CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

Background of the Study

Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) have

influenced all sectors of mankind not excluding personal life,

organizational management and education. Their prevalence has resulted in

powerful and transformative products which influence our daily life

(Scheuermann & Pedró, 2009). The developments in ICT has resulted into

varied innovations aimed at improving services and products. ICT has

played an active role in the basic building of our modern society. ICT has

been developing very rapidly therefore, in order to balance it, the whole

educational system should be reformed and ICT should be integrated into

educational activities (Meenaksi, 2013). Mutsaers, Van der Zee, & Giertz

(1998) submit that successful educational institutions are those that have

realized that information and communication technology (ICT) is an

important factor in the teaching-learning processes, this has aided their

competitiveness and is an added advantage against global educational

institutes.

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 Modern technologies have been changing and influencing the world

of education with the strong focus on flexible ways for the learning

communities to access and share the information with the view to produce a

new knowledge that matters both for the community as a whole and for an

individual in particular (Anastasia, Rimma & Kammo, 2015).

Organizations are engaged in innovations which are aimed at delivering

new business solutions to improve effectiveness and efficiency.

Universities have adopted cloud computing as ICT innovations not only to

improve and enhance their service delivery, but also to provide competitive

and strategic advantage (Gülbahar, 2007).

Cloud Computing is defined as “the applications delivered as

services over the Internet; the hardware and systems software in the data

centers that provide those services” (Armbrust et al. 2010). U.S National

Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) defines Cloud computing as

“a model for enabling convenient, on-demand network access to a shared

pool of configurable computing resources that can be rapidly provisioned

and released with minimal management effort or service provider

interaction” (NIST, 2009). According to Voas and Zang (2009), cloud

computing refers to clusters of distributed computers that provide on-

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demand resources and services over the Internet. Thomas (2011) defines

cloud computing as virtualized computers that allow users to begin or stop

the services subscribed to when necessary. Because cloud computing is

involved in applications ranging from Google services (e.g., G-mail,

Google Docs and Google Drive) to Dropbox, the services depend on the

servers provided to users.

Cloud computing is a network of computing resources—located just

about anywhere that can be shared. Thus by implementing cloud computing

technology we can overcome all these shortcomings, and maintain a

centralized system where all the authorities can check the education system

from each and every aspects and continue to monitor and guide the system.

They not only check the needs of the institutions but also ensure that

quality education is provided to every student and also his attendance, class

performances etc. can be effectively maintained without worrying for the

infrastructure issue.

According to Shelly & Campbell (2012), cloud computing is an

Internet service that will provide computing needs to the users. For

instance, an employee working during the day in California could use

computing power in a Paris network system located in an office that is

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closed for the evening. When the company uses the computing resources,

they pay a fee based on the amount of computing time and other resources

that they consume, much in the way that consumers pay utility companies,

such as the electricity they use.

Cloud computing evolved as a new IT paradigm that provides an

agile method to deliver services in smart way (reducing IT cost and

providing computing services on demand). It is a business model that has

inherited the benefit of other technologies such as distributed, pervasive,

ubiquitous, utility computing and virtualization to offer cost-effective and

scalable IT services (Alabbadi, 2011). Research has shown that cloud

computing is one of the fastest growing sectors of the digital economy.

European Governments and industry plan to invest an estimated 45 billion

euros in the development of cloud computing by the year 2020.

According to Horrigan (2008). “For end-users, cloud computing

means that you don’t have to worry about maintaining hardware or

purchase new equipment, obtaining software licenses, upgrading existing

software, data synchronization, etc. because all of these are included in the

“cloud” service. One can say that cloud computing is the new driver of IT

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revolution, in which new IT services are being developed, changing the

ways of access, usage, maintenance and financing services on demand”.

According to Kurelović, Rako, Tomljanović (2013), for IT

professionals cloud computing is an innovative business form and a new

technology platform for developing and deploying applications and for end-

users is a new tendency and cheaper way to use applications. By providing

many applications and services in the cloud to the learners and teachers

which can be used for educational purposes cloud computing allows greater

flexibility and mobility in the use of resources for teaching purposes.

