inquiry phases and learning analytics
learners by e-mail. Twelve co-learners submitted about their participation. In this case study, the
their answers. participating co-learners were encouraged to share
The questionnaire comprised a total of 10 more ideas and suggestions through various weS-
closed questions aimed at identifying co-learners’ POT widgets and apps, including wiki pages, mind
profiles and their digital literacy skills and 4 open maps and mobile data collection apps. They also
questions aimed at investigating how co-learners added votes and rates to colleagues’ contributions
select information sources and evaluate their reli- and peer-review comments, including assessing
ability. The researchers conducted the analysis reliability of information sources. Finally, they
using the Compendium knowledge mapping tool16. were able to retrieve and filter information through
Figure 5 shows the “Biodiversity in the school tags and RSS feeds.
garden” inquiry as deployed in the weSPOT inqui- Additionally, it was observed that teachers play
ry space. In this scenario, the inquiry components an important role for:
were selected by the science teacher based on 5
phases instead of 6. This means that the science • Sharing guidelines with co-learners to
teacher decided to eliminate the “communication” check reliability of information sources.
phase of the inquiry and include fewer activities • Encouraging co-learners to check and as-
for performing the inquiry during 3 weeks. sess references.
During the first week of the inquiry, co-learners • Using advanced search engines and col-
were focused on the “problem” phase by reflect- laborating with an open repository.
ing on the 8 activities described in Table 1. For
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Figure 5. A mash-up of inquiry components used in the inquiry “Biodiversity in the garden” (Correa,
et al., 2014)
301

Table 1. Activities and inquiry components related to the 1st phase of the “Biodiversity in the school
garden” inquiry
Phase 1: Problem
Activity Inquiry Refers to Example
Component
Embedding Notes The current state of research and Science teacher can introduce the concept of
discoveries biodiversity globally and locally. Co-learners
can share notes and examples in their school
garden.
Existing knowledge Mind map What students know already about Co-learners can also represent familiar
the topic concepts in a mind map (e.g. species,
organisms).
Language/ definitions Questions Terms and definitions for the field Teacher can select new concepts for curious
questions (e.g. biotic and abiotic factors).
Ethics More Info Ethical implications Learners need permission to collect data of
people and be aware of other issues (e.g. plant,
animal).
Empirical meaning Question Verifiable or provable issue Co-learners can discuss how to check
Comments empirical evidence to support or reject their
question.
Discussion/ Argumentation Forum Arguments to support their decisions Co-learners can discuss their reasoning
discussion to explain more elaborated and relevant
questions.
Question Question Good scientific questions Co-learners can review final questions with
rates and votes.
Hypothesis Hypothesis Idea to be tested Co-learners can predict possible ideas that
address scientific questions (e.g. “Some
biotic and abiotic factors might influence
biodiversity in schools’ gardens”).
• Helping co-learners combine various following research activities and inquiry-based

sources of reliable information. tasks to complete this project.
Based on the new functionalities, which will
Figure 6 and Table 4 summarise relevant data be available soon in the weSPOT toolkit during
from the co-learners’ interactions and include the next pilot studies, educators and researchers
data from the survey embedded in weSPOT aim to encourage co-learners to analyse pros and
based on the C analysis model for co-learning cons, plan their social and self-learning path, use
and co-inquiry. This image visualises key factors tags and RSS feeds, share open content, manage
that might contribute to co-learners’ developing better organisation of their groups, feedback, re-
their competences. Model C was also applied views, elaborate interpretation, analysis, synthesis,
to identify competences and skills apart from including self-assessment, develop their scientific
scientific literacy. weSPOT offers a diagnostic explanations with peer-reviews, and create new
instrument for analysing skills; however, Model inquiry projects with high levels of autonomy for
C was selected in the study considering that the a collaborative guided inquiry. They will be able
diagnostic instrument skills were not completely to apply the “C” graphic and diagnostic instru-
developed. Model C was also useful to plan the ment shared in the weSPOT to visualise the areas,
phases and skills that they want to develop in
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Table 2. Activities and inquiry components related to the 2nd, 3rd and 4th phases of the “Biodiversity in
the school garden” inquiry
Phase 2: Operationalization
component
Indicators Mind map Aspects to be measured and how Co-learners can use some sensors to measure
temperature, humidity, wind, etc. and register
in a map plan.
Predictions Hypothesis/ How one can demonstrate that a Co-learners then can specify how indicators
comments hypothesis is true and other factors can support their predictions
with comments.
Resources Mobile Resources students will need to Teachers and co-learners can establish the
collection conduct their inquiry mobile data collection.
Methodology Reflection Method to conduct the inquiry, e.g. If it is necessary they can establish a survey
qualitative or quantitative, experiment (using Google forms) and/or quiz.
or observation, etc.
Phase 3: Data Collection
Component
Tools Mobile data Tools for collecting data Co-learners and educators can establish
collection and mobile collection components: photo, video,
surveys audio, text, numerical values and Google
forms for surveys.
Information foraging Mobile data Validation of the information. Is it Co-learners with teachers can establish criteria
collection reliable and trustworthy? for rating and tagging data related to reliability
and trustworthiness.
However, mobile collection does not allow
tagging data, including source, location and
time.
Documentation Mobile data Systematic observation Co-learners should be encouraged to include
collection a systematic comments on data collected
(images, videos, audio etc.).
users to include comments.
Phase 4: Data Analysis
Qualitative analysis Tagging Qualitative analytical procedures Co-learners should be encouraged to group
interface data by analytical tags and reflect on new tags
and groups.
grouping data.
Visualisation Domain How to represent data for visual Co-learners should be encouraged to
structure analysis (e.g. graphs, clouds) create graphics, schemes, clouds and new
Excel graphs visualisation for data analysis.
However, there is a few limited visual tools
and data from inquiry components that are not
integrated; that means students must copy and
paste manually in Excel to create a graph.
Discussion/ LiteMap Argumentative reasoning Co-learners should be encouraged to develop
Argumentation external tool argumentation. However, there is not an
argumentation tool integrated in the weSPOT
inquiry space. An alternative is LiteMap but
students must copy and paste information and
evidence manually to create argumentation.
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Table 3. Activities and inquiry components related to the 5th phase of the “Biodiversity in the school
garden” inquiry
Phase 5: Interpretation (Results)

Component
Embedding Conclusion Obtained results in relation to existing Co-learners should be encouraged to
theories connect knowledge to explain their scientific
explanation. However, for that, they must
review mind maps, notes, reflections,
references, question, hypothesis and other
components and bring content manually to a
conclusion wiki page.
Confirmation/ Conclusion Confirm or reject the inquiry Co-learners should be encouraged to revise
falsification hypothesis their hypothesis content and comments
to include in their report with enough
explanation. However, again they must bring
(copy/paste) relevant content manually to a
conclusion wiki page.
Relevance Conclusion The value and the meaning of the Co-learners should be encouraged to review
obtained results their own relevant data and results with
explained annotation. However, another
challenge is to visualise most relevant data and
connections.
Discussion/ Conclusion Evidence based argumentative An alternative is LiteMap but students must
Argumentation reasoning copy and paste information and evidence
manually to create argumentation.
Writing Conclusion Scientific report Co-learners can be encouraged to export
only relevant content of an inquiry project
to prepare the final writing; however, the
platform allows them only export full content
without connections.
order to complete successfully their collaborative 1. Flexibility to co-design the co-inquiry based
inquiry projects. on the interests and needs of the community
This study analysed an authentic scenario of participants (teachers and co-learners).
of a Brazilian public secondary school whose 2. Combining research questions that are co-
group of co-learners are frequently small due to related and using different functionalities
non-attendance rates and drop-out rates, which to interact and provid feedback: e.g. rating,
are still high (Correa, et al., 2014). Participants voting, and tagging.
had a few problems with internet connection as 3. Promoting collaboration in different stages,
well as access to weSPOT, whose platform was phases and components of a co-inquiry.
in development. Some inquiry components were
not completely developed; they could not test it, The key benefits of the weSPOT inquiry space
such as the learning analytics dashboard and the for the co-learners were indicated as follows:
badges.
Both the participating educators and co-leaners 1. Easy-to-use components for planning a col-
were asked to indicate the key benefits of the laborative inquiry project.
weSPOT inquiry space. The responses of the
educators are summarised as follows:
304

Figure 6. “C” graphic about key competences for co-learning and co-inquiry
2. Structured environment with phases and Finally, both the educators and the co-learners
components that can be accessed based on identified the following key challenges of the
their needs. weSPOT inquiry space:
3. Mobile interfaces are useful for sharing
information and data anywhere and anytime. 1. Data analysis due to the lack of tools for
annotating, tagging photos and group data.
305

Table 4. The weSPOT toolkit functionality used for co-learning and co-inquiry during the “Biodiversity
in the school garden” inquiry
Categories weSPOT Toolkit Functionality Example

Goals Inquiry [more Info] To identify abiotic and biotic factors in the school garden with explanation of the
concepts.
Time Inquiry [more Info] Activities were developed during science lessons.
Priorities Rating Students and teachers could use vote and rating to establish their priorities and
visualise them using learning analytics dashboard.
Challenges • Forum • Problems described in the Forum: some photos taken did not appear in the
• Email system.
• Problems listed through email: internet access.
Search Search in this inquiry Students could search specific content to avoid duplication.
Hypermedia Collaborative interfaces Students could use most of the collaborative areas (forum, questions, notes,
conclusion and mind maps) to add hypermedia.
Translators Google Translator Translator was useful to check description of interfaces which were in English
and not available in Portuguese.
Up/Download Attachments Students could upload and download images that were not available in data (due
to technical problems).
Applications • Videoconference • Science teacher, Participants and project coordinator organised a
• Compendium videoconference to discuss the project.
• PowerPoint • Participants created this figure (Figure 6) in Compendium.
• Participants created a poster in PowerPoint to present results.
Questions Question What were abiotic and biotic factors in the school garden with explanation?
Ideas • Answers to questions • Students could share their ideas, listing possible answers.
• Notes • Educators could include their ideas, including notes.
• Mind map • All participants could contribute more ideas in MindMeister.
Comments Most of the tools, e.g. forum, The only interface where students were not able to share comments was data
questions, hypotheses, notes, etc. collection, which made it difficult for them to analyse photos. They had to use
another software tool.
Annotations Notes Students had difficulty sharing their notes; however, the educator researcher
summarised annotations using notes.
Networks Members Members of this inquiry constituted a network of participants from a Brazilian
school and educational technologists from the UK.
Support • Forum discussion Technical support was provided by participants through three interfaces: forum,
• Notes teachers’ notes and email.
• Email
Mapping Mind map Participants could map key concepts of biodiversity that was summarised by the
research educators.
Scientific Questions All participants were focused on a particular question to be investigated with
Questions photo analysis and discussed based on extra references.
Methodology Method Photo analysis with qualitative discussion and surveys described in Method.
Data Photo, audio, video, text, files, Participants had seven interfaces to share collected data, focusing particularly on
Collection emails photos and, when they had technical problems, they used email.
Analytic Oral discussion, conclusion, Six examples present analytical discussion. Students were not able to complete
Discussion poster, presentation, conference their inquiry with a paper report, only through face to face discussion. Educators
paper and researchers however were able to summarise conclusions with analysis and
with various examples: poster, presentation and conference paper shared in the
weSPOT toolkit.
306

2. Assessing the co-inquiry process and out- culture towards new technologies needs to
comes due to the variety of components and be fostered. Best practice in this case must
interactions. enable the educator and trainer to adapt
3. Visualising significant contributions and their approach so that a receptive culture is
integrating the phases for developing a fostered among their learners.
research report. • Effective evaluation and feedback mech-
anisms: Users of the cloud-based tools
Overall, the lessons learned from piloting the (learners and educators) should be given
weSPOT toolkit within this secondary education the opportunity to record and communicate
case study can be extended to address a variety of their experiences from using these tools, in
learning contexts and distilled into the following order to identify problems and suggest po-
set of best practices. These best practices reflect tential improvements. Effective evaluation
our proposals for effectively deploying and us- and feedback mechanisms are thus required
ing cloud-based tools in order to support and in order to facilitate the closer communica-
promote IBL: tion and collaboration between users and
tool developers.
• Multi-format introductory and guid-
ance learning materials: The need for
suitable documentation of the new tech- CONCLUSION
nologies has been recorded by the partici-
pants of this case study. Users are in need This chapter presented a cloud-based co-inquiry
of guided learning materials that will help approach for STEM education. In particular, we
them understand the functionality and val- introduced the weSPOT project, which is inves-
ue of cloud-based tools. tigating IBL in secondary and higher education,
• Accessible and easy to use tools: Best in order to support STEM education via a cloud-
practice in this case indicates that a simple based inquiry toolkit. The weSPOT toolkit enables
format of the cloud-based tools is required co-learners to build their inquiry mash-ups with
that enables learners to understand how to support from their teachers and use them collabora-
use them effectively and efficiently in order tively in order to perform scientific investigations
to perform scientific inquiries. together with their peers.
• Tailored tools to meet the needs of specif- A case study involving real-life inquiry sce-
ic subject audiences: The need to be able narios in secondary education has provided us
to tailor the tools offered by the weSPOT with useful insight into the ways a cloud-based
toolkit to meet the needs of specific subject toolkit can support co-inquiry and co-learning.
audiences was recorded in the case study. The findings and lessons learned from this case
Best practice in this instance, therefore, al- study will help us further improve our pedagogical
lowed for cloud-based tools to be adjusted approach and enhance our toolkit by addressing
or even designed for learners studying par- the key challenges brought forward by educators
ticular subjects or, alternatively, educators and co-learners.
investigating a wide range of topics. As the weSPOT project is in progress, the
• Fostering a culture where the communi- pedagogical and technological work presented in
ty is willing to engage in new innovative this paper will be continued towards lowering the
technologies: In order to maximize the threshold for linking everyday life with science
adoption of CLEs by the public, a suitable teaching and learning. The specific added value
307

in lowering this threshold will be investigated Heron, J. (1996). Co-operative inquiry: Research
through a variety of pilots in real-life learning into the human condition. Thousand Oaks, CA:
settings and different inquiry domains within Sage.
secondary and higher education.
Hu, S.-C., & Chen, I-Ching. (2010). A Mechanism
for accessing and mashing-up pedagogical web
services in cloud learning environments. Paper
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
presented at the 3rd IEEE International Conference
on Computer Science and Information Technol-
The research leading to these results has received
ogy (ICCSIT), Chengdu, China. doi:10.1109/
funding from the European Community’s Seventh
ICCSIT.2010.5565023
Framework Programme (FP7/2007-2013) under
grant agreement N° 318499 - weSPOT project. Kroop, S., Mikroyannidis, A., & Wolpers, M.
(2015). Responsive open learning environments.
New York: Springer. doi:10.1007/978-3-319-
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Okada, A. (2013). Scientific literacy in the digital KEY TERMS AND DEFINITIONS
age: Tools, environments and resources for co-
inquiry. European Scientific Journal, 4, 263–274. Cloud Learning Environment (CLE): A
cloud learning environment is a learning facility
Okada, A. (2014). Competências Chave para enabled by learning services on the cloud. The
Coaprendizagem na Era Digital: fundamentos, users of cloud learning services are academics or
métodos e aplicações. Academic Press. learners, who share the same privileges, including
Okada, A., Serra, A., Ribeiro, S., & Pinto, S. control, choice, and sharing of content on these
(2015). Key skills for co-learning and co-inquiry services.
in two open platforms: A massive portal (EDU- Co-Inquiry: Co-inquiry is a cooperative pro-
CARED) and a personal environment (weSPOT). cess of raising important questions with experts
Open Praxis, 7(1), 83–102. doi:10.5944/open- or specialists, integrating relevant information
praxis.7.1.174 and generating acceptable lines of thought based
on scientific assumptions and knowledge areas.
Co-Learning: Co-learning aims at the collab-
orative construction of knowledge, in which co-
learners are able to expand their social networks,
integrate open learning with collective research
and co-author collaborative productions.
309

Inquiry-Based Learning (IBL): Inquiry- ENDNOTES

based Learning enables learners to take the role of
an explorer and scientist as they try to solve issues
1
http://www.blackboard.com
they came across and that made them wonder, thus
2
http://moodle.org
tapping into their personal feelings of curiosity.
3
http://www.im-c.de/germany/en/solutions/
Learning Management System (LMS): A learning-management/clix-learning-suite
learning management system is an online soft-
4
http://www.wikipedia.org
ware application offering facilities for student
5
http://www.youtube.com
registration, enrolment into courses, delivery of
6
http://www.slideshare.net
learning material to students, student assessment
7
http://www.apple.com/education/itunes-u
and progress monitoring.
8
http://www.role-project.eu
Personal Learning Environment (PLE):
9
http://www.open.ac.uk
A personal learning environment is a facility
10
http://wespot-project.eu
for an individual to access, aggregate, configure
11
http://inquiry.wespot.net
and manipulate digital artefacts of their ongoing
12
http://elgg.org
learning experiences.
13
http://wespot.net/en/teachers
14
http://www.imsglobal.org/lti/index.html
15
http://www.go-lab-project.eu
16
http://compendium.open.ac.uk/institute
310
311
Chapter 20
Cloud-Based Continuous
Formative Assessment (CFA)
Norman Herr Virginia Oberholzer Vandergon
Marten Tippens Matthew d’Alessio

Mike Rivas John Reveles

ABSTRACT
Continuous Formative Assessment (CFA) is a strategy that employs free and accessible collaborative
cloud-based technologies to collect, stream, and archive evidence of student knowledge, reasoning, and
understanding during STEM lessons, so that instructors and students can make evidence-based decisions
for adjusting lessons to optimize learning. Writing samples, diagrams, equations, drawings, photos, and
movies are collected from all students and archived in cloud-based databases so that instructors can
assess student understanding during instruction, and monitor learning gains over time. This chapter
introduces and explains CFA techniques and provides preliminary research pertaining to the effectiveness
of CFA instructional strategies in promoting student accountability, metacognition, and engagement in
STEM courses, and suggests avenues for future research.
INTRODUCTION 1959), Scantron® (c. 1972), personal computer (c.

1980), graphing calculator (c. 1985), interactive
The development and availability of new tech- whiteboard (c. 1999), and iPad (c. 2010) are just
nologies has repeatedly transformed teaching a few of the myriad of technological innovations
and learning. The chalkboard (c.1890), pencil that have had a profound influence on teaching
(c.1900), film projector (c. 1925), radio (c.1925), and learning (Dunn, 2011). Puentedura (2009) has
overhead projector (c. 1930), ballpoint pen (c. proposed the SAMR (substitution, augmentation,
1940), mimeograph (c.1940), videotape (c. 1951), modification, and redefinition) model to gauge
educational television (c. 1958), photocopier (c. the influence of new technologies on teaching
DOI: 10.4018/978-1-4666-9924-3.ch020

Cloud-Based Continuous Formative Assessment (CFA)
and learning. While some technologies simply countability standards for schools, districts, and
substitute for, or augment traditional strategies states with measurable adequate yearly progress
and modes of instruction and learning, others have objectives for all students (Guilfoyle, 2006; Linn,
the potential to transform learning experiences Baker & Betebenner, 2002). The standards and
through modification and redefinition or learning accountability movement has grown dramatically
activities. The advent of cloud-based computing in many countries, and has recently been expressed
has the potential not only to modify, but also in the US through the wide-spread adoption of
redefine a variety of educational activities, not the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS)
the least of which is formative assessment. This as well as the Core Standards in English and
chapter introduces Continuous Formative Assess- mathematics. These standards have been designed
ment (CFA), a potentially transformative strategy to provide all students with an internationally
that employs free and accessible collaborative benchmarked education that is evaluated through
cloud-based technologies to collect, stream, and periodic assessments (Common Core State Stan-
archive evidence of student knowledge, reason- dards Initiative, 2010a, b; NGSS, 2013; Porter,
ing, and understanding during STEM lessons, so McMaken, Hwang & Yang, 2011).
that instructors and students can make evidence- Former US Secretary of Education Margaret
based decisions for adjusting lessons to optimize Spellings often stated, “What gets measured
learning. gets done,” reflecting the standards-based logic
Summative Assessment: Today’s educators, that has undergirded the development of NCLB,
students, and educational institutions live in a Common Core, and NGSS (Guifolye, 2006, p. 8).
culture of assessment, being accountable for their When politicians and community activists call
work to their clientele, parents, governmental insti- for educational accountability, they are generally
tutions, and the general public. Assessment is the referring to summative assessments that provide
process of gathering and evaluating information to information on what students can do as a result of
develop an understanding of what students under- their educational experiences. Such assessments
stand and can do with their knowledge as a result are “summative” in that they provide a summary
of their educational experiences. Assessments of how students, teachers, and institutions have
provide data by which we can evaluate the com- performed.
petency of students, educators, and educational Formative Assessment: Although growing
systems. Teachers, schools, districts, states, and demands for educational accountability have pro-
national organizations develop assessment tools duced a wealth of literature, legislation, initiatives,
to evaluate student learning and the effectiveness reforms, and professional development, the vast
of the educational process so that decisions can be majority has focused on assessment of learning
made regarding the placement and promotion of (summative assessment) rather than assessment for
students as well as the effectiveness of educational learning (formative assessment). Although sum-
programs (Huba & Freed, 2000; Jago, 2009). mative assessment is invaluable in providing data
Standardized assessments have been instituted regarding student learning and the effectiveness of
in educational systems around the world and have educational programs, it does little to shape teach-
been used to compare the effectiveness of educa- ing and learning during instruction. Summative
tion not only within schools, but also within and assessments, such as tests, reports, papers, and
between states, provinces, and countries. Major quizzes, provide valuable information regarding
federal legislation, such as the United States’ No what students have learned, but formative assess-
Child Left Behind Act of 2001, have substantially ments are needed to provide critical information
increased assessment requirements and set ac- to optimize learning during instruction. Simply
312

stated, formative assessment is the process used by in classrooms around the world to help teachers
both teachers and students to identify and respond identify learning needs and help students develop
to student learning in order to enhance learning a understanding of their own strengths and weak-
during instruction (Popham, 2008). What makes nesses, providing evidence that will help them
formative assessment ‘formative’ is that it is im- take greater responsibility for their own learning.
mediately used to adapt instruction to meet the There are a variety of methods of traditional for-
needs of the learners in real-time (Shepard, 2005). mative assessment including calling on specific
Ramaprasad (1983) set forth three key pro- individuals, asking questions of the entire class,
cesses in learning and teaching that have helped inviting coral responses, requiring journal entries,
provide a foundation for a theory on formative exit tickets, one-minute essays, and “pop” quizzes.
assessment: establishing where learners are in There is much research to show that traditional
their learning; determining where they need to formative assessments can be used to improve
be going, and deciding what needs to be done to student learning success, because well-designed
get them there. In their work to develop a theory formative assessments provide information to
of formative assessment, Black and Wiliam built make instructional modifications in real-time to
upon Ramaprasad’s basic ideas to provide the fol- address student needs (Majerichb, Bernackic, Var-
lowing definition of formative assessment: num, & Ducettee, 2011; Fluckiger, Vigil, Pasco, &
Danielson, 2010; Jahan, Shaikh, Norrish, Siddqi,
Practice in a classroom is formative to the extent & Qasim, 2013; Youssef, 2012; Black & Wiliam,
that evidence about student achievement is elic- 2009; Shepard, 2005).
ited, interpreted, and used by teachers, learners, Formative assessments have been shown to
or their peers, to make decisions about the next be particularly valuable with lower performing
steps in instruction that are likely to be better, students because learning deficiencies can be
or better founded, than the decisions they would identified early in the learning cycle, providing
have taken in the absence of the evidence that was instructors with the information they need to make
elicited. (Black & Wiliam, 2009, p.9) teaching modifications to help these students be-
fore they get discouraged and become disengaged
Furthermore, they identified five key strategies (Athanases & Achinstein, 2003). In addition to
in formative assessment: providing instructors with information on student
understanding, formative assessment provides
(1) Clarifying and sharing learning intentions learners with information that can be used to self-
and criteria for success; (2) Engineering effective regulate their learning. Nicol and Macfarlane-Dick
classroom discussions and other learning tasks (2006) argued that formative assessment is key to
that elicit evidence of student understanding; (3) self-regulated learning.
Providing feedback that moves learners forward; Limitations of Traditional Formative Assess-
(4) Activating students as instructional resources ment (TFA): Perhaps the most common formative
for one another; and (5) Activating students as the assessment technique is asking questions of the
owners of their own learning. (Black & Wiliam, class during instruction. Teachers may gauge the
2009, p.7) level of understanding by a show of hands. For
example, an instructor might ask students for
Traditional Formative Assessment (TFA): the answer to an algebraic equation, and while
Before introducing CFA, it is important to review many students may raise their hands, the instruc-
methods of traditional formative assessment tor obtains accurate data only on those students
(TFA) that have been used, and are being used, who are called upon to verbalize their answers.
313

Unfortunately, the instructor can form erroneous ods allow the teacher and the entire class to view
perceptions of the level of understanding of the models of all students immediately, and thereby
class based upon small and isolated samples. provide a better assessment of the understanding
Forming an assessment of the entire class based of the entire class, the detail in such diagrams
upon such limited data may lead to an inaccurate and drawings is often too small to be seen from
picture of student understanding. (Great Schools across the room, and the information is available
Partnership, 2015). only until it is erased to answer the next prompt.
Because it is impossible to call on each stu- A record of the learning activity is lost when the
dent every time, teachers have long realized the boards are erased which removes the opportunity
limitations of classroom questioning techniques to see how students’ understanding has changed
and have adopted other approaches to provide over time. This type of formative assessment
formative assessment data. In an effort to obtain puts a large demand on the teacher to interpret
more inclusive classroom responses, many teach- and synthesize data from dozens of students in a
ers require their students to submit “exit tickets” very limited time.
as they leave class. This technique provides the There is much data on the value of traditional
instructor with written responses to prompts about forms of formative assessment in promoting adap-
a lesson the students just received. Although the tive instruction and self-regulated learning, yet it is
exit ticket affords the opportunity to assess the clear that there is a need for formative assessment
understanding of the whole class, it delivers such techniques that gather information on the entire
data too late for the instructor to adjust instruction student clientele during instruction so that changes
during that class period. For example, exit tickets can be made when they are most needed. In addi-
may show the instructor that the majority of the tion, there is a need for such formative assessment
students did not understand the first half of the techniques to provide information that can be used
lesson, which subsequently led to confusion in the to track student performance over the course of a
second half. If, however, the instructor collected semester as well as to compare the understanding
data on student understanding during instruction, of students within and between classes. (Nicol &
he or she could adjust the lesson throughout the Macfarlane-Dick, 2006).
class session to address immediate needs and The Need for Improved Formative Assessment:
thereby deliver a much more effective lesson. A number of national reports have warned that
Other traditional formative assessment techniques America faces a shortage of college graduates ad-
such as notebook checks, one-minute essays and equately prepared to work in STEM–related fields
individual desk-to-desk checks share similar (National Academy of Sciences, 2006; National
limitations by providing either too little data, or Commission on Mathematics and Science Teach-
providing it too late to adjust real-time instruction. ing for the 21st Century, 2000). One of the reasons
Another form of traditional formative assess- for this purported shortage is the high transfer rate
ment is the modeling methodology that is promoted of college students out of STEM-related majors to
for use in physics instruction (Hestenes, 1987; non-STEM related fields. In a study by the Higher
Wells, Hestenes, & Swackhamer, 1995). With this Education Research Institute (2012), it was found
method, students construct scientific diagrams that more than 47% of science majors and 63% of
(models) to describe, explain, predict, and control mathematics majors switched out of their majors
physical phenomena. Students share their models before graduating. Such exit rates are substantially
with the teacher and the class by drawing them on higher than exit rates for social science, history,
small white-boards that they share with the class fine arts and English majors, who exited their
following teacher prompts. Although such meth- majors at rates between 15% and 35% (Higher
314

Education Research Institute, 2012). In search of to questions posed by their instructor, and provide
a cause for this excessive emigration from STEM immediate statistics on student performance on
subjects, Hewitt and Seymour performed a three- true-false, multiple-choice and short-answer ques-
year longitudinal study of 335 students attending tions. Studies have documented improvements in
seven different four-year institutions across the student participation, attendance, and learning
nation. The authors stated that “The experience with the use of such systems (Beatty & Gerace,
of conceptual difficulty at particular points in 2009; Bennett & Cunningham, 2009; Gok, 2011).
particular classes, which might not constitute an Researchers have noted that SRS also increase
insuperable barrier to progress if addressed in a student accountability as participants realize
timely way, commonly sets in motion a downward that their contributions are monitored by their
spiral of falling confidence, reduced class atten- instructors throughout the course of instruction
dance, falling grades, and despair –leading to exit (Kaleta, 2007). Although SRS’s have been shown
from the major” (Hewitt & Seymour, 1997, p. 35). to be a valuable formative assessment tool, cur-
Because the curriculum in most STEM-related rent systems have limited input capabilities and
courses is progressive in nature, students may cannot receive the wide range of complex text,
have excessive difficulty understanding tomor- audio, video, or graphic responses necessary to
row’s lesson if they do not master the concepts assess higher levels of understanding. In addition,
from today’s lesson, and this may set in motion most current student response systems require
the “downward spiral” of which Hewitt and dedicated devices and require that assessments
Seymour speak. If, however, instructors are able be prepared in advance of instruction, severely
to accurately assess the learning of all students limiting the spontaneity needed to adapt instruc-
during instruction, they may be better prepared tion to immediate class needs.
to identify and address learning difficulties in Cloud-based Continuous Formative Assess-
real time before the “downward spiral” begins, ment: While traditional formative assessment
and reduce the hemorrhaging of students from (TFA) techniques gather information that can be
STEM-related majors. used to reform and optimize both teaching and
SRS-based Continuous Formative Assessment: learning during instruction, the data they provide
Although educators have long-realized the limita- may be either too limited in scope to gain an ac-
tions of TFA, it wasn’t until the 1970’s that digital curate picture of capabilities and understandings
solutions were developed to address these needs, of the entire class, too late to allow for changes in
when William Simmons and Theodore Gordon instruction when they are needed, or too short-lived
designed the first electronic audience response to be of value for teacher research and reflection on
system (Simmons, 1988). In recent years, engi- best practices and student metacognition of their
neers and programmers have introduced a wide learning. Fortunately, the advent of collaborative
variety of student response systems (SRS) for cloud-based document technologies (e.g. Google
use in educational settings, including dedicated Forms, Sheets, Docs, Slides, Drawings), combined
“clickers,” computer software, and smart phone with the growth of Wi-Fi and phone/data networks,
apps that aggregate student inputs (Kay & LeS- and the prevalence of “smart phones,” tablets,
age, 2009). Such systems have the ability to track and laptops, provides instructors the opportunity
individual responses, display polling results, to perform formative assessments that instantly
document student understanding of key points, and simultaneously collect data from all students
and gather data for reporting and analysis during in a format that can be reviewed in real time and
the instructional process. These hand-held dedi- stored for future reference.
cated systems allow students to input responses
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Cloud-based Continuous Formative Assess- class sections with speed and accuracy, regardless
ment (CFA) is a strategy that employs free and of the physical location of students, providing
accessible collaborative cloud-based technolo- the opportunity for continuous formative assess-
gies, to collect, stream, and archive evidence of ment. Instructors can examine the responses of
student knowledge, reasoning, and understanding individual students, or trends and patterns in the
during STEM lessons, so that instructors can data using automated graphs and charts (Herr,
make evidence-based decisions for adjusting Rivas, Foley, Vandergon, & Simila, 2011b; Herr,
lessons to optimize learning. Writing samples, & Tippens, 2013; Herr & Rivas, 2014). This
diagrams, equations, drawings, photos, and mov- chapter will introduce a range of collaborative
ies are collected from all students and archived cloud-based formative assessment techniques
in cloud-based databases so that instructors can that enable educators to continuously monitor
assess student understanding during instruction, student ideas and adjust their instructional prac-
and monitor learning gains over time. tice to enhance student learning. In addition, this
Cloud computing allows application software chapter will provide an analysis of the perceived
to be accessed using internet-enabled devices, effectiveness of such techniques by pre-service
and student-generated data to be stored in off-site and in-service science, technology, engineering,
servers that are freely accessible by teachers and and math (STEM) teachers in K-20 classrooms.
students, regardless of their geographical location. In developing a theory of formative assessment,
In this chapter we focus on the use of free-cloud Black and Wiliam (2009) provided a definition
based applications that can be run using modern and strategies that identify formative assessment
web browsers on laptop computers, desktop as a process in which teachers, learners, and their
computers, tablets, and smart phones. There peers work together to activate and optimize learn-
are numerous advantages to using collaborative ing. The goal of this current chapter is to illustrate
cloud-based resources for CFA as opposed to using how collaborative cloud-based technologies can
SRS or local server-based resources. Cloud-based be employed to promote formative assessment in
resources are maintained by offsite professionals, STEM classrooms through the strategies of CFA,
reducing the need dedicated hardware and local IT so that teachers, learners and their peers have the
support. Cloud-based resources are accessible by information necessary to work together to acti-
educators and students around the world, providing vate and optimize learning. As expressed in The
a consistent interface that promotes the sharing Handbook of Formative Assessment, “Address-
of resources. The strategies for CFA presented ing the challenges and embracing the potential
in this chapter have been designed and tested power of formative assessment offers substantial
by both secondary school and college educators promise for stimulating greater gains in students’
and students (Tippens, 2015; Herr, Rivas, Chang, achievement and responsibility for their learning.”
Tippens, Vandergon, d’Alessio, & Nguyen-Graff, (Andrde & Cizek, 2010, p. 15). In this chapter we
2015), and it is the opinion of the authors that they provide new strategies of formative assessment
hold significant potential for promoting continu- using collaborative cloud-based tools, provide
ous formative assessment in STEM classrooms initial research on their effectiveness, and set forth
at both of these levels. questions for future research to investigate the
Using collaborative cloud-based technologies, potential for CFA in stimulating greater student
instructors can instantly collect and analyze large achievement and responsibility for learning.
sets of data from multiple students, groups, and
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METHODS OF CLOUD- students to share their work with the class. Students
BASED CONTINUOUS then describe their work as the rest of the class
FORMATIVE ASSESSMENT watches on the big screen or on their individual
devices. Rather than randomly calling on students,
The following are hallmarks of CFA: (1) All and embarrassing them when they don’t know the
students participate in all assessments, promoting answer to a question, the instructor pre-screens
continuous engagement; (2) student contributions work and calls on only those students who have
are shared with the entire class, promoting a cul- demonstrated understanding. Students realize that
ture of accountability; (3) assessment is flexible, they are being called upon because the instructor
allowing for spontaneous assessment; and (4) as- believes that they have something significant to
sessments are stored in the cloud for a permanent share with their peers. They are therefore more
record of learning, promoting a reflective learning likely to be confident in what they share, and
environment. (Herr, Rivas, Chang, Tippens, Van- their peers are more likely to listen to what they
dergon, d’Alessio, & Nguyen-Graff, 2015). Later say. (Herr, Rivas, Chang, Tippens, Vandergon,
in this chapter we will discuss specific methods d’Alessio, & Nguyen-Graff, 2015). The astute
of CFA, and show how this cloud-based approach educator will ensure that in due course, each
to formative assessment can improve learning student has the opportunity to share their work,
outcomes in STEM-related classes. In addition, thereby building the confidence of all students and
we will discuss research related to the effective- giving them the opportunity to learn by teaching.
ness of CFA in enhancing student engagement, In the section which follows, we discuss five CFA
metacognition, accountability for learning, and techniques, illustrating how instructors can assess
collaboration. understanding using cloud-based spreadsheets
According to the Pew Research Internet Proj- (quick-writes), assess conceptual development
ect, 98% of all Americans in the 18-29 year-old using cloud-based presentations, assess inquiry
cohort owned cell phones as of January 2014, and learning using cloud-based graphing of data, as-
84% owned smart phones (Pew Research Center, sess reading and writing skills using cloud-based
2014, p. 1). In addition, 42% of all American adults documents, assess problem-solving skills using the
owned computer tablets (p. 1). These percentages scan & post technique, and asses visual learning
are undoubtedly higher as of the writing of this using cloud-based photo/movie albums.
paper, and are expected to continue to rise in the
years ahead. CFA capitalizes on the abundance Assessing Understanding
of student-owned mobile computing devices, Using Cloud-Based
commercial cell-phone networks, and institution- Spreadsheets (Quick-Writes)
owned computer labs and Wi-Fi networks to en-
gage and monitor learners in STEM classrooms. The CFA model has been made possible by the
Cloud computing allows students and teachers to development of free collaborative web-based
share a variety of data in a collaborative online spreadsheets, documents, presentations, and draw-
environment that enables formative assessment. ings (Herr & Rivas, 2014; Herr, Rivas, d’Alessio
Docendo discimus! By teaching, we learn! Us- &Vandergon, 2012; Foley & Reveles, 2014).
ing cloud-based collaborative resources, students We shall first discuss the use of collaborative
have the potential to be better equipped to teach spreadsheets to collect student “quick-writes,”
others, and thereby learn the concepts more deeply which are text-based responses to teacher prompts.
themselves. The instructor can rapidly scan the A cloud-based “quick-write” is a collaborative
work that has been submitted, and then ask specific spreadsheet in which data is arranged in rows and
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columns. Each cell can contain data or calcula- students or teacher can then be tasked with filling
tions based on the data in other cells. Google® in the remainder of the name, and when all names
Sheets, Zoho® Sheets, and Microsoft® Excel are entered, the rows can be sorted alphabetically
Web Applications are popular, free, cloud-based by either the first or last names.
collaborative spreadsheets that serve well for this Once student names or code numbers are
purpose. Throughout this chapter we will illus- entered and alphabetized, teachers can provide
trate using examples from the Google Docs suite prompts to which students simultaneously respond
of web-based applications. Although these col- on the same document. It is generally best to cre-
laborative cloud-based resources were developed ate new columns immediately following the name
primarily for business applications, they afford columns. If students are instructed to always enter
potential benefits for formative assessment in data in this column, then the most recent data
STEM classrooms. (Herr, Rivas, Chang, Tippens, will always appear adjacent to the names of the
Vandergon, d’Alessio, & Nguyen-Graff, 2015) students who inputted it. For example, if a stu-
To develop a “quick-write,” the instructor sim- dent’s first name appears in column A, and their
ply creates a cloud-based spreadsheet and shares last name appears in column B, then their most
editing privileges with his or her students. Sharing recent response will be in the adjacent column,
privileges can be granted to anyone who has the column C. Whenever a new column is created,
link, or to specific individuals on the basis of email all of the data from previous entries is shifted to
invitations. The benefit of the first option is that the right. An alternative to this is to “hide” the
no log-in is required to make contributions, but columns after each day’s response and therefore
the downside of this approach is that all contribu- when students respond they are still answering
tions are made anonymously and it is impossible in the cell that is adjacent to their name or code
for the instructor to confirm that contributions (though the column heading may be M instead of
are made by specific individuals. If, however, C for example). This helps keep the spreadsheet
permission is granted only to certain individuals cleaner looking and still provides the instructor
by sending permissions through email, then it is with access to all of the student’s responses from
possible to know who is making which contribu- the semester. For example, teachers may enter
tions. The following steps should be followed once student names or codes in columns A & B and pose
the spreadsheet is created. (Herr, Rivas, Foley, a question in the header of column C. The cells
Vandergon, d’Alessio, Simila, Nguyen-Graff, & in column C become highlighted when students
Postma, 2012). start to enter their responses, providing the teacher
Provide column headers for the first row. The with information regarding which students are
first two cells should be titled “first name” and composing answers and which need more time.
“last name”, or code numbers if anonymity is Once the teacher has determined that there has
desired. All additional columns will be named to been a sufficient response, he or she asks students
reflect the prompt. For example, if the first ques- to press the “enter” key, and instantly the cells are
tion to be asked is “What is your email address,” populated with student responses. Color-coding
then the column headers should be titled “email and rollover names or codes identify those who
address.” The first row should then be “frozen.” have made contributions and deter students from
This simply means that the row is separated from entering data in cells other than their own.
the remainder of the sheet and can be used to sort The following example from a physiology
subsequent data. For example, when clicking on class illustrates how the “quick-write” can be used
the cell titled “first name,” the user will see the not only to collect and summarize class data for
opportunity to sort the column alphabetically. The analysis, but also how it can be used for formative
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assessment by the instructor. Figure 1 shows a understanding and adjust instruction accordingly.
sample “quick-write” in which a physiology class For example, if few students provide an adequate
investigated variations in the frequency-sensitivity written response, a teacher may pose a new ques-
of human hearing. The instructor presented 100db tion in a simpler format such as multiple-choice.
pulses of sound at various frequencies, and directed By programming the spreadsheet appropriately,
students to enter a “1” in the appropriate student/ the teacher obtains statistical data to indicate the
frequency cell if they heard a tone from a sound percentages of students that understand or have
generator, and a “0” if they did not. The spreadsheet specific misconceptions. The teacher opens a new
was designed so that a graph of student responses worksheet for each day and tracks student per-
was automatically and continuously generated formance and understanding by tabbing through
adjacent to student data (Figure 1). The physiol- worksheets from previous lessons.
ogy students used this data to describe trends Professors who have used the CFA model in
and variations in frequency sensitivity within the teacher preparation programs report greater stu-
population, while their instructor simultaneously dent engagement in lessons and greater personal
used this data to determine which students were satisfaction with assessments of student progress
confused, on-task, off-task, slow to input, or by (Tippens, 2015; d’Alessio & Lundquist, 2013;
examining the responses, or lack of responses, to d’Alessio 2014; Foley & Reveles, 2014). Ban-
prompts (see notes on the right side of Figure 1). dura (1997) and Zimmerman (2002) suggested
As students enter their responses, teachers scan that formative assessments permit students to
the developing response table to assess student express themselves and develop a sense of self-
Figure 1. Quickwrite
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efficacy, a key requirement for the development opinion piece in a university student newspaper
of autonomous learning strategies. Polanyi (1967) describes the potential downsides of injudicious
and Schön (1987) emphasized the formative and use of PowerPoint in education:
reflective purpose of student discourse and encour-
age an open community of learners where ideas I know it seems like a cool technology at first
and opinions are exchanged so that students can glance. No writing on the board, no flipping
co-construct their understanding. The CFA model overhead transparencies around until they read
provides an environment where such discourse correctly. In practice, it turns out to be just one
can take place, but unlike a traditional science more thing standing in the way of teachers engag-
classroom where often certain students dominate, ing students in meaningful learning. Here is how
all students are on an equal footing since all have it goes: The lights dim, the teacher fools around
access to the same document for submitting their with the laptop for a while, and then the show
contributions. In addition, this form of assessment begins. The first slide pops up with a bunch of text,
allows students that struggle with language issues sometimes with cool animated transformation ef-
(i.e. English Language Learners) time to digest or fects. The instructor either reads the text or reads it
translate the question and then answer it. Many of and elaborates on it a little. Then they try to move
these students do not respond in a TFA classroom on to the next slide, saying “It isn’t important to
(d’Alessio 2014; Foley & Reveles, 2014). copy down the whole thing, just get the gist of it,”
but there are always those obsessive-compulsive
Assessing Conceptual Development students who can’t help themselves. They just have
Using Cloud-Based Presentations to copy every word, so they beg for the teacher to
leave the slide up longer, writing furiously, while
One of the most widely used computer-based everyone else sits there, bored…. I long for the
teaching tools in education is PowerPoint®, the old days when the instructor would write on the
immensely popular slide show presentation soft- board. Then they would at least move around, write
ware developed by the Microsoft Corporation. some things large, draw diagrams, underline for
By 2012, it was estimated that PowerPoint was emphasis and look around the classroom as they
installed on 1 billion computers worldwide and talked. At times, they would even call on students!
used an estimated 350 times per second (Parks, Interacting with students? How crazy is that? (as
2012, paragraph 1). Despite its apparent popular- cited in Davis, 2004, p. 1)
ity, the value of such computer-based slideshow
software in education has been the subject of Comments like these show the potential weak-
debate for many years, and some studies have nesses of the use of slideshow software in instruc-
shown a lack of evidence that PowerPoint is more tion. Teachers and professors often spend hours
effective in achieving learner retention than tradi- preparing lessons before class, and then present
tional presentation methods (Savoy, Procotor, & their work to their students. Lessons can tend to
Salvendy, 2009). Indeed, some have argued that be one-way exchanges in which students dutifully
PowerPoint presentations often stifle engagement transcribe the preconceived ideas expressed in the
and student input, and may serve as an impediment slideshow. Because the lesson is pre-prepared, it is
to learning. “Death by PowerPoint” has not only challenging to incorporate student ideas and input.
been the title of two books, but has also entered As a result, learners may tend to be observers rather
the collegiate lexicon to describe the disengage- than participants. While instructors may entertain
ment experienced by many students (Kerr, 2001; student ideas, it is difficult to incorporate them
Flocker, 2006). The following excerpt from an spontaneously into the presentation, particularly
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if the slideshow is to be used for additional class centric rings representing the principle quantum
sessions. Although the overuse of traditional slide- numbers. In addition, the slide is equipped with
show software may lead to passive, un-engaging stacks of duplicated plusses (representing protons),
lessons, the use of cloud-based, collaborative minuses (representing electrons), and circles
presentation software introduces the possibility (representing neutrons). Once the slide template is
of engaging all students during instruction while created, the instructor merely duplicates the slide,
simultaneously benefiting from the visual clarity and then titles each slide with symbols for specific
offered by presentation software. Using cloud- atoms, ions and isotopes. Each student or group
based collaborative slideshow software, students is then assigned to a separate slide and instructed
can become active participants in the lesson as they to drag the symbols for the protons, neutrons and
can all simultaneously edit the same presentation. electrons to the appropriate locations to produce
The instructor can easily observe the work of all the Bohr diagrams for the element they have been
students by scanning the slide thumbnails, and assigned. Since all students are working on the
can quickly ascertain which students are having same slide show, but with different elements on
difficulty with various concepts (Herr & Tippens, different slides, the instructor can quickly scan
2013; Herr et al., 2015). Collaborative cloud-based the presentation to assess student understanding.
slideshows can be used to quickly, formatively If desired, the instructor may also direct students
assess student understanding of specific concepts to review the work of their peers. Again this type
or to crowd-source learners to develop presenta- of assessment helps students with language issues
tions that surpass the quality and/or length of as they often can “draw” out their understanding
comparable presentations made by individuals much easier than with written words and appropri-
or groups. In the following paragraphs we shall ate academic vocabulary. Although it is desirable
discuss the techniques and potential benefits of that students develop skill with digital drawing
each approach. tools, the required skill set can be minimized if the
instructor prepares templates that simply require
Formative Assessment of students to drag and drop specific features.
Specific Concepts
Collaborative Presentation
Although collaborative cloud-based spreadsheet Development
applications (quick-writes) work well for collect-
ing data in textural form, they are insufficient for It is also possible to formatively assess student
assessing non-text based skills or understanding. understanding while collaboratively constructing a
Fortunately, collaborative cloud-based presenta- presentation or slide show. For example, if a STEM
tion software includes collaborative drawing tools instructor wants his or her students to understand
that allow many users to simultaneously manipu- the significance of Latin and Greek root words
late drawings. To benefit from these capabilities, in the construction of scientific, mathematical
the instructor creates template pages and duplicates or technological terms, he or she can develop a
them for as many students or student groups as master slide such as the first one shown in Figure
necessary. For example, if a chemistry instructor 3. The slide includes a title (the scientific term), a
wants to assess student understanding of the dif- photo that illustrates the term, and text illustrating
ferences between atoms, ions and isotopes of the the word roots, their meanings, and examples of
same element, he or she can construct simple Bohr other scientific terms that use these roots. Once
model diagrams such as are seen in Figure 2. Each the instructor creates the master slide template, he
slide contains a circle for the nucleus, with con- or she simply duplicates it for as many students or
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Figure 2. Presentation-atoms
groups as necessary, and assigns each a particular all work is done on a collaborative, cloud-based
slide number. The students then replace the infor- slide show, the instructor can formatively assess
mation on their slide with information relative to all of his or her students and provide guidance or
the scientific term that they have been assigned or feedback as necessary. The instructor either goes
selected. This example again encourages students to the desks of those students who need additional
struggling with the academic language a chance help, or simply collaborates with them on their
to match visual understanding with appropriate slides to guide them in their learning.
words. Unlike many student projects, collabora- An additional example may help illustrate the
tive presentation development can be completed power of collaborative cloud-based presentation
within minutes, and students can learn from each development as a formative assessment tool.
other as the presentation is taking shape. Students Figure 4 illustrates shows the first few slides in a
who do not fully understand the task can monitor slideshow on climate and biomes. The instructor
the work of their peers to get a better understand- prepares a master slide that includes the title of a
ing of what is to be done. When the slide show is particular biome, a photo representing the type of
completed, each student can simply make a copy vegetation one might see in that biome, and a cli-
into their own account and use it to show their mograph showing trends in monthly precipitation
parents and others what they have done, or to use and temperature. The teacher then replicates the
it as a study guide in preparation for summative slide for each student, and substitutes climographs
assessments. In addition, the slide show can be for each of the major biomes. Each student must
shown in class and each student can be given the then analyze the climograph on their slide and
responsibility of explaining their slide. Because determine the biome it represents, and change
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Figure 3. Terminology-roots
both the title and the photograph. The instructor Cook & Padilla, 2011). Unlike traditional direct
can scan student work as they do it and assign instruction that presents the findings of others
students who have accomplished the task suc- in a coherent, codified, and uniform manner,
cessfully to help those who are struggling. In so inquiry-based instruction encourages students to
doing, all students benefit, either from teaching discover answers through personal investigation,
or from or learning from their peers. The vari- but the answers novice learners derive are often
ety of collaborative cloud-based slide shows is incomplete, inaccurate, or misleading. While it is
limited only by the creativity of the teachers and relatively easy to assess student learning in direct
students involved (Herr, Rivas, Chang, Tippens, content-based instruction, it is often difficult to
Vandergon, d’Alessio, & Nguyen-Graff, 2015). assess learning in an inquiry-based learning envi-
ronment. Despite such difficulties, inquiry-based
Assessing Inquiry Learning Using learning in STEM is being strongly encouraged by
Cloud-Based Graphing of Data many educators and educational agencies around
the world. For instance, the Next Generation
Inquiry-based learning is a constructivist-inspired Science Standards and the Common Core State
pedagogy that developed during the discovery Standards encourage inquiry-based learning in the
learning movement of the 1960s. Inquiry learning teaching of K-12 science, mathematics and engi-
starts by posing questions or problems that need to neering (Common Core State Standards Initiative
be solved, rather than presenting the discoveries 2010; NGSS Lead States, 2013).
and conclusions of others. Although inquiry-based Although there are numerous challenges to the
learning in STEM education has been encouraged implementation of inquiry-based learning, CFA
for more than half a century, many instructors techniques can be employed to gauge student
choose not to use it for a variety of practical rea- understanding and progress during investigations.
sons. Some of the greatest deterrents to the use Equipped with such data, instructors can provide
of inquiry learning in the science classroom are timely feedback to ensure that students remain
problems associated with assessment and class- on task and engage in productive investigations
room management (Quigley, Marshall, Deaton, (d’Alessio & Lundquist, 2013). Here we present
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Figure 4. Biomes
an example to illustrate the effective use of cloud- form which records the data in a common cloud-
based formative assessment to promote effective based spreadsheet (Figure 5). The instructor has
inquiry learning, and the reader is encouraged to configured the spreadsheet so that the clockwise
look in the collaborative data analysis chapter of torque (the product of mass and distance of the
this book which includes more examples demon- mass on the right to the fulcrum) is plotted in a
strating not only the assessment aspect of such scatter plot against the counterclockwise torque
exercises but also the scientific processes required (the product of mass and distance of the mass on
when doing inquiry-based science. the left to the fulcrum). Each time a student or
In the first example, a science teacher desires laboratory group records their results, a point is
his or her students to investigate the conditions plotted on the graph. The graph develops rapidly
necessary for rotational equilibrium. To simplify as groups report their findings. Figure 5 shows 36
calculations, the teacher provides students with data points collected by 15 lab groups. As students
meter sticks, free-standing fulcrums, masses, and observe the graph, they note that the clockwise and
hangers for the masses, and challenges students to counterclockwise torques are equal and opposite
determine the conditions required for rotational in value, and with minimal additional guidance,
equilibrium. To accomplish this task, students come to conclude that objects whose torques
hang masses of any value at any length on the are balanced will persist in a state of rotational
left and right sides of the fulcrum such that their equilibrium.
meter stick is balanced and rotational equilibrium The savvy instructor monitors the graph as
is achieved. Students then record the mass and students report their data, and quickly identifies
distance to the fulcrum on the right side as well those groups who have reported their data incor-
as on the left, and enter them into a cloud-based rectly. For example, the laboratory group who
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Figure 5. Torque
reported the outlier in Figure 5 simply had the location where all students can access it for their
decimal in the wrong place. Previously, other lab reports (Foley & Reveles, 2014). Fourthly,
students had accidentally reported mass in the students learn that modern scientific and engineer-
distance cell on the form or distance in the mass ing investigation requires collaboration with other
cell, but their errors became obvious when plot- scientists and engineers (Herr & Rivas, 2010b;
ted, and the instructor was able to show them the Herr & Rivas, 2014b).
correct way to enter their data. Such cloud-based
collaborative investigations offer a variety ben- Assessing Reading and
efits. Firstly, they allow the instructor to monitor Writing Skills Using Cloud-
student input and provide guidance as necessary Based Documents
to make sure that errors in technique or report-
ing are caught early and corrected. (d’Alessio & Peer editing has long been promoted as a valuable
Lundquist, 2013). Secondly, since each student tool for improving student writing, yet numerous
contributes to a common database, investigations critics challenge such assumptions. Jesnek (2011)
can be completed much more quickly, providing went as far as to claim that “Since no discernable
additional time for analysis, discussion, and ad- solution has immerged in over fifty years, it is
ditional investigations (Foley & Reveles, 2014). time to finally dispel the illusion that peer editing
Thirdly, the data is kept in a common cloud-based guarantees better college writers” (p.17). Jesnek
325

commented that “the practice of peer editing under the watchful eye of the instructor. The
is often inhibited by several other factors: time instructor can spot errors in protocol, logic or
constraints, social graces, off-task talk, and the interpretation and alert students before they final-
actual ability of writer and editor, not to mention ize their reports. Given this information, students
the endlessly variable ways of creating (or not can make necessary adjustments before submitting
creating) peer editing rubrics” (2011, p.17). Prior their documents for summative assessment. Thus,
to the advent of collaborative cloud-based docu- students can correct small problems before they
ments, students had to perform their peer edits in become big problems, and can avoid the hassle of
private settings in which no one could see their having to unlearn and relearn material. (d’Alessio
remarks until papers were exchanged. By contrast, & Lundquist, 2013).
when students critique each other on cloud-based Collaborative cloud-based documents can also
documents, their comments are instantly available be used to formatively assess critical reading skills.
to whomever the document is shared, including For example, an instructor can scan the text from
the instructor. The instructor can formatively as- a chapter into a collaborative cloud-based docu-
sess the quality of the editorial comments, and ment and instruct students to identify key terms
provide immediate feedback using the associated or concepts for discussion using the commenting
chat features. Using collaborative, cloud-based tool. While students comment, the teacher scans
documents, instructors can address deficiencies in the entire document to observe student progress
editing techniques and provide immediate instruc- (Figure 6). Once again, the instructor can provide
tion regarding steps for improvement. real-time feedback using the comment tool or live
Collaborative cloud-based documents provide chat, and can formatively assess student reading
an opportunity for students to co-construct chapter and reasoning skills and thereby adjust instruction
summaries, lab reports, and related documents to ensure better learning.
Figure 6. Collaborative doc
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The Scan and Post Technique experimental results in real-time to make forma-
tive assessments of student skills using data that
A variety of student response systems (SRS) have is sufficient, adequate, accurate, timely, and per-
been developed to overcome the deficiencies as- manent. The scan & post model employs student-
sociated with traditional formative assessment owned, camera-equipped mobile devices (smart
techniques. Examples include dedicated audience phones, media players, tablet computers) and free
response systems such as Turning Technologies®, cloud-based file synchronization services (e.g.
iClicker®, and Audience Response Systems®, as DropBox®, Box®, OneDrive®, Google Drive®,
well as mobile apps such as Socrative®, Poll Ev- Picasaweb®) to collect such data (Herr & Tippens,
erywhere®, TopHat®, ClickerSchool®, Text the 2013). The instructor creates a shared folder “in
Mob®, Shakespeak®, Naiku Quick Question®, the cloud” for each class, subfolders for each day,
and Edmodo®. Such systems track individual and sub-subfolders for each question, problem, or
responses, display results from polls, confirm observation. Students draw their diagrams and
understanding of key points, and gather data for re- perform solutions on paper, and then photograph
porting and analysis. Studies have shown improved or scan them with appropriate mobile apps (e.g.
student participation, attendance, and engagement iOS camera apps, CamScanner®, TurboScan®)
with the use of CRS’s (Beatty & Gerace, 2009; and upload them to the shared folders in the cloud
Bennett & Cunningham, 2009; Gok, 2011). Such (Figure 7). Students can also upload photographs
systems not only provide information regarding and/or videos of homework, lab-setups, observa-
student understanding, but also increase students’ tions, and experimental results. Within a few
accountability for their own learning (Akpanudo, moments the instructor sees everyone’s work in a
Sutherlin, & Sutherlin, 2013; Han & Finkelstein, single matrix and can thereby ascertain the level
2013; Kaleta, 2007). Although SRS’s have been of student understanding so that instruction can
shown to be a valuable formative assessment tool, be adjusted to meet real-time needs. If desired,
current systems do not provide adequate means the instructor can grant viewing privileges to all
for collecting spontaneous free-form data such students so they can learn from the work of their
as student diagrams, multi-step solutions, obser- peers. Using the scan & post technique, the in-
vations and experimental results. Most systems structor obtains a permanent cloud-based digital
require instructors to create multiple choice and record of all student work, and this allows them to
short answer questions prior to instruction and track student progress during instruction as well
are incapable of soliciting spontaneous free-form as over multiple days (Herr & Tippens, 2013).
responses necessary to assess higher levels of A few examples from university science class-
understanding (Price, 2012). As a result, lessons rooms will illustrate how the scan & post tech-
may tend to be scripted and rigid as teachers adjust nique can be employed for continuous formative
their instruction to synchronize with pre-written assessment. It should be noted that the instructor
questions, but such rigidity has been identified as sees a large matrix of all student work, but in the
a major deterrent to successful formative assess- examples that follow we display only single rows
ment (Beatty, Feldman, & Lee, 2011). of selected matrices to conserve space. In addi-
To address the limitations and deficiencies tion, the instructor can select any image and see
of existing formative assessment techniques, it full screen, but in Figures 8-12 we show only
the authors propose the scan & post technique thumbnails of the original images.
that allows instructors to spontaneously col- Revealing Alternative Predictions. (Figure 8).
lect photographs, scans, and movies of student The scan & post technique can inform instructors
diagrams, multi-step solutions, observations and of a wider variety of misunderstandings than they
327

Figure 7. Scan and post technique
Figure 8. Scan and Post science diagrams
might otherwise be aware of. Students were asked of misunderstandings regarding fluid pressure
to predict what would happen if a 2-liter soda of which the instructor was previously unaware.
bottle were punctured at three locations while the Approximately one fourth of the students drew a
water level was kept constant by “topping off” the diagram similar to A, predicting that there would
bottle through a funnel (Figure 8). The apparatus be no difference in fluid pressure as a result of the
was placed on a ring-stand in the front of the depth in the water column. Another quarter of the
room, and students were asked to draw figures class predicted that the water streams would never
illustrating their predictions. Student drawings intersect, as illustrated in B. Approximately ten
provided much more information than a show of percent predicted that no water would flow out,
hands could ever reveal, and highlighted a variety as illustrated in C. Finally, approximately 40%
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correctly predicted that water would flow farther elliptical orbit, as do all satellites, its orbit is nearly
with increasing depth as shown in D. The instructor circular, unlike the highly eccentric orbits shown.
had performed this activity for more than twenty Figure 9C illustrates that the teacher candidate
years, each time asking for a show of hands of had some understanding that the tilt of the Earth’s
those who predicted either option A or D. It had axis was involved, but the diagram shows that he
never crossed his mind that some students would or she believed the elliptical nature of the Earth’s
predict options B or C if given the opportunity. orbit was equally important. Approximately one
Using the scan & post technique, the instructor quarter of the teacher candidates produced correct
realized students held a wider variety of ideas than diagrams such as the one illustrated in Figure 9D.
formerly imagined. Provided with this information Upon seeing the thumbnails of all explanations,
regarding student predictions, the instructor gave the instructor realized that he would need to ad-
a short lesson on water pressure, after which all dress student misconceptions before he could
of the students redrew their diagrams predicting continue with the lesson. More importantly, this
option D. When the activity was finally performed, activity provided an opportunity to illustrate the
students expressed satisfaction that their revised importance of diagrams during science instruc-
hypotheses correctly predicted what would hap- tion, as students critiqued each other’s diagrams
pen. (Herr & Tippens, 2013). from the perspective of science learners. The
Revealing Misconceptions (Figure 9). Univer- scan & post technique provides science teachers
sity science teacher candidates were asked to draw with valuable information during instruction so
diagrams to explain the reasons for seasonality that they can adapt their instruction to the needs
on Earth. The instructor had assumed for many of their students. (Herr & Tippens, 2013; Herr,
years that the vast majority of his science teacher Rivas, Chang, Tippens, Vandergon, d’Alessio, &
candidates could explain this basic phenomenon Nguyen-Graff, 2015).
well enough to teach secondary school students. Pre-lab Check for Understanding (Figure 10).
To his surprise, only a quarter of his students pro- The scan & post technique can be used to determine
duced diagrams that could be used for instruction. if students are adequately prepared to perform a
The scans revealed a series of inadequacies and laboratory experiment. If students do not under-
misconceptions. Figure 9A shows that the teacher stand experimental design and set-up, then their
candidate had some understanding that the tilt laboratory experience will probably be pointless
of the Earth’s axis was partially responsible for and frustrating. The scan & post technique allows
seasonality, but their diagram was so sketchy and the instructor to check for understanding before
incomplete that it would be useless for instruction. proceeding. In this activity, students were given
Figures 9B and 9C illustrate a widely held miscon- instructions regarding a technique for determining
ception that seasons are due to the elliptical orbit the wavelength of light from a laser pointer using
of the Earth. Although the Earth does travel in an a diffraction grating. The instructor thought that
329

he would need to give a lengthier explanation, that they can be given greater emphasis to avoid
but a quick review of student drawings revealed misunderstandings.
that his students understood the experimental Learning from peers (Figure 12). The scan &
procedure enough to begin the laboratory activity. post technique provides opportunities for students
Continuous formative assessment using the scan to learn from each other. Teachers know that one of
& post technique can therefore save valuable class the best ways to learn something better is to teach
time by determining when students are ready to it to others. Unfortunately, it is normally impracti-
proceed (Herr & Tippens, 2013). cal for teachers to employ peer-instruction in the
Determining students’ abilities to follow verbal classroom, yet the scan & post technique provides
instructions (Figure 11). The scan & post technique an opportunity to do just that. When the instructor
can be used to assess students’ understanding of gives viewing privileges to all, students can see and
spoken instructions. How do you know if your examine the contributions of their peers. Students
students understand your verbal instructions? The can thereby teach each other through their written
scan & post technique allows you to visualize, diagrams and explanations. Students report that
archive, and display student work. In this activ- they feel much more accountable to their peers
ity, students were asked to draw maps based on when sharing their understandings using continu-
a series of verbal instructions provided by the ous formative assessment techniques such as scan
professor. Although the drawings showed that & post. (Herr & Tippens, 2013).
these students had relatively good mapping skills, The scan & post method helps promote a
it also revealed some (e.g. B & D) made one or paradigm shift in STEM education towards col-
more directional errors that resulted in faulty maps laboration and accountability. Students can no
and conclusions. The scan & post technique can longer hide behind their raised hands. Instead,
be used to assess student understanding of any they must produce diagrams and solutions to il-
set of instructions during a lesson and to identify lustrate their understanding. These methods help
commonly misunderstood or forgotten steps so all students respond and gives students who need
a bit longer to process (e.g. students with language
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issues or learning disabilities) a chance to provide learner” learns best through hands-on experi-
input. These diagrams provide a permanent digital ences. Although there is some debate regarding
record that can be used by the instructor to gauge the value of targeting instruction to the “right”
growth in student understanding over time. Such learning style, studies suggest that in general, all
diagrams provide benchmarks during instruction students benefit from mixed modality presenta-
so that teachers can determine student skills and tions, meaning ones that combine visual, auditory,
understanding before summative assessments reading, and kinesthetic components (Flemming
are given. & Baume, 2006).
The scan & post technique encourages Using the scan and post technique, instruc-
metacognition as students see their predictions, tors can encourage visual learning by setting
drawings, and solutions contrasted with those of up a collaborative album into which students
their peers. By examining the models of others, can deposit scans of models and diagrams they
they are given the opportunity to reflect on their have made with pencil and paper. Sometimes,
own thinking. These activities help students gain however, photographs or movies are more telling
an understanding that the learning enterprise than diagrams and models. For example, a math
requires collaboration, independent verification, instructor may want their students to demonstrate
and peer review (Herr et al., 2013). The scan & the relevance of conic sections in engineering,
post technique allows instructors to spontaneously and may instruct his or her students to upload
collect photographs, scans, and movies of student photographs of parabolas or paraboloids found in
diagrams, multi-step solutions, observations and the real world. The students subsequently upload
experimental results in real-time to make forma- images from their mobile devices or computers
tive assessments of student skills using data that to a collaborative cloud-based photo album such
is sufficient, adequate, accurate, timely, and as shown in Figure 13. The instructor can rapidly
permanent. Teachers are provided real-time snap- scan student contributions and provide timely
shots of student understanding that can be used to feedback so students can correct their thinking
reform their instruction to meet real, rather than while the concepts are fresh in their minds. (Herr,
perceived, student needs. (Herr & Rivas, 2014a). Rivas, Chang, Tippens, Vandergon, d’Alessio, &
Nguyen-Graff, 2015).
Assessing Visual Learning Using Suppose an instructor wants students to mas-
Cloud-Based Photo/Movie Albums ter photographic techniques such as time-lapse,
stop-motion animation, or slow-motion so that
A learning style refers to a student’s natural or they can capture and analyze events of scientific
habitual pattern for acquiring and processing interest. Given such goals, they may elect to use
information. One of the most widely used clas- collaborative cloud-based photo/movie albums
sifications of learning styles is the VARK model because they provide the opportunity to collect,
(visual, auditory, reading, kinesthetic) proposed share, archive, and assess such work online.
by Fleming & Baume (2006), which asserts that For example, if an instructor wants students to
students have preferential learning styles. It is observe bacterial growth, he or she can instruct
proposed that students will learn best when there them to expose an agar-filled Petri dish to the
is a “mesh” between the way material is presented atmosphere for a couple of hours to collect bac-
and their individual learning style. For example, terial spores, and then seal it and photograph it
a “visual learner” supposedly learns best when each day for a given period of time. As students
material is presented through pictures, movies, upload their photographic chronologies to unique
diagrams and other visual aids, while a “kinesthetic folders within a collaborative cloud-based photo
331

Figure 13. Parabolas
directory, the instructor assesses the quality of that all students have regular opportunities to share
their work by reviewing a thumbnail grid of the their work. The collaborative cloud-based photo
images such as shown in Figure 14. Assessment album is ideal for collecting student movies of
is instantaneous and continuous, and there is no various STEM-related events. The following are
need to print, photocopy, or collect papers. The a few ideas for student projects that can be done
instructor can quickly review student work for ac- using smart-phone cameras (Tippens, 2015; Herr,
curacy and creativity before selecting students to Rivas, Chang, Tippens, Vandergon, d’Alessio, &
share their work with the class. If it is indeed true Nguyen-Graff, 2015).
that the “best way to learn is to teach,” then such Time-lapse movies. Time-lapse photography
an instructor provides rich learning opportunities is a technique whereby the frequency at which
in an environment that students consider “safe,” frames are captured is much lower than the rate
knowing that their work has already been vetted by at which they will be played back. If for example,
their teachers. The incisive instructor will ensure a process is recorded at two frames per second (2
332

Figure 14. Bacterial growth
fps), it will play back fifteen times faster than the Movies taken with cell phone cameras are often
real motion when played at a normal playback rate played back at 30 fps (frames per second). If, for
of 30 frames per second (30 fps). (30 fps / 2 fps example, a movie is recorded at 240 fps, it will
= 15). Time-lapse photography is the opposite of play back at only 1/8th of the real speed (240 fps/
slow motion photography. Time lapse photography 30 fps = 1/8). Slow motion photography is excel-
helps us see processes that are normally too subtle lent for analyzing events that occur too rapidly
to notice, such as the apparent movement of the for the human eye to catch. The following are a
sun and stars or clouds in the sky. The following few examples of STEM-related topics that would
are a few ideas of STEM related processes that be good for videoing in slow motion: collisions,
can be easily studied and analyzed with the use launching a rocket, hitting a baseball, spiking a
of time-lapse movies: the rise of food dye in a volleyball, golf swing, diving into a pool, balloon
white carnation, evaporation for a glass of water popping, waves crashing, Slinky® falling, etc.
under a heat lamp, bread rising, cloud formation, Students upload their slow-motion movies into a
sunset, sunrise, candle burning, freeway traffic, collaborative cloud-based folder where the teacher
ice formation, ants devouring a cookie, paper can assess their technique. After all movies have
chromatography, germination, flower formation, been uploaded, the teacher can ask students to
ant farm, heliotropism in sunflowers, crystal explain the processes they have captured. (Tippens,
formation, rusting iron, fruit decomposition, etc. 2015; Herr, Rivas, Chang, Tippens, Vandergon,
After all time-lapse movies have been uploaded, d’Alessio, & Nguyen-Graff, 2015).
the teacher can ask students to explain the pro- Stop-Motion animation movies. Stop motion
cesses illustrated. (stop frame) animation is a technique that makes
Slow-motion movies. Slow motion is a movie- objects appear to move on their own. The objects
making effect in which the motion appears to are moved in small increments between individual
have slowed down when played back. Slow photographs. The photographs are then put togeth-
motion effects can be achieved when frames are er into a movie to give the appearance of motion.
captured at a rate much faster than it they will Stop-motion animation is particularly useful in
be played back, so that when replayed at normal demonstrating processes in math and science. The
speed, time appears to be moving more slowly. student must first think deeply about the process
333

that is to be animated, and then break it down into related instruction using CFA after receiving
small steps for the purpose of creating the movie. one or more years of STEM-related instruction
The following are a few ideas: protein synthesis, using TFA. In an effort to gather information
mitosis, meiosis, gel electrophoresis, food web, on the relative efficacy of CFA vs. TFA from a
water cycle, mineral cycles, rock cycle, subduction teacher’s perspective, a within-subjects (N=86)
& volcano formation, continental drift, orbits of ex-post facto study was performed, relying on the
the planets, propagation of waves, chemical bond perceptions of secondary school science teachers
formation, etc. Students upload their animations (biology, chemistry, physics, geoscience) who
into a collaborative cloud-based folder where the delivered a semester or more of instruction using
teacher can assess their understanding of the pro- CFA techniques after having taught one or more
cesses they are animating. (Tippens, 2015; Herr, semesters of the same class with TFA techniques.
Rivas, Chang, Tippens, Vandergon, d’Alessio, & Surveys were conducted in May 2013 to subjects
Nguyen-Graff, 2015). in the Los Angeles metropolitan area.
A brief summary of the findings from those
teachers who have taught with CFA and TFA is
RESEARCH FINDINGS, SOLUTIONS, included here and much more information about
AND RECOMMENDATIONS this and a variety of related studies can be found
in the doctoral dissertation of Marten Tippens
To determine the relative effectiveness of CFA (2015). In each question, teachers were asked to
vs. TFA we should evaluate both in terms of the compare the perceived effectiveness of CFA vs.
definition of formative assessment expressed at TFA. Data from interviews with STEM professors
the outset of this paper. In other words, how does and teachers, classroom observations, and focus
CFA compare with TFA with respect to the extent group interviews with STEM teachers corrobo-
that “evidence about student achievement is elic- rated the findings of the survey.
ited, interpreted, and used by teachers, learners, A summary of the findings of this survey can
or their peers, to make decisions about the next be found in Figures 15 (Awareness of Student
steps in instruction that are likely to be better, Cognition and Behavior), 16 (Adjustments to
or better founded, than the decisions they would Instruction), and 17 (Student Motivation and
have taken in the absence of the evidence that was Engagement). It was found that for each of the
elicited.” (Black & Wiliam, 2009, p.9). Further, 3 categories and 11 sub-categories, teachers
how effective is cloud-based CFA compared with perceived that CFA was a more effective means
TFA at measuring student engagement, level of of formative assessment than TFA by significant
understanding, and misconceptions so that teach- margins. Teachers who have used CFA and TFA,
ers, learners and peers can make decisions about report that they are substantially more aware of
the next steps to improve learning? Given that student understanding and behavior when using
cloud-based CFA is a very recent phenomenon, CFA (Figure 15). Eighty-four percent report that
and therefore not widely adopted, there is a paucity CFA is a more effective or a much more effective
of research on its effectiveness relative to TFA. technique of measuring student engagement, while
In an effort to provide some tentative answers 91% report that CFA is more effective or much
to the question of the relative efficacy of CFA vs. more effective than TFA in measuring a level of
TFA from a student’s perspective, a within-sub- student understanding. Finally, 93% report that
jects (N=139) ex-post facto study was performed, CFA is more effective or much more effective
relying on the perceptions of university students than TFA in providing information regarding
who had received a semester’s worth of STEM- student misconceptions. (Tippens, 2015; Herr,
334