Cloud computing is also proving useful in fields other than business,

and given the exponentially increasing popularity of online learning, it is

important to explore how it can be used to address the challenges faced by

e-learning enterprises and web-based learning environments. With its

rapidly growing rate of use, its implications for education and e-learning

systems continue to spread. It can be applied in these environments to

enhance the efficiency of e-learning and to act as an intermediary

communication system leveraging IT resources for the benefit of an

institution’s consumers (Bora & Ahmed, 2013).

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 The adoption of new technological solution is means of creating

change within organization with an intention to maintain or improve its

level of performance (Damanpour and Schneider, 2006). The adoption of

the Clouds brings multiple changes in IT practices, staff and organizational

capabilities.

With the increasing number in receiving education, a series of new

problems have emerged. For example: As teaching methods change, the

existing teaching-learning methods cannot meet demand; and with the

constant expansion of education, the existing teaching facilities also need to

constantly update. When Cloud Computing appears, it provides a new

solution to establish a unified, open and flexible network teaching platform

and reduce the hardware input (Zhang & Jiao, 2011).

It is perceived that integrating technology in administration is very

valuable asset in the process of office management and therefore it is vital

to adopt cloud technology in education. According to Sife, Lwoga and

Sanga (2007) level of cloud computing adoption in many developing

countries is low due to socioeconomic and technological challenges

including lack of a system approach to learning, awareness and attitudes

towards cloud computing, administrative and technical support, staff

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development, and lack of ownership, inadequate funds, and transforming

higher education.

Success in implementation and adoption of cloud system

innovations in an organization depends on many factors ranging from the

availability of infrastructure, the dependability of the software systems, the

policies guiding and the human factors such as skills, attitude and culture.

Literature in Information systems has identified individual acceptance of

cloud computing as a recurrent issue over decades (Bhattacherjee &

Sanford, 2006). Understanding technology acceptance is vital since the

anticipated benefits of cloud computing usage, such as improved efficiency,

effectiveness, productivity cannot be achieved if individual users do not

accept to use these systems (Kessio et al., 2012; Afarikumah &

Acheamong, 2010).

This study aims to assess the level of awareness of University

Lecturers towards the use of cloud-based tools and services such as

Software as a Service (SaaS), Platform as a Service (PaaS) and

Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) for academic computing purposes. It also

set out to investigates the readiness of University Lecturers towards the

adoption of this tools for their computing endeavors.

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Statement of the Problem

The traditional local computing infrastructure which can simply be

stated as the use of personal computer or desktop application has been in

vogue for a long time and it has to its own capability carried out the

computing requirement of individuals and organization. It has paraded a lot

of glitches which include but not limited to its cost-expensive nature, loss

of valuable data (to the ransomwares, viruses etc.). To reduce technology-

driven overheads, while at the same time improving end-user productivity,

a subscription-based model that provides computing utilities is adopted by

many institutions. According to Lee & Mautz Jr, Computing solutions that

do not involve huge initial capital investments and that have minimal

difficulties in maintaining complex IT infrastructure are being opted for by

a number of organizations. In order for universities to overcome their IT-

related problems, cloud computing is the solution they can implement.

Cloud computing can help students improve communications with

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Lecturers within and outside universities and also aids Lecturers to

minimize cost incurred in computing (Lee & Mautz Jr., 2012).

In addressing the current gap, this study seeks to ascertain the level

of awareness of University Lecturers towards cloud computing resources

for academic purposes and also examine their readiness to use such

resources.

Purpose of the Study

The main purpose of this study was to investigate the awareness and

readiness of University Lecturers towards the use of cloud computing for

academic purposes. In view of the above, the specific objectives of the

study include to;

1. determine the extent of University Lecturers access to cloud-based

computing infrastructure;

2. assess University Lecturers’ awareness of cloud computing

resources for academic purposes;

3. examine the readiness of University Lecturers to adopt cloud

computing resources for academic purposes.