Rivas, Chang, Tippens, Vandergon, d’Alessio, & are more likely or much more likely to adjust the
Nguyen-Graff, 2015) sequence of instruction. In addition, 86% report
Teachers report that when they use CFA, they that they are more likely, or much more likely to
are not only more likely to be aware of the level provide alternate explanations, and 81% report
of student engagement, level of understanding, that they are more likely or much more likely to
and misconceptions than when using TFA, but repeat concepts. (Tippens, 2015).
they also report that they are much more likely Teachers who have used CFA and TFA report
to adjust instruction in response to what they that they think that CFA is much more effective in
have learned (Figure 16). Eighty-nine percent stimulating student motivation than is TFA (Figure
of teachers who have used CFA and TFA in the 17). Eighty percent report that they perceive that
secondary school classroom report that they are students are more likely to recognize the value
more likely, or much more likely to provide ad- of tasks when teachers use CFA as opposed to
ditional examples to clarify concepts when using TFA, while 77% report that that they think CFA is
CFA as opposed to TFA, while 83% report that more effective or much more effective than TFA
they are more likely or much more likely to adjust in fostering self-efficacy among students. Finally,
the pace of instruction and 81% report that they 78% of these teachers report that they think CFA
Figure 15. Motivation
335

Figure 16. Adjusting instruction
is more effective or much more effective than FUTURE RESEARCH DIRECTIONS

TFA in stimulating students to complete tasks.
(Tippens, 2015; Herr, Rivas, Chang, Tippens, This chapter has described the use of the CFA
Vandergon, d’Alessio, & Nguyen-Graff, 2015). model in comparison with TFA. It has provided
Although these findings are encouraging, it descriptions of techniques for assessing student
must be emphasized that they are preliminary understanding using cloud-based spreadsheets
results of quasi-experimental studies of teacher (quick-writes), conceptual development using
perceptions based upon limited sample sizes in cloud-base presentations, inquiry learning using
a specific geographic region. We encourage the cloud-based graphing of data, reading and writ-
development of future experimental studies that ing skills using cloud-based documents, problem
examine objective outcomes in geographically solving skills using the scan and post technique,
diverse settings. The findings presented in this and visual learning using cloud-based photo/
chapter have been based upon professor and teacher movie albums. As new technologies become
experiences with class sizes ranging from 5 to 40 available, more CFA pedagogies will need to
students. Much more work needs to be done to be developed. Although the research presented
investigate the usefulness of these techniques in in this chapter shows CFA to be more effective
classes exceeding 40 students in size. The follow- than TFA in assessing student understanding and
ing section details directions for future research. providing means for addressing learning needs
336

Figure 17. Parabolas
in a timely way, more research needs to be done to meet student needs when employing CFA
to test the generalizability of these findings. As compared to TFA?
additional STEM professors and teachers employ 2. Student Formative Assessment: How does
CFA techniques, there will be greater opportuni- the CFA compare to TFA in stimulating
ties to assess the relative merits of CFA and TFA students to apply formative self-assessments
in socially, geographically, and culturally diverse such as self-monitoring and self-correcting?
settings. Although current research not mentioned 3. Accountability / Engagement: To what de-
in this chapter addresses the following questions, gree are students engaged in the instructional
future research should aim at answering them process when CFA is employed compared
more completely. to TFA?
4. Student Learning: What is the relationship
1. Instructor Formative Assessment: To what between the type of formative assessment
degree do instructors adjust their instruction used and student learning outcomes?
337

CONCLUSION Rivas, Chang, Tippens, Vandergon, d’Alessio, &

Nguyen-Graff, 2015).
Formative assessment, in its most effective form, Cloud-based Continuous Formative Assess-
allows instructors a window into their students’ ment (CFA) is still in its infancy, but preliminary
minds. As the student learning centered discussion data suggest that it is potentially superior to tradi-
in STEM fields proceeds, it is hopeful that STEM tional methods of formative assessment (TFA) in a
teachers bring themselves away from a strictly variety of ways. Surveyed teachers experienced in
summative testing mindset that only shows what CFA techniques perceived CFA to be significantly
their students didn’t know to a formative assess- more effective in measuring student understand-
ment mind-set that shows what their students are ing, engagement, and misunderstandings, and
learning. The methods of CFA hold great promise provides superior tools for adjusting instruction to
towards that goal. meet measured needs. Future research is needed
Cloud-based continuous formative assessment to test the generalizability of these findings and
(CFA) allows STEM instructors to collect and determine the relationship between the mode of
archive student questions, answers, and thoughts formative assessment and student learning gains.
using smart phones, tablets or computers, and
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343
Chapter 21
Improving the Effectiveness
of Research Supervision
in STEM Education:
Cloud-Based Multimedia Solutions
Tony Rickards
Curtin University, Australia
ABSTRACT
Higher degree STEM research students working at a distance often report that they feel more isolated
than students who have face-to-face contact with their supervisors (Macauley, 2002). Though face-to-
face often implies “on campus” contact, face-to-face can now also be via videoconference software and
cloud based solutions. It is the purpose of this chapter to provide an auto ethnographic example of some
ways to enhance student supervision at a distance using these education technologies. The author has
utilised technology to enhance teacher-student interpersonal behaviour (Fisher & Rickards, 1998), social
presence (Stacey & Fountain, 2001) and learning outcomes in STEM Education since 1999. Reductions
in the time research students take to complete research proposals and a greater sense of personalised
supervision have been positive outcomes from using these learning environment enhancements. This
chapter presents a journal like case study perspective to show academics and teachers everywhere how
utilizing freely available online software might improve the effectiveness of the supervisory experience
for all.
INTRODUCTION here is that students involved in the supervisions

described in this chapter are globally distributed.
The activity reported in this chapter began in 1999 In 1999 the author began travelling regularly
and in the last 12 years since 2003 has evolved from Australia to the United States and South-
and defined a new way of supervising doctoral east Asia to supervise doctoral research students
students for the author. Other studies report similar face-to-face in local learning environments. This
outcomes (Macauley, 2002) but what is unique travel for face-to-face supervision of individuals
DOI: 10.4018/978-1-4666-9924-3.ch021

Improving the Effectiveness of Research Supervision in STEM Education
and small groups of doctoral students began to to see supervisors and to discuss their studies
become costly, ineffective and time-consuming with other students, but when the supervisor left it
for both the students and the author. Students was back to “normal” isolated work on individual
were typically full time academics wanting to research. A simple problem or lack of knowledge
upgrade their qualifications, and so they typically about a procedure might cripple student progress
worked full time. Some were school teachers and and enthusiasm for a number of days as the emails
/ or administrators and did not have flexibility in went back and forth, in an effort to identify and
their working day to attend study sessions outside then solve the issue. A more time, cost and aca-
school break times. These constraints began to demically effective way to personally supervise
limit the scheduling options for conducting face- and upskill doctoral students had to be found.
to-face “nodes of study”. Another key factor that The first step was to examine ways in which
over time eroded the effectiveness of “Nodes” was students might collaborate locally using available
larger student groups where local classes were technology solutions that were platform indepen-
held. This meant long days for supervisors trying dent and accessible to all. This it was hoped would
to meet with each student to construct research establish a community of practice that encouraged
proposals and methodology for a doctoral study. resource sharing and discussion. A Geocities /
Following supervisor visits, only asynchronous Yahoo group was established on July 3, 2003 and
email contact was available to students, and this this was supplemented with direct email sharing.
extended the time taken to complete research It is interesting to note that though the original
proposals where students had questions or wanted Geocities Group is still live, it remained active
expert guidance to complete the proposal. until 2008. After this time most students in the
Another factor that was observed and com- first cohort either graduated or moved to more
mented on by students at the time was the in- widely available social media platforms such as
ability for students at a distance to gain one on Facebook which launched in February of 2004.
one supervisor support for skill training in areas Another major catalyst for a change in the way
such as survey design, data collection, and data students were supervised by the author was the
analysis. The operation of statistical analysis introduction of desktop video conferencing soft-
programs such as SPSS and SAS benefit a great ware. When combined with email and the Yahoo
deal if there is supervisor input during the early groups, this presented a triumvirate solution for
stages of survey design, prior to data collection. teacher-student interaction and encouraged a sense
Some academics solve this problem by employ- of collegiality and social presence. Students were
ing “tutors” to carry out data analysis on behalf now able to contribute shared online resources and
of students as a research assistant might, but not have a discussion board to communicate amongst
this supervisor. It is the view of the author that all themselves, and have one-on-one face-to-face
students should conduct their own data analysis, contact with their supervisor and their peers.
as a part of the learning process. Despite the early versions of video conferenc-
As skill training was becoming increasingly ing (pre-Skype such as iVisit) having very slow
difficult to do on the regular supervisory visits frame rates and sometimes being limited to voice
due to the time involved, an additional “Research only due to bandwidth limitations, the beginnings
Methods visit” became necessary. This increased of a new supervision model had emerged. Social
the cost and with around 30 hours of travel time in presence and the nature of the teacher-student
each direction, there was a growing loss of time interactions was now enhanced as participants
in the air for the supervisor. A comment from could see each other, even in different time zones
students at the time was that it was always great and on opposite sides of the world.
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Video conference packages such as CU-SeeMe 6 to 7 weeks at a time. Factoring in student visits
on the Macintosh (1992), Skype (2003), MSN and presentation at conferences, this was not sus-
Video (2004) and Facetime (2010) became much tainable for University budgets operating within
more reliable over time. Better quality pictures, the constraints of currency fluctuations between
better frame rates and clearer and more stable audio Australia, United States and Asia. These fluctua-
were possible even with relatively low bandwidth tions impacted both the university and students
at the time. Parallel to this technology development and have severely reduced student numbers in the
was a reduction in the price for WebCams such USA over the years.
as the QuickCam from Logitech in 1994 and the The nature of the relationship between the
introduction of WebCams as standard inclusions author and his students was characterized by
on many laptops. Two other factors that enhanced short bursts of intense activity and a long period
the use of computer mediated communication via of little or no activity on the student’s part. This
the internet have been the rapid development of was a common experience amongst the author’s
high speed data networks and ubiquitous access peers in the same institution. Students reported
to them (Katz, 2010). The ability to send voice, that they were motivated by contact with their
video, very large files and text concurrently over supervisor and the peer group that attended
the internet means that capable users of these each node of the study, and that this enthusiasm
technologies are able to dynamically use the most waned as they returned to busy work schedules
appropriate technology for the task at hand. alone and away from personal contact with their
The reader should note that these early interac- supervisors. Current students report that this can
tions were predominantly desktop or laptop com- be the case even in face-to-face interactions with
puter based solutions. The availability and global supervisors on campus. This is in part due to
use of convergent technologies such as iPhones, lack of convenient times and appropriate spaces
iPads and other tablet PCs did not start in earnest to meet and more hectic workloads for many
until 2010 with the release of the first iPad. academics. Ironically some students on campus
Tablet technologies from multiple manufactur- may have better contact with their supervisor via
ers providing convergent technologies that com- video conference as students increasingly work
bine telephony, Wi-Fi access and simple human from home in some cases.
input with high-quality digital cameras, audio and As the convergence of software and hardware
voice control are testing the imagination of many, technologies continues the sustainability of us-
as they explore novel new applications for these ing multimedia technologies for higher degree
technologies in education. These new technolo- research supervision should be improved. The
gies further enhance learning environments when notion of bring your own device (BYOD) that
used by confident and competent users as a single is currently sweeping much of the educational
mobile device provides options to the student and landscape should enhance student access to the
supervisor about where and when to interact. It virtual online learning environment described in
should be noted that online learning is influenced this chapter, but some research shows that it is not
by student ICT confidence and competence and the panacea that some expect it to be (Benham,
their perceptions about relevance to their study Carvalho & Cassens, 2014). With a multitude of
(Levett-Jones, Kenny, Van der Riet, Hazelton, options available to academics a new problem
Kable, Bourgeois, & Luxford, 2009) emerges. Should academics learn and utilize all
Another catalyst for the need to change from systems so that students have a choice? Do we
travelling to distant locations was that the author choose one system and make everyone utilize
was regularly away from his home institution for that system thus removing choice, or do we
345

design teaching and learning activity so that it were in remote overseas locations. Both types of
is not device dependent? It seems that with the interactions are supplemented with direct email
multiple options and a paucity of time to “keep and also an online learning management system
up” academics are at risk of being perceived as discussion boards with some resources that are
an inhibitor to technology integration. This is evi- available to students. Remote or local contact
denced by Benham, Carvalho, & Cassens, (2014) with Faculty Librarians is a major advantage for
who report that students regard academics attitude students who explore this option, as librarians
and technical competence as the most significant can assist with accessing resources that enhance
hindrance to success of BYOD. a literature review significantly.
Developing satisfied students and supervisors
in higher degree doctoral research supervision
BACKGROUND collaborations is important to all higher education
institutions. A key reason for this is that graduates
This chapter presents an auto ethnographic per- become alumni, ambassadors and advocates for
spective from the experience the researcher has had their institution. A more important consideration is
with his students. It draws upon the perceptions that they become representatives of their institution
of one male student and one female student who in the professional endeavors that they engage in
have both recently completed research for PhD’s post study. A positive and effective outcome for
entirely via the methods described in this chapter. students means that they become highly skilled
The chapter seeks to show how making use of what and productive members of academe and represent
is freely available online to academics and teachers their universities effectively.
everywhere can and has improved pedagogy and A timely completion from a degree also means
student outcomes. The software described in this that a University receives payment for the tuition
chapter is fairly logical and straightforward to set and supervision involved with that degree in a
up and for the most part limited in their application timely fashion. This allows the University to
only by the imagination of their users. continue to engage with higher degree research
This chapter is primarily aimed at supervi- students in a sustainable way. Having a positive
sors of higher degree research students, typically relationship between supervisor and student that
doctoral students. The nature of the relationship is productive is of benefit to all, and personal
between a supervisor and the research students in contact via Skype and cloud based systems such
these higher degrees is typically a more a peer to as Google Docs has in the author’s experience
peer relationship than a student-teacher relation- shown to enhance the feelings students have about
ship. There is, for example, usually a point in time being valued as members of the University learn-
at which the student should become the expert ing environment.
in their field, working with the guidance of their In the author’s experience in Universities
supervisor, rather than relying on them. in 4 states of Australia, another key variable to
The nature of this relationship in synchronous consider is that in many Australian universities
and asynchronous environments is in the author’s doctoral students work in isolation, even when
experience, reliant on the frequency of contact they are on campus students. They are working
and the quality of the interactions, even if they are on their own specific area of interest, very often
relatively short. The author uses around one hour in their own small or shared office or cubicle and
per student per week for online virtual meetings, being supervised by academics who are often
as opposed to one or perhaps two weeks per year overworked and have dwindling amounts of free
for intensive face-to-face contacts for students who time for engagement with their students. One
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outcome is that students need to become more munity and professional organizations in a way
proactive and organized whilst studying. that is compliant in all regards (For example when
When students do have contact with their super- travelling to conferences), and documented so that
visor, there may be a large amount of information portfolios and curriculum vitae can be kept up
conveyed between participants in that short time. to date. Administration has become a prominent
This can be overwhelming to students at times. feature in the academic landscape of Australia
Students may record the sessions and review the and this also increases time spent on compliance
conversation at a time and a speed that suits the and the need to complete online training modules.
student. The degree to which information can One way to regain some of this time might be to
be processed is enhanced because students can make more efficient use of shorter periods of time
revisit a conversation several times to extract all by using cloud based multimedia solutions as an
of the information that is necessary for them to enhancement to effective pedagogy.
understand the concepts and processes effectively. Another key issue for students while they are
This is not new, but filing, sorting, editing and undergoing research and study is the development
linking recordings to student activity is done more of an effective academic network. When you are a
easily in digital form on a computer than with a higher degree research student these networks are
tape recorder. There is in this case no difference very useful and sustain a particular type of social
between a student at a distance and a face-to-face presence within student interactions with litera-
meeting in terms of the recording outcome. ture. This social presence is reinforced each time
a student or academic reads a paper by somebody
that they know or have interacted with. It adds a
MAIN FOCUS OF THE CHAPTER particular humanistic dimension to the literature
which is reinforced at conferences, whether they
Issues, Controversies, Problems are virtual or face-to-face. This seems like a small
issue on face value, but it is an essential element
The main issues around higher degree research of discovering who are the key people work-
supervision are making the best use of the time ing around the world in similar areas to student
that you have available for effective supervision, research project foci and often allow students to
having timely completions, having happy students connect with very senior people and those who
who are productive and who produce good quality are the research assistants and who later are part
work based on sound advice and supervision. This of academic succession plans.
supervision needs to be done in a cost effective This chapter will now present some key mo-
way that does not degrade the quality of the ex- ments in higher degree research supervision that
perience for the student or the supervisor in terms result in various stages of the higher degree journey
of scholarly output and enjoyment. being completed. This section begins with enrol-
These aims are becoming increasingly difficult ment and ends with graduation.
to manage. Given the work calculation models
that have been applied increasingly to academics
over the years, along with the increased reliance SOLUTIONS AND
on academics to do their own word processing, RECOMMENDATIONS
email, administration, research, publication and
teaching there is less and less time available for The following sections are arranged on some key
the core business of supervision. In addition, time academic moments in a student’s journey from
is further eroded by the need to engage with com- enrolment to completion.
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Some of the technologies and ways of interact- contact with the student and then develop a sense
ing with students that the author uses are outlined of social presence based on direct interaction be-
in each of these sections as a guide for users who tween the supervisor and the student. This direct
may wish to do this for themselves. These sugges- interaction assists the supervisor and the student
tions are based on the modalities and functionality in determining if they can work together and if
that the software and technologies provide rather they share the same interests. This is important
than suggesting for example that SKYPE is used as the nature of the supervisory relationship is
specifically. The technologies that are named are quite close and needs to be sustained over the
ones used by the author, but this is not to suggest entire enrolment period, which means years of
that these are the only ones that are available as interaction. The supervisor needs also to have
they change so rapidly. The author suggests that expertise and interest in the area of research the
readers search on the internet, and find solutions student wishes to pursue.
that provide the modes of interaction that they In order to encourage direct interaction between
require at the time that they read this, as this way a supervisor and student a number of methods can
they will always have the latest offerings. be used. Initially email or a web delivered form
This chapter is meant as an auto ethnographic between supervisor and student is the first point
presentation of a very practical way of interacting of contact. This process allows various details to
with students and takes into account many of the be checked by the supervisor. For example, the
student comments and discussions that have taken supervisor can ask for draft copies of curriculum
place during the years of conducting research vitae, any publications or academic transcripts that
supervision in this way. The solutions and recom- the student has. This provides objective data on
mendations that are presented in these following the student’s academic history but doesn’t provide
sections are not meant to be a definitive list of a lot of information that is more subjective. For
the ways that supervision should be conducted, example, it is difficult for the supervisor determine
but rather are an indication of ways supervision if they think that they can be effective in working
has been conducted by the author that are found with the student to achieve research goals.
to be effective. One way to improve this situation is to ask if
This is by no means an exhaustive list and its the student has a Skype account. If they haven’t,
aim is primarily to show that the functionality they can and should be encouraged to establish
is available, the software that was chosen by the one. Following this an appointment can be set for
author is presented, but the final decision for the a Skype meeting as soon as possible prior to the
reader is to evaluate current alternatives and make student enrolling. This demonstrates a number
a selection based on their own needs. Hopefully of technological competencies in the student.
this chapter will provide some insight into where It assesses their bandwidth and the technology
to begin with this process. platform that they’re using and also gives a su-
A key first step in studying a research degree pervisor an indication about how adaptable the
is to get enrolled. Let us look at the steps in the student is particularly if the student hasn’t used
enrolment process they can be enhanced by the Skype before and needed to set it up.
ideas in this chapter. So, it now is established that the student can
use email and can search the Internet and find
Timely Enrolment resources, download them to the computer and
establish an account. Now to connect!
After initial contact from a student wishing to en- Connecting on Skype for the first time with a
roll at university, the first priorities are to establish new student to discuss a research proposal with
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them is an exciting time for both the supervisor students are sitting, whether that be in their home
and the student. The goodwill that is developed study or in a University location is presented. Very
during this interaction is significant in that both often this establishes that space for the student as
the student and the supervisor can have a highly the regular contact space and assists the student
synchronous and interactive discussion about the in remaining focused on the conversation rather
sorts of motivations the student has to study, the than environment that they are sitting in. It has
time that they can make available and also the been reported by the author’s students that the
areas that they wish to study. This can be discussed only thing which regularly changes is the amount
in quite some detail given that there is no charge they have written in their thesis. The place that the
other than Internet traffic charges for these calls computer is located in is constant, so the distrac-
to anywhere in the world. If consent is sought, the tions that are in the space surrounding the computer
call can be recorded for both parties to listen to remain relatively constant, and so become less of
at a later time. A package such as “call graph” or a distraction as time passes.
“Audacity” allows Skype recording. Though the Finally, by having a Skype or video conference
files can be large, they can be put into Dropbox of any kind with a student at their initial contact
or other cloud based file systems, so that the large point with the University, there is a personal and
files can be shared, rather than emailed. human element to the first interaction. Students
Another benefit in using software such as don’t have a feeling of being immersed in an ad-
Skype as a communication medium is that you ministrative and depersonalized system, such as
can send hyperlinks and enrolment documentation a web delivered form. Web forms usually require
via Skype, either as hyperlinks within the chat completion of some details and uploading of docu-
window or as files that are sent using Skype as ments to an anonymous email address. By using
the transfer medium. These skills are useful for the Skype methodology, students have a highly
students to have and can be taught in that first interactive and personal experience, even prior
interaction in a matter of moments as the dialogue to enrolling and leave the first point of contact
is synchronous and feedback is immediate. quite clear in the tasks that they need to achieve
So now the student has established that they in order to enroll effectively. Typically they have
can use email, the Internet, downloading to a also started to discuss some of the key issues that
computer and establishing new accounts a new will be involved with their research topic.
piece of software, use video and audio, instant mes- Having had contact with a real person who
saging file transfers and also hyperlink transfers is likely to become the full-time supervisor and
to take a student to exactly the page supervisor has discussed study already, allows students to
wishes to be viewing the same time and finally, satisfy the need to identify a person to contact
even screen sharing. These skills are all attained who can assist them in their enrolment. Students
prior to the student enrolling, and often in the first also report that they feel as though they have
interaction. There is an immediate sense reported begun to make progress after they have spoken
by the author’s students that this is a dynamic and with their prospective supervisor and that they
fast paced supervisory learning environment, and feel less anxious if they get stuck with code and
they rise to the challenge. other details required for many enrolment forms.
Another unintended consequence of using The final task that the author asks students to
Skype for that initial contact is that supervisors get do at the end of that very first conversation is to
a little bit of a sense of where the student chooses open a word processor document entitled “My
to work on their studies, the physical learning Thesis” and then save it. Even if that document is
environment. A visual image of where it is that blank, psychologically students feel as though they
349

have begun. Any thoughts or notes that they have have a single meeting to satisfy the majority of
relating to their thesis can be added from day one. these requirements for a research proposal is to
Students report that many of these comments and establish a folder in Google Docs, and share this
notes eventually see their way into the research with the student. Any information that has been
proposal and later, the final thesis. copied into the first document that the student
The next task is to begin a short draft research prepared in the enrolment meeting is copied into
proposal to determine whether or not the stu- the Google Docs word processor.
dent can prepare such a proposal and determine The advantage of using the Google Docs word
whether the student’s area of interest aligns with processor is that it allows multiple insertion points
the areas that can be effectively supervised by the for each of the participants who may be author-
supervisor. This draft proposal is quite important ing the document. It also immediately provides
because it allows the student to verbalize their a backed up version, which is always the master
key areas of interest and allows the supervisor document, to be available to both authors at any
to assess these interests in the light of their own time of the day. This encourages both synchronous
expertise and interests. It is a good test of student and asynchronous editing of the document from
ability to write also. The symbiosis between these remote locations that may be in quite different time
two points of view is important in developing an zones. For example, Perth in Western Australia at
effective supervisor-student relationship as both times exactly 12 hours different to New York City.
participants will be motivated by the same interests This means that while a supervisor is sleeping, a
and expertise. student can be writing. Such are the advantages
The next section in this chapter will outline of asynchronous communication.
some additional cloud based multimedia solutions When a student and supervisor can set up a
that will assist in the proposal writing process. synchronous meeting they can supplement the
text entry by using multimedia approaches. For
Timely Proposal example, if the research proposal needs to be edited
synchronously, the student and supervisor may
Once the enrolment process is underway the first have email contact to establish a time that
student will typically need to furnish documents is convenient for both to be logged in. Secondly,
such as a Curriculum Vitae and other adminis- after logging in to a program such as Skype, the
trative documentation to verify identity and also student and the supervisor can begin a dialogue
academic qualifications. In addition, students in about what they like to achieve in this session. The
the author’s University are required to prepare a next step is to open the Google doc which already
two page document outlining their research topic, will have the material that the student may have
a research method, a title and some research ques- entered from the very first enrolment meeting.
tions as well as some references to support the The supervisor may enter some information
idea that their topic is new. in the form of headings and guide the student
For many students it may have been a long on how it is that they can contribute at the same
time since they have written a research proposal, time by writing down ideas that they wish to
or if they have completed their prior degrees convey about what they want to research. A great
via coursework. They may never have written a advantage of this process is that the student can
research proposal. The second scenario is rare, see and hear and interact with their supervisor
but does occur occasionally where students have at the same time as which they are constructing
done multiple degrees. In order to assist this their research proposal. A major advantage of this
process an effective way that the author uses to mechanism whether students are at a distance or
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locally is that the feedback to the student and the from using cloud-based interactive multimedia
supervisor is immediate. technologies to enhance the learning experience
The synchronous nature of all the technolo- and progression of the thesis.
gies engaged to achieve this task allow real-time
feedback and real time dual author editing of a Timely Engagement
convergent document. This document becomes the
research proposal. By convergent document the If we now make the assumption that the student
author means a document that takes the ideas that has successfully enrolled and has produced a re-
the supervisor has and the ideas that the student search proposal in a timely fashion along with an
wishes to contribute and concatenates them into ethics application, it would now be time to begin
a single document collaborative document. the tasks required for thesis completion.
This document may not be in its final form It must be remembered at this stage that the
after this first meeting to discuss the research two previous sections have described how in just
proposal. At the end of this first meeting the two interactions with the student, which could
student should have the skills to engage with take around one hour for each interaction the
the email, Google Docs, Skype and also perhaps student has progressed very rapidly to being able
University resources and library databases from to produce their own research proposal, indepen-
the host institution. These skills will assist them dent of their supervisor. This high-quality rich
in working by themselves to further the research interaction between supervisor and student frees
proposal in Google Docs. up supervisor time to work with other students
Over the coming days and perhaps weeks the and complete the tasks.
student can continue to construct the research Some of the author’s colleagues initially
proposal based on that first session of guidance thought of the time spent interacting with these
provided by the supervisor. In addition, because multimedia technologies along with the time
the document is always live in Google Docs, the taken to learn to drive them was excessive. Very
supervisor can at any time that is convenient re- quickly though the benefits become apparent when
open the document and monitor student progress students who would normally only communicate
during the construction of the research proposal. by email can have significantly richer and more
This non-invasive, but “non-stealthy”, method interactive experiences with their supervisor
of tracking and monitoring student progress al- when utilizing these multimedia cloud based
lows the supervisor to identify very early on if the technologies.
student may benefit from additional supervisor Whilst a student is beginning their thesis
input. This is an important distinction between journey they need to develop a few other skills,
traditional email methods and other asynchronous if they don’t already have them, to engage in a
means of communication. As is the case when systematic and scholarly way with the write up
communicating ideas the sender needs to complete of a literature review. The author typically asks
their entire thought and send it. The receiver can- students to produce chapter one, two and three at a
not read it until it’s been sent. In a synchronous time immediately post proposal and ethics accep-
online multi-author environment such as Google tance. By doing this they are well prepared by the
Docs, located in the cloud supervisor and student time they are considering data collection. The sort
can at any time view the document and contribute of preparation that is required is to present in the
if they wish. draft the work that has been conducted in similar
In the next section the author will present the areas of research, prior to this research. It aims to
next phase in a student’s journey that can benefit differentiate the current study from all previous
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studies, the introduction, aims and purpose of the on demand have short periods of time together
study need to be clear and well researched. They that a very productive. This is possible when
also need to be clear in the student’s mind prior using video conferencing, the cloud text editing
to collecting data. software such as Google Docs, and also online
The third and final chapter clearly defines the databases via the host institutions library or even
method that the student will use and requires the services such as Google scholar. Google scholar
student to have a good understanding of research is not recommended by the author as a definitive
methods that are available, and appropriate to the source for academic literature reviews. It does
particular study in question. All of these things provide however some very useful functionality
require reading and research and writing. to examine other authors that are citing papers in
The writing in the early stages can be continued the areas of interest, to examine similar papers
in Google Docs, building on the initial enrolment and also to examine different versions of the
proposal that evolved into the final research pro- same paper that may be presented in any search
posal and now has become the beginnings of a result. When combined with University provided
thesis. A reason for doing this is that formatting databases both full text and free access become
is not as important as the text that is written into a reality for research students in the majority of
the chapters at this stage. Google Docs and other literature searches.
cloud-based technologies typically don’t have the Once the thesis begins to evolve to a point
richness of formatting options that the professional where some formatting is required the student and
word processing packages that are typically used the supervisor may choose to move the thesis to a
in universities have. In the author’s experience, professional word processing package. Once again
sometimes students begin seeing the lack of fea- both asynchronous and synchronous methods can
tures in Google Docs as an impediment to their be utilised to grow the thesis. It may be that small
progress. But later, when their word count starts sections of the thesis continue to be written in first
getting respectable they appreciate the fact that draft form using Google Docs, as was the case with
they’re not distracted by the word processing the author and several doctoral students recently.
features that appear in other software packages. Once these draft documents have been completed
Another advantage of using the cloud based to a satisfactory standard they can be cut and paste
document editors is that the supervisor and the into the professional word processor document.
student retain the ability to work synchronously As the thesis grows in size there word processed
or asynchronously and also monitor each other’s version can be emailed backwards and forwards
progress and changes. It also allows for periodic between student and supervisor, thus providing
contact via videoconferencing software, such as an opportunity for each author to have a period
Skype, to rapidly edit using both authors’ con- of time where they are the keeper of the master
tributions at the same time. When the author is copy, and use track changes to record comments
interacting with his students he has been known to and alterations. The compare documents function
say that two minds are better than twice as good. word is invaluable in reconciling versions of a
This perspective is founded on the idea that very thesis also. This is by no means the only or even
often having a conversation with the student, the most effective way of managing this process
whilst discussing a research proposal allows both but it is a method that the authors used with much
participants to contribute ideas that they may well success with students under his supervision.
not have come up with by themselves. In addition to this process that allows a syn-
The timely engagement aspect of this pro- chronous interaction is for the student for example
cess occurs when student and supervisor can to email a copy of the latest draft of the thesis,
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and then arrange a Skype contact. This allows the understanding why the change has been made,
student and the supervisor to once again be looking but also the broader implications of how it may
at the same document and having a synchronous enhance the thesis. Simple comments such as, “you
discussion about what it is that they are working must include a reference for every assertion that
on. As the thesis develops the author chooses to you make” can be explained in the first instance
allow the student to retain the master copy and that they are required. In the author’s experience
constantly send drafts to the author as supervisor. what this has meant is that students understand
This gives the student a greater sense of owner- why changes are being made, and become less
ship of the document that they are preparing critical when they appear many times in the same
under the guidance of the supervisor and assists edited thesis. It also provides a means to say, this
in the transition to the student becoming more is an example of what to look for, now correct the
independent worker. rest yourself, again saving supervisor time and
The next section of this chapter discusses timely empowering the student to be more independent.
completion of the thesis. It is interesting to note that many word pro-
cessing packages have for years included voice
Timely Completion transcription software that many users have
been unaware of. Is the author’s view that this
When working on research projects in areas such may be due to the fact that they do not rely on
as cloud based computing, the need to produce a instruction manuals or formal training to learn
thesis in a rapid timeframe is paramount. Notwith- about how to use software and tend to learn us-
standing the rules governing minimum times for ing the discovery based paradigm. This again is
completion with doctoral research, studies which the value of a good supervisor. Somebody who
involve high technology need to be completed as has technology competence and confidence can
quickly as is practicably possible. This is due to make their students aware of these functionalities
the areas under investigation often evolving so within software that they already have had access
rapidly that by the time the thesis is produced it to. It encourages the notion of making more use
is already out of date. This is one reason why this of what you already have available to you. In ad-
chapter has focused on some of the methods of dition convergent technologies utilizing telephony
using interactive cloud based multimedia tech- and Wi-Fi interactivity with the Internet in small
nologies rather than espousing the use of specific mobile devices very often also contain voice
technologies. The author reminds the reader at transcription software built into them. There are
this time that though specific technologies are also applications that may be purchased through
mentioned they are mentioned to be representative the device to transcribe voice.
of the modes of communication and interaction
that they provide. Development of Social Presence
Software such as voice transcription software and Effective Interactions
becomes very useful for entering text into the
method chapter, as this often describes proce- It is the author’s view that when a student is enrolled
dures and may be very clear to the student who in a doctoral degree they embark on a journey
is organized and well read. Rather than typing a that sees them very often begin as a neophyte
fairly short comment, the supervisor can provide researcher and emerge as a qualified independent
a rich feedback comment box around any ideas researcher. In addition, students usually are able
that are for example not supported with references to establish their own professional network of
in the thesis. This assists the student not only in contacts both with their supervisor’s assistance and
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independently. Most importantly, students have a the author’s experience this means that discussions
good and ongoing professional relationship with take place more quickly than if they had taken
their supervisor. Given that they have just spent place by email. In addition, there is less transmis-
a number of years working on the same research sion of misconceptions as things don’t have to be
project this is to be expected. explained in such detail. This is usually due to the
Students report the development of the supervi- fact that an email requires you to put all of your
sor-student relationship is greatly enhanced by the idea down and then send it, before the reader can
software that allows an effective and rich human have an opportunity to respond to it. In the syn-
interaction to take place. The social presence that chronous online video conferencing environment
is established in the initial enrolment interview and of software such as Skype, the participants can
subsequent draft proposal Skype session has been use interruptions to question anything that is not
reported by students of the author to provide an clear immediately.
effective use of supervisor and student time. This
occurs not only in the initial stages of enrolment, Collaboration Is the Key
but also in the ongoing thesis writing phases up
until submission. Students report that there is a Taking a collaborative synchronous and asyn-
great sense of them being the only student of the chronous approach to tasks such as the previously
supervisor; i.e. they perceive that they are having described development of a research proposal
a personal experience rather than a group experi- allows the contributions from each participant to
ence. It is the case that the author currently has be used as a catalyst to improve the contribution
around 30 higher degree research students under from the other participant.
supervision located globally in diverse and tech- It is the author’s view that in the entire process
nologically disparate locations. of the thesis construction, both asynchronous and
By being able to conduct a synchronous discus- synchronous communications need to be included.
sion and collaboratively edit documents, whilst The reason for this is that asynchronous communi-
also sharing hyperlinks and files via a video con- cations allow think time and processing of the last
ferencing and instant messaging software platform, interactions that the two contributors to a research
students and the author would report that this al- degree might have had. The synchronous com-
lows very effective use of supervisor and student munication available in cloud computing services
time. In just an hour for most weeks of the year, such as Google Docs, allows both participants to
much more can be achieved than is possible via immediately see the contribution of the second
email alone. In fact to go back to the introduction party. This allows participants to bounce ideas
of this chapter, the use of cloud based multimedia off each other and develop their thinking based
technologies allows more to be achieved than even on immediate feedback.
face-to-face interaction because of the ability for The author has engaged in many such interac-
both the supervisor and the student to be searching tions with students who, after suggesting that they
for and providing resources during the discussion wish to enrolled in a higher degree and research
on separate computers, that are connected to the need to write a two page proposal outlining some
same document. of their thinking and processes for conducting
This collaboration between the supervisor and research. These need to be devised in a way that is
the student during synchronous and asynchronous going to conform to the requirements of the higher
interactions using cloud-based technologies such education institution, but also need to conform to
as Google Docs, allows for the written version of commonly accepted scholarly research practices.
rapid prototyping, and also immediate feedback. In To do this a good supervisor is essential on day one.
354

FUTURE RESEARCH DIRECTIONS at the same time, then the proposal document
grows very rapidly.
Interactive multimedia and cloud-based technolo- It is the author’s view that the development
gies are areas that are rapidly developing and will of a strong social presence between supervisor
continue to do so. By the time you read this, there and student is enhanced when a professional
may well be new modalities of interaction between collaborative learning environment makes use
humans and computers that will be commonplace. of multimedia cloud computing technologies. A
They will not only build on the interactivity that video chat in real time is a good supplement or
is described in this chapter, but provide new and replacement, where distance is an issue, to face-
novel ways of interacting with students. Based on to-face in person contact.
history, this is inevitable and sustainable and will It is interesting to note that one possible
provide new areas of research. In the same way outcome from using cloud-based technologies
that many occupations were not conceptualized with other technologies such as Skype that allow
before computer technology came along, much face-to-face synchronous communication as well
research into human computer interaction is yet as cloud-based multi-author interaction with a
to be conceptualized. single document, is that the development of an
Having said this, future research into the use of effective academic relationship between student
cloud based technologies specific to this chapter and supervisor may actually be better than what is
could investigate the development of convergent currently the case in many face-to-face meetings.
technology use that couples multi user interactive It is hoped that this chapter has shown the
technologies and cloud based software with an reader that using the paradigm of guided dis-
assessment of the nature of the supervisor-student covery as an effective means of supervision and
learning environment and interpersonal behavior. a collaborative construction of documents with
immediate feedback to both the student and the
supervisor are all key developments for improving
CONCLUSION higher degree supervision. This improvement is
largely due to the author’s students reporting that
Where students can engage with their supervisor they feel like the only student under supervision,
in discussions that are either face-to-face or pre- despite knowing that the supervisor has around
sented through cloud-based technologies allowing 30 doctoral students under supervision currently.
immediate feedback, it is the author’s experience
that the research proposal develops at a much more
rapid pace than if asynchronous methods such as REFERENCES
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a face-to-face meeting and utilise synchronous between teacher-student interpersonal behaviour
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Godfrey, N., & Mavundla, T. R. (2000). Tak- KEY TERMS AND DEFINITIONS
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356
357
Chapter 22
Designing a Cloud-Based
Assessment Model:
A New Zealand Polytechnic Case Study
Tony Rickards
Curtin University, Australia
Aaron Steele
Universal College of Learning, New Zealand
ABSTRACT
A cloud based assessment learning environment exists when the collaborative sharing features of cloud
computing tools (e.g. Google Docs) are utilised for a continuous assessment of student learning activity
over an extended period of time. This chapter describes a New Zealand Polytechnic based success story
which utilised a multi-method approach to investigate student perceptions of a cloud assessment learn-
ing environment. The learning environment factors that are examined in this chapter include progress
monitoring, cloud tools (i.e. Google Docs), feedback, cloud storage, technology preference, student
achievement, and student engagement. This chapter not only describes this unique learning environment,
it also provides a clear insight into student perceptions of the cloud assessment learning environment. In
concluding, the chapter provides some outcomes that may be utilised to improve pedagogy and student
outcomes in a STEM based multimedia learning environment.
INTRODUCTION A seemingly simple idea centering on the pro-

vision of off-site computing servers and services
The cloud based assessment learning environment to individuals and businesses also seems to have
is a dynamic, unique and new learning environ- provided enhancements to ways in which collab-
ment capability that has been made possible by orative teaching and learning can take place. It
the rapid development of cloud based computing is the purpose of this chapter to consider several
services, associated software and technologies. key areas essential to the design and application
These cloud services are available both commer- of a cloud based assessment learning environment
cially and in the public domain and provide new model operating in this education technology
kinds of interactivity for humans and their data. space.
DOI: 10.4018/978-1-4666-9924-3.ch022

Designing a Cloud-Based Assessment Model
Firstly, this chapter will define the cloud based business has rapidly expanded in its uptake and
assessment model. Secondly, the chapter reports applications. This is evidenced by its increasing
research that has investigated key factors in the encroachment into everyday technologies such
cloud assessment learning environment related as the Apple iPhone that relies upon cloud-based
to learners. These include student perceptions technologies for the dissemination and storage of
of the cloud assessment learning environment, music and photographs, amongst other things.
student conceptual change in understanding and Other examples of educational and business
interactions with the cloud based assessment en- use of the cloud can be found at popular review
vironment and student engagement with the cloud websites such as the Cloudwards website (Cloud-
based assessment environment as an alternative to wards, 2015). Sites such as this have emerged as
standard methods used in teaching and learning. a direct result of cloud based computing. Reports
are beginning to emerge regarding the degree to
which the cloud is reaching ubiquity in business
BACKGROUND and as enterprise solutions education. For example,
the 2014 State of the Cloud Report by Rightscale,
Cloud assessment learning environments have not a cloud portfolio management company (Right-
been the focus of extensive research at this time. scale, 2014).
This chapter provides new insights from the first Another example of the use of Cloud tech-
study of its kind in New Zealand to engage in nologies in learner assessment by Ferenchick and
cloud based assessment technologies. This chapter Solomon (2013) centred on the development of
also presents key findings from an investigation a web based content management system to ad-
into student perceptions of the cloud assessment dress issues transparent standards for assessing
learning environment that emerged from the clinical competency in Medical Education. This
core of a much larger study that was conducted study varied from the present study in that it used
in 2013 by the authors (Steele, 2013). This study observers and videotapes and was not developing
was different from many preceding learning a cloud based assessment model as a part of the
environment studies in that the lecturer involved teaching exercise, but rather using a cloud based
was a participant observer and researcher who model to record clinical teaching activity. This
immersed themselves in a detailed examination of was a component of the present study, which
this new way of engaging technology in teaching extended research activity into the delivery as
and learning. As a result, this study is an authentic well as the assessment of the learning environ-
examination from within an emergent cloud based ment. Another example of this is a study by Chiu
assessment learning environment, and provides a (2014) who developed a system to assess student
multi method and multi perspective student and learning with and without parents and traditional
academic insight into this environment for the lectures as a comparative analysis of the impact
first time. and reliance on teachers by students in English
As was described in the introduction the cloud as a foreign language. Findings from this study
assessment learning environment is novel, unique provided a contribution to better understanding
and very new in educational learning environment of teacher uptake of technology and their willing-
research. Typically the literature has been devoid ness to utilize technology in their teaching. These
of cloud based computing research, as it is a new findings were consistent with the present study,
area. There is none that is focused on the cloud that sought to control for these teacher inhibitory
based assessment learning environment. Cloud factors by using a trained and expert technology
computing on the other hand is an area that in
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academic to deliver the cloud based assessment A key element that differentiates this chapter
environment in this study. from other work that precedes it is that it investi-
Another aspect to cloud based systems is the gates the fundamental motivation behind student
use of mobile technologies. A study by Sun and engagement with cloud based assessment tech-
Shen (2013) developed a system to enhance col- nologies and also their perceptions of this new
laboration and team based activity and mutual assessment environment.
collaboration. These factors are ideally suited to Examining the literature at the nexus between
the cloud based environment as was the case with cloud computing and learning environment re-
the present study. Sun and Shen (2013) focused search reveals that over the past 30 or so years
on a service oriented system (Taas) to establish a there have been many studies conducted into
teamwork-enhanced learning flow that sought to learning environments and technology use in
enable a rational grouping mechanism to allocate those learning environments. These studies have
learners to their appropriate tasks in order to give predominantly been carried out in middle to up-
their best performance. They found that further per secondary learning environments and have
study was necessary to determine if teamwork utilised instruments such as the Questionnaire
was in fact enhanced by their system. on Teacher Interaction (Coll, Taylor, & Fisher,
In seeking information on the current state of 2002; den Brok, Fisher, Wubbels, Brekelmans, &
cloud computing uptake in business and educa- Rickards, 2006; Maulana, Opdenakker, den Brok,
tion, the authors have found that online informa- & Bosker, 2011; Telli, den Brok, & Cakiroglu,
tion repositories such as electronic reports from 2007) as well as other instruments unique to
cloud service websites provide a convenient and specific learning environments (Fraser, 1978;
up-to-date information source. Given the time lag Ketelhut, Dede, Clarke, Nelson, & Bowman,
between submission and publication with many 2007; Levine & Donitsa-Schmidt, 1998; Shaft,
academic outputs such as journals information Sharfman, & Wu, 2004).
can date rapidly in academe. The literature also reveals a number of stud-
The difference between cloud-based tech- ies that have been conducted in the area of cloud
nologies per se and the cloud assessment learn- computing or online learning management systems
ing environment centres on a teacher’s ability to such as Moodle in education (Brodahl, Hadjer-
monitor and guide student progress over the entire rouit, & Hansen, 2011; Guth, 2007; Ó Broin &
duration of an assessment, and engage students in Raftery, 2011; Petrus & Sankey, 2007). However,
that process, rather than just provide an off-site even after extensive searching in the literature a
server and collaborative software (Google, 2011). lack of research into student perceptions of the
Cloud based assessment learning environ- cloud assessment learning environment is evident.
ments provide more than a summative assessment A major driver for this, it is suggested, is that the
typically does. Rather than a single assessment software supporting cloud based assessment has
outcome, students are actually engaged in the pro- only recently become available. Moreover, they
cess of assessment from day one. They can make have only now begun to be discovered by users
choices about the types of interactions they have in tools that they have been using for some years,
and the degree to which they wish to collaborate such as Google.
with others. This process provides a contrast to a A similar situation, in terms of user’s knowl-
traditional assessment method where teachers and edge of the tools they have at their disposal, may
students often only see the results of student work be found in word processing. A well-known and
at the completion of that teaching and learning very popular word processor available on both
period as a summative assessment (Race, 2007). PC and Macintosh platforms has for many years
359

had voice transcription available as an option. The cloud based assessment learning environ-
A vast majority of users in the student popula- ment exists when the collaborative sharing features
tion taught by both authors report that they are of a cloud computing tool (e.g. Google Docs) are
unaware of this feature within the word proces- utilised for a continuous assessment by a group
sor predominantly because they have learnt to of students and their lecturer, whether they are in
use word processors through discovery based a classroom or not.
learning rather than formal education or training Continuous assessments where students are
manuals. It is interesting to note their comment given an extended period of time (usually weeks)
that had they not been advised by their lecturer of to complete an assessment task (e.g. write a re-
the existence of products such as Google Docs, port) allowed students to decide when they began
they may still to this day be unaware of the abil- with the task, and allowed lecturers to monitor
ity to collaboratively construct documents using this progress.
cloud-based technologies. At the beginning of the assessment period
(day 1), each student used a cloud computing
tool to start their assessment (e.g. Create a blank
MAIN FOCUS OF THE CHAPTER document in Google Docs). Each student is then
asked to share their work with their lecturer via
Issues, Controversies, Problems the collaborative sharing feature in Google Docs.
It is this act of ‘sharing’ that allows the teacher to
A key issue that has driven this research and is then monitor and guide each student throughout
central to this chapter is the need within educational the duration of the assessment (Steele, 2009).
learning environments to try and engage students This support is not site-specific and can take
in a process of learning that doesn’t begin on the place at any time that suits each participant as it
day before an assessment is due. The develop- takes place in an online environment as well as
ment and uptake of a technology-based system in a traditional classroom.
that allows a lecturer to not only monitor student Another advantage of this process is that it al-
progress from day one of an assessment task, lows a high degree teacher-student interpersonal
but also to collaborate with and support students behaviour. The nature of this teacher-student
during assessment tasks was not readily available interpersonal behaviour is different because it not
in traditional learning environments. Despite the only focuses on the assessment task, but also on
advent of new pedagogy based on the flipped the discussion takes place between the academic
classroom where students are encouraged to carry and the student, whilst they are learning to drive
out practical tasks from their learning experiences this new software. The cloud assessment learning
in their own time, and use the institutional learn- environment can therefore be further defined as
ing environment as a means of supplementing this a learning environment that exists when the col-
and gaining theory, there was virtually no way to laborative sharing features of cloud computing
engage with students in a collaborative way in tools are utilised by teachers to monitor and guide
the space that existed between these two learning students during a continuous assessment phase.
environments. So let us now define the terminol- Figure 1 below provides a visual representation
ogy and look at a particular research project that of the cloud assessment learning environment.
takes us into a traditional learning environment The problems to be investigated in the study
that has taken up cloud based assessment. reported in this chapter centre on three research
questions.
360

Figure 1. Cloud assessment learning environment
These questions are: • How do students engage with the cloud

assessment learning environment over the
• What factors of the cloud assessment course of an assessment?
learning environment do students perceive
as either positive or negative?
• Is there a conceptual change in student un- METHOD
derstanding of the cloud assessment learn-
ing environment? In order to investigate student perceptions of
the cloud assessment learning environment, and
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Table 1. Data collection overview

consequently address the research questions, a
multi-method ethnographic case study approach Data Collection Method Occurrence
was selected for the study with the researcher
LIQ Week 4 & 8
acting as a participant observer.
CAQ Week 6 & 10
Both qualitative and quantitative data were col-
Concept Maps Week 6 & 10
lected from the research sample through a variety
Class Interviews Week 6 & 10
of instruments and methods. These were: the LIQ
Focus Group Interviews Week 10
(Lecturer Interaction Questionnaire) instrument
(an adaptation of the QTI and not reported in this Lecturer Descriptions Week 10
chapter), the CAQ (Cloud Assessment Question- Participant Observations Weeks 1-16
naire) instrument (a questionnaire unique to this Virtual Participant Observations Weeks 1-16
study that is focused on aspects of the cloud as- Online Activity Statistics Weeks 1-16
sessment learning environment), concept maps, Attendance Records Weeks 1-16
class interviews, focus group interviews, written Achievement Levels Weeks 4, 9, 12 & 16
lecturer descriptions, participant observations,
virtual participant observations, online activity
statistics, attendance records, and achievement using the SPSS software program, the qualitative
levels. data was coded and analysed manually, and where
Furthermore, a number of the data collection appropriate, also analysed statistically.
methods were also used in a pre-test post-test In addition to the methods detailed above,
design. Accordingly, both qualitative and quan- online activity statistics were also collected from
titative data were collected with the results from the cloud assessment learning environment. This
the various data sources being used to help sup- provided a novel insight into how and when
port, validate and triangulate the overall findings students were engaging with their assessment
through methodological triangulation (Cohen et tasks. Specifically, the word count of each stu-
al., 2000). Table 1 provides an overview of the dent’s assignment document was recorded on a
data collection methods utilised over the course daily basis over the course of the assessment. By
of a 16 week semester. collecting data in this way, it was possible to see
The main instrument utilised by the study to daily changes in individual word counts within
collect data on student perceptions of the cloud each student’s documents over the entire assess-
assessment learning environment was the CAQ. ment period. This was done with student consent
The CAQ was administered twice during the and knowledge and served as a useful indicator
study, first at the beginning of the assessment to for decisions students made about when and for
capture student pre-engagement perceptions and how long they engaged with assessment tasks over
then again at the end of the assessment to capture the entire assessment period. This data provides
student post-engagement perceptions. The CAQ a new quantitative measure of student progress
included five main sections: Monitoring, Google during the assessment. These online activity
Docs, Feedback, Cloud Storage, and Preference. statistics are also presented and discussed in the
Each section contained both quantitative Likert following sections.
scale items, and open-ended short answer ques- The research sample used for this study con-
tions sisted of 50 information and communications
The collected data was analysed at the conclu- technology students enrolled in a second year
sion of the semester using various data mining information technology project management
approaches. The quantitative data was analysed
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course in a three year degree programme. The perceptions over the course of the assessment
researcher was the sole teacher of the sample stu- period. Accordingly a mean comparison for each
dents for the purposes of this research. The study of the scales is given in table 3. This data will be
focused specifically on student experiences during discussed in greater detail in the discussion section.
a (PMP) Project Management Plan assessment In order to help provide context, the following
that was conducted within a cloud assessment are sample items from each of the scales:
learning environment. The assessment required
students to use Google Docs (a cloud computing • Monitoring “I like that my lecturer will be
word processing tool) to write a PMP for a given able to see my progress”,
scenario over a four week period (due at the end • Google Docs “Google Docs will be easy
of week nine of the semester). The next section to use”,
of this chapter will now present the results from • Feedback “I like that my lecturer can put
this study. feedback directly into my assignment”,
• Cloud Storage “I like that my work will be
automatically saved”,
RESULTS • Preference “I would prefer to use Microsoft
Word over Google Docs for this assess-
The results presented in this section focus on the ment” (negatively scored item).
reliability and internal consistency for each of the
scales of the main instrument utilised to collect The following sub-sections will present sum-
data on student perceptions of the cloud assessment maries of the qualitative results from each of the
learning environment, the CAQ. Table 2 presents five areas of the CAQ.
the internal consistency measures for the scales
included within the CAQ and reveals acceptable Monitoring
levels for each of the scales.
Each scale collected participant responses The Monitoring scale is the first section of the
on a five point Likert scale, as is consistent with CAQ. This scale focused on student perceptions
other learning environment research. For each of sharing their assignment document with their
item students could either: agree (value of 1), lecturer for the duration of the assessment. This
disagree (value of 5), or select a value in between functionality also enabled monitoring of student
(2, 3, or 4). progress via the word count in documents that they
The CAQ was administered twice throughout produced. The short answer question put to stu-
the study in order to capture changes in student dents in this section was “What do you think about
Table 2. CAQ internal consistency Table 3. CAQ scales mean comparison
Scale Alpha CAQ1 Alpha CAQ2 Scale CAQ1 CAQ2 Difference

Monitoring .85 .85 Monitoring 3.57 3.98 .42*
Google Docs .72 .71 Google Docs 3.36 2.88 -.48*
Feedback .91 .97 Feedback 4.38 4.40 .02
Cloud Storage .78 .83 Cloud Storage 4.27 4.13 -.14
Preference .78 .77 Preference 3.02 2.96 -.06
n = 48 CAQ1, n = 40 CAQ2 * Change is significant at the 0.05 level, n = 40
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your lecturer being able to see your assignment of time their perceptions underwent a noticeable
document for the duration of the assessment?” shift. Many students indicated that the tool did
Results from the first short answer question not seem to live up to their expectations. The
suggested a number of common perceptions more they learnt about what the tool could do,
amongst student participants. The majority of the more they realised what it was not capable of
students were positive about having their assign- doing when compared with their existing word
ment progress monitored, some students initially processor software. For the main part students
had concerns about this aspect of the cloud as- commented on a lack of features and some software
sessment learning environment but the majority and system bugs experienced during the use of
of these concerns were addressed after students the system. Interestingly, the change in the short
had gone through the assessment process. As answer results is also triangulated by a decrease
students better understood and experienced this in positive responses in the corresponding quan-
process they had a more positive perception of titative scale. However, it is also worth noting
the monitoring aspect of the cloud assessment that despite the limitations of the tool, a many of
learning environment. students still expressed a positive attitude towards
Google Docs.
Google Docs
Feedback
The next scale focused on the Google Docs soft-
ware. In particular it gathered data on student Section three of the CAQ aimed to investigate stu-
perceptions of the cloud technology used for as- dent perceptions of the early feedback mechanism
sessment (i.e. using a web browser to access and made possible by the cloud assessment learning
complete their assignment in Google Docs). The environment. This is something that in traditional
short answer question from this section was “What learning environments is often overlooked purely
do you think about using Google Docs (an online/ because of a lack of a system to make this easily
web based document editor) for this assignment?” possible. The short answer question from this sec-
A number of common themes emerged from the tion was “What do you think about your lecturer
qualitative data for this second question. Students being able to give you assignment feedback before
began the exercise with a relatively optimistic and the due date?”
positive view of using Google Docs for the as- When students responded to this particular
signment despite many having not used it before item was interesting to note that there were no
(this evidenced by the results to the “Had you used negative responses given by participants either
Google Docs before this assignment?” item also before or after engaging with the cloud-based
included in the study). The opportunity to use a learning assessment environment. The post as-
free, online, Google product was appealing for sessment responses remained consistent with the
many. A number of students however did have pre assessment responses with the majority of
reservations regarding perceived limitations of the comments being positive in nature. Many of the
web based word processing tool. Some of these students saw the feedback mechanism as a safety
limitations they reported were due to the software net that would help them to keep on task and also
itself, but equally there were some limitations as a means for improving the quality of their sub-
that were due to students in experience with this mitted work. There was a sense that someone was
particular software. interested, but also observing each day, rather than
Once the students had used the Google Docs the perception that no one was really interested in
software for their assessment tasks over a period their work until they were ready to submit and have
364

that work assessed. This ongoing interest in what The two alternatives were a traditional assess-
students were doing was seen as a positive factor ment environment with a desktop word process-
by student participants and provided motivation ing tool (i.e. Microsoft Word) with documents
for some to work more consistently. being uploaded to an online learning management
system, or using the cloud assessment learning
Cloud Storage environment and associated technology (i.e.
Google Docs). The short answer question from
Participants reported that they traditionally store this section was “What do you think about using
their assignments in private locations, usually on an online word processor (Google Docs) for this
their local hard disk drive or transportable drives. assessment instead of a traditional desktop word
This learning environment required them to store processor (Microsoft Word)?”
their work on a server and to share those files Prior to engagement with the cloud based
with their lecturer from day one. This was quite assessment environment short answer responses
novel and unique and was expected to generate regarding student preference varied. Although
some anxiety and students as they didn’t typically many indicated a preference for Google Docs, a
do this in other subject areas. This section of the large number also noted a perceived lack of fea-
CAQ focused on student perceptions of having tures in the Google Docs environment. Another
their assignment document stored accessed, and perspective from students indicated a preference
submitted through the cloud. The question from for a traditional word processor often citing fa-
this section was “What do you think about having miliarity with the software and better features for
your assignment stored online and automatically text editing, predominantly centred on many more
submitted on the due date?” choices for formatting and document control.
The responses from this particular section of the Post engagement with the cloud based assess-
questionnaire showed that there was general agreement environment. Student responses indicated
ment amongst the student population to see online mixed views which largely varied as a function
storage as positive. There were a few students who of their individual experiences. Some students
expressed initial mistrust with regards to the tech- appeared to have had a positive experience with
nology and just who was going to see their work. Google Docs and valued the online tool over
Participants were divided in their opinions about traditional desktop solutions. Students also noted
automatic assignment submission. Many saw that the concept behind Google Docs for assess-
this aspect as a motivating positive, while others ment was essentially ‘good’, however they felt
felt the feature restricted their ability to complete let down by the actual implementation. Other
last minute work and submit the assignment late. students reported a mixture of positive and nega-
Interestingly, a number of students preferred being tive experiences with many focusing primarily
able to submit their work manually as opposed to on aspects they found frustrating. In particular,
waiting for automatic submission. They want to the lack of familiar formatting features and the
have control about when it was released for final location of items in menus that were unfamiliar
assessment and some reported it was away to self- emerged as common concerns. A typical senti-
impose mini extension on the due date. ment expressed in student data for this item was
“Word is a lot more developed and therefore has
Student Preference a lot more diversity; however Google Docs has a
lot of potential”.
The final section of the survey examined student
preferences for submission of assessable work.
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Student Engagement The purpose of table 4 is to provide a numeric

presentation of the diagrammatic relationships that
This study employed a novel means of monitoring were presented in figures 2, 3, 4 and 5.
student progress over the four week assessment
period. Student word counts were recorded on a
daily basis. From this data four distinct groups SOLUTIONS AND
emerged. RECOMMENDATIONS
The first group consisted of five students, these
were the students who started early and finished This is the first time that a cloud based assessment
before the due date. The researchers have named questionnaire has been developed and used with
this group the early starters group. a group of students in New Zealand before and
The second group consisted of 17 students; after their engagement with cloud based software.
these were students who gradually worked on A search of the literature would suggest that this
the assessment over the four week period. The is the first time anywhere that this has been done.
researchers have named this group the gradual
workers group. Monitoring
The third group consisted of 23 students and
were those students who left much of the assign- The quantitative results from this study suggest
ment work until the end of the four week period. that before students had the opportunity to engage
The researchers of named this group the late with the cloud assessment learning environment
workers group. they perceived the monitoring their progress as
Finally the fourth group consisted of five only slightly positively. This allowed students to
students who did not complete the assignment. actively engage with the cloud assessment learn-
This group was named the non-completers group. ing environment as a new and positive experience,
The following figures represent diagrammati- rather than an experience that they perceived was
cally the changes over time in student word count negative and intrusive. Short answer responses
and clearly show the differentiation between these from the survey revealed that students had mixed
groups. This is something that academics may well opinions about this aspect of the environment. The
know from their experience teaching, but this is majority of students expressed positive viewpoints.
research evidence from a cloud based assessment For example, students perceived that monitoring
learning environment to support this finding. would provide feedback, motivation, and helpful-
Given the specialised nature of this sample, and ness. However, a number of students also expressed
the fact that there was only one group of students concerns relating to this feature, these concerns
available to serve as a sample for a study such as included the feeling that there would be constant
this, the researchers recognise that in terms of scrutiny, lecturer misunderstanding, lecturer in-
quantitative data the sample is small. What this consistency, and compulsion to change approach
sample does provide though as the first presenta- (i.e. start earlier than normal). Interestingly, this
tion of data of this kind in the unique cloud based mix of opinions was also expressed through the
assessment learning environment. initial class interview, the initial concept map
The following table provides summary sta- collection, and participant observations of the
tistics for the members from each group over the research sample during the same time period
four week assessment time relating to final mean (Steele, 2013). Prior to engagement, students
word count and the maximum, minimum and mean overall reported that they were positive about
grades for each group. the monitoring features of the cloud assessment
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Table 4. Word count and achievement statistics
Group Number of Mean Word Min Final Grade Max Final Grade Final Mean
Students Count Grade
Early Starters 5 2027 85.5% 95.5% 92.0%
Gradual Workers 17 1886 63.0% 97.5% 80.0%
Late Workers 23 1572 40.0% 89.5% 72.0%
Incomplete 5 168 0.0% 33.0% 12.0%
Overall Class 50 1554 0.0% 97.5% 70.0%
Figure 2. Early starters progressive word count
Figure 3. Gradual works progressive word count
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Figure 4. Late workers progressive word count
Figure 5. Incomplete progressive word count
learning environment so they in some cases also this shift and reveal an increase in the number of
had some reservations relating to how it would positive written responses and a decrease in the
be used in actuality. number of concerned responses. The short answer
At the completion of activities that engaged responses appear to suggest that the majority of
with the cloud assessment learning environment the concerns that were initially expressed had been
the student quantitative results revealed that the changed by the student experience (i.e. initial fears
slightly positive view students had previously did not become a reality and therefore were not
expressed, had significantly increased (from 3.57 expressed post engagement). Again, this increased
to 3.98, p = .04). The short answer responses relat- acceptance of the monitoring aspect of the cloud
ing to this aspect of the environment also support assessment learning environment also emerged
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from a number of the other data sources including negative comments increasing (when compared
the second class interview, the second concept map to the results from the first CAQ). Although there
collection, the focus group interviews, participant still remained a comparable number of positive
observations, and virtual participant observations comments regarding the use of Google Docs post
(Steele, 2013). Overall, after having engaged engagement, the contrast with the first CAQ results
with the cloud assessment learning environment suggested the change represented an apparent shift
students viewed the ability for their lecturer to in perceptions.
monitor their progress as a positive. One noticeable change in the short answer re-
sults in the second data collection was the obvious
Google Docs lack of expectantly positive comments. Having
engaged with the cloud assessment learning en-
The Likert scale results from the first CAQ sug- vironment, students were no longer in a position
gested that participants initially viewed the use of to express an opinion based on expectations, but
Google Docs slightly positively. The short answer instead were able to express opinions based on
results from the first CAQ support this slightly experience. This was an important distinction as
positive initial view. Interestingly, many of the the students had become critically intelligent about
positive responses appear to have come from the features that they were used to in previous
students who had not used Google Docs before, versions of similar software, and the expectations
but were expecting a positive experience. They they had for minimum functionality within the new
reported that though they had not used Google cloud based assessment environment of Google
Docs before they were familiar with other Google Docs. Students sometimes reported that they were
interactions that had left them with a positive re- willing to put up with some of the shortcomings
sponse. This initial positive expectation regarding of the Google Docs environment, because of
Google Docs was also noted in a number of the the other functionality that was not available in
other data sources including the initial concept alternate software platforms. Noticeable changes
maps, initial class interview, and participant ob- were expressed as an increased number of com-
servations (Steele, 2013). ments relating to the various system and software
In contrast to the quantitative scale results limitations and bugs students had experience
from the first CAQ, the results from the second through their use of Google Docs. This change in
CAQ data collection suggest that students ended student perceptions regarding Google Docs was
up viewing the use of Google Docs as an overall also reflected in other data sources form the study.
slightly negative aspect of the cloud assessment The change in student perceptions of Google
learning environment. A paired sample T test Docs within the cloud assessment learning en-
revealed a statistically significant drop in the vironment is one of the most obvious changes
results relating to the quantitative Google Docs observed in this study. This change in perceptions
scale (from an initial score of 3.45 decreasing to can be seen to stem from the difference that existed
2.88, p = .01). This decrease of .57 was also the between student expectations and the eventual
largest change out of the five cloud assessment experience had by students. The results suggest
scales. These results suggest that after engagement, that many of the students initially had high expec-
students viewed the use of Google Docs more tations regarding Google Docs and unfortunately
negatively than they had done prior to engagement. for many, it appears these expectations were not
The short answer responses also support this no- met. The researchers would expect with improve-
tion of increased negativity with the number of ments in system and network connectivity speeds,
positive comments decreasing and the number of improvements in system enhancements for the
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Google Docs environment and all new products Cloud Storage

in this area and an improvement in student en-
gagement with these products may come a more Initial written student responses cited a number of
positive and productive experience for students. concerns regarding privacy and security of their
work in the cloud environment. When students
Feedback better understood the cloud storage system, they
reported via the scale results from the first CAQ
The early feedback mechanism made possible by that the online (cloud) storage and automatic
the cloud assessment learning environment was submission aspect of the cloud assessment learn-
viewed by students as the most positive aspect of ing environment was a positive feature. The short
the five cloud assessment sub scales from the first answer responses from students support this view
CAQ. The short answer responses from the first with the majority of comments being positive in
CAQ also support this view with the overwhelming nature, many of which cite a perceived reduction
majority of comments being positive in nature, in workload and reduced concern regarding the
with only a few responses expressing a mixed view loss of work.
(e.g. conditionally positive). Interestingly, there The results from the second CAQ were con-
were zero negative comments provided relating sistent with those from the first. They suggest
to this aspect of the cloud assessment learning that students continued to view the online storage
environment. aspect of the cloud assessment learning environ-
The Likert scale results from the second CAQ ment positively. However, it should be noted that
were almost identical to the results from the first there was a slight drop in the Likert scale results
CAQ with regards to the early feedback aspect of (4.30 down to 4.13), however this was not found
the cloud assessment learning environment. Again, to be statistically significant (p = .37). The writ-
the results suggest that the early feedback mecha- ten responses also remained consistent with those
nism was still perceived as very positive from a from the first CAQ however there was a slight
statistical standpoint (4.40 up from an initial 4.38). drop in the number positive comments which
As with the first CAQ, the short answer responses was coupled with an increase in the number of
from the second CAQ also support this positive students who elected not to provide a written
view of the feedback mechanism. Interestingly, response to the short answer cloud storage item
the early feedback mechanism within the cloud in the second CAQ.
assessment learning environment is made possible
by the collaborative features of Google Docs. In Student Preference
contrast to the results from the previous section,
where through experience students perceptions of The first CAQ revealed that from a statistical
Google Docs became more negative, the results perspective, students did not have an overwhelm-
from this section indicate that student perceptions ing preference for the cloud assessment learning
of this particular aspect of the cloud assessment environment over a traditional word processing
learning environment are essentially unchanged approaches. Interestingly, this seemingly neutral
and remain positive (despite the feedback aspect quantitative result becomes more complex when
being a core feature of Google Docs). It is also the short answer responses are considered. The
worth noting that the feedback aspect was also the written responses relating to preference indicate
most commonly cited positive aspect of the cloud a mixed view was held by the members of the
assessment learning environment. research sample with an almost even spread of
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positive, mixed neutral, concerned and negative also achieved on average lower assessment scores
responses. This mix of short answer responses than the first two groups. Finally, the remaining
also suggests that the quantitatively neutral result 10% of the student sample were found to belong
may have been caused by the averaging effect of to the non-completers group.
different opinions. Interestingly, the final student assignment word
The Likert scale results from the second CAQ count did appear to be associated with student
are slightly less favourable than the initial results; levels of achievement. Furthermore, it is interest-
however the resultant scale mean scores remain ing to note that to the researcher’s best knowledge
relatively consistent (2.96 down from 3.11). this is the first time that a quantitative word count
Again, when the scale results are viewed in light over time has been recorded on a daily basis for
of the short answer responses, the same pattern an assessment for the purposes of educational
emerges as was seen in with the results of the first research. This in itself can be seen as a unique
CAQ (i.e. a mix of responses). The main theme contribution to academic research in this emergent
that emerged from the post engagement written area of interest in the literature.
responses was the notion that the idea behind the
cloud assessment learning environment was good,
however the implementation did not live up to CONCLUSION
expectations due to system and other limitations
and bugs experienced within the Google Docs With constant guidance from the economic ratio-
experience. nalist perspective in most educational environ-
ments, teachers everywhere are looking for new
Student Engagement novel and cost efficient ways of engaging their
students in teaching and learning. In addition,
The Google Docs usage statistics presented in teachers seek ways in which their students might
figures 2, 3, 4 and 5 provide an examination of the achieve better results in their subjects and enjoy
quantitative data that clearly shows the existence their subject more. The focus must be on teach-
of the four different approaches taken by students ing and learning rather than just the technology
with regards to the cloud based assessment model. itself. Technology choices need to be made based
Data from this study revealed that 10% of the on how quickly they can be inculcated into the
research sample belonged to the small group of student experience, and improve outcomes.
early starters; these students produced on average This chapter has sought to describe the design
the longest assignment documents and achieved of a cloud based assessment model that the authors
on average the highest grades. Students belonging believe satisfies many of these requirements. The
to the second group of gradual workers consisted cloud based assessment environment makes use
of 34% of the student sample. These students of freely available software and web functionality
produced on average the second longest set of that allows students to develop skills that may be
assignment documents and achieved on average used long after they leave the institution within
the second highest grades. The third group of which they learnt these skills.
students who consisted of 46% of the sample The following three sections of this chapter out-
were seen to fall into the late starter category. line the conclusions from this research regarding
These students produced on average assignment student perceptions of positive and negative
documents shorter than the first two groups, and factors of the environment, whether or not there is
371

a conceptual change in student understanding of with the cloud assessment learning environment.
the environment, and how students engaged with This dual collection provided data that allowed
the environment over the course of the assessment. a comparative analysis of students’ conceptual
understanding of the environment pre and post
Positive and Negative Perceptions engagement. The use of concept maps in particular
was useful during this phase of the data collection
A summary of the key themes that emerged from and enhanced the dialogue between the researcher
this study are presented in this next section. and participants in focus group interviews, as
Firstly, the feedback mechanism made available well as during class time. It is the results of these
by using Google Docs was universally viewed by discussions that have been reported here.
students as a positive aspect of the cloud assess- This study concludes that a conceptual change
ment learning environment. in student understanding of the cloud assess-
The online storage functionality was perceived ment learning environment does occur over time
as either positive or negative and appeared to be and is associated with the benefit of increased
dependent on the student’s user experience (i.e. experience in this learning environment. Prior
whether or not students had experienced bugs to engagement students had a simple, hopefully
in the system). Bugs and hold-ups experienced expectant conceptual understanding of the envi-
within the Google Docs system emerged as the ronment. The environment was generally viewed
most significant negative aspect of the cloud as- as interesting, new and potentially very beneficial.
sessment learning environment as perceived by Students expressed a curious excitement and
the research sample. initially had a number of unanswered questions
The automatic submission feature was also relating to the environment. These perceptions
viewed as either positive or negative dependent on initially were reported to improve resilience to
a student’s personal preference and was not found bugs that may have occurred in the system, but
to be associated with the student’s user experience. those with less experience over time, sometimes
The limited feature set within Google Docs was became frustrated as they were not able to solve
reported by participants as a weak negative, with their problems quickly.
many becoming content with this issue during the After the assessment, students’ conceptual
course of the research period. understanding of the environment had changed
Interestingly, the research sample felt that over- from simple and hopefully expectant to a clearly
all, the positive aspects of the cloud the assessment refined, detailed, and experienced based under-
learning environment outweighed the negatives standing. Where students had been initially gener-
with only those students who had experienced ally positive about their expectations, students had
significant bug related issues subscribing to the become very specific about what they understood
alternate position. as positive and negative aspects of the environment
and based these views on first-hand experience.
Conceptual Change Accordingly, the unanswered questions initially
expressed by the students were no longer present
The second research question examined in this post engagement perceptions. This was partly
study sought to gather data on conceptual change due to the peer learning that took place during
in student understanding of the cloud assessment the process, but also due to their own increased
learning environment over time. In order to ad- experience with the system.
dress this research question the same data was Interestingly, the conceptual understanding
collected before and after students had engaged that emerged prior to engagement was generally
372

consistent across the entire research sample, in assignment writing from both a quantitative and
contrast, the final conceptual understanding that qualitative perspectives (i.e. word count and also
was captured post engagement tended to vary content analysis).
significantly depending on the individual student’s With the rapid advent of cloud-based technolo-
user experience with Google Docs. Although there gies it is hoped that this chapter about a specific
existed variation in the conceptual understanding cloud based assessment model for use in educa-
possessed by students post engagement, each mem- tion has provided a unique insight into student
ber of the research sample was seen to undergo a perceptions of this cloud assessment learning
similar change from simple and expectations based environment.
to detailed and experienced based. Initial student This study has utilised an extensive multi
expectations were primarily positive, whereas method, multiple data collection research design
actual student experiences were more balanced for both quantitative and qualitative data. The
between both positive and negatives aspects of chapter has provided interesting findings relating
the environment. to an emergent area of computer use in education
for learning and assessment.
Student Engagement It is hoped that this chapter provides inspira-
tion for educators everywhere to try to engage
The collection of online the word count over time with online cloud based assessment technologies
as a measure of activity provided useful accurate and give their students the same opportunity for
and timely statistics on student interaction with experiencing collaborative ways to construct as-
the cloud based assessment learning environ- signment materials. This collaboration can take
ment. From this data four distinct engagement place between peers in a classroom setting, or
approaches appeared to emerge: early starters who between teacher and student to improve the nature
had high achievement levels, gradual workers who of the teacher-student interpersonal behaviour and
had medium to high achievement levels, late start- the support that they teachers can give to students
ers that had low to high achievement levels, and in an ongoing way.
finally those who did not complete the assignment Finally, the study has provided a solid foun-
and consequently had low achievement levels. dation and contribution to the literature that may
In order to gather individual student word be used for future research into cloud assessment
counts each day, each assignment document was learning environments. It is hoped that results from
downloaded and opened using Microsoft Word in this study may allow others to test the outcomes of
order to obtain the word count. As a result, a daily this study in their own unique educational contexts.
snapshot of each student assignment document was
also observed over the course of the four week
assessment. This unique data collection method FUTURE RESEARCH DIRECTIONS
made possible by the cloud assessment learning
environment presents new ways to collect data This chapter has provided directly relevant
relating to student progress throughout an assess- information that educators and administrators
ment process. In particular, this provides another may choose to utilise when considering Cloud-
way to triangulate and validate data collection from Based STEM Education for Improved Learning
other sources (e.g. comparing word count statistics Outcomes. With the increased availability of
with students who felt they worked gradually on convergent technologies such as tablet computing
an assignment). Analysis of this type of data could makes available, the growing variety of cloud-
allow researchers to study the creative process of based solutions such as Dropbox and Google Docs
373