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Research Questions

The following research questions were raised in the study:

1. What is the extent of the accessibility of University Lecturers to

cloud-based computing infrastructure?

2. Is there awareness of cloud computing resources for academic

purposes amongst the University Lecturers?

3. Did University Lecturers express readiness to adopt (and or use)

cloud computing resources for academic purposes?

Research Hypotheses

For the purpose of resolving the research problems and questions

articulated above, the following hypotheses were formulated and to be

tested in the course of study;

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 H01: There is no significant relationship between accessibility to

cloud-based computing infrastructures and awareness of cloud

computing resources for academics.

The Scope of the Study

This study focused on awareness and readiness of the use of

academic cloud computing resources among Lecturers in the University of

Ilorin, Kwara, Nigeria. The study was carried out in geographical location

of Kwara State. The research method adopted for this study is descriptive

research method of descriptive survey type. The sample covered a

population of 100 Lecturers in University of Ilorin, the sample collected

within the University.

Clarification of Major Terms and Variables

Awareness: the state or level of consciousness where the data can be

confirmed by an observer.

Readiness: refers to willingness or a state of being prepared for something.

(Cambridge Dictionary, 2018)

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Lecturer: Someone who teaches at a college or University. A person who

gives lectures, especially as an occupation at a University or college of

higher education. (Cambridge Dictionary, 2018)

Computing: is the process of utilizing computer technology to complete a

task. Computing may involve computer hardware and or software but must

involve some form of a computer system. (Business Dictionary, 2018)

Cloud: a network of remote server hosted on the internet and used to store,

manage, and process data in place of local server and personal computers.

Technology: the application of scientific knowledge for practical purposes,

especially in industry. It also refers to methods, systems, and the devices

which are the result of scientific knowledge being used for practical

purposes (Collins Dictionary, 2018).

Techno-Centric: refers to centering on the use of technology; emphasizing

and promoting the value of technology (Oxford Living dictionary, 2018).

Ubiquitous: ubiquitous refers to seeming to be everywhere. (Cambridge

Dictionary, 2018)

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The significance of the study

The results from this study will contribute to body of existing

knowledge regarding the adoption of cloud computing resources for

academic purposes in Nigerian universities by empirically ascertaining the

level of awareness and readiness to use these resources. The study could

also be of great help to Lecturers, students, school administrator,

policymaker and also for the future researchers. The current generations of

individuals in the Universities are digital natives who have been raised in a

techno-centric world where technologies play important roles in human life

and where new innovations are quickly assimilated. The inception of new

technologies and the use of cloud computing resources in academics are of

great benefit to the society as it incorporates digital technology into the

educational background in which it increases the quality and educational

system of education. It also presents an opportunity to enhance learning as

to create environments where students and teachers can share knowledge

together. Therefore, there is a need for Lecturers to develop a positive

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attitude to adopting cloud computing resources for Education. The result of

this study could find appropriate method in changing the view of University

Lecturers on cloud computing and also develop the right thinking toward

the utilization of its resources.

Findings from this study could eventually be a source of reference

for all stakeholders in the area of educational processes and products for

planning befitting educational programmes for our nation in the nearest

future. The study may provide researchers in all areas of study with the

opportunity to access empirical evidence in their quest and also serve as

reference point for future research.

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 CHAPTER TWO

REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE

The chapter present focused on the review of related literature to this

study, the review is done under the under the following sub-headings;

I. Introduction

II. Overview of Cloud Computing

III. Characteristics of Cloud Computing

IV. Cloud Computing Layers

V. Cloud Computing Deployment Models

VI. Cloud Computing in Education

VII. Cloud Computing Services in Education

VIII. Benefits and Drawbacks of Cloud Computing in Education System

IX. Appraisal of reviewed literature

Introduction

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 Cloud computing is undoubtedly a technology that has come to stay as

several organizations, governments, and individuals are encouraged to key into

this emerging smart technology. However, it is worthy of note that this

technology is built upon already existing technologies. The figure below

illustrates the evolutional technological trend of cloud computing (NIST, 2011).