(amongst many others), and an increased desire to The need for systems, such as the cloud based
provide students with technological experiences assessment model that is non-institutional device
that are not system and institution specific, the specific, enhances the sustainability of the skills
authors believe that the cloud based assessment that students develop. These skills can be used
model has a sustainable future. across different areas of study within their educa-
Implementation of a cloud based assessment tional institution as well as beyond the completion
model is fairly straightforward for any institution of their current study.
wishing to take it up. Given that students reported Future studies may wish to look at larger
that they have experience with Google functional- samples of students working with the cloud based
ity via search engines and Google Earth, the good- assessment model, though the authors caution that
will that comes from those positive experiences the data collection is very time intensive. Given
assisted student resilience to difficulties with the the large number of methods for data collection
cloud based assessment model in its early days. used in the main study this is a limitation to larger
Another aspect of the implementation that study groups, without major funding. Future stud-
enhances its sustainability is that currently there is ies may also wish to look at ways of automating
no charge for all of the features that we used dur- the data collection process and engaging in data
ing this research study. The ability to use multiple collection as part of normal teaching. Many met-
platforms to access the cloud based assessment rics are already collected in learning management
model was also something that didn’t need to be systems and in the cloud. To audit some of these
considered as an addition in the development phase systems prior to new research commencing would
as the functionality available in Google Docs was mean that more data could be collected with less
already multi device accessible. effort and perhaps provide a richer perspective of
A significant consideration that should not be student and system information.
overlooked when considering cloud-based STEM
education for improved learning outcomes is that
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377
Chapter 23
Cloud Services in UK
Higher Education:
A Feasibility Study for Providing
IaaS in the Computing and Library
Services of a UK University
Alexandros Chrysikos
University of Huddersfield, UK
James McDowell
Rupert Ward
ABSTRACT
The current chapter reports an investigation of Information Technology (I.T.) enablement for a Higher
Education Institution (HEI), with focus on the feasibility of Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) using Cloud
Computing technology. A pragmatist - mixed-methods research approach was followed to establish the
Feasibility Study, which included the potential IaaS risks and benefits for a HEI such as the Computing
& Library Services of a UK university. An analysis of the advantages and disadvantages, as well as a
legal, social, operational and Service Level Agreement (SLA) discussion are provided. Furthermore, the
authors outline the potential impact on the institution’s employment. Finally, based on the Feasibility
Study, the authors recommend a list of selection criteria and evaluation methods that could be regarded
as the basis for a future IaaS Cloud decision model for HEIs. The findings of the current investigation
contribute to the body of knowledge for both academics and I.T. managers.
INTRODUCTION empowering, dynamic, communally constructed

framework of open materials and platforms on
In 2006, M. V. Charles, president emeritus of MIT, which much of higher education worldwide can
asserted: “We are seeing the early emergence of be constructed or enhanced” (Charles, 2006).
a meta-university—a transcendent, accessible, Cloud Computing technology is being taken un-
DOI: 10.4018/978-1-4666-9924-3.ch023

Cloud Services in UK Higher Education
der consideration by many higher education I.T. of IaaS’s current status and its relationship with
leaders, but, in general, there is some hesitation in Cloud Computing is required. Before doing this
applying it due to variations in decision-making though, we have to first define IaaS.
and implementation (Grajek, 2013). Each Higher
Education Institution (HEI) has its own needs and
requirements. Despite that, the current state of BACKGROUND
Cloud Computing in higher education is character-
ized as evolving. According to a 2014 Educause Cloud Computing Overview
publication, higher education is in the midst of
an exciting transformation (Educause, 2014). The Many I.T. managers, from both academia and
agility, resiliency, flexibility, and economies of industry, argue that Cloud Computing is nothing
scale provided by Cloud Computing are rendering more than another form of outsourcing similar
the construction and maintenance of on-premises to data-center outsourcing (Cisco, 2009). Even if
data-centers obsolete (Furht & Escalante, 2010). there is a correlation, Cloud Computing is differ-
It is believed that over the next decade, the avail- entiated by its primary characteristics of resource
ability and advantage of new technology models pooling, on-demand self-service, pay-as-you-go
will result in a substantial decrease in the use of pricing, and rapid elasticity (Mell & Grance,
on-premises data-centers. Higher education I.T. 2009; Armbrust et al., 2010a). These character-
moves from a traditional data-centered model to istics make it problematic to some and attractive
a one-centered on the public Cloud and Cloud to others. For instance, elasticity of storage and
services (Educause, 2014). computer power, and on-demand self-service may
At the same time, there is great focus on how be attractive options for a research scientist, but
to make learning and teaching more efficient it could be a potential issue for the I.T. manager
and more effective for both academic staff and of a HEI who is accountable for the integrity of
students (Gutiérrez De Ravé, 2011; Zhou, 2012). the research data (Cisco, 2009).
The constant need for enhanced learning and The most important factor in promoting Cloud
improved teaching has led Higher Education In- Computing has been the recognition that large
stitutions (HEIs) to an increased use of technology data-centers have thousands of servers which, in
(Fernandez, 2012). Consequently, this affects the general, do not operate at full capacity, creating
educational experience, and providing up-to-date a surplus of computer capacity (Dillon et al.,
information systems, as well as maintaining them, 2010). Cloud Computing enables greater returns
can be very challenging for HEIs (Universities on data-center investments, by using these re-
UK, 2011). Cloud Computing is a technology that sources more efficiently through virtualization
offers attractive advantages to higher education (Cisco, 2009; Dillon et al., 2010). In addition,
through its network-based infrastructure, platform it gives the opportunity to an organization like a
and software on-demand services (Armbrust HEI to develop its own private Cloud within its
et al., 2010a). The current chapter focuses on own infrastructure.
Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) and its current
application in HEIs. Furthermore, the authors Definition of Infrastructure
conducted a Feasibility Study on the potential as a Service (IaaS)
provision of IaaS services in the Computing and
Library Services of a UK university. Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) is defined in
In order to understand IaaS’s dynamic and the literature as a data center-as-a-service model
potential application in UK HEIs, an analysis (Linthicum, 2009). Specifically, according to the
378

National Institute of Standards and Technology offers a great opportunity to all I.T. managers,
(NIST) 2009, IaaS is defined as follows: in industry and academia, to further explore the
possibilities provided by the Cloud Computing
The capability provided to the consumer is to technology and assess the risks (Kumar & Mur-
provision processing, storage, networks, and thy, 2013). Most of them are familiar with the
other fundamental computing resources where Cloud concept because many already use some
the consumer is able to deploy and run arbitrary aspect of Cloud applications like IaaS, but also
software, which can include operating systems other Cloud applications such as Platform as a
and applications. The consumer does not manage Service (PaaS) and Software as a Service (SaaS).
or control the underlying Cloud infrastructure Examples of such Cloud services are Amazon’s
but has control over operating systems, storage, infrastructure, iTunes University, and Google’s
deployed applications, and possibly limited con- Gmail (Cisco, 2009). The levels of Cloud services
trol of select networking components (e.g., host in Cloud Computing technology are presented in
firewalls). (Mell & Grance, 2009) Figure 1. IaaS is the first step that an organization
could implement as it is considered the foundation
The Cloud Computing worldwide market is for the other two Cloud layers, PaaS and SaaS
estimated to grow from $40.7B in 2011 to $240B in (Singh, 2010).
2020 (Ried et al., 2011). Such rapid market growth
Figure 1. Cloud Computing service models (Siemens AG, 2010)

Source: Siemens AG, 2010
379

Towards the effort to better comprehend curity requirements, compliance consider-

the Cloud Computing applications concept and ations, mission, and policy. It is possible
infrastructure, especially IaaS, it is important to be managed by organizations or a third
to present and describe the Cloud Computing party company. In addition, it may exist off
deployment models. premise or on premise.
• Hybrid Cloud: The Cloud infrastructure
Cloud Computing is a composition of two or more Clouds
Deployment Models (public, private, or community) which
remain unique entities, but are bound to-
The area of Cloud Computing technology is rap- gether by proprietary or standardized tech-
idly developing and adopting a plethora of new nology that enables application and data
phrases and acronyms to describe different aspects portability (for instance, Cloud bursting
of the Cloud offering, which is the next evolution for load balancing between Clouds) (Mell
of the Internet (Mell & Grance, 2009). Following & Grance, 2009).
the NIST definitions, the deployment models are
briefly defined as follows (see also Figure 2): It is important to clarify at this point that the
previous list is not intended to be an exhaustive
• Public Cloud: The Cloud infrastructure one. As technology advances new deployment
is made available to a large industry or the models will continue to emerge as circumstances
general public and is owned by an organi- demand. Cloud Computing services are a growing
zation providing Cloud services. necessity for enterprises. Consequently, Cloud
• Private Cloud: The Cloud infrastructure Computing has become one of the most popular
is operated solely for an organization. It technology solutions and trends, which improves
is possible to be operated by the organiza- operational and I.T. efficiency for all organiza-
tion or a third party company, the provid- tions. The HEIs’ needs, from technology focused
er. Furthermore, it is possible to exist off operations to marketing strategies, do not differ
premise or on premise. much from business organizations. Towards this
• Community Cloud: The Cloud infrastruc- effort a critical review of the current trends and
ture is shared by several organizations and recent developments in Cloud Computing and
supports a specific community which has IaaS in higher education is required. In the fol-
shared concerns, for instance, common se- lowing sections a review of the most important
Figure 2. Cloud Computing deployment models (CloudCioGov, 2014)

Source: CloudCioGov, 2014
380

Cloud Computing and IaaS tendencies in the HEIs anan, 2013; Lepi, 2013), Cloud services can help
globally, as well as, in the UK higher education HEIs in the following areas:
sector, is conducted.
• Acquire and implement the latest applica-
Trends and Recent Developments tion and software updates.
in Cloud Computing and • Implement and accommodate the rapid in-
IaaS in Higher Education crease in mobile device dependency.
• Provide up-to-date systems (i.e. offer stu-
The I.T. industry advancements, combined with dents a digital campus storage for class
the significant advantages provided by Cloud notes, papers, and projects).
Computing, point to the belief that Cloud Com- • Store expansive amounts of sensitive in-
puting will be widely used in HEIs (Cisco, 2009; formation and data which can be easily
Sultan, 2010; Han, 2013). It is critical for HEIs I.T. accessible.
managers to understand the distinctive features of • Streamline admissions and enrollment
higher education information management. Each processes which are time-consuming and
individual HEI requires a careful evaluation con- expensive.
cerning when, where, whether, and how they might • Turn to subscriptions that are scalable
adopt Cloud Computing solutions. Before doing and provide options (Katz et al., 2009;
that, a HEI needs to have a clear and informative Lakshminarayanan, 2013; Lepi, 2013).
update on the current trends and developments in
Cloud Computing and IaaS in higher education. Naturally, for a global enterprise or a HEI, se-
The following paragraphs focus on this effort and curity is very significant. This raises issues related
specifically on higher education globally. to security threats, system vulnerabilities, system
Even though HEIs have been using Cloud integration safety, and policies and legalities for
services for years, such as e-mail systems, the running educational operations on the Cloud
Cloud Computing trend is rapidly evolving into (Beetham et al., 2013; Han, 2013; Hashizume
a beneficial model for data exchange and storage. et al., 2013). University data confidentiality and
In 2012, Gartner, a technology research company, student personal/private information are inevitable
released its latest Cloud Computing statistics and security concerns and challenges. Nevertheless,
predictions, where more than 50% of global 1000 according to TechJournal info-graphic, Cloud
companies are predicted to store confidential data Computing investments are expected (Ried et
in the public Cloud by the end of 2016 (Da Rold, al., 2011; TechJournal, 2012). In the Worldwide
2012). HEIs recognize that adopting the latest tech- Market Forecasts and Analysis (2014-2019) report,
nologies is critical in order to stay competitive and it is estimated that the global Cloud Computing
retain students (Lepi, 2013). Cloud Computing, in education market could expand at a compound
as one of the new technologies, could actually aid annual growth rate of 19.9% or $12.38 billion by
HEIs towards a reduction in high expenditures on 2019 (MarketsAndMarkets, 2014). Specifically,
I.T., hardware and software maintenance. Cloud North America is expected to be the biggest mar-
services can provide organizations with a central- ket, while Europe and Asia-Pacific are expected
ized, virtual data center, which can be accessible to experience increased market traction between
to admissions and faculty personnel, for instance, 2014 and 2019 (MarketsAndMarkets, 2014). As
at any location and any time. mentioned in the report, “Cloud Computing is
According to academic and education technol- revolutionizing the education sector by saving
ogy journalists (Katz et al., 2009; Lakshminaray- money, space and time for students, teachers and
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administrators, and schools are already using Trends and Recent Developments
Cloud solutions in several ways” (MarketsAnd- in Cloud Computing and IaaS
Markets, 2014). in the UK Higher Education
Furthermore, the 2013 State of the Cloud
Report (CDW, 2013) also offered insights re- The critical review of the current trends and recent
garding the future of Cloud Computing for HEIs. developments in Cloud Computing and IaaS in
Specifically, the report showed that 48% of higher higher education continues by turning the focus
education respondents prioritized migrating to on the UK higher education. The new advance-
Cloud solutions because their employees were ments in computer technology also affect the UK
using mobile devices and Cloud applications. In educational experience, as well as the capital
addition, according to the report, Cloud Computing expenditures related to infrastructure maintenance
could also help them reduce their annual expenses and offering up-to-date systems to academic staff
(CDW, 2013). One more interesting finding from and students (Universities UK, 2013). Moreover,
this report is that higher education I.T. profession- Cloud Computing and its services, such as IaaS,
als mentioned that they expect to save an average can provide the UK HEIs with new opportunities
of 20% between 2013 and 2017 due to the use of to manage their costs and also maintain quality
Cloud services and apps (CDW, 2013). of services.
One last prediction which shows the future Since 2011, the most active organizations in
trend of HEIs globally comes from Elon Uni- promoting Cloud Computing in UK HEIs have
versity’s 2014 Survey report (Elon, 2014). In been the Higher Education Funding Council for
this report, it is identified that by 2025 higher England (HEFCE) and Joint Information Systems
education will be focused on methodologies and Committee (Jisc) (HEFCE, 2011a; Jisc, 2011). Part
tech-centric solutions such as distance learning, of their roles is to fund universities and colleges in
hybrid classes (i.e. off-campus and online learn- the UK via a programme of services and investment
ing), and teleconferencing (Elon, 2014). to deliver efficiencies through shared services in
Although HEIs may choose to use these ser- Cloud Computing infrastructure and applications
vices and follow the Cloud Computing trend for (HEFCE, 2011a; Jisc, 2011). University Moderni-
the aforementioned reasons, there is also the pos- sation Fund (UMF), which is part of HEFCE, is
sibility that some HEIs might choose to develop one more organization that works towards Cloud
their own private Cloud infrastructure, either services promotion (HEFCE, 2011b). HEFCE’s
independently or in co-operation with other institu- UMF supports a programme offering Cloud ser-
tions. Nevertheless, HEIs will weigh the benefits vices in order to help universities and colleges
and costs of each approach, and it is anticipated deliver better efficiency via the development of
that a major factor of these decisions will be their shared services for administration and shared I.T.
level of trust in both the Cloud deployment model infrastructure (HEFCE, 2011c). Furthermore, the
under consideration and the potential provider. programme includes data storage in secure off-site
The aim of the next section is to present a review servers, support and environment management,
of the most important Cloud Computing and IaaS and comprehensive application suites. Cloud Com-
advancements developed by the UK HEIs, coun- puting technology can also deliver value for money
cils, and government agencies during the last two for HEIs when strategic decisions regarding I.T.
years, when the UK HE agencies have decided to provision are made and choice of outsourced and
promote new technology trends. in-house managed solutions are also considered
(HEFCE, 2011a; Universities UK, 2013).
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HEFCE and Jisc, in February 2011, announced (Universities UK, 2013). The competition among
a £12.5 million fund that aimed to support the Cloud services vendors has benefited HEIs through
provision of a national Cloud infrastructure and free of charge provision of off-campus-site e-mail
supporting services (Universities UK, 2013). The services (Clark et al., 2011). For instance, the
delivery of Cloud services is done through the University of Westminster avoided an expense
Joint Academic Network UK or JANET (UK). of £1 million by migrating to the Cloud, cutting
JANET (UK) delivers the national brokerage and expenditure on new hardware and software up-
aids procurement of Cloud services between com- dates (Universities UK, 2011). Furthermore, an
mercial suppliers and UK HEIs (HEFCE, 2011a). additional benefit was the reduced time spent on
In 2012, Eduserv, a non-profit organization that their user and system support, with a significantly
works in co-operation with the UK government lowered number of support calls to their Cloud
and higher education sector, launched the Educa- provider (Universities UK, 2011).
tion Cloud (Eduserv, 2012). The Education Cloud Later, in 2013, Jisc signed a new strategic
is a suite of Cloud services that aids HEIs and alliance between Microsoft and JANET (UK)’s
researchers improve storage and compute require- education and research network. According to the
ments, but also, facilitates researchers’ flexible agreement, the arrangements provided improved
demands and provides off-site disaster recovery access applications and infrastructure such as
faculties (Eduserv, 2012). Andy Powell, Eduserv websites, virtual learning environments, and re-
Research Programme Director, mentioned that search projects (Jisc, 2013). Microsoft Windows
the Cloud infrastructure has also enabled the Azure enables a high bandwidth and more secure
SaaS pilot projects development which helped to connection, which benefits more than 18 million
meet the specific needs of UK HEIs professionals academic staff, students and researchers at HEIs
and students. Specifically, these were the need across the UK (Jisc, 2013). Paul Watson, Professor
for direct connectivity to the JANET backbone, of Computing Science at Newcastle University
which is dedicated to research and education, stated that Cloud Computing offers the potential
and the need for all data to remain in the UK at to UK HEIs to revolutionize research through its
all times (Eduserv, 2012). At this point, it can be vast, on-demand, compute resources (Jisc, 2013).
hypothesized that not only individual HEIs may Specifically, the new link between JANET (UK)
have unique requirements, but also the total higher and the Azure Cloud removed the large dataset
education sector of a country might request specific transfer speed barrier, which will allow a far
needs to be met by a potential Cloud provider. greater range of projects to fully exploit the Cloud
As such, a careful evaluation concerning when, Computing benefits (Jisc, 2013).
where, whether, and how an individual HEI or An extra benefit that occurred from the alliance
a county’s higher education sector as one entity agreement is that UK HEIs have the opportunity
might adopt Cloud Computing solutions, becomes to benefit from standard terms and conditions on
even more critical. Microsoft’s Cloud based Office 365 (Jisc, 2013).
As the UK higher education sector review is Goldsmiths, University of London, was one of the
continued, it is identified that, besides the UK first institutions to adopt this Cloud service. As
government driven Cloud solutions, there are Dan Perry, Director of Product and Marketing at
also Cloud services offered by the private sec- JANET (UK) stated, UK’s higher education desire
tor. For instance, Google, Microsoft, IBM, and and commitment to adopt Cloud Computing tech-
AWS, provide Cloud applications, services, and nology led to a strategic alliance with Microsoft,
infrastructure (i.e. Office 365, Cloud Academy, which “completes JANET’s world class fiber
data-storage, and e-mail) for educational purposes network with Microsoft’s leading technologies to
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support the sector” (Jisc, 2013). JANET’s (UK) some of the most important challenges IaaS may
relationship with Microsoft lasts for over three pose for the higher education sector. Both are in-
years now. Nevertheless, Cloud providers such as corporated in all Cloud services (Mell & Grance,
Amazon, Google, and Microsoft are going to be 2009), but following the current chapter’s context
some of the largest suppliers to higher education, are depicted from the IaaS in higher education
and UK and non-UK HEIs that want to make the point of view.
most of the assets they have will need to work in
close co-operation with them in order to make Cloud Computing and IaaS
sure HEIs can get the most benefit, though this Benefits in Higher Education
is not without challenges (Jisc, 2014).
As Cloud Computing and IaaS develop within Cloud Computing delivers significant benefits to
UK HEIs, their potential benefits and challenges both public and private organizations. Specifically,
must be clearly understood, especially if UK the advantages that Cloud Computing and IaaS
HEIs are to benefit fully from its implementation. can offer in higher education are recognized and
Therefore, the following sections outline some of listed in Table 1.
the most significant benefits that IaaS can offer to At this point, it is crucial to address that the
UK and non-UK HEIS. In addition, they present scale of such benefits, the ability to collect them,
Table 1. Cloud Computing and IaaS benefits
Benefits Comments
Scalability All organizations that use Cloud Computing do not need to scramble in order to secure extra higher-
caliber software and hardware when user-loads increase. On the contrary, they can subtract and add
capacities as the network-loads dictate (Foster et al., 2008).
Flexibility (elasticity) Cloud Computing provides more flexibility (or elasticity) in matching I.T. resources to business
functions than older computing methods. Furthermore, it offers increased staff mobility by enabling
access to applications and business information from a wider range of services and locations
(Armbrust et al., 2010a).
Cost savings Organizations using Cloud Computing can eliminate or reduce I.T. capital expenditures and
decrease on-going operating expenses through paying only for the services they use and potentially
by re-deploying or reducing I.T. staff (Marston et al., 2011).
Ease of implementation An organization can deploy Cloud Computing without the need to purchase implementation
services, hardware, or software licenses (Velte et al., 2009).
Re-deployment of staff Through the elimination or reduction of server updates and other computing problems as well as by
decreasing expenditures of money and time or application development, organizations can let I.T.
staff work on higher-value tasks (Catteddu, 2010).
Access to top-end I.T. capabilities Especially for small-organizations, Cloud Computing can offer access to higher-caliber software,
hardware, and I.T. staff than they can afford or attract themselves (Zhang et al., 2010).
Sustainability Most data-centers have poor energy efficiency, due to in-efficient asset usage or sub-standard
design. This is now understood to be economically and environmentally un-sustainable. Cloud
service providers can use other resources and consume far less energy than traditional data-
center operators. This is achieved via the use of economies-of-scale and their capacity to manage
computing assets more efficiently (Buyya et al., 2009).
Focus on core competencies Arguably, the ability to manage and develop software applications and to run data-centers is not
necessarily a core competency of most organizations. Cloud Computing can offer a much easier way
to shed or reduce these functions. It allows organizations to focus on critical concerns such as the
planning and policy for constantly improving the learning environment (Jaeger et al., 2008; Marston
et al., 2011).
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and the cost/benefit ratio achieved depend on generation (Katz, 2010; Sultan, 2010; Mircea &
various individual factors for each organization, Andreescu, 2011; Han, 2013).
and will vary significantly (Linthicum, 2009). IaaS in the HEIs context embeds Cloud Com-
Furthermore, these benefits include if an organi- puting features and as a result it brings innovation
zation reviews its current software and hardware faster for its users. Users such as academic staff
architecture (for instance, older applications that and students can therefore benefit through IaaS,
might not be ‘Cloud-ready’), its systems develop- though this is not without challenges. These chal-
ment cycle and I.T. capital expenditure, and its lenges are the subject of the next section.
management and staff capabilities (Linthicum,
2009). Specifically, in higher education, policy Cloud Computing and IaaS
and legal constraints may be especially important Challenges in Higher Education
(Dikaiakos et al., 2009).
In addition, the Cloud Computing benefit Most Cloud Computing challenges in higher
realization also depends on the Cloud Comput- education relate to the marketplace under-
ing deployment model choice. For instance, the development for Cloud services, including IaaS,
“public Cloud” as infrastructure can be made and its relative newness. In higher education, the
available to the general public or a large organiza- potential decisions for adopting Cloud Computing
tion and is owned by a Cloud services provider, will be most likely influenced by more than cost
such as Amazon or Rackspace (Mell & Grance, and technical considerations (Sasikala, 2011).
2009; Rimal et al., 2009). On the other hand, in the The lifeblood of higher education is informa-
“private Cloud” approach, organizations procure tion, and decisions on how to manage it might
or develop their own dedicated Cloud Computing have far-reaching economic, political, and social
environments rather than simply using the exist- implications (Sultan, 2010). Cloud services adop-
ing multi-tenant offering of third-party providers tion, such as IaaS, presents many of the same
(Mell & Grance, 2009; Rimal et al., 2009). Also, challenges and risks as determining to implement
in a “private Cloud” scenario, organizations are a more traditional outsourcing arrangement. For
either alone or in a group, known as “community instance, the high possibility that the potential
Clouds” (Mell & Grance, 2009). There is also Cloud service provider or its resources reside
the “hybrid Cloud” choice where an organization outside of a government’s territorial or legal
might use a “public Cloud” for some functions, jurisdiction could make some of these concerns
for instance basic business applications like an more serious (Anderson & Rainie, 2010).
e-mail system, and their “private Cloud” for other Based on a research study conducted by the
sensitive functions, for instance personnel data Software Engineering Institute of Carnegie Mellon
storage. It should be clear, though, that the Cloud University, the major challenges that prevent the
Computing deployment model choice is not an adoption of Cloud Computing services, including
all-or-nothing proposition. Concerning the higher IaaS, by UK and non-UK HEIS are listed in Table 2.
education sector, in the short or medium term, it Among the top concerns are control, security,
is believed that HEIs’ I.T. managers will face the and privacy (Zhou et al., 2010). Especially, privacy
important decision of selecting a Cloud Comput- and security are two of the main barriers prevent-
ing deployment model (Katz, 2010; Sultan, 2010; ing organizations from adopting Cloud services.
Mircea & Andreescu, 2011; Han, 2013). HEIs may A serious concern is raised when the previously
choose to develop their own “private Cloud” for mentioned jurisdiction issue is added. This is
their own use, and maybe even provide hosting caused due to the fact that Cloud Computing
services to other HEIs for the purpose of revenue always includes distributed computing on large-
385

Table 2. Barriers to adoption (Barriers to Adoption, 2014)
Security The key concern is data privacy: users do not have control of or
know where their data are stored.
Interoperability A universal set of standards and/or interfaces have not yet been
defined, resulting in a significant risk of vendor lock-in.
Control The amount of control that the user has over the Cloud
environment varies greatly.
Performance All access to the Cloud is done via the internet, introducing latency
into every communication between the user and the environment.
Reliability Many existing Cloud infrastructures leverage commodity hardware
that is known to fail unexpectedly.
Platform or language specificity Some Cloud environments provide support for specific platforms
and languages only.
scale data-sets across a large number of computer and growth are related to the basic performance
nodes, and control over these individual data-sets aspects, such as scalability, availability, capacity,
is essential in Cloud services (Chao, 2012). Finally, or performance (Zhang et al., 2010).
Cloud adoption in organizations has performance Table 3 outlines the most important oppor-
obstacles, and suggestions to overcome them are tunities and obstacles for Cloud Computing and
outlined in the following paragraphs. IaaS growth. The first column lists the obstacles
A successful Cloud deployment is highly and the second column shows the opportunities.
dependent on practicing holistic performance en- Table 3 is based on Berkeley’s 2009 report on
gineering and management techniques (Armbrust Cloud Computing (Armbrust et al., 2009, p. 3).
et al., 2009). Most of the obstacles for adoption
Table 3. The Top-10 Obstacles and Opportunities for Cloud Computing (IaaS) Growth (Armbrust et
al., 2009, p. 3)
Obstacles Opportunities
Use Multiple Cloud Providers: to ensure organization continuity through the definition of Service Level Agreements
1 Availability of Service. (SLAs) and fault tolerance via multiple Cloud providers in place.
Use of Elasticity: to defend against Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks.
2 Data Lock-In. Standardize APIs; Compatible software to enable Surge Computing.
Data Confidentiality and

3 Deploy encryption, VLANs, firewalls; accommodate national laws through geographical data storage.
Audit-ability.
Data Transfer FedExing disks; data backup/archival; higher bandwidth switches. These are tools that can deliver high-speed transfers in,
4
Bottlenecks. out and across the Cloud with scale-out transfer capacity on mobile, web or embedded in an application.
Performance Improved virtual machine support; flash memory; gang schedule VMs. A number of as-a-service performance
5
Unpredictability. predictability solutions are in place and growing for holistic Cloud performance engineering and capacity management.
Invent scalable store. Cloud solutions for high-performance, scalable storage-virtualization to facilitate innovation and
6 Scalable Storage.
growth at lower operational costs.
Bugs in Large
7 Invent debugger which relies on distributed VMs.
Distributed Systems.
8 Scaling Quickly. Invent auto-scaler that relies on machine learning; snapshots for conservation.
9 Reputation Fate Sharing. Offer reputation-guarding services like those for email.
10 Software Licensing. Pay-for-use licenses; bulk use sales.
386

Cloud Computing and IaaS provide a variety of for a smooth transition from the traditional I.T.
benefits and opportunities to overcome obstacles services to a more Cloud based solution would be
related to traditional I.T. A holistic approach could to firstly transfer the infrastructure services into
offer a good strategic guidance for I.T. managers the Cloud, in other words, to apply IaaS. After
in HEIs as they integrate Cloud Computing and such implementation, the university’s Comput-
IaaS as a potential HEI I.T. strategy. In the mar- ing & Library Services will be free to consider
ketplace, there is a variety of Cloud service pro- implementing other Cloud services such as SaaS
viders. Therefore, a critical evaluation is required and PaaS. The current study, though, focuses only
in order to compare the Cloud service providers’ on the potential application of IaaS.
capabilities. As it is explained in the following The decision to go into further Cloud services
chapter, the main purpose of the evaluation is for is critical for any university. It has to be stated
an institution to choose the Cloud service provider at this point that such a decision requires a high
who can cover its specific needs and requirements expenditure capital but the benefits for the in-
(He et al., 2011). stitution could be many. The most significant of
them would be the high flexibility and scalability,
mobile accessibility and automated services. In
MAIN FOCUS OF THE CHAPTER addition, maintenance will no more be an issue
for the I.T. & Infrastructure department, the stor-
Problem Analysis age could be increased on demand and the last
and most important benefit will be the reduced
A UK university is considered here as a case study cost through the minimizing of the university’s
to highlight both the issues and potential solutions in-house I.T. services (Linder, 2009; Dialogic,
available to UK higher education. Many UK based 2010; Lakshminarayanan et al., 2013).
universities have also applied Cloud solutions On the other hand, the problems are many
but most of them have only implemented Cloud as Cloud Computing in Higher Education is
services through Microsoft’s Office 365 Educa- still immature and too expensive commercially
tion (Jisc, 2013; Microsoft, 2015). All of them, in order to risk using it. Such problems are the
though, consider expanding their Cloud Comput- lack of standards, data security/privacy and the
ing services because such services could offer cost compatibility with the institutions’ existing I.T.
effective solutions. If we also consider the current infrastructure (Linder, 2009; Mather et al., 2009;
economic environment, such solutions could be Dialogic, 2010; Catteddu, 2010; Lakshminaray-
proven to be beneficial for all HEIs. anan et al., 2013). Despite those problems, there
At the university of the current case study, the are solutions available in the business area which
only Cloud services provided are the student e-mail can be secure enough. Furthermore, there are
and the student personal drive services, which already organizations like the European Commis-
are hosted by Microsoft (Office 365 Education). sion and the Cloud Consortium, which already
However, the I.T. managers of the Computing & work in order to give solutions on those problems
Library Services of this university have started (Schubert, 2010). In addition, JANET (UK) is an
considering the possibility of providing more organization totally focused on the institutions and
Cloud services to their academic staff and students. works towards a common infrastructure platform
For the time being, there are no in-house Cloud for Cloud Computing services that are available
technologies used, so the Cloud services should for all UK institutions (Jisc, 2011; HEFCE, 2011a;
be offered again by external providers, such as Eduserv, 2012). There might be many alterna-
Microsoft’s Office 365 Education. An initial step tive solutions, but the current study focuses on
387

recommendations and suggestions that could be Services in the Computing & Library
beneficial for any university. Services.
In summary, all the Feasibility Study recom- • Implementation and Testing plan
mendations are based on the current case study’s recommendations.
university Computing & Library Services situation
and on the currently available Cloud Computing The current study could be characterized
technology and its solutions. It is likely that new as important due to the current state of Cloud
solutions may appear in the near future as Cloud Computing and its methods of implementation,
Computing is still an emerging area. which are still under development and in the pro-
In order to accomplish a clear specification of cess of standardization. It must not be forgotten
the Feasibility Study’s requirements, the authors that Cloud Computing is not the unique solution
interviewed the Deputy Director and Head of for the I.T. services. The necessity, though, for a
I.T. Services at the university being studied. The complete view of how Cloud Computing affects
expected outcome was a Report, including the higher education, when compared with classic
Feasibility Study, as a more informative method. I.T. solutions, drives the current study.
The Report and Feasibility Study, documented
in the current chapter, include a review of the Research Methodology
existing literature, information gathered through
face-to-face interviews and a survey conducted This section focuses on the research methods used
with the university’s I.T. representatives, the pos- and the rationale behind their adoption. A prag-
sibilities for future expansion in Cloud services, matic philosophy with a mixed-methods research
and an overall evaluation and recommendations approach was followed to establish the feasibility
for the university’s Computing & Library Services. of implementing IaaS. Pragmatists are those who
Specifically, according to the interview conducted believe that multiple methods (paradigms) could
with the Deputy Director and Head of I.T. Ser- be utilized in research (Rossman & Wilson, 1985).
vices of the university, the Feasibility Study had A pragmatic approach entails that researchers
to cover the following objectives: should follow whatever method they think works.
Although the question of mixing methods still
• Current level of Cloud Computing services exists, more researchers are embracing prag-
in Computing & Library Services. matism as the best philosophical foundation for
• Plans for future expansion in Cloud mixed-methods research (Tashakkori & Teddlie,
Computing services. 1998). The most important element in making a
• Use of existing Cloud Computing Business decision about which research method or methods
solutions for implementing Infrastructure to employ should be the research question at hand
as a Service (IaaS). (Fraenkel & Wallen, 2014, p. 559). Worldviews
• Investigation on the current status of Cloud and preferences about methods should take a
Computing services in other HEIs, UK and back seat, and the researcher should choose the
non-UK. research approach that most readily illuminates
• Advantages and Disadvantages of imple- the research question. Such a research approach
menting Cloud Computing Infrastructure may be quantitative, qualitative, or a combination
Services in the current time period. of the two (Fraenkel & Wallen, 2014, p. 560).
• Overall evaluation and recommenda- For the current chapter’s Feasibility Study, the
tions for Cloud Computing Infrastructure authors followed a combination of qualitative and
quantitative methods, specifically the exploratory
388

Figure 3. Exploratory design (Fraenkel & Wallen, 2014, p. 560)

Source: Fraenkel & Wallen, 2014, p. 560
design. In this design, the researchers initially use outcome was a final list of requirements (see the
a qualitative method to identify the important Problem Analysis section). Reviewing the existing
variables implying a phenomenon of interest. literature was first on the list. After defining the
Then, they use a quantitative method in order to official terms of Cloud Computing and IaaS, an
inform the area of particular interest (see Figure 3). analysis of the risks and benefits offered by IaaS
In the exploratory design, the qualitative phase was conducted. Then, the authors investigated
gives direction to the quantitative method, and the available IaaS solutions offered to HEIs by
quantitative results are used to extend or validate the existing vendors. Finally, a critical analysis of
the qualitative findings (Fraenkel & Wallen, 2014, the current Cloud Computing and IaaS status in
p. 560). The research tools used for data collec- international and UK HEIs was presented.
tion were personal-interviews and surveys. The The authors have interviewed people in posi-
phases and steps of the research process and tools tions who do not like to share any information
are elaborated below. from their I.T. department as a leak of confidential
information is always possible. So, taking under
Phase 1: Initiation consideration the Code of Ethics, such as Informa-
tion Disclosure, and Privacy and Data Confidenti-
The investigation started with a proposal on the ality, personal details and confidential information
potential of using Cloud services in HEIs and related to the university are not disclosed. All data
specifically the application of IaaS solutions at the are treated with complete confidentiality and are
university studied. The first step was to interview anonymized before analysis.
the Deputy Director and Head of I.T. Services and
I.T. managers of the university in order to identify Phase 3: Findings
the current level of Cloud services. In addition,
the interviews, through open-ended questions, The main findings of the investigation related to
were used to define the initial list of requirements. the Feasibility Study are reported in the follow-
ing section.
Phase 2: The Development
Findings: Feasibility Study
The interviews offered a good starting point and
a solid basis to carry on the study. Then, surveys This section highlights the key aspects of the
were used to interview the Deputy Director and Feasibility Study. The Feasibility analysis results
Head of I.T. Services and I.T. managers of the include the current infrastructure in the Comput-
university based on the interviews’ initial findings. ing and Library Services of the university studied,
As a survey offers more structured methods of how IaaS will affect the institution’s environment
collect data through closed-ended questions, the and future, advantages of IaaS, comparison of
authors managed to validate and finalize the areas IaaS against the university’s traditional hosting
of interest identified in the interview process. The services, the evaluation criteria of supplier selec-
389

tion, Legal, Ethical, Social, and Operational Issues reduced. The administrative and management staff
/ Service Level Agreement (SLA), as well as a of Computing & Library Services will only have
risk and benefit analysis. to directly contact with the provider and request
for any desired extra services or upgrades.
Brief Overview of I.T. Infrastructure In addition, the institution’s legislation about
in Computing and Library Services data privacy, data security policies and data integ-
of the University Studied rity will have to be revised, even if it is choosing
to develop in-house Cloud solutions. In the current
Currently the Computing & Library Services study, if the university chooses to implement a
use the traditional I.T. infrastructure including solution offered by an external provider (third-
servers, routers, and hubs, PCs, networks and all party company), the legislation of the provider’s
the relevant hardware and software sources. I.T. licenses and terms & conditions will have to be
personnel, managers and administrators are trained carefully reviewed in order for the institution to
and skilled to operate the so called traditional adapt it to its internal policies (McDonald et al.,
technologies. There is no Cloud infrastructure 2010).
and the only Cloud service offered is the student The aforementioned issues have to be taken
e-mail, ‘UniMail’, and student personal drive, under serious consideration by the university’s
‘OneDrive’ services, which are hosted by Micro- I.T. department’s managers. The change of the
soft (Office 365 Education) (Eduserv, 2012; Jisc, management procedure should be planned very
2013; Microsoft, 2015). carefully in order to achieve a smooth migration
to Cloud services.
How Cloud Services, Such as
IaaS, Will Affect the University’s Potential Advantages of IaaS
I.T. Environment and Future for the Computing and Library
Services of the University Studied
The Cloud Computing market is a growing market
full of enterprises that already offer IaaS solutions In the following list, based on the previously
but also new emerging companies which try to analyzed Cloud Computing and IaaS benefits
compete with the large vendors. Furthermore, (see the Cloud Computing and IaaS Benefits in
the Cloud market is still immature, which means Higher Education section), is presented in what
that opportunities for new services and products way IaaS can be beneficial for the Computing &
are high. Library Services of the university. Specifically,
The potential implementation of IaaS solutions the potential advantages of IaaS in a UK HEI such
in the Computing & Library Services could bring as the current case study university are:
many changes. For instance, such a change could
directly affect the I.T. and Infrastructure depart- • The user pays only for the resources (s)he
ment of the university. Specifically, the hardware consumes and the provider’s billing can be
infrastructure will change and the technicians’ per hour or monthly (Mircea & Andreescu,
duties will be less, which will also lead to person- 2011; Lakshminarayanan et al., 2013).
nel reductions. As a result, the economic strategy • IaaS has an elastic nature. The customer
scope of the Computing & Library Services will can control the number of resources given
have to change and be oriented through the Cloud by the provider at any time. In addition,
Computing technology lens. The priorities will be the resources can easily be configured.
different as the I.T. and Infrastructure cost will be According to the customer’s require-
390

ments and occasional configuration, the ized in every company, the big vendors’
IaaS provider is able to respond fast and reputation can offer a satisfying level of se-
scale up or down (Universities UK, 2013; curity and their support can potentially be
Lakshminarayanan et al., 2013). faster than the traditional hosting services.
• The large vendors that provide IaaS can se- • Finally, about the 4th advantage, in the
cure satisfying Service Level Agreements traditional I.T. hosting services all soft-
and 24/7 support (Clark et al., 2011; ware and hardware equipment is purchased
Universities UK, 2013). by the user. On the other hand, a Cloud
• Software and hardware equipment is of- Computing provider offers to the customer
fered by the provider and the consumer not only the desired equipment, but also
does not have to worry about maintenance covers maintenance and upgrade needs.
or upgrade costs (Clark et al., 2011; Mircea
& Andreescu, 2011). Legal, Ethical, Social, and Operational
Issues / Service Level Agreement (SLA)
The previous technical-based list can be
strongly related with the areas of HEIs that Cloud Legal Issues: Firstly, due to the fact that all
services, like IaaS, can aid towards their improve- hardware will be in a provider’s possession, the
ment (see the Trends and Recent Developments in legislation of the university will have to change.
Cloud Computing and IaaS in Higher Education The students’ and academic staff’s data will be
section). off the institution’s site, most likely stored in a
third party company, and that may raise issues
Comparison of Current Infrastructure from the institution’s societies. Copyrights should
against IaaS Advantages acknowledge students’ and staff’s intellectual
properties and all software programs used by the
When comparing the aforementioned IaaS advan- managers and administrators of the IaaS Cloud
tages against the university’s Computing & Library system should be licensed. In addition, all personal
Services traditional I.T. hosting services, there are data and information must not be allowed from the
a few differences identified. These differences are provider to be used by other third party organiza-
presented in the following list: tions. Copyleft-ed1 material should be accessible
and available from both sides according to the
• A very clear difference is that in the tradi- Free Software Society’s terms and regulations
tional services the customer has to pay a (Stallman, 2002).
fixed amount no matter whether (s)he uses It is important that the provider should re-
the resources or not (vs. 1st Advantage spect and follow the university’s legislation. For
from previous list). instance, the Data Protection Act of 1998 must
• In the traditional hosting the consumer be applied, as well as extra security policies, as
rents a fixed number of resources for a part of the SLA, which will secure an effective
fixed amount of time. However, Cloud and efficient application of the Cloud service
Computing elasticity provides scalable (HMSO, 2015). Furthermore, Information and
options at any time always according to Data Privacy Policies should be considered, such
the customer’s occasional needs (vs. 2nd as the Computer Misuse Act of 1990 that must
Advantage from previous list). also be considered for computer misuse offences
• About the 3rd advantage, the Service Level (HMSO, 2015).
Agreements, even if they are not standard-
391

The Data Protection, which includes authorized Risk / Benefit Analysis

access, internet protection through firewalls, anti-
spyware, anti-virus and other security tools, should Potential Technological Risk: Low
be under the provider’s responsibility. This is a The technological risk of applying IaaS at the
very important issue as all services will function Computing & Library Services of the university
via the internet. Thus, security must be very high. studied is low, especially if the I.T. managers
Data Protection, Data Security and Data Integrity decide to implement a solution provided by a
issues on who-is-responsible for what, must be big Cloud vendor. Most IaaS vendors are Cloud
clearly identified and covered in the SLA signed technology pioneers following international Cloud
between the customer and the provider. The SLA standards. On the other hand, a potential risk could
is a very important part of a Cloud service agree- be the compatibility of the provider’s IaaS solution
ment that is further explained in the following with JANET’s Cloud infrastructure. In case the
sections (McDonald et al., 2010). IaaS solution applied and the JANET brokerage
Ethical and Social Issues: The principles, for shared data centre are not compatible, then the
(computing) regulations, and policies of the uni- investment would not be worthy and the institution
versity should be respected and followed. will be isolated from the other HEIs.
Operational Issues: The I.T. managers and One more important risk is the institution’s
system administrators will be the main operators periodically loss of the in-house I.T. knowledge.
of the Cloud infrastructure systems. They will be Once lost, it requires high investments to be re-
responsible for the functionality and quality of gained (i.e. training programmes, equipment, etc.).
the services. Furthermore, they will be in close In addition, the Computing & Library Services
contact with the provider in order to solve any infrastructure will totally depend on the provider.
issues of malfunction and requests for upgrades That risk could be minimized by the fact that all
or new services. Operational issues for a more institutions and organizations sooner or later will
effective and efficient IaaS application can be follow Cloud technology solutions (Katz, R. N.
resolved through training programs offered by (2010).
the provider to managers and administrators in
order to familiarize themselves with the IaaS Potential Transfer Risk to the New Cloud
Cloud features. Technology: Medium
SLA: The SLA is a document that defines the
relationship between the university and the IaaS The implementation of the new Cloud technology
provider (SLA-zone, 2007; EC-Europa, 2014). must be smooth. During the transition period, the
The SLA presents all the agreed levels of service Computing & Library Services systems must be up
from the provider to the consumer (SLA-zone, and running 24/7, as well as offering all services
2007; EC-Europa, 2014). The SLA has to be ac- to students and academic staff. Inevitably, the
cepted by both sides as long as they agree on the IaaS technology should be implemented gradually
methods used for problem solving, tracking and and without affecting the Computing & Library
reporting service performance, duties and respon- Services functionality. Such a risk is classed as
sibilities, policies of termination and legal issues medium because, whenever a new technology is
(SLA-zone, 2007; EC-Europa, 2014). It is critical applied, there is a transition period where prob-
that the university will form a very detailed SLA lems may occur and inevitably affect the users.
with the provider in order to achieve a functional Solutions that could minimize the aforementioned
relationship between them, which will secure an risks are presented and analyzed in the Solutions
effective and efficient IaaS Cloud solution. and Recommendations section.
392

Potential Benefits Potential Impact on the Employment

The potential benefits that the Computing & Li- of the Computing and Library
brary Services of the university studied could gain Services of the University Studied
from applying an IaaS Cloud solution provided
by a big vendor, are the following: The potential impact on the I.T. and Infrastruc-
ture Department of the Computing & Library
• The cost of the infrastructure operation and Services will be major. The I.T. personnel will
maintenance will be radically reduced. be reduced as people maintaining and operating
• A front-line technology like Cloud the infrastructure equipment such as servers and
Computing will be introduced in the in- routers will be no more needed. Only the operators,
stitution with the potential of expanding it managers and administrators for the Cloud services
with further Cloud services, such as SaaS will be necessary to remain on their positions.
and PaaS. The remaining personnel will have to be trained
• Having one of the big IaaS vendors as a on the new Cloud technologies in order to be ef-
provider could offer the institution a com- fective on their new duties. The relevant training
petitive technology advantage over other could be offered by the Cloud solution provider
HEIs. A vendor that leads the Cloud mar- as part of the contract with the vendor. In general,
ket can constantly invests in research and while considering the current unstable economic
development (R&D). environment, an IaaS Cloud solution could offer a
• In addition, an IaaS solution, provided cost effective solution for the institution’s finance.
by industry, will incorporate all Cloud All the previously analyzed findings are not
Computing technology privileges such as exhaustive as every HEI has its own unique charac-
flexibility, scalability, remote and auto- teristics, priorities, advantages and disadvantages.
mated access and on demand requests for The authors tried to cover the most critical points,
a wide variety of technical equipment and especially those related to an institution like the
services. university studied, a medium ranged UK HEI,
• Furthermore, introducing a new IaaS solu- and always based on the given requirements.
tion offered by a vendor that operates for The study continues with an analysis of solutions
the first time in a UK HEI could be a com- and recommendations, based on the previously
petitive advantage over its competitors. discussed findings.
Also, it could be an extra motivator for a
better contract negotiation with the poten-
tial provider. SOLUTIONS AND
• Finally, the IaaS implementation could RECOMMENDATIONS
offer better research opportunities for the
institution’s research staff through the In order to ensure that the Computing & Library
vendor’s R&D funds. The technology in- Services of the university studied selects an ap-
troduced could also better prepare the in- propriate IaaS Cloud provider, a complete list of
stitution’s future teaching and learning evaluation criteria of Cloud provider selection
services, such distance learning, hybrid and evaluation methods is proposed. The follow-
classes (i.e. off-campus and online learning propositions could be considered as the basis
ing), and teleconferencing. of a future IaaS Cloud decision model for HEIs.
393

Evaluation Criteria of Cloud Pilot Programs: The first method of assess-

Provider Selection ment could be the launch of Pilot Programs. Pilot
Programs are considered to be the first step in
In order to optimize a potential acquisition pro- order to better understand the functionality of a
cess for the Computing & Library Services of the new system based on a methodical way (Rosen
university studied, a list of evaluation criteria of & Foody, 2005). Those programs can also be
Cloud provider selection is developed. The criteria combined with supplier, manager and user satis-
are based on the institution’s requirements and the faction surveys. By the time the Pilot Programs
aforementioned findings. Table 4 presents and are terminated, the feedback is of high value as it
describes the relevant list of criteria. provides lessons and criticism for an effective and
functional application of a potential IaaS Cloud
Methods of IaaS Cloud solution (Chen, 2009). In addition, with the Pilot
Solution Evaluation Programs, many problems can be identified in
early stages affording the opportunity to the or-
Considering the risks that may occur in the oc- ganization to correct them. The recommendations
casion that the Computing & Library Services made after the termination of the Pilot Programs
of the university studied decides to implement can save money and time for the organization. In
an IaaS Cloud solution, it would be safer for the the Computing & Library Services of the univer-
institution to have some methods of assessing sity studied, an accurate evaluation of the Pilot
its functionality. The authors would suggest two Programs’ outcomes could secure an efficient,
methods of evaluation. The first one could take effective and agile Cloud solution, which is critical
place before the final application of the system for all HEIs (Rosen & Foody, 2005).
while the previous systems are still available. The Pilot Programs could be replicated and
Furthermore, it could also work as a backup- repeated according to various scenarios that man-
plan in case the assessment results are not the agers and administrators may find necessary and
desired. The second method could apply as long as many times as they judge appropriate (Rosen
as it is confirmed that the IaaS Cloud solution is & Foody, 2005). Pilot Programs are commonly
successfully implemented. The aforementioned used by many enterprises such as I.T. companies
methods could also be used by the Computing and bank institutions as well as by HEIs in order to
& Library for any Cloud solution that might be guarantee that their investments will be secure. A
applied in the future. HEI example comes from the University of Ohio.
Table 4. Evaluation criteria of Cloud provider selection
Criteria Description
Agility Any new Cloud services offer portability, thus all data must be transferable to other future Cloud providers as well.
Convenience The SLA should secure that the provider will offer a system that can be updated, maintained, and sustained without
any extra costs.
Cost The service cost must be accountable for the provider. In addition, the IaaS Cloud solution implementation and
maintenance costs must be affordable.
Quality The provider’s offering quality must meet the institution’s requirements.
Safety The provider must guarantee the institution’s information and data security.
Service 24/7/365 support provision. The Cloud provider must offer constant support to the institution.
394

Figure 4. Cost-associativity equation (Armbrus, et al., 2010b, p.2)

Source: Armbrust et al., 2010b, p.2
In 2011, the University of Ohio ran a pilot program when is constantly used, can alert the institution
to test the collaboration between the University for all the changes that have to be done.
System and the Flat World Knowledge, which Finally, the use of the following equation is
is the largest publisher of free and open college recommended by the authors (see Figure 4). The
textbooks for students worldwide (University “cost associativity” equation, as it is known, ex-
System of Ohio, 2011). The institution wanted presses the opportunity for higher profit (Armbrust
to test how the system works and how beneficial et al., 2010b, p. 2). It comes from the business
it would be for its students. So, before the final area and it not only can be used for the CBA but
adoption of the system, the institution used a trial also can be an initial test for the institution’s profit
version of the system. perspectives.
Similarly, the university studied could run the In summary, the previously mentioned selec-
previously described Pilot Program before the final tion criteria and evaluation methods could be
IaaS Cloud solution implementation. Towards this used by the Computing & Library Services of
direction, the university could request from the the university studied, as well as other UK and
potential Cloud provider to offer trial-versions of non-UK HEIs, in order to select a potential IaaS
its system, in order to test the system’s functional- Cloud provider, and then test the provided solu-
ity and usability for a certain period. tion before and after its implementation. With
Cost Benefit Analysis (CBA): The second these methods, the institution could migrate to
method of assessment could be the Cost Benefit Cloud Computing technology smoothly and the
Analysis (CBA). The CBA could be applied by implementation would be a more controlled and
the time the IaaS Cloud solution is fully imple- less-risky process.
mented. The CBA is the best method to prove if
the new IaaS Cloud solution was effective and
efficient enough for the university. It could reveal FUTURE RESEARCH DIRECTIONS
all the positive and negative factors that a change
brings and show how cost effective the solution Since the solutions proposed are based on one
is. Furthermore, it could reveal if the new solution single HEI, further research and testing, of institu-
was a worthy investment or it has to be altered or tions of different sizes and in different countries
cancelled (John Reh, 2015). with varying HEI context, is needed in order to
It is also recommended that the Computing & examine and investigate IaaS application in HEIs.
Library Services should perform regular CBAs in In addition, more research is required on how to
order to monitor the institution’s economic span find the most appropriate IaaS Cloud solution for
after the final implementation of the IaaS Cloud a given institution. To enhance such a decision,
solution. The institution’s culture will possibly further research regarding the long term effects
change and it has to be ready to apply all the nec- on institutions that adopt Cloud service solutions
essary cultural changes. The CBA is a tool that, is needed.
395

Towards that effort, a few questions that could HEI taking under consideration the individual
be included in future research are: (1) Could the characteristics and environment of UK Higher
proposed solutions be generalized in other Cloud Education. The study’s approach was driven
service selections such as SaaS and PaaS, always by the effort to develop an effective IaaS Cloud
in the HEI context? (2) What are the security risks selection-evaluation model based on a set of evalu-
for a HEI when an IaaS, as well as SaaS and PaaS, ation criteria of IaaS Cloud provider selection,
Cloud service is operated by a small - medium comparison to the traditional I.T. infrastructure
Cloud vendor and what if the Cloud vendor is a services, IaaS application and evaluation meth-
global service organization? (3) Are the current ods, and benefit and risk analysis for migrating
Cloud SLAs sufficient enough to cover HEIs to an IaaS Cloud solution. However, there is still
needs? (4) Focusing on the UK HEIs context, is a lot of work to be done in order to have a solid
the current Cloud solution offered by Jisc a suf- IaaS Cloud selection-evaluation model that could
ficient option that would help UK HEIs to keep secure a Cloud provider selection based on each
their competitive advantages over other European institution’s unique needs, as well as efficient cost/
and global institutions? benefit and risk/evaluation methods.
Finally, towards the effort to merge the litera-
ture review findings with the case study outcome,
CONCLUSION the authors provide a list of general steps that
could accommodate any HEI’s (UK and non-UK)
Leveraging Cloud Computing technology to ob- Cloud provider selection. Specifically, a HEI in
tain value has started becoming a very popular preparation for Cloud Computing adoption should:
approach in HEIs globally. Specifically, IaaS
seems to benefit HEIs, despite the immaturity • Diagnose all possible benefits and oppor-
of its application. Nevertheless, many HEIs have tunities for migrating from existing com-
difficulties in determining whether they should puting solutions to Cloud services.
apply Cloud services, such as IaaS, and how to • Develop a Cloud selection-evaluation
take advantage of them in order to add value to model that incorporates efficient cost/ben-
their services. As a result, it is critical for HEIs efit and risk/evaluation methods, such as
I.T. managers to gain a solid understanding of how the one proposed in the current study. A
Cloud Computing is evolving, as well as the trends model like this could support HEIs’ deci-
in its adoption. According to the current literature sions about where, when, and how they can
review, a rapid growth in Cloud Computing and its adopt Cloud services.
services is expected. Although HEIs may decided • Ensure that a HEI’s networking environ-
to use more of these services, it is likely that many ment is ready for Cloud Computing.
of them will choose to select Cloud solutions • Diagnose and secure any in-house compe-
offered by the current Cloud services market or tencies that might be required to manage
create their own private Cloud, either alone or in effective Cloud service adoption.
partnership with other academic institutions of • Diagnose any technical challenges that
higher education. In any case, HEIs will have to must be identified when transferring any
weigh the costs and benefits of each approach, information, data or applications into a
with a major factor affecting these decisions to be Cloud environment. The current study’s
their level of trust in both the Cloud deployment recommended Pilot Programs could be
model and the entity providing it. proven useful to identify where problems
The current Feasibility Study has examined may occur.
the potential of implementing IaaS in a UK
396

In conclusion, the authors believe that all CDW. (2013). 2013 State of the Cloud Report.
HEIs (UK and non-UK) I.T. managers’ interest Retrieved January 07, 2015 from http://www.cd-
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Chao, L., (2012). Cloud computing for teaching
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and learning: Strategies for design and implemen-
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tation. DOI: .10.4018/978-1-4666-0957-0.ch006
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Charles, M. V. (2006). Open content and the
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401

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Platform as a Service (PaaS). IaaS is a provision
model in which an organization outsources its ENDNOTE
equipment, such as storage, hardware, servers
and networking components. The client pays on
1
Copyleft is a general method for making a
a per-use basis while the service provider owns program (or other work) free, and requiring
the equipment and is responsible for housing, all modified and extended versions of the
running, and maintaining it. program to be free as well.
402
403
Chapter 24
A Media Interpretation of
the Negative Impact of
Cloud Technologies
Michael S. Tang
University of Colorado – Denver, USA
Arunprakash T. Karunanithi
University of Colorado – Denver, USA
ABSTRACT
This chapter presents a media studies interpretation of the impact of Cloud communication technolo-
gies on traditional academic achievement. According to social media critics following the “medium is
the message” theory of Marshall McLuhan, the hidden “message” in the new Cloud communication
education technologies conflicts with the old message of the printed textbook, the traditional medium of
communication in education since the printing press in the 16th and 17th centuries. The chapter begins with
a brief history of media technologies in education to gain understanding into the nature of this conflict
and follows with a review of research and studies that document the conflict’s cause and consequences
with the conclusion that a major factor in the proliferation of any new media communication technology
is its commercial value. Moreover, because new technologies in education are driven by commercial
interests, its pedagogical value becomes secondary resulting in what social media and other critics view
as the dumbing down of the American student. These social media critics contend that not only have
American students been declining intellectually, computer technologies, including the Cloud Internet
communication technologies are the direct cause of this decline, raising the question, “is education tech-
nology an oxymoron?” Given this analysis of media communication technologies’ impact on education,
the authors then offer a possible way out of the current situation by proposing a more human factors
approach towards Cloud technologies based on constructivist educational and cognitive styles theory.
DISCUSSION online education technologies. Moreover, just

as the rapid rise of the printed book as teaching
An educational revolution is occurring today machine during and after the Scientific Revolu-
because of Cloud communication technologies tion caused much concern, distraught and chaos,
which have spread like wild fire mainly through the new Cloud learning machines are wreaking
DOI: 10.4018/978-1-4666-9924-3.ch024

A Media Interpretation of the Negative Impact of Cloud Technologies
confusion and havoc in education today includ- Sesame Street

ing a shift in higher education from a cognitive
knowledge emphasis to an affective service mode PBS, however, did not entirely give up its original
driven by what the historian of science, David educational role and in 1966 broadcasted its well-
Noble (1998), called “the commodification of known children’s education program Sesame Street
education.” To document this hypothesis of the with the idea of creating a children’s show that
dumbing down and commodification of education would “master the addictive qualities of televi-
the chapter begins with a brief history of educators sion and do something good with them” (Davis,
trying to put old content and teaching methods 2008, p. 8). The altruistic part of the concept,
into new media technologies with little success funded with substantial grants from the Carnegie
and unintended consequences. Foundation, the Ford Foundation, and the U.S.
Government, was to help young children learn.
A Dubious Record of Using After two years of research and development, the
Media for Education Purposes recipients of this funding created and produced
Sesame Street in 1969. According to Palmer and
National Educational Television (NET) was an Fisch (2001), it was the first preschool educational
American educational broadcast television net- television program to base its contents and pro-
work owned by the Ford Foundation and operated duction values on unprecedented laboratory and
from 1954 to 1970 before being replaced by the formative research.
Public Broadcasting Service (PBS). PBS is now However, from the beginning, unlike National
more known for its cultural programs, social and Educational Television programs, Sesame Street
political commentary and international news with focused on affective goals while addressing cogni-
little pretense of operating as a major player in tive goals indirectly with the belief that doing so
education. The original aim of its predecessor, would increase children’s self-esteem and feelings
NET (2012), however, was educational and the of competency and, by realizing such objectives,
program was nicknamed the “University of the the cognitive goal of learning to read and write
Air” because of its treating humanistic educational would follow automatically. In time, the goal of
subjects in depth, including hour-long interviews increasing self-esteem was followed by other af-
with people of literary and historical importance. fective goals such as promoting ethnic diversity, a
In spite of the great amount of expenditure for the greater sense of community and ecological aware-
broadcasting station, however, NET was known ness (Gikow, 2009), again based on the premise
for its excruciating boring content and attracted that providing such a context will automatically
few viewers. Consequently in 1963 because of result in increased learning. Sesame Street’s sig-
its low ratings, National Educational Television nificance in the history of media and education
changed its format by airing controversial, hard- is a case of the tail wagging the dog where its
hitting documentaries that explored numerous entertainment value and goals overwhelmed its
social issues of the day such as poverty and racism. educational intent resulting in the transforming
It was during this period when the NET became education to the idea the authors of this chapter
PBS, having shifted completely from a formal call the “Sesame Street Theory of Learning.”
education role to more entertainment venues and That education “law” is: “keep them entertained
public service programs centered on politics, social long enough and maybe something will stick,”
issues, and news. a dictum, the journalist sociologist, Malcolm
Gladwell (2000) called “The Stickiness Factor”.
404

Computer Games There is only one problem: what we will be inter-

acting with is a machine (pp. 142-3).
A next attempt to transform an originally enter-
tainment medium for pedagogical purposes is the With interactivity, the educational philosophy
attempt to apply computer games to education. of Sesame Street attached to the computer joy stick
The medium, the cathode ray tube, is the same as and dynamic multi-color screen became the rage
television’s, but the computer medium’s interface in education. Educational video games, however,
with the user shifted the message from passive to may be a passing fad (see Figure 1) until the next
interactive, making the entertainment and “sticki- killer app with pedagogical promise such as the
ness factor” of the Sesame Street theory even more hololens comes along (Metz, 2015). Contribut-
attractive to educators and software engineers. The ing to the decline in interest over educational
addictiveness of this new interactive characteristic video games may be the inconclusive results of
of computers to increase stickiness has been aptly attempts to measure their effectiveness (Hanus,
described by a software engineer turned computer 2015; Merchant, et al., 2014; Cheung, 2013). What
media critic, Ellen Ullman (1995). Over twenty began as an entertainment medium, computer
years ago, before the online education revolution, games for education resorted back to its original
she predicted: raison d’être. Now the video game industry is an
80 billion dollar global industry with no or little
The computer is about to enter our lives like blood educational pretense while high school and college
in the capillaries. Soon, everywhere we look, we students spend more time on video games than
will see pretty, idiot-proof interfaces designed on homework, contributing further to the dumb-
to make us say, “OK.” A vast delivery system ing down of student achievement (Arum, 2015).
for retail computing is about to come into being,
and the system goes by the name “interactivity.” Education on the Cloud
Telephones, televisions, sales kiosks will all be
wired for interactive, on-demand services. The So far, the greatest impact new technologies have
very word ---interactivity--- implies something had on education is in online learning or what this
good and wonderful. Surely a response, a reply, chapter calls Cloud education and again with the
an answer is a positive thing. Surely it signifies verdict as to its educational effectiveness negative
an advance over something else, something bad, or ambivalent. A survey of the literature on the
something that doesn’t respond, reply or answer. Cloud’s efficacy for pedagogy shows that the best
Figure 1. Interest in educational video games over time: Reproduced in part from Google Trends. Run,
5/23/15.
405

researchers could say about online learning is that expense of the original integrity of the educational
it is “just as good” as traditional methods (Tucker, process, instruction has here been transformed
2001; Lorenzo, 2002; Nash, 2015). The inability into a set of deliverable commodities, and the end
to prove the expected significant effectiveness of education has become not self-knowledge but
of online distance education may be the reason the making of money (p. 29).
that the debate on Cloud education technology
has shifted from the measuring of purely online MOOCs and Social
learning to attempts to measure blended learning, Education Networks
a Cloud format that combines traditional methods
with online methods. However, even in this area Two spin-offs from the putting learning on the
the research has been inconclusive other than Cloud and its commodification are education
finding that blended learning is more effective social networks and massive online open courses
than purely online methods (McCutcheon, et al., (MOOCs) (see Figure 2). While MOOCs origi-
2015; Brown, 2015). nated in the hallowed halls of academia at Stanford
While the real value of Cloud education’s and MIT it is now fueled completely by private
academic effectiveness is questionable it is un- capital (Hyman, 2012). Commercial MOOCs in-
equivocally clear that what is driving its growth clude Udacity, which originally offered university
and persistence is commercial and not pedagogi- style courses but because of less than expected
cal. The commercial takeover of online education enrollment, shifted its focus on “Nanodegrees”
by commercial interests was predicted years ago to provide certified training for professionals in
by David Noble (1998), who published one of the tech industry (Udacity, 2015). The company’s
the most frequently cited works on the impact of funding from venture capital was over $15 million
the Internet on higher education, entitled, Digital in 2012 (Korn, 2013). In 2014 part of that capital
diploma mills. According to Noble (2002), the went to the Georgia Institute of Technology who
hidden message of the Internet in education is launched the first “massive online open degree”
its commodification where education curricula in computer science through a program where a
consists of: student can get a complete degree for $7,000, sig-
naling the growing symbiotic relationship between
. . . assembled “courses” [that] are exchanged universities and corporations (Forbes, 2013).
for a profit on the market, which determines their Coursera, even more financially well leveraged
value by their “owners” who may or may not than Udacity with over $43 million in venture
have any relationship to the original creators and capital and other investment funds, is a for-profit
participants in the educational process. At the educational technology company that works with
Figure 2. Trend line on interest in massive online open courses (MOOCs). Reproduced in part from
Google Trends. Run, 5/1/2015.
406

universities to make their courses available online From this history of multi-media computer
in the sciences, engineering, humanities and the aided education, it can be concluded that a sym-
social sciences. Contracts between Coursera and biotic relationship has emerged between academic
participating universities contain a “brainstorm- endeavors and commercial interests, with the lat-
ing” list of ways to generate revenue. Among ter gaining the upper hand in shaping the ethos
implemented ideas is the charging of verified of Cloud education. Moreover, if an education
certification fees through a venue called “Signa- application can attract enough investment and
ture Track,” that provides added services such as venture capital, the application will make an im-
introducing students to potential employers and pact regardless of its pedagogical effectiveness.
recruiters, tutoring, sponsorships and the agree-
ment that any revenue will be divided with part- OECD’s PISA International Tests
nership schools at 20% of gross profits (Anders,
2013). If MOOCs continue to be commercially That commercial value may be the determining
successful, they may auger the further of com- factor for a particular educational technology’s
modification of higher education on the Cloud impact is supported by other data documenting
as we have argued what sustains the impact and the dubious pedagogical impact of computers in
longevity of a new technology is its commercial and outside the classroom. In 2009, the Organiza-
and not its pedagogical value. tion of Economic and Cooperative Development
The latest attempt to cash in on the service as- (OECD) organization’s Program of International
pects of the Cloud are educational social networks, Student Assessment (PISA) conducted an exhaus-
cyberspaces dedicated to providing a context for tive study of Cloud communication technologies’
online education. The aim of these networks is impact on the reading, science and mathematics
to improve learning effectiveness by engaging achievement of 15 year olds in 64 countries and
students in an active use of the Web as a dynamic regions. The results again showed a negative or
contextual medium to provide educational re- negligible correlation between computer use and
sources for student self-governed, problem-based academic achievement. (See Figure 4 and OECD,
and collaborative learning activities (Hung, 2010; 2009). Some findings were unexpected and puz-
Capterra,2015). So far, what literature that is avail- zling (see Figure 3).
able on the pedagogical efficacy of educational For example, the researchers found that the
social networks tends to be ambivalent, negligible correlation between print reading ability and
or negative, although the authors of this chapter the ability to navigate on the screen was almost
believe that their pedagogical aim is not totally linear and that strong print readers are also strong
misguided (Ozer, 2014). in processing information on the Cloud. Other
Figure 4. Regions with average or below average science scores compared to Shanghai’s top score
(OECD, 2014)
407

Figure 3. Regions with highest science achievement scores (OECD, 2014)
researchers since PISA’s study have confirmed “educators were too focused on teaching students
the PISA findings (Kanive, 2014; Vigdor, et al., how to use specific software packages rather than
2014) (see Figure 4). Finally, another PISA test on the development of more advanced computer
on academic achievement in the core subjects of skills” (p. 188). The authors of this chapter beg to
reading, science and mathematics showed that differ and argue it is a case of putting old content
Americans who have the greatest assess to the new and methods into new technological structures
computer technologies ranked barely average or where both the content and structure is in danger
below average in the three areas, indicating that of becoming dysfunctional with the message of
the negative impact of Cloud education may be traditional academic achievement in direct conflict
greater than previously thought as will be discussed with the message of the new computer media that
later in this chapter (see Figure 5). has migrated to the Cloud.
OECD (2011) explained the negative or
negligible correlation in regard to academic The Medium Is the Message
achievement and use of Cloud communication
technologies by suggesting that the “computer use To explain the incongruence between traditional
in school lessons have not effectively integrated academic achievement and the new computer
internet communication technologies in a peda- and internet communication technologies, me-
gogically meaningful way” or speculating that dia scholars have proposed a conflicting “mes-
Figure 5. OECD PISA 2009 results showing negative correlation between reading performance in language,
math and sciences and use of computers at home for school work. Reproduced from: (OECD, 2011).
408

sages” theory based on Marshall McLuhan’s “the made students not only stupid and ignorant but
medium is the message” aphorism (McLuhan, lazy as well.
1994; Postman, 2006; Carr, 2008). This theory This negative assessment of today’s student
argues that different media technologies carry is independently supported by the research of
with them different messages independent of the Arum and Roksa (2011) who authored an in-depth
content with Cloud communication technologies study of the current state of learning on college
delivering a completely different message than the campuses. In their work, Academically Adrift, the
traditional predominantly text or print education sociologists examined the state of higher education
classroom/lecture message. As a consequence, based on university college transcript data, the Col-
the two conflicting media vie for attention in legiate Learning Assessment (CLA) exam and big
the brain to process different kinds of messages data survey responses from students at twenty-four
causing cognitive stress and confusion, explaining institutions in their first semester and at the end
why multi-sensory computer learning technolo- of their second year. Their analysis showed that
gies have been ineffective or at best negligible in forty five percent of those surveyed demonstrated
improving academic performance. no significant improvement in critical thinking,
This thesis has been cogently proposed by complex reasoning and writing during their first
several authors, among them Nicholas Carr (2008) two years of college. In a follow-up book, Adults
who asked, “Is Google making us stupid?”; Mag- Adrift, surveying what happened to these students
gie Jackson (2008) in her work, Distracted; Mark after college, Arum and Roksa (2014) found that
Bauerlein (2008), who calls millennia students, a significant number of the graduates are having
The Dumbest Generation; and Tara Brabazon difficulty finding jobs, many live in their parent’s
(2012), in her work, The University of Google. house and are generally unconcerned with politi-
Each of these writers has similar perspectives and cal, civic and financial matters. The sociologists
reasons as to how and why Cloud applications place the blame for this profile of college gradu-
have resulted in what they perceive as the coming ates squarely on university administrators who, to
education dystopia. Nicholas Carr (2011) uses attract students to their university in a commer-
the analogy of where former generations had to cially very competitive environment, emphasize
dive in depth for information and understanding college service, pleasant accommodations and
via the printed book, today’s generation surfs extra-curricular activities over the traditional
the Net resulting in a shallowness characterized academic pursuit of excellence through focused
by superficial ignorance. Tara Brabazon (2006), and disciplined study. This service approach as
an Australian professor of education, argues that opposed to a rigorous academic achievement
student reliance on Google, Wikipedia and other approach is prevalent because the administrators
Cloud applications as academic tools demeans perceive that is what the students want. As a result:
the hard work, commitment and scholarship of
scholars, teachers and librarians who earnestly The evidence . . . as a whole, suggests that U.S.
try to impart what they have learned to the next colleges and universities underperform with re-
generation with little success and great frustra- spect to developing human capital . . . [and]. . .
tion. Maggie Jackson (2015) believes that what The crucial years of intellectual maturation from
she calls the “Google effect” has resulted in this ages eighteen to twenty-tree are not yielding the
generation of students’ lack of concentration and gains in knowledge, discernment, and analytical
attention, with mediocrity as the new normal in capacity that they should, and that are necessary to
academics. Mark Bauerlein (2008), an English a productive workforce and responsible citizenry.
professor at Emory University, believes, with (Arum, 2015. p. 73)
no apologies, that Cloud communications have
409