Fig 2.1: Six computing paradigm (Voas and Zhang, 2009).

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Overview of Cloud Computing

The term “cloud” is analogical to “internet”. Several definitions have been given

on cloud computing by different authors. The vaguest definition of cloud

computing is the one given by Landis, et al (2011) that defines it as “computing

on the Internet, as opposed to computing on a desktop”. This definition succeeds

only on recognizing the dependency of cloud computing on the Internet.

Accenture (2011) defines cloud computing as “the dynamic provisioning of IT

capabilities (hardware, software, or services) from third parties over a network”.

This definition acknowledges the on demand, at scale and multitenant nature of

cloud computing. Furthermore, Gartner (2009) defines cloud computing as “the

style of computing in which scalable and elastic IT-enabled capabilities are

delivered as a service to external customers using internet technologies”. This is a

good attempt. However, the most generally accepted definition comes from

United States National Institute for Standard and Technology (NIST) which

defines cloud computing as “a model for enabling 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

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provisioned and released with minimal management effort or service provider

interaction”. Of all these definitions, one affirmed fact by most of the authors is

that cloud computing is an internet-based on-demand service built on the concept

of resource sharing.

Cloud computing is a type of Internet-based computing that provides

shared computer processing resources and data to computers and other devices on

demand. It is a model for enabling ubiquitous, on-demand access to a shared pool

of configurable computing resources (e.g., computer networks, servers, storage,

applications and services), which can be rapidly provisioned and released with

minimal management effort. Cloud computing and storage solutions provide users

and enterprises with various capabilities to store and process their data in either

privately owned, or third-party data centers that may be located far from the user–

ranging in distance from across a city to across the world. Cloud computing relies

on sharing of resources to achieve coherence and economy of scale, similar to a

utility (like the electricity grid) over an electricity network. In other words, Cloud

Computing is a process of delivering/enabling scalable, expandable and almost

perfectly elastic software services using internet technologies.

For everyday users of the internet and computers, cloud computing is any

online activity, which can be done from different devices regardless of the on-

ramp to the Internet, as depicted in Fig 2.2 below. In this vision, the data or

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software application are not stored on the User’s computer, but rather are

accessed through the web from any device at any location a person can web

access (Horrigan, 2008).

Fig 2.2; Representation of cloud computing

(Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloud_computing)

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Characteristics of Cloud Computing

There are outstanding characteristics of Cloud Computing that distinguishes it

from other Computing paradigms; here are five characteristics as stated by

National Institute of Standards and Terminology (NIST):

 On-demand self-service: Cloud services are requested for as at when

needed and its setting up needs little or no human intervention as it is

automated and easy to call upon by the cloud customers. A cloud service

here is defined as consumer and business products, services and solutions

that are delivered and consumed in real-time over the Internet.

 Broad network access: Cloud Computing keys into the vision for global

computing as capabilities are transmitted over the internet and can be

accessed from various standardized platforms such mobile phones,

laptops etc.

 Resource pooling: The cloud model has a multi-tenancy model such that

many clients are serviced simultaneously this enables the provider’s

computing resources to be combined together in order to meet the clients’

requests. Examples of such resources are virtual machines, storage and

memory.

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  Rapid elasticity: The Cloud is elastic which means that resources

allocated can get bigger or smaller depending on demand. Elasticity of

the resources provided via cloud is rapid as it is built on the utility model

whereby consumers only pay for resources used up and the resources

appear to be unlimited as the consumers can easily scale up or down as

their computing need differs.

 Measured Service: Based on the utility computing model, cloud service

has metering capability at different level of abstraction according to the

type of service e.g. storage, number of machines, processing, and

bandwidth. These resources are supervised, controlled, and reported

which promotes accountability for both the provider and consumer of the

service. This implies that just like air time, electricity or municipality

water, IT services are charged per usage metrics, the concept: pay per use.