According to Arum and Roksa (2014), it is as Given this right brain, nonverbal conflict versus the
if college’s main purpose is for students to learn verbal, left brain, the authors ask: Is it possible that
how to get along with others, enjoy the social and these conflicts are part of a deconstructive phase
cultural environment and become well-adjusted that can result in new educational approaches,
with the assumption that learning cognitive skills methods and computer aided technologies that will
will come naturally as a secondary by-product, change the conflicting messages to complementary
sadly documenting the Sesame Street theory of ones for more effective learning?
education without the result that “something To give a positive answer to this question it
will stick.” In his book, Mindless: why smarter is now argued that such a complementary path
machines are making dumber humans, Simon is not only possible but feasible with the authors
Head (2014) argues that computer systems in proposing a way forward that accepts the fact
business have replaced human expertise and de- that the Cloud education genie is out of the bottle
skilled traditional worker functions to increase and no amount of forcing or persuading students
commercial profit with the result of turning both to go back to the old way of leaning will result
higher management and workers into servants of in their returning to exclusively print education
the machine instead of the other way around. The values. A more realistic solution, it is suggested,
same shift is occurring in regard to the role of the is to develop education approaches, models and
machine, administrators and students in education. methods with software applications that can help
bridge the gap between different brain hemispheres
A Way Forward and their respective functions. This chapter’s
modest proposal is to use the same technology
The McLuhan social media theory on the impact that is causing dysfunctional conflict to turn that
of computer use on academic achievement argues conflict into a more complementary and positive
that the new multi-media technologies with its processing of information for greater academic
Sesame Street entertainment message are caus- achievement. The feasibility and promise of this
ing a cognitive disconnection between what some way forward where different media are used to
psychologists have called right brain non-verbal complement instead of conflicting with each other
functions and left brain verbal functions, habits is supported by recent developments in cognitive
of mind conditioned by the traditional printed styles neuropsychology and constructivist edu-
book (McLuhan & McLuhan, 1988). McLuhan cation theory. Furthermore, it is suggested that
and his son Eric in their Laws of Media (1988), as neuropsychology research may have identified
with Nicholas Carr and other social media critics, a new way of thinking that is evolving precisely
believed that they had the support of neuroscience because of the new media technologies. That new
for their conflicting message hypotheses. way of thinking is called the spatial cognitive style,
Although the jury is still out on the validity of a mode of cognition preferred by medical doctors,
certain aspects of the left brain/right brain theory scientists and engineers, and other members of
(Iaccino, 2014; Ornstein, 1997; Galen, 1972), the the science, technology, engineering and STEM
theory has considerable potential in further explor- professions (Kozhevnikov, 2010), integrated with
ing the question as to what the Cloud is doing to a more systems oriented educational theory, con-
our brains where non-verbal multi-sensory media structivists learning, may help in providing a new
input is competing with traditional verbal print approach and perspective for development more
media input in the processing of information that effective software applications for Cloud delivery.
can be traced to different locations in the brain.
410

Cognitive Styles neuropsychologists have found that spatial think-

ing operates on both the left and right hemispheres
Cognitive styles as a theory on how people think, of the brain (see Figure 6).
perceive and process information posits that Cognitive style research has significance in
individuals have a preference for different cog- suggesting a way forward to counteract the nega-
nitive styles to deal with challenges that arise in tive impact of media on today’s students because
different situations and environments. According it shows that: 1) students with different cognitive
to the pioneer in cognitive style theory, Maria styles will understand information input differently
Kozhevnikov (2014), these different cognitive according to their particular cognitive predisposi-
style preferences can be first divided into two tion; 2) thinking in different contexts and using
modes, visualizers and verbalizers, where left different kinds of instruction will result in different
brain verbalizers prefer to process and represent kinds of cognitive responses that may or may not
information verbally and rely primarily on a linear be appropriate to the intended learning objective
analytical and non-visual strategies for information and 3) cognitive styles are mobile and students
processing. Professionals who prefer this type of can choose to use a cognitive style that is not their
thinking are best exemplified by lawyers, politi- first preference if the situation warrants that style
cians, educators, and intellectuals who formerly as the more appropriate for dealing with an issue
dominated the print dominant universe. What is at hand (Blazhenkova 2009, 2011). Furthermore,
original about Kozhevnikov’s (2005) cognitive the mobility of cognitive styles or the ability of
model is her departure from bipolar reductionist’s individuals to shift from one style to another also
models by a tripartite model. That model divides indicates that intelligence is malleable and differ-
“visualizers” into two styles: object thinkers and ent cognitive styles can be taught (Kozhevnikov,
spatial thinkers. Individuals who prefer the object 2014; Costa, 2000). 5)
cognitive style, with visual artists being the most Given these aspects of cognitive styles, the
representative of this group, choose to construct theory can help explain the social media theory
vivid concrete and detailed images of individual of cognitive dissonance between a literate verbal
objects when they process information. Opposed generation, born in or before 1968 versus the
to the object style is the spatial style, preferred a-literate, those born after 1968 who no longer
by scientists and engineers who rely on visual- prefer the verbal cognitive style and may be
spatial strategies in problem solving and tend to regressing back to pre-literate style of cognition
schematically think in terms of abstract spatial that resembles Piaget’s concrete operational stage
relations and nonlinear transformations. Moreover, of development (Barbazon, 2002; Bauerlein,
Figure 6. Respective brain areas involved in verbal, object and spatial information processing with their
functions as to how input is represented. Reproduced from Blazhenkova (2009). p. 261.
411

2008; Jackson, 2008). However, from the third Piaget’s constructivist developmental schema.
observation on the mobility or malleability of That is, cognitive style spatial thinking may be a
cognitive styles, the ability to shift cognitive third and emerging differential stage of cognitive
styles to adapt to different environments and situ- development not previously recognized as such by
ations, suggests the possibility or reconstructing other developmental constructivist psychologists,
education approaches, methods and models in a including Piaget.
complementary rather than oppositional way for Adopting constructivist theory for the success-
more effective learning. ful application of the new media in Cloud education
has been suggested by Mtabi and Minnar (2015),
Constructivist Learning Theory who argue that online education has failed because
educators precisely have not tried to integrate
Cognitive styles theory combined with construc- constructivist theory into Cloud education. It is the
tivist learning theory, it is suggested, can result in a case of trying to force old content and methods –
frame that can be used to develop educational soft- old wine – into new delivery systems – new wine
ware that is not orthogonal to academic learning skins – Cloud communication technologies. To
by promoting the spatial cognitive style for a more document this thesis, Tovin-Linsey (2015), after
balanced thinking style among today’s students reviewing 24 MOOCs, found that most of the
to better fit future cognitive needs. Based on the teaching methods practitioners used were similar
theories of Jean Piaget (1962) and Lev Vygotsky to those of face-to-face instruction that rely heavily
(1934/1986), constructivism is an approach in on an objectivist-individual teaching approach.
education that claims students are better able to The exception to the rule were the instructors
acquire knowledge if that knowledge is guided by who taught their MOOCs using a constructiv-
and facilitated by knowledgeable instructors rather ist teaching approach that had more successful
than regarding student minds as empty vessels in results leading to the conclusion that a greater
which teachers pour in information and content. use of constructivist teaching may encourage
In addition, according to Jean Piaget’s devel- persistence and learning, and help MOOCs reach
opmental psychology, children from 7-11 undergo their goal of increasing access and achievement.
a concrete operational stage where they process Another Cloud education researcher, Mohammed
information by identifying units as pictorial im- Ally (2004) surveyed three different educational
ages and analogous representations of objects and theories, behaviorist, cognitivist and constructiv-
scenes, separate the units in a continuous visual ist, and also concluded that all three, especially
field and give the units meaning before they can constructivist learning theory and cognitive style
be verbally named, and articulated and logically theory can be integrated on the Cloud to produce
manipulated. After the age of eleven, most students a new education model that will be more success-
enter what Piaget calls the formal operation stage ful than the old approach of putting old methods
when students can construct hypotheses from into new technologies. Ally’s conclusion that
abstract propositions and systematically test the Cloud learning can respond effectively to different
hypotheses where mental manipulation of objects cultures and styles of learning and his inclusion
replace the tactile to solve problems (Piaget, of behaviorist methods in his education model is
1969). These two stages correspond to cogni- especially well taken because of his complemen-
tive style’s object and verbal modes of thought tary approach which non-constructivists tend to
and suggests how spatial thinking might fit into view as oppositional.
412

Commonalities reintroduced, reinforced and much more positively

integrated in any new Cloud education technolo-
If we look at the commonalities among the embed- gies if those technologies are to be effective. This
ded messages of Cloud education, constructivist human element means more interaction between
learning theory and cognitive styles, we find strik- the student and the instructor and less between
ing isomorphic similarities. For example, if we the machine and the student.
take descriptions of what different Cloud social The need for technologies that are more human
networks such as exoplatform.com (eXo, 2015), rather than more machine-like was a major concern
capterra.com (Bloomfire, 2015) and tryscope.com of the Finnish architect Juhani Pallasmaa who
(Spoke, 2015), we find that the three commercial argued in his book, The Thinking Hand (2011),
social network applications claim key functions that overreliance on computer technology makes it
such as “engagement,” “open,” “common goals,” more difficult for designers to appreciate the most
“information sharing,” “create, share and learn subtle and most human qualities of their buildings.
together,” all values of constructivist learning, The computer image and other output used by ar-
and “object” learning and concrete operational chitects give a false precision, apparent finiteness
learning where knowledge processing is more and other machine characteristics marginalizing
tactile, aesthetic, engaged, and collaborative, a a designer’s perspective resulting in a technically
type of learning Piaget called concrete operational stunning but emotionally sterile product. Modern
(Piaget & Infelder, 1969). computer systems can translate sets of data such as
Furthermore, not only are the implicit message spatial of dimensions into precise 3-D renderings
of Cloud learning and the explicit messages of with incredible speed but at the cost of human
constructivist learning theory and cognitive styles intelligence, imagination, emotion and above all,
opposed to positivist and reductionist thinking, the human touch (Pallasmaa, 2012).
all three operate within a framework in which Moreover, according to Nicholas Carr, the
the component parts work best in the context same media critic who asked if Google is making
of relationships with each other and with other us stupid, the problem with prevailing computer
parts for decision making and problem solving. techniques is that they not only turn students into
All three of these aspects of learning, the Cloud passive and shallow learners they de-emphasize
multi-media environment, constructivist learning human needs and print values such as emotional
and cognitive style differences encourage students intensity, hard work, focused attention, concentra-
and instructors to work together in and outside tion, satisfaction in overcoming difficulties and
the formal classroom to promote learning and envisioning long term goals. Carr (2014a) conse-
achievement complementarily, collaboratively quently sees the solution to intelligent machines
and cooperatively. Finally, both cognitive style making us less intelligent by directly confronting
theory and constructivist learning put the student the machine with what is called “human-centered
and instructor together back into center stage in automation,” where the talents and values of
the learning process. This is essential when the people take precedence. With this shift, intelligent
automation and commodification of education is computer systems are designed to keep the hu-
pushing the instructor into the margins of peda- man operator in what engineers call “the decision
gogy and conditioning students to become passive loop” the continuing process of action, feedback,
learners. The importance of the human element judgment-making and above all creative vision,
in constructing new educational approaches, which can come about only through hard thinking
methods and models using new technologies leads and persistent engagement. Ironically human fac-
to the conclusion that human elements must be tors applied to education means making machine
413

learning more instead of less difficult for the stu- the other hand, when dealing with the mathemati-
dents to promote the kind of challenging practice cal problems and numerous abstract diagrams in
that will produce a more thoughtful, balanced and the book, spatial cognition should be applied to
holistic student with difficult to acquire skills master that particular kind of content.
that are much needed in society and neglected in Secondly, because cognitive styles are devel-
academia today. Re-engineering automated educa- opmental, going from object to verbal to spatial,
tion in a more humane, rigorous and challenging computerized lessons should proceed in stages or
way requires no technical breakthroughs or more what educators call scaffolding. Examples from
advanced cognitive skills. It only requires a shift the history of science and the reading of Piaget’s
in priorities and a renewed focus on student and (1969) developmental stages of learning from
teacher demands and strengths instead of com- concrete operational (object) learning to formal
mercial goals which the machine can efficiently operational (verbal and spatial) can be helpful
and effectively actualize. in designing effective developmental lessons. If
Piaget is correct, we can state a general epistemo-
logical “law” using cognitive style terminology
CONCLUSION applied to computer aided teaching as follows:
Students progress from an object understanding of
Media studies, constructivist learning theories and a concept to its verbal articulation and finally to
cognitive psychology research are of great impor- a higher order spatial understanding of problems
tance in designing effective Cloud communication to be solved and futures to be envisioned. More-
education technologies to address conflicts that over, this progression is not linear but cyclical
are obstructing effective learning among different and recursive where different stages of learning
disciplines with different academic goals. As for are repeated at a higher and higher level for more
cognitive style research, it has been noted that this advanced holistic thinking in which each stage
learning theory is particular significant in STEM becomes more and more student-centered and
education because it can be applied to reform less and less machine oriented.
pedagogy in a direction that is less reductionist Thirdly, new educational technologies must
and deterministic and more systems oriented and be dictated by human concerns and not machine
more relevant to STEM skills in the form of spatial efficiency as appears to have been the case with
thinking. Consequently, from the foregoing analy- most education software applications today. The
sis, certain generalizations and predictions about reason for the drive towards more and more ma-
the preferred characteristics of Cloud computing chine efficiency is twofold: 1) first educators and
as they apply to education can be made. software developers were unaware that embedded
First, cognitive styles can be matched to differ- in Cloud education applications and models are
ent learning objectives. For example, if the goal is machine characteristics that have biases that are
to motivate a student to become more interested orthogonal to conflicting learning goals; and 2)
and engaged in a particular topic, the education machine efficiency has greater commercial value
method or for computer application should be because that is what is in demand when learning is
more experiential and hands-on and appeal to the a commodity for sale. Reconstructing education to
student’s object learning style that may or may deemphasize machine and commercial values and
not be his/her strong suit. On the other hand, if re-emphasize the human dimension, including the
the goal is formal explicit learning such as the print values previously described may be exactly
understanding of chemistry concepts in a textbook, what is needed that will keep students attentive
then verbal cognition should be emphasized. On and engaged and promote the kind of challenging
414

practice that will produce a more balanced and Beaton, A. E. (1977). Changes in the verbal abili-
holistic student that is much needed in society ties of high school seniors: College entrants, and
and neglected in academia today. With this new SAT candidates between 1960 and 1972. Princeton,
perspective, educators and software engineers can NJ: College Board.
develop new computer-aided technologies with
Blazhenkova, O., Becker, M., & Kozhevnikov,
human factors to increase learning where we can
M. (2011). Object–spatial imagery and verbal
answer “no” to the question “Is computer-aided
cognitive styles in children and adolescents:
education technology an oxymoron?”
Developmental trajectories in relation to abil-
ity. Learning and Individual Differences, 21(3),
281–287. doi:10.1016/j.lindif.2010.11.012
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KEY TERMS AND DEFINITIONS school and other information related to learning.
As such education networks are becoming virtual
Cloud Communications: Internet-based data communities enabling members to migrate more
communications where telecommunications appli- and more to the Cloud where they can share
cations, switching and storage are used to deliver information, including personal data, such as
education services as exemplified by traditional homework; take online open courses, webinars
university online courses and more recent internet and workshops; play education video games and
iterations such as massive open online courses engage in other such educational activities.
(MOOCS). Until recently, these education services Human Factors: In engineering, it is the prac-
have been visual data-centric but with the evolu- tice of designing products, systems or processes
tion of voice over Internet protocol (VoIP), Cloud to account for the interaction between machines
communications has added automated speech to and the people who use them. As with media
its multi-sensory delivery modes. studies, the field is interdisciplinary and has seen
Cognitive Style: Or “thinking style,” this is a contributions from numerous disciplines such as
term found in cognitive psychology to describe psychology, engineering, biomechanics, industrial
how individuals think, perceive and remember design, physiology and anthropology. The term is
information and differs from cognitive ability or essentially synonymous with ergonomics, which
level which involves measuring so called intelli- is the scientific discipline concerned with the
gence by aptitude tests and other similar tests. In understanding of interactions between humans
this chapter, cognitive style refers to three types: and other elements of a system through the ap-
the object, the verbal and the spatial. plication of theory, principles, and methods to
Constructivist Education: An education optimize human well-being and overall system
approach based on the hypothesis that students performance.
generate knowledge and meaning most effectively Media Studies: Is a field of study that deals
by constructing knowledge from an interaction be- with the content, history and effects of various
tween their experiences and their ideas, facilitated media with an emphasis on mass media. It is an
419

interdisciplinary field that draws on both the social The Medium is the Message: An aphorism
sciences and the humanities with communication coined by Marshall McLuhan hypothesizing that
fields such as mass communication and commu- the implicit or background form of a medium
nication sciences and communication studies as embeds itself into the explicit messages the me-
its core disciplines. dium was designed to transmit. The phrase was
Object Cognitive Style: The concrete op- introduced in McLuhan’s most widely known
erational mode of thinking preferred by artists, work, Understanding Media: The Extensions of
especially visual artists, who tend to process Man, which argued that every medium or tech-
information through vivid, concrete, colorful, nology carries with it a hidden “message” that
and often three dimensional and tactile images. has a powerful subliminal impact on individuals,
Neuropsychologists have found that object think- society and culture independent of the medium’s
ing is activated in areas of the brain located in the explicit content.
right hemisphere. Verbal Cognitive Style: The verbal style pre-
Spatial Cognitive Style: Thinkers process ferred by professionals such as humanists, social
information non-verbally with highly structural scientists, educators and lawyers who think primar-
images such as geometrical figures and other ily in terms of written language and coding and
patterned forms abstracted from data and the decoding information through verbal symbols. The
visualizer’s objects of perception. The spatial style tends to be highly abstract, linear, explicit,
cognitive style is the preferred thinking style and reductionist where information is processed
among scientists, engineers and architects with through the speech brain functions located in the
its physiological processing path found on both left brain hemisphere.
the left and right side of the brain.
420
421
Chapter 25
The Significance of Situation
Awareness in Education:
Being Aware of What We Learn
Pio Alfredo Di Tore

Università degli Studi di Salerno, Italy
Felice Corona
Università degli Studi di Salerno, Italy
ABSTRACT
Learning today is no longer related to the “classroom” as the physical environment; it is instead an
“across spaces” place characterized by the possibility to build serendipitous, pervasive and seamless
experiences. Such experiences are in fact no more constrained to space-time limits and bounds but fo-
cused on context and situation awareness to enhance the learning process. Also, these experiences are
often associated with next generation technologies which well fit to a paradigm shift marked by seam-
less continuity of learning. The interest in context-aware educational settings mainly based on mobile
and sensor systems has led researchers to investigate new ways to recognize issues mainly related to the
definition of “learner’s contextual information” (profile information in situation) and, on the basis of
this information, to identify the “types of adaptation”. In this work, we present the first theoretical and
applicative results that the Italian scientific community has achieved as part of the research lines that
revolve around the concept of Situation Awareness (SA).
INTRODUCTION happen, “elsewhere”, in a place whatever, as long

as physically other than that in which the learner
In the last decade, the use (and abuse) of formu- is. The ability to access anywhere (Learning
las such MOOC, Open and Distance Learning, Anywhere) and anytime (Learning Anytime)
Ubiquitous Learning, has accustomed us to think to a hypothetical immaterial bubble in which
of learning as something that happens, or should resources and learning objects reside (a kind of
DOI: 10.4018/978-1-4666-9924-3.ch025

The Significance of Situation Awareness in Education
new, immaterial and hypertrophic edition of the This very peculiar nature, which eludes the
Alexandria library) led someone to overlook that disciplinary boundaries, makes it difficult to find
there is a “here and now” of the learning process. a general definition:
A part of the Italian scientific community in-
volved in educational research has instead worked Yet determining exactly what constitutes SA is
in the opposite direction, giving meaning and value a very difficult task, given the complexity of the
to the context as the object of investigation and construct itself, and the many different processes
cardinal element of the learning process (Aiello, involved with its acquisition and maintenance.
Di Tore, Di Tore, & Sibilio, 2013; Frauenfelder, (Banbury & Tremblay, 2004)
Rivoltella, Rossi, & Sibilio, 2013; Rossi, 2011;
Rossi, Sgambelluri, Prenna, Cecoro, & Sililio, Trying to narrow down the field, we can
2013; Sibilio, 2013). state that Situation Awareness concerns those
Rivoltella, in particular, reported vigorously, activities in which physical and cognitive tasks
at the center of the pedagogical-didactic debate, are performed in a complex system in which
the concepts of situation and of situated learning individuals and artifacts interact under quickly
(Rivoltella, 2013). According to the concise and changing conditions (Salmon, Stanton, Gibbon,
effective definition of Rivoltella, “situation is a Jenkins, & Walker, 2009).
landscape into which learning actions make sense” Situation Awareness and complexity, then,
(Rivoltella, 2014). Rivoltella cites the principle of are closely related, at least as complexity and
“situated meaning” by James Paul Gee: unpredictability are coupled:
The meanings of signs (words, actions, objects, Weather is the classic example: many components
artifacts, symbols, texts, etc.) are situated in em- interacting in complex ways, leading to notori-
bodied experience. Meanings are not general or ous unpredictability. Ecosystems, for instance,
decontextualized. Whatever generally meanings economic entities, developing embryos, and the
come to have is discovered bottom up via embodied brain - each is an example of complex dynamics
experiments. (Gee, 2003) that defy mathematical analysis or simulation.
(Lewin, 1999)
Pedagogy and education, however, are certainly
not the only disciplines that have investigated the Sibilio (2013) uses Lewin to illustrate how “the
importance of the situation. The idea of situation meaning of the nonlinear interactions in terms of
and, more specifically, the concept of Situation systemic adaptation references to the difference
Awareness indeed seem to be a theoretical meet- between chaos and complexity”:
ing place of distant fields of knowledge, from
aeronautics to medicine, through neuroscience In one case, you may have a few things interact-
and computer science. ing, producing tremendously divergent behavior.
That’s what you’d call deterministical chaos. It
The importance of ‘situation awareness’ (SA) in looks random, but it’s not, because it’s the result
assessing and predicting operator competence in of equation you can specify, often quite simple
complex environments has become increasingly equations. On another case interactions in a
apparent in recent years. It has been widely es- dynamical system give you an emergent global
tablished that SA is a contributing factor to many order, with a whole set of fascinating proprieties.
commercial and military accidents and incidents. (Lewin, 1999)
(Banbury & Tremblay, 2004)
422

Situation Awareness, therefore, is crucial for of a deficit and production of a new balance,
timely decision making - according to Endsley which results in the decision as the keystone of
(1988) - when the complex nature of the situation the infinite arc between perception and action.
does not allow for a “linear” analysis.
The impossibility of relying on the linear
analysis is certainly not an exception in our ev- THE CONCEPT OF
eryday decisions. This does not mean, however, SITUATION AWARENESS
that humans use systems of decision making that
exclude the rational component. Damasio (2000) The concept of Situation Awareness was origi-
uses the idea of somatic marker to illustrate this nally introduced by sport psychology in the 70s,
concept: and generally applied to team sports. Research in
psychology has focused on the stimulus-response
[…]the marker allows me to anticipate the effects theory (Dickinson, 1976), on “perceptual cues”
foreseeing the future: here is my rationality to (Abernethy & Russell, 1984), and on the atten-
guide the decision, through a statistical analysis tive style (Nideffer, 1976). In more recent times,
of the average of what has happened in the past this concept has been taken up and applied to a
in correspondence with the occurrence of that large area of scientific fields (Hone, Martin, &
situation. Without rational analysis there would Ayres, 2006).
be no decision, but this analysis rests on the The seminal definition of Situation Awareness,
previous work of the emotion. The two moments to date, remains the one proposed by Endsley
are not alternative viewpoints on reality, but dif- (1988) who defines SA as “the perception of the
ferent and integrated times of a single process: elements in the environment within a volume of
we are never perfectly rational and never merely time and space, the comprehension of their mean-
emotional. (Rivoltella, 2014) ing and the projection of their status in the near
future” (Endsley, 1988).
Damasio himself informs us, elsewhere, that The definition of Endsley relates to a process
the two types of knowledge work in an additive divided into three stages: perception, compre-
and not alternative way, and rely on different hension, and projection. The perceptual level (1)
neural systems: concerns the collection of relevant environmental
information, while the level of comprehension (2)
Deciding advantageously in a complex situation is “encompasses how people combine, interpret,
thought to require overt reasoning on declarative store, and retain information”. The level of com-
knowledge, namely, on facts pertaining to prem- prehension then “includes more than perceiving or
ises, options for action, and outcomes of actions attending to information, but also the integration
that embody the pertinent previous experience. of multiple pieces of information and a determi-
[...] Overt reasoning is preceded by a noncon- nation on their relevance to the person’s goals”
scious biasing step that uses neural systems other (Endsley, 1988).
than those that support declarative knowledge. The last stage of the process, the projection level
(Bechara, Damasio, Tranel, & Damasio, 1997) (3), involves “the ability to project from current
events and dynamics to anticipate future events
Situation Awareness acquires, in this perspec- (and their implications)” and consequently “allows
tive, the character of the constantly renegotiated for timely decision making” (Endsley, 1988, p.
tension between reduction of complexity and 100). Endsley explicitly links situational aware-
production of meaning, between compensation ness with the ability “to anticipate future events
423

(and their implications)”. Situation Awareness and Miller concludes: “A key aspect of success-
forecasting are thus in a very close relationship. fully teaching a classroom of students is quickly
On the other hand, it is again Rivoltella to perceiving student behavior and understanding
combine, on the level of education, situation and what that behavior means in terms of student
forecast: understanding and engagement. These activities
are the central features which constitute situation
The forecast is the basis of the simulation, that is, awareness in teaching” (Miller, 2011).
of the educational device which consists in ensure The link forecasting - simulation, in Riv-
that the learner images which consequences could oltella’s reading, however, seems to go beyond
produce in time the manipulation of variables the conceptual debt that Miller and Endsley pay to
that govern the behavior of a phenomenon [...] cognitive implant (the triad perception - compre-
The forecast is also the capacity of the teacher hension - projection seems faithfully trace input
to “hold” the classroom: in the perspective of - processing - output), to embrace a vision of the
space semiotics, being able to read the symptoms perception/action paradigm that has metabolized
in the faces, in the eyes, in the dynamics, is to the contribution of neuroscience. Rivoltella, in
imagine what might happen and act accordingly. fact, refers to the concept of Umwelt in the sense
(Rivoltella, 2014) proposed by Alain Berthoz:
The ability to “hold the classroom” is, in this The perception does not represent the world, but
perspective, a process of reading (interpretation constitutes it as Umwelt. The action does not just
of the “symptoms”) / writing (changing actions) react to the event, she precedes it with simula-
that takes place in a very short time and, on this tion or emulation [...] Our notion of action is
side, probably, of a complete rationalization. We much richer than current sensorimotor theories
are faced with the “swift recapitulation of rational that continue to subordinate it to the category of
processes that has its roots in the senses, the ability movement. (Berthoz & Petit, 2006)
to go from the known to the unknown in a flash
based on clues”, as Carlo Ginzburg wrote postu- The brain, in this perspective, is very far from
lating an “indiciary paradigm”(Ginzburg, 1979). the idea of processor for stimuli coming from the
In the educational field, the position of Riv- senses, but it is a simulator, or, better, a reality
oltella about the predictive power of the teacher emulator:
does not seem far from that of Miller:
Our reality emulator acts primarily as the prereq-
The term situation awareness embodies a theory uisite for coordinated, directed motricity; it does
of noticing, one that is useful in thinking about so by generating a predictive image of an event to
the cognitive and perceptual work of teachers. come that causes the creature to react or behave
One needs to perceive what is important in a accordingly. (Llinás, 2002)
given situation and to infer what it portends with
respect to the goals of that situation. This requires A position that the same Llinás does not hesitate
one to notice meaningful features of the classroom to define, “a brain-centric perspective”, in which
situation and to figure out what the meaning of the brain is not
those features is in time to do something about
it - respond to a disruption, identify student mis- an open system […] that accepts inputs from
understanding, etc. (Miller, 2011) the environment, processes them, and returns
424

them to the world reflexively regardless of their THE TECHNOLOGICAL

complexity”, but is a “closed system modulated LAYER OF SITUATION
by the senses”, a “self-activating system, whose AWARENESS IN EDUCATION
organization is geared toward the generation of
intrinsic images, capable of emulating reality The interest in context aware educational settings is
(generating emulative representations or images) based mainly on mobile and on sensors and has led
even in the absence of input from such reality, as researchers to investigate new tools to recognize
occurs in dream states or daydreaming. From the learner’s contextual information and, on the
this one may draw a very important conclusion. basis of this information, to identify appropriate
This intrinsic order of function represents the adaptive educational interventions.
fundamental, core activity of the brain. This core Attention to these issues has been concentrated
activity may be modified (to a point!) through mainly in the scientific community involved in
sensory experience and through the effects of the design of systems related to eLearning, or
motor activity. (Llinás, 2002) otherwise engaged researches in which the techno-
logical element becomes indispensable condition
Again Rivoltella, quoting Berthoz, summa- of the teaching-learning process.
rizes the link situation - forecasting - simulation Looi has proposed an interpretation of the
- learning: mobile devices used by the students as “learning
hub” (Looi et al., 2009) that facilitate the dynamic
The awareness of the fact that learning is basi- interaction between the student and the learning
cally the development of our ability to forecast situation (Bentley, Shegunshi, & Scannell, 2009).
can be confirmed in some mechanisms on which If smartphones, tablets, glasses and sensors are
neuroscience research has recently provided points of access to information residing elsewhere,
evidence and which explain experimentally what it is also true that they provide a rich array of in-
the philosophy and the humanities had guessed formation on the “here and now” of the learner,
in previously. the context in which the learner is to interact. In
other words, the same devices that are considered
The first of these devices is the emulation. Alain the key for ubiquitous learning form a technologi-
Berthoz (Berthoz, 2012) believes that it is one of cal layer useful for the automatic construction of
the basic underlying simplex strategies activated situation awareness.
by our brain to reduce the complexity of the world Orciuoli showed how Situation Awareness,
around thereby facilitating the interaction with it: and in particular Situation Recognition techniques
“A key aspect of simplexity is this creative activity can be used to support the realization of differ-
of the brain, which solves the complexity of the ent forms of ubiquitous access to educational
outside world by producing perceptions consis- resources and services using context-specific ele-
tent with the intentions regarding the future, the ments (Orciuoli, 2014). In the model proposed by
memory of the past and the laws of the outside Orciuoli, the sensor networks represent the level
world that brain has internalized. (Rivoltella, of infrastructure that supports interaction between
2014) learner and environment, and consist mainly of
“sensors embedded in personal mobile devices”
(Orciuoli, 2014). Sensor networks seem to be
according to the schema proposed by Endsley in
1995 (see Figure 1 and 2).
425

Figure 1. Situation awareness inputs - Based on Endsley, 1995
Figure 2. Supporting seamless learning with semantic technologies and situation awareness - Based
on Orciuoli, 2014
Such sensor networks provide a rich variety of The layer in which the raw data collected by sen-
data on the environment and context, but this is sor networks and modeled according to semantic
obviously a set of raw data in different formats and methodologies and technologies acquire meaning
different levels of detail that acquire real informa- (are useful to guide the processes of decision-
tive value only when they are modeled according making) is made, in the framework proposed by
to the techniques of the immediately above layer. Orciuoli, by Situation Awareness.
In the proposed framework, in fact, the Seman- Here then is the link between Situation Aware-
tic Web allows to model and represent different ness and Semantic Web Stack, it appears to be a
kinds of knowledge with respect to the environ- technological implementation of the semiotics of
ment, to teaching domains, to learning activities, teaching space of which Rivoltella wrote in the
to objectives and student profiles (Orciuoli, 2014). text mentioned earlier:
426

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KEY TERMS AND DEFINITIONS that the learner images which consequences could
produce in time the manipulation of variables that
Action: The action does not just react to the govern the behavior of a phenomenon.
event; she precedes it with simulation or emula- Learning Hub: Mobile devices, used by
tion. Current notion of action is much richer than students, which facilitate the dynamic interaction
current sensorimotor theories that continue to between the students and the learning situation.
subordinate it to the category of movement. Simplexity: Simplexity is this creative activity
Complexity: Many components, interacting of the brain, which solves the complexity of the
in complex ways, lead to notorious unpredictabil- outside world by producing perceptions consis-
ity. Ecosystems, for instance, economic entities, tent with the intentions regarding the future, the
developing embryos, and the brain - each is an memory of the past and the laws of the outside
example of complex dynamics that defy math- world that the brain has internalized.
ematical analysis or simulation. Situation Awareness (SA): SA is the percep-
Emulation: Emulation is one of the basic un- tion of the elements in the environment within a
derlying simplex strategies activated by our brain volume of time and space, the comprehension of
to reduce the complexity of the world around, their meaning and the projection of their status
thereby facilitating the interaction with it. in the near future.
Forecast: Forecast is the basis of simulation,
that is, of the educational device which ensures
429
430
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About the Contributors
Lee Chao is currently a professor of math and computer science in the School of Arts and Sciences
at University of Houston – Victoria, USA. He received his Ph. D. from the University of Wyoming,
USA, and he is certified as Oracle Certified Professional and Microsoft Solution Developer. His cur-
rent research interests are data analysis and technology-based teaching. Dr. Chao is also the author of
over a dozen of research articles in data analysis and math modeling, and books in the development of
computer labs and database systems.
***
Ali Al-Bayatti is a senior lecturer and head of intelligent transportation theme at Software Tech-
nology Research Laboratory, De Montfort University, Leicester, UK. He has received his PhD degree
titled “Security Management in Mobile Ad hoc Network of Networks (MANoN)” in computer science
at De Montfort University. Ali’s research deals with vehicular (e.g. vehicular ad hoc networks) and
smart technologies (e.g. context-aware systems) that promote collective intelligence. Applications range
from promoting comfort, to enabling safety in critical scenarios. The goal of his research is to improve
effectiveness, efficiency, mobility and safety of transpiration systems. Ali is currently the programme
leader of the MSc Cyber Technology including MSc Software Engineering, MSc Cyber Security, MSc
Professional Practice in Digital Forensics and Security and MSc Management pathways. He also teaches
core networking modules for postgraduate programmes.
Ihssan Alkadi received Ph.D. from Louisiana State University. His research interests focus on Cloud
Computing Security, Biometrics, network security, Software Testing, Web Development and Database
Security. He has extensive experience in teaching both Computer Science and Cybersecurity. Dr. Alkadi
has received honors from IEEE “MIST”, Founder/Manager of the CS&IT Cloud, IEEE Speaker in the
Metrocon Conference, Finalist for the Provost position at Northwestern State University in Natchitoches,
Bank One (FNB) II/BORSF Professorship in Business Administration, and Outstanding Advisor Award.
Bay Arinze is a Professor of Management Information Systems in the Decision Sciences and MIS
Department at Drexel University in Philadelphia. His current research focuses on cloud computing, the
Internet of Things (IoT), and social networking. He has published numerous articles in information systems
and operations management journals such as Information and Management, Decision Sciences, Omega-
International Journal of Management Science, Decision Support Systems, and Journal of Management

Information Systems. He has received many private and public research grants from such agencies as
the National Science Foundation and consulted widely in the information technology area.
Onuora Amobi is Founder of LearnAbouttheWeb.com and CEO of Windows10update.com and

the Windows News Network. He holds a BS in Management Information Systems and Marketing from
Drexel University in Philadelphia and has held senior consulting positions in Deloitte Consulting, EDS,
Kaiser Permanente and Warner Bros. He has worked on multiple ERP projects (PeopleSoft, SAP), and
designed and deployed application security for large deployments. His research interests are in operating
systems, the Internet of Things (IoT), Social Media, Online Business and Digital Marketing.
Marta Beltrán received the master’s degree in electrical engineering from Universidad Complutense
of Madrid (Spain) in 2001, the master’s degree in industrial physics from UNED (Spain) in 2003 and the
PhD degree from the Computing Department, Universidad Rey Juan Carlos, Madrid (Spain) in 2005.
She is currently working with this department as an associate professor. She is the leader of the GAAP
research group and has published extensively in high-quality national and international journals and
conference proceedings in the areas of computer architecture and security, and parallel and distributed
systems. Her current research interests are cloud computing and performance evaluation.
Las Johansen Balios Caluza is an instructor of Information and Technology and Computer Educa-
tion Department and a research staff of the Leyte Normal University. His research interests are blended
learning, blended learning technology, open and distance learning, teaching styles, theory development
using data mining for social science research both qualitative and quantitative design, fractal statistics,
fractal inference, information technology and management. He is currently finishing his PhD dissertation
at the Cebu Technological University focusing on Technology Management. He has taught both blended
learning and face-to-face learning environment at the Graduate and Tertiary Level of the university.
He has presented his research outputs in the Philippines and other countries and received international
awards and has published his work in an ISI indexed and Scopus indexed international journals. He
was invited and currently a peer-reviewer in some international conferences and international journals.
Feng Chen is senior lecturer at De Montfort University. He was awarded his BSc, Mphil and PhD
at Nankai University, Dalian University of Technology and De Montfort University in 1991, 1994 and
2007. He has extensive research expertise in the area of software evolution, model driven architecture,
cloud computing, knowledge engineering, image processing, and virtual engineering. He has published
extensively in these areas. In addition to participating EU funded projects, Dr. Chen is particularly ac-
tive in initiating R&D projects, bridging the gap of academic research and industrial application. He is
a grant holder for a number of projects funded by industry or jointly with UKRC funding bodies.
Yong Chen is an instructional technology specialist at Old Dominion University, Virginia. He got
his MA in Educational Technology at San Diego State University. His research interests include online
learning, mobile learning, security and privacy in online learning, learning management system safety,
and Web 2.0 applications in teaching and learning. He has published papers in peer-reviewed journals,
such as the International Review of Research in Open and Distributed Learning, Information and Man-
agement, and Systems Research and Behavioral Science.
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Alexandros Chrysikos received a BSc (Hons) in Computing Science at the Computing Department
of the University of Huddersfield in 2010. In 2011, in the same institution, he completed an MSc degree
in Information Systems Management with the highest distinction. As a result, in 2012, he was accepted
as a Ph.D. candidate with his primary research goals directed toward understanding behavioural patterns
for low student retention in UK Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) and finding methods and solutions
in order to improve students’ social and academic (learning communities) experience, and therefore,
achieve academic persistence. He is the main author in book chapters and conference papers published
in Springer and Huddersfield repository respectively, including research papers in preparation. In addi-
tion, he is the main author of a research project funded by the UK Council of Professors and Heads of
Computing (CPHC). He has working experience in industry and higher education. Currently, he works
at the University of Huddersfield as an assistant tutor, while writing his thesis entitled: ‘Retention in
1st Year Undergraduate Computing Students of UK HEIs via the Learning Community Lens: A Mixed
Methods Approach’.
Felice Corona is Associate Professor of Special Pedagogy and Didactics at the Faculty of Medi-
cine and Surgery, University of Salerno, Italy. He has a PhD in “Pedagogy and Learning Processes of
Knowledge Construction with Particular Reference to the Disability”.
Andre Correa has worked in education in different activities, as a substitute teacher, trainer and
tutor in distance education.
Brandon Cross, CCIE #37214, is currently working as a lecturer at the University of Wisconsin –
Stout for the Information Technology Management program. Brandon has a Master of Science degree
in Information Communication Technology and Bachelor of Science degree in Information Technology
Management with a minor in Computer Science from the University of Wisconsin – Stout. Brandon
served in United States Air Force as a network administrator for more than five years. He held multifac-
eted responsibilities in the network administration of Cisco/Nortel hybrid networks involving the instal-
lation, configuration, maintenance, and troubleshooting of LAN\MAN routers, switches and network
management equipment in support of 15,000 users. He also designed network solutions for classified
information systems, as well as performed duties as a key member of a Distinguished Visitors Team
providing direct network support to high-ranking government officials and military officers. Brandon
is a certified Cisco Academy instructor and holds many valuable industry certifications, which include
CCIE, CCNP, CCNA-Voice, CCNA Security, and A+. Brandon has published several conference pa-
pers in the area of computer networking and IT curriculum development. He has taught courses such
as Linux/Unix Network Administration, Computer Networking, and Voice Mail & Unified Messaging.
Matthew d’Alessio, Ph.D., teaches science content to future teachers as an Associate Professor in the
Department of Geological Sciences at California State University Northridge. As a researcher in geol-
ogy, Matthew studied the deformation around active earthquake faults with the goal of providing better
forecasts of earthquake hazard. He quickly realized that the usefulness of such forecasts depended less
on the science and more on the education of the public. He slowly shifted his career from researching
science to researching effective science education. He uses his classroom as a laboratory for exploring
techniques to promote scientific curiosity and leverage technology to improve teaching practice. He is
a CSU Digital Ambassador and former Google Faculty Fellow.
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Pio Alfredo Di Tore, PhD in “Methodology of Educational and Formative Research”, is a teacher
for pupils with Special Educational Needs.
Sonal Dubey received the B.E. degree in Computer Science and Engineering from the RGPV Uni-
versity, Bhopal, India in 2011 and the M.Tech. degree in Computer Technology and Application from
the NITTTR, Bhopal, India in 2013. She is currently an Assistant Professor at SoIT department, RGPV
University, Bhopal, India. She has published 6 research papers in reputed international journals and in-
ternational conferences in the field of cloud computing. Her research interests include cloud computing,
e-learning and m-learning based on cloud computing.
Matthew Eichler is an associate professor and coordinator of graduate programs in the Department
of Occupational, Workforce, and Leadership Studies at Texas State University. He researches online/dis-
tance learning for adults in higher education, interdisciplinary problem solving, and LGBTQIA (lesbian,
gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, intersex, and ally) development in adulthood. He completed his PhD
at the University of Minnesota in Work, Community, and Family Education. He has taught both online
and face-to-face in a variety of settings, including primary and secondary schools, community-based
adult education, and university level. He has presented his work in several countries and throughout the
United States and has received university and international awards for his online teaching and program
development.
Claudio Estevez received his B. S. degree in electrical and computer engineering from the University
of Puerto Rico, Mayaguez, PR, USA, 2001, his M.S. degree in electrical and computer engineering with
a minor in optical engineering from the University of Alabama in Huntsville, Huntsville, AL, USA,
2003, and his Ph.D. degree in electrical and computer engineering with a minor in computer science
from the Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA, USA, 2010. In 2011, he was hired as an assis-
tant professor by the Electrical Engineering Department at Universidad de Chile. In 2012, he obtained
a [Chilean] national research grant (FONDECYT) to study MAC protocols in WPAN using 60 GHz.
In the same year, he was appointed coordinator of the Communication Networks M.Eng. Program. In
2013, he obtained a [Chilean] national research grant (FONDEF) to study remote polysomnographic
monitoring. His research interests include connection-oriented transport protocols, network fairness
study, MAC-layer protocols in WPAN, 60-GHz WPAN applications, cloud computing with data mining/
warehousing, wireless body area networks, and remote healthcare.
Brian Foley, Ph.D., is a Professor of Secondary Education at California State University Northridge.
His research looks at uses of technology in the classroom to promote learning particularly in science
education. Recent work looks developing teaching methods for using science classrooms through the
use of collaborative documents. Before coming to CSUN, Brian completed his Ph.D. at UC Berkeley
and worked at the Caltech Precollege Science Initiative and at UC Irvine.
Pooja Gupta is an assistant professor at Uttaranchal University, India. She has vast academic ex-
perience of more than 8 years of graduate and post graduate levels. She is an expert in data structure,
design and analysis of algorithms, DBMS and LINUX. She has guided various students’ projects at the
master’s level. She is the course coordinator of the MCA Department at the Uttaranchal University. She
has attended many workshops on IBM mainframe systems, SPSS and Android. Ms. Gupta is pursuing a
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Ph.D. in Computer Science at the Uttarakhand Technical University, India, conducting research on the
cloud forensics. Her research interests include digital forensics and cloud computing, cloud forensics
and role of cloud computing in higher education. She received a master’s degree in Computer Science
from HNB Garhwal, Central University (India). She has published many research papers in various
peer-reviewed national and international journals and conferences.
Christian Gütl holds a Ph.D. in Computer Science from Graz University of Technology (TUG) and
has received the “venia legendi” for applied computer science in 2009. He is at the Institute of Informa-
tion Systems and Computer Media at TUG in Graz, Austria, where he leads the Motivational Media
Technologies Group. He is adjunct research professor at the School of Information Systems at Curtin
University in Perth, Western Australia. Christian has authored and coauthored in more than 170 peer-
reviewed book chapters, journals, and conference proceedings. He is involved in numerous organizational
and editorial boards as well as program committees. He is a founding member of the global Immersive
Learning Research Network (ILRN), managing editor of J.UCS, coeditor of the International Journal
of Knowledge and Learning (IJKL). His research interests include information search and retrieval, e-
education, e-assessment, adaptive media technologies, and virtual worlds for learning and knowledge
transfer.
Robin Hankin is a mathematician specializing in computational statistics. His first degree was in
pure and applied mathematics from Trinity College, Cambridge. After working in the UK’s Health and
Safety Executive, Robin returned to Cambridge for a PhD in theoretical fluid mechanics, specializing
in stratified atmospheric diffusion. He then worked at The University of Auckland as a lecturer in envi-
ronmental science, and after returning to Cambridge to study global climate change as a senior research
associate, is now a senior lecturer at AUT.
Norman Herr, Ph.D., is a professor of science education and educational technology at California
State University, Northridge (CSUN), where he helps coordinate and direct graduate programs in science
education and educational technology as well as a variety of projects pertaining to STEM education.
Norm has authored the California NGSS-based frameworks for teaching physics and chemistry, numerous
publications in the fields of educational technology and STEM education, and a popular series of books
for science educators: The Sourcebook for Teaching Science – Strategies, Activities, and Instructional
Resources, Hands-On Chemistry Activities with Real-Life Applications, and Hands-On Physics Activi-
ties with Real-Life Applications.
Xiaodi Huang obtained his PhD degree in Computer Science from the School of Information Tech-
nology at Swinburne University of Technology in 2004. As a senior lecturer, he joined the School of
Business and Information Technology at Charles Sturt University in July 2007. Prior to that, he was a
lecturer in the School of Mathematics, Statistics and Computer Science at the University of New England,
Armidale, and University of Southern Queensland, Toowoomba, respectively. His research interests are
visualization, data mining, wireless networks and web services.
Arunprakash T. Karunanithi has a Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from the University of Connecticut
and is Associate Professor of Environment & Sustainability Engineering at the University of Colorado
Denver, where he is Director of the Center for Sustainable Infrastructure Systems. He received his B.S.
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degree from Annamalai University, Chidambaram, India, where he won several prizes for receiving the
highest marks out of all students in the University’s Faculty of Engineering. Other academic awards and
achievements include the University of Colorado Denver 2014 Excellence in Research and Creativity
Award, a Bill and Melinda Gates Grand Challenges Grant and a National Science Foundation CAREER
Award. Professor Karunanithi is internationally known for work in green chemistry and environmental
engineering through his graduate teaching, conference presentations and high impact publications. He is
an expert on ionic liquids and their application as non-toxic chemicals and is researching and developing
a dynamic systems model to tailor make ionic liquid chemicals for specific sustainable industrial pur-
poses. He is currently working on developing engineering education models for more effective holistic
systems thinking for teachers and post-secondary students.
Kimberly Lobera is the Vice President of Academics at Coleman University, which is a non-profit
organization dedicated to technology focused education. She has worked as an administrator with Cole-
man University since 2011. Additionally, Dr. Lobera has thirteen years’ experience in management
and education. Dr. Lobera has worked in the field of education from grades Kindergarten through the
Master’s level of which six years was in online instruction and administration. Dr. Lobera holds a PhD in
Educational Administration from Capella University, a M.Ed. in Cross-cultural Education from National
University, and a BS in Psychology from the University of Maryland. She published Characteristics and
Attributes of Virtual Teachers: A Training Perspective.
Md. Anwar Hossain Masud obtained his Ph.D degree from Charles Sturt University, Australia in
2014. He obtained his M.Sc degree in ICT from Ritsumeikan University, Japan in 2007. He is a Life
Fellow of Engineer’s Institute of Bangladesh. He has served in the Govt sector of Bangladesh in the
field of Telecommunications for the last 20 years. His research interests are IP based network, cloud
computing and NGN. He has 14 publications in different renowned journals, conferences and two book
chapters in Springer publication.
Alexander Mikroyannidis is a Research Associate in the Knowledge Media Institute of the Open
University UK. He holds a PhD in Informatics from Manchester Business School, an MPhil in Com-
putation from the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology (UMIST), and a BEng
in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the University of Patras, Greece. His current research
interests are generally in the area of Technology-Enhanced Learning (TEL) and specifically in person-
alised learning, self-regulated learning, inquiry-based learning, remote labs and online experimentation,
open educational resources and rich interactive learning materials with applications in teaching and
learning Data Science, Future Internet, and Linked Data. Dr. Mikroyannidis has contributed to several
European-funded projects, notably EDSA, FORGE, weSPOT, EUCLID, ROLE, OpenScout, CASPAR
and PARMENIDES.
Dorothy Nguyen-Graff, Ph.D., is a lecturer in the Department of Chemistry Biochemistry at Califor-

nia State University Northridge (CSUN). Dorothy has restructured many of the introductory chemistry
course adding cloud based technology to the courses. Besides teaching general chemistry, she is inter-
ested in providing professional development for local science teachers and has been involved in helping
with summer and weekend institutes for the past nine years. She has also directed university students in
presenting outreach to engage local middle and high school students in science.
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Alexandra Okada is a Research Associate at the Knowledge Media Institute at the Open University,
consultant to the Association of Science Education UK, visiting lecturer at the University of Sao Paulo,
Brazil and the Open University of Portugal. She also leads the open research network COLEARN on
collaborative open learning. Her research through 10 projects in Europe and Brazil focuses on knowl-
edge and social media technologies to foster Scientific Digital Literacy - future citizens embracing the
potential of science and technology. She has a particular interest in innovative approaches that empower
colearners to develop key competences and succeed in the 21st century. She is currently the principal
investigator of ENGAGE and co-investigator of weSPOT.
Prantosh Kumar Paul holds an MSc (Double), and MBA-InfoSys. He is actively engaged in the
research and academic activities in the field of information science and technology (IST) and engineering
sciences related to information processing and management. He is associated with IIEST, Shibpur, India
for research purposes and VMS University, Sikkim for the teaching and learning activities. He is also the
CEO and VP of Information Science and Technology (IST) Foundation. Virtually, he is among the few
Indian IS/IST professional/Researcher who holds the PG level of education in the entire dimensions of
information sciences. He is also an editorial board member of several national and international journals.
John M. Reveles, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor in the Department of Elementary Education at

California State University, Northridge (CSUN). He is currently the Principal Investigator (PI) of the
New Generation Of Educators (NGE) comprehensive project. The project aims to transform teacher
preparation to help new teachers change both what and how they teach through the use of 21st Century
technology tools. Prior to becoming a CSUN faculty member, John received a Ph.D. from UC Santa
Barbara where he worked on the Center for Equity in Mathematics and Science Education, (CEMSE)
project. His research interests include: a) development of scientific literacy in school settings; b) socio-
cultural influences on students’ academic identity; c) situated cognition; and d) equity of access issues
in science education.
Tony Rickards initially qualified as a primary school teacher, and has taught at primary, secondary,
tertiary and adult education in Victoria, Tasmania, Queensland and Western Australia. He is currently
a Senior Lecturer at Curtin University in the School of Education. In 1999 he was the Curtin University
Alumni medal winner and has since supervised doctoral and masters level students in the USA, Singapore,
New Zealand, Hong Kong, Australia, Kashmir and Kenya. In 2001 he was founding Director of ITEL,
an information technology enhanced learning research centre at the University of Southern Queensland.
Mike Rivas, Ph.D., is a professor of Secondary Education at California State University Northridge
(CSUN) where he focuses on pre-service teacher preparation, post-service graduate education, and di-
rects the Summer Academic Enrichment Program, an outreach program for secondary school students.
Prior to earning his Ph.D., Dr. Rivas taught biology, chemistry, physics, and anatomy/physiology at the
secondary level for twelve years. His research focuses on best teaching practices and the building of
classroom communities to promote learning, equity and access. Mike has served as Chair of the Secondary
Education Department, Coordinator of the Masters program in Science Education, and as a Co-Director
of Faculty Development on the CSUN campus.
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M. A. Rizvi obtained his Doctorate in Computer Science from Maulana Azad National Institute of
Technology (MANIT) Bhopal. Dr. Rizvi also obtained his Master’s in Electronics and post graduate
diploma in Computer Applications from Aligarh Muslim University, Aligarh and Master’s of Business
Administration (MBA) from Barkat Ullah University Bhopal. Dr. Rizvi has more than 25 years of expe-
rience in the field of computer science and applications as faculty (Associate Professor) at the National
Institute of Technical Teachers’ Training and Research, Bhopal (NITTTR) a Govt. Of India Institute.
He has published approximately 75 research papers in reputed international journals and international
conferences across the globe. Dr. M A Rizvi co-authored the book Computer and Communication a
Practical Manual for Internet Café for NCERT New Delhi India. He has authored 10 chapters in edited
books published by international publishers.
John Sahlin is an Adjunct Professor in Coleman University’s College of Graduate Studies, teaching
in both the M.S. Information Systems Management and MBA programs. Dr. Sahlin is a leading expert
in the fields of Systems Engineering, distributed computing, network design, and multitenant hosting
services (i.e., Cloud Computing). He has over 20 years’ experience designing, building, and sustaining
distributed computing networks for commercial and U.S. public sector clients. Dr. Sahlin holds a PhD
in Systems Engineering from the George Washington University where he also serves as an Adjunct
Professor. His current list of publications includes articles in IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man and
Cybernetics: Systems and the International Journal of Computer Applications, and chapters in multiple
textbooks. Dr. Sahlin is finalizing a textbook based on his research on alternate uses of social media,
which is scheduled for availability in Fall 2015.
Peter Scott is the Director of the Knowledge Media Institute of the UK’s Open University. He has a
BA & PhD in Psychology. Before joining the Open University in 1995, he taught Psychology and Cogni-
tive Science at the University of Sheffield, with a textbook in each of these subjects. From 2007-10, he
was elected founding President of the European Association of Technology Enhanced Learning. From
2008-12, Peter was the coordinator of STELLAR, the EU’s 7th Framework Network of Excellence in
TEL. Peter’s research group in the institute prototypes the application of new technologies and media
to learning. Peter’s current research interests range widely across knowledge and media research. Three
key threads are telepresence, streaming media systems, and ubiquity.
Francois Siewe is currently a senior lecturer in the School of Computer Science and Informatics at
De Montfort University (DMU) in Leicester, UK. He received his PhD in computer science from the
Software Technology Research Laboratory at DMU in 2005. He obtained his BSc in mathematics and
computer science, MSc and Doctorat de Troisième Cycle in computer science from the University of
Yaounde I, Cameroon, in 1990, 1992 and 1997 respectively. His research interests include cyber security,
context-aware and pervasive computing, and formal methods for software engineering. He has published
widely in these areas, including books and scientific articles in peer-reviewed journals and conferences.
Prior to joining DMU, he was a lecturer in the department of mathematics and computer science at the
University of Dschang in Cameroon and a fellow in the International Institute for Software Technology
at the United Nations University (UNU/IIST) in Macau, China.
Aaron Steele is a Senior Lecturer at the Universal College of Learning in Palmerston North, New Zea-
land. He teaches programming, web development, content management systems and project management.
475
He is an Assistant Editor for the Journal of Applied Computing and Information Technology produced by
the Computing and Information Technology Research and Education, New Zealand (CITRENZ). Aaron
has presented and written about cloud computing assessment models since completing his Doctorate at
Curtin University in Western Australia. Aaron is actively engaged in teaching with technology and has
engaged his learners in the process of evolutionary change in his learning cloud based environments.
Cheickna Sylla is a Professor of Management Science and Decision Science and Associate Dean at
the School of Management, New Jersey Institute of Technology, Newark, New Jersey. He holds a Ph.D.
in Industrial Engineering from SUNY at Buffalo, New York. His teaching and research interests include:
statistical analyses and applied operations research methods to human machine interfaces studies, project
management, distribution logistics, management information systems, decision support systems, and
operations management. His research publications appear in IEEE Transactions in Systems, Man and
Cybernetics, IEEE Transactions on Engineering Management, European Journal of Operations Research,
Computers and Industrial Engineering, Control Engineering Practice, and Cost Management, Interna-
tional Journal of Management and Decision Making, International Journal of Information Technology
and Management, International Journal of Networking and Virtual Organizations, International Acad-
emy of Business and Economics, and He is a member of INFORMS, IIE, and Production & Operations
Management Society.
Michael Tang was educated at Whittier College, the University of California Berkeley and the
University of Wisconsin Madison, where he received his Ph.D. in the History of Science. A former
professor, he is now an independent scholar and Senior Partner of VERI Books, LLC, where he is inves-
tigating the impact of new technologies on higher education and applying cognitive linguistic research
for educational purposes. The cognitive research involves the development of computer aided concept
mapping as a tool for increasing cognitive styles performance among teachers and students. Mr. Tang
is also Senior Research Associate at the Center for Sustainable Infrastructure Systems at the University
of Colorado Denver, where he is conducting interdisciplinary research in systems and holistic thinking
for sustainability engineering.
Marty Tippens, Ed.D., is a professor of mathematics at Woodbury University where he currently

serves as chair of the mathematics department. His most recent research centers on formative assess-
ment and its potential effects on the retention of STEM students. He presented on this subject with col-
leagues from CSUN’s Computer Supported Collaborative Science team at the International Meeting of
The Association for Science Teacher Education in 2014 and at the Association for the Advancement of
Computing in Education in Las Vegas, 2013.
Virginia Vandergon, Ph.D., is a professor of biology at California State University Northridge

(CSUN). She has a dual role in the Department of Biology as a geneticist and as a liaison in science
education. She has published papers pertaining to metabolic pathway evolution in plant genes as well as
publications that highlight the use of technology in science education, and is author of the NGSS-based
California framework for teaching high school biology. Gini collaborates with science educators from
across the university to provide professional development for local science teachers, provides training
for pre-service science teachers, and coordinates afterschool science programs for local middle school
476
students. She is currently the PI for both the San Fernando Valley Science Project and the NSF funded
CSUNoyce Phase II grant.
Kritika Verma received the B.E. degree in Computer Science and Engineering from the RGPV Uni-
versity, Bhopal, India in 2010 and the M.Tech. degree in Computer Technology and Application from
the NITTTR, Bhopal, India in 2013. She has held a lecturing position at ICAI, Bhopal for 1.6 years and
is currently a WET at RIE, Bhopal, India. She has published 6 research papers in reputed international
journals and international conferences in the field of cloud computing. Her research interests include
cloud computing, e-learning and m-learning based on cloud computing.
Alan S. Weber, PhD, teaches humanities, philosophy, and medical ethics at the Weill Cornell Medical
College in Qatar, a satellite campus of Cornell University in the Middle East. He has taught literature,
writing, and the history of science and medicine at The Pennsylvania State University, Elmira College,
and Cornell University. His current research interests include e-learning, e-health, and cloud computing
in education. Some recent publications include: “Typology and credibility of Internet health websites
originating from Gulf Cooperation Council countries,” Eastern Mediterranean Health Journal (2015);
and “Linking education to creating a knowledge society: Qatar’s investment in the education sector,” in
Handbook of Research in Higher Education in the MENA Region: Policy and Practice (2014).
Dongqing “Holly” Yuan is an Associate Professor and Program Director for the Information Tech-
nology Management Program of the University of Wisconsin-Stout. Holly holds a Ph.D. degree in CIS
from Nova Southeastern University. Holly has published many papers in the field of networking and
security in national conferences and journals, and has received several research grants from NSF and
NASA. She is also a speaker in National Computer Application Security Conference. Holly also has
been a Cisco Academy curriculum lead, Cisco lab manager and instructor of Cisco academy classes
for various universities. Holly also holds many industry certifications which include Cisco Certified
Internetwork Expert (CCIE), Cisco Certified Network Professional (CCNP), Cisco Certified Security
Professional (CCSP), Cisco Certified Academy Instructor (CCAI), and Linux+.
477
478
Index
A cloud education environment 107

cloud informatics 256-257
academic achievement 403, 407-410 Cloud Learning 19, 108, 116, 234, 245, 277-279,
academics 96, 252, 257, 292, 309, 343-347, 366, 281, 289, 291-292, 309, 403, 412-413
377, 409 Cloud Learning Environment (CLE) 292, 309
accountability 5, 10, 311-312, 315, 317, 327, 330, CLOUD LEARNING MANAGEMENT (CLM)
338 234, 245
action 126, 136, 140, 219, 221, 413, 423-424, 429 Cloud provider 7, 54, 147, 383, 393-396, 401
Andragogy 15, 30 cloud services 6-7, 14, 20, 34, 37, 39, 44-45, 57-58,
assessment 1, 4, 13, 23, 25, 31-32, 37, 46, 50-51, 80, 107, 141-146, 150-151, 231, 261, 278, 292,
61, 119, 129, 161, 169, 176, 191, 199, 219-220, 357, 377-379, 381-391, 393, 396-397, 401
222, 227-228, 264-265, 267, 291, 310-324, cognitive style 410-414, 419-420
326-327, 330, 332, 334, 338, 355, 357-366, co-inquiry 291, 293-294, 299-300, 302, 305, 307,
368-374, 376, 394-395, 407, 409 309
Asynchronous Communication 350, 356 co-learning 293-294, 299-300, 302, 305, 307, 309
attitude 346, 364 collaboration 16, 19, 21-23, 31, 51-52, 98, 107, 124,
availability 4, 9, 45, 51-52, 60, 70, 73, 94, 97-98, 126, 141, 161, 173-176, 191-192, 195, 203-
132, 153, 155, 160, 163, 194-195, 209, 222, 204, 210, 227, 278-279, 281, 295, 299, 317,
229, 240, 245, 266, 268, 276-278, 281-282, 325, 330-331, 338, 354, 359, 373, 395
284, 288, 311, 345, 373, 378, 386 Community Cloud 30, 279
Availability of the Cloud 276 Community of Inquiry 101, 105
complexity 33, 44, 144, 155, 161, 422-423, 425, 429
B Computer Supported Collaboration 192
Conceptual Change 358, 372, 376
Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) 69, 73, 77, 345,
constructivist education 410, 419
374
context-aware system 124, 126-127, 129, 138, 140
Cost Benefit Analysis (CBA) 395, 401
C Course Management Platform 165, 171
cloud based assessment model 358, 371, 373-374, c-portfolio 31, 34, 36-37
376 cryptography 144, 268, 276, 283
cloud based m-learning 225, 227, 233-236, 238, Cryptovirology 276
241, 243-244 curriculum 22-25, 51, 97, 129, 160, 169, 174, 200,
cloud-based tools 107-108, 118, 120, 291, 295, 307, 218, 256, 315, 347-348, 350
316
Cloud Brokerage 14, 30 D
Cloud communications 409, 419
data analysis 150, 172-175, 177-178, 192-194, 296,
Cloud communication technologies 403, 407-409,
300, 324, 344
412
Data Confidentiality 282, 289, 381, 389
cloud computing security 260, 268, 271, 273, 276
Index
Data Transportability 37, 39 integrity 1, 6-7, 83, 132, 277, 281-282, 284, 289,
decision model 377, 393 378, 390, 392, 406
developing countries 43, 100, 105 interactivity 353, 355-357, 405
Digital Equity 39 Interdisciplinary Sciences 247
directed narrative 218 interoperability 6, 8-10, 14, 38, 40, 45, 80, 91, 106-
111, 113, 115-116, 120, 299
E interpersonal behaviour 343, 356, 360, 373
i-schools 247-249, 251-252, 255, 257-258
educational technology 9, 22, 117, 406-407
Education Cloud 383, 401 J
Education Social Networks 406, 419
e-learning 1, 43-49, 52-54, 64-67, 99, 101, 105, 129- JANET 383-384, 387, 392, 402
130, 137, 141, 143-144, 226-228, 240, 291-292 JSON-LD 106, 110-111, 115-116, 120
emulation 11, 424-425, 429
energy efficiency 84, 88, 91 L
engagement 1, 25, 98, 101, 221, 311, 317, 319-320,
327, 334-335, 338, 346, 351-352, 357-359, latency 53, 84, 89, 91-92
365-366, 368-373, 413, 424 learning environment 16, 18, 22, 42, 64-65, 68, 77,
e-portfolio 31-34, 36-37, 39 108, 110, 118, 123-124, 129, 137, 140, 164,
evaluation 52, 58, 106, 108, 117, 119, 121, 150, 153, 169, 218, 226, 292, 295, 309-310, 317, 323,
155, 176, 194, 293, 377, 381, 383, 387-389, 343, 345-346, 349, 355-366, 368-374, 376
393-396 Learning Hub 425, 429
evaluation methods 377, 393, 395-396 learning orchestration 106, 109-111, 116, 120
learning outcomes 44, 95, 98, 101-102, 162, 203,
F 317, 343, 373-374
Facebook 5, 34, 60, 95-102, 105, 132, 344 M

FERPA 5-6, 10
forecast 424-425, 427, 429 mathematics 1-2, 12, 17, 23, 30, 137, 160, 171, 199-
200, 218-222, 277, 289, 312, 314, 323, 407-408
G media studies 403, 414, 419
metacognition 189-190, 311, 315, 317, 331, 338
Google Apps for Education 6, 10, 33 m-learning 225-229, 231, 233-236, 238-241, 243-
higher education 8, 13, 15-16, 18-20, 23, 25, 31-34, 245
36-37, 42-43, 48, 52-53, 94, 99-100, 102, 106, modelling 134, 218, 221, 224
124, 159-161, 164-165, 168, 170, 251, 279, MOOC 18, 20, 30, 108, 117-119, 121, 164-165, 167,
295, 307-308, 314, 346, 354, 377-378, 380- 171, 201, 203, 421
385, 387-388, 390-391, 396, 401, 404, 406- multimedia 22, 31-32, 81, 94, 97-98, 100, 105, 123,
407, 409 168-169, 220, 227-228, 252, 255, 343, 345,
347, 350-351, 353-355, 357
H
N
HIPAA 5, 10-11
human factors 1, 8, 403, 413, 415, 419, 427 networks 1, 4, 6, 22, 33, 51, 67, 73, 78-80, 84-88,
Human Subjects Research 5, 10 90-92, 95-98, 105, 108, 118, 127, 136, 147,
hybrid cloud 24-25, 30, 68, 147, 249, 258, 265, 279, 150, 157, 226, 231, 254, 257, 260, 263, 277-
385 279, 283, 288, 293, 309, 315, 317, 345, 347,
Hydra 106, 110-111, 113-116, 120 379, 390, 406-407, 413, 419, 425-426
hypervisor 4, 10, 147, 268, 270 Network Time Protocol (NTP) 78
I O
informatics 248-249, 253, 256-258 Object Cognitive Style 411, 420
479
Index
online course 19, 30, 106, 162, 165, 168, 171, 203, situated learning 422
222 Situation Awareness (SA) 421, 429
online learning environment 345, 356, 376 social media 16, 94, 97, 105, 272, 295-296, 344,
open source software 144, 147, 157, 270 403, 410-411
social networking service 95, 105
P software 1, 4, 7, 10-11, 20, 24, 32-34, 39, 44, 46,
48, 50, 54, 56, 58, 60, 65, 67, 80, 94, 98, 105,
pedagogy 12, 15, 21, 30, 101, 116, 172, 175-177, 107, 112, 116, 124, 129-130, 137, 140-142,
191-192, 194-195, 220, 224, 323, 346-347, 144-147, 150-151, 157, 160-161, 164, 171,
357, 360, 374, 405, 413-414, 422 199-200, 202-203, 207-208, 227, 235, 247-
penetration testing 263, 267, 276 250, 252-253, 258, 263-268, 270, 273, 276,
Philippines 95-96, 99-101 279-284, 288-289, 291, 310, 315-316, 320-321,
Platform as a Service (PaaS) 59, 141, 145, 150, 157, 343-346, 348-349, 352-355, 357, 359-360, 362,
279, 379, 401-402 364-366, 369, 371, 374, 378-379, 381, 383,
policy 5, 72, 77, 87, 91, 115, 131, 136, 140, 160, 385, 390-391, 401-402, 405, 408, 410, 412,
205, 260, 272, 385 414-415
Power of Ethernet (POE) 78 Software as a Service (SaaS) 141, 145-146, 157,
PPRA 6, 11 279, 379, 401-402
privacy 1, 5-11, 25, 38, 45, 51, 53, 80, 84, 87-88, software confidentiality 282-283, 289
90-91, 100-102, 130, 132, 260-261, 264-265, spatial cognitive style 410, 412, 420
281-282, 370, 385, 387, 389-391 Specimen Answer 220, 224
private cloud 1, 24-25, 30, 53, 64-65, 68, 77, 142, specimen answers 218, 220-221, 223
145, 147, 200, 203, 258, 265, 279, 378, 382, STEM degree 2, 8, 171
385, 396 student achievement 313, 316, 334, 357, 405
public cloud 14, 20-21, 24-25, 30, 53, 68, 142, 144- Student Artifact 40
145, 147, 151, 161, 201, 203, 258, 278-279, student engagement 98, 317, 319, 334-335, 357-359,
378, 381, 385 366, 370-371, 373
supervision 343-348, 352, 354-356
R synchronous communication 354-356
Resident 98, 105
risks 2, 37, 56-57, 261, 277, 279, 282, 284-285, 377, T
379, 385, 389, 392, 394, 396 teacher-student interpersonal behaviour 343, 360,
373
S technology tools 174, 176
scalability 1, 4, 9, 20-21, 31, 34, 45, 60, 80, 84, 88, The Medium is the Message 408-409, 420
91, 111, 124, 170, 226, 278-280, 386-387 Total Cost of Ownership 199, 264, 267, 276
science education 99, 173-175, 192
scientific investigations 307 U
seamless learning 426 universities 17, 19-22, 33, 37, 43, 51-52, 56, 94,
security 1, 4, 6-11, 14, 25, 37, 45, 51-54, 56-58, 60, 99-102, 144, 146, 159, 161-162, 164-165,
66, 68, 72, 78, 115, 130, 132, 142, 153, 155, 167-169, 194, 198-200, 203, 213, 250-252,
160, 201, 203-204, 209, 211-212, 214, 231, 254, 261, 266, 346, 352, 378, 382-383, 387,
250, 260-273, 276-279, 281-285, 370, 381, 401-402, 406-407, 409
385, 387, 390-392, 396
Semantic Web 106-108, 111, 120, 426 V
Service Level Agreement (SLA) 11, 87, 377, 390-
391 Verbal Cognitive Style 411, 420
Service Oriented Computing (SOC) 140 Virtual Local Area Network (VLAN) 78
Signature Pedagogy 220, 224 virtual machine (VM) 4, 10-11
Simplexity 425, 429 Visitor 98, 105
480
Index
W
Web 2.0 32-33, 40, 60, 106-107, 120, 126, 132, 140,
144, 291-292, 295
Wi-Fi Protected Access (WPA) 78
Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN) 78
481

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Handbook of Research

A volume in the Advances in Educational

British Cataloguing in Publication Data

For electronic access to this publication, please contact: eresources@igi-global.com.

Handbook of Research on Estimation and Control Techniques in E-Learning Systems

Handbook of Research on Applied Learning Theory and Design in Modern Education

Intelligent Design of Interactive Multimedia Listening Software

Utilizing Virtual and Personal Learning Environments for Optimal Learning

Handbook of Research on Individual Differences in Computer-Assisted Language Learning

701 E. Chocolate Ave., Hershey, PA 17033

Al-Bayatti, Ali / De Montfort University, UK..................................................................................... 123

Rizvi, M. A. / NITTTR, India.............................................................................................................. 225

Compilation of References................................................................................................................ 430

About the Contributors..................................................................................................................... 468

Compilation of References................................................................................................................ 430

About the Contributors..................................................................................................................... 468

• Cloud adoption in STEM education

• Open source cloud products used in STEM education

Moving from an existing IT infrastructure to a cloud-based IT infrastructure can be a great challenge

ORGANIZATION OF THE BOOK

Chapter 17 presents a comprehensive overview and a comparative analysis of security methods of

INTRODUCTION In each of these targeted areas, cloud computing

Privacy data on its servers, it may engage in various forms

changes in educational technology are driven more REFERENCES

INTRODUCTION status of the United States, the populace must be

Delivery Model Features Utility Comparison Sample CSP Offerings

Service Model Features Examples

and development of vital skills” (Butler, Forbes, CLOUD COMPUTING TOOLS TO

adapt their distance learning programs to an even Virtual Laboratories

The concept of crowdsourcing is one of the many PEDAGOGY IN THE CLOUD

Since there is a large population of students at- Practical Application: Cloud-

Table 3. Migration to a cloud-centric curriculum

Course and Skills Traditional Curriculum Cloud-Centric Curriculum

Challenges to Educators school’s CTO or Director of IT to ensure that the

REFERENCES Butler, D., Forbes, B., & Johnson, L. (2008). An

Ruterhford-Hemming, T. (2012). Simulation in Stevenson, M., & Hedberg, J. G. (2011). Head in

INTRODUCTION with the information technology on the content

significant amount of user data, or media artifacts, Objectives of Cloud Portfolio

achievements of a teacher. An educator different assessment points and areas for

COMPARISON OF PAPER ISSUES AND CHALLENGES

Table 1. Comparison of paper-portfolio, e-portfolio and c-portfolio

Paper Portfolio E-Portfolio C-Portfolio

Student Artifact Written assignments, photographs, Multimedia capabilities Multimedia capabilities

Nature of Content Static Static Possibility of the revised content

Context Provided by students Provided by students Provided by institution, educators,

Delivery hand-delivered hand-delivered Electronically transmitted anytime

Student Value High—enhanced communication High—enhanced communication High—enhanced communication

Educator Value Moderate—enhanced Moderate—enhanced High —enhanced communication

Institutional Value Low Low Moderate—enhanced

Digital Equity No assurance No assurance Highly Likely

Expense High High Low

Table 2. Barriers to adoption

1. CLOUD BASED collaborations among academic institutions. Cloud

Figure 1. Traditional classroom vs. e-learning

Figure 2. Drivers for cloud adoption in e-learning

Figure 3. Criteria for architectural specifications

4. PROPOSED CLOUD BASED • The infrastructure layer is composed of an

Figure 4. A proposed e-learning cloud architecture

Figure 5. A proposed Infrastructure Layer in an expandable view

Figure 6. Tier connectivity

Figure 7. Connectivity scenario for the institutions in proposed architecture

Figure 8. Challenges for cloud based e-learning system

Security A group of e-learning cloud materials of high

For electronic access to this publication, please contact: eresources@igi-global.com.

P,Q ７ = 0 P Q (v n )P ! P n P  {P } E ? M .P find x : E for P