Other characteristics features of cloud computing according to Erenben, (2009)

includes;

1. Optimal Server utilization: Cloud computing ensures that servers are

optimally utilized.

2. Dynamic Scalability: Cloud computing is a source of an additional

processing buffer with no extra capital investment by the users.

3. Disaster Recovery: This is one of the core feature associated with cloud

computing. It mitigates the need of comprehensive disaster recovery plans

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 for the information technology infrastructure. It ensures faster recovery

and information is available in multiple sites hence making it more

efficient and effective.

4. Virtualization technology: Virtualization is considered to be the most

essential cloud computing feature. This means that the computing

elements are not real, rather, they are of a virtual nature. It is possible for

the virtualization technology to expand the hardware capacity thus

simplifying the reconfiguration process of the software. The virtualization

technology ensures that the platform can run several operating systems,

with each application running independently as a result of the single-CPU

simulation of multi parallel CPUs.

Cloud Computing Layers

It is important to understand the different services offered by cloud

computing in a bid to understand cloud computing as a new approach to IT.

Discussed below are the various service offered through cloud computing.

 Software as a Service (SaaS)

Software as a Service (SaaS) is the uppermost layer which features a

complete application offered as service on demand (Jensen et al, 2009). In the

SaaS layer, the Cloud service provider hosts the software upon their servers. It

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 can be defined as a model in which applications and software are hosted upon the

server and made accessible to customers over a network. Software as a Service

(SaaS) is focused on renting out applications to users that use it over a subscripted

time. The application is not owned by the user; it is owned by the provider that

makes the user pay for the amount of time they want to use it. The user is not

responsible for the maintenance of the application.

According to Mell & Grance (2009), SaaS is the renting of both

infrastructure and applications which are totally managed by the provider through

a web client, for example a web based e-mail. The entire infrastructure is situated

in datacenters. The only configuration that can be done by users is the settings for

the application they rent (Onugu, 2005). SaaS ensures that clients are able to

utilize the various providers’ applications that run on the cloud infrastructure, but

are not in a position to control its hardware, network infrastructure or the

operating system. SaaS is associated with various benefits including security,

rapid scalability, software compatibility, global accessibility, as well as reliability.

 Platform as a Service (PaaS)

Platform as a Service (PaaS) layer is the middle layer, which offers

platform-oriented services, besides providing the environment for hosting user’s

applications. The service provider rents dedicated resources to the client. Platform

as a service (PaaS) is very similar to SaaS; it focuses on the rental of

23
infrastructure so the user gets a platform to build their own applications with

programming tools provided by the provider. The services include servers,

operating systems or storage space and the help with building an application.

Cloud security alliance (2009) argues that main difference between SaaS

and PaaS is that SaaS gives you little space to build something of your own

while PaaS gives room for maintaining the application on your own terms (p. 24).

This model offers some control to the deployed applications but not to the

Cloud infrastructure (Mell & Grance, 2009). PaaS enables the customer to hire

virtual servers, as well as other services required to operate the applications that

exist. Further, it ensures that the client design, develop, test, deploy and host

applications. Clients can deploy and control applications e.g. the configurations of

the hosting environment, but they are not in a position to control the hardware,

operating system, as well as the network infrastructure. Some of its characteristics

include lack of software upgrades, reduced risk, and simplified deployment.

 Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS)

Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) delivers basic storage and computing

capabilities as standardized services over the network. Servers, storage systems,

switches, routers, and other systems are combined and made available to handle

workloads that range from application components to high-performance

computing applications. The IaaS layer is the lowest layer that offers storage and

24
infrastructure resources that is needed to deliver the Cloud services. It comprises

only of the infrastructure or physical resource.

Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) takes it one step further than SaaS and

PaaS. IaaS is when providers are handling only the infrastructure for a user and

the user can run and develop software within the hired cloud infrastructure which

is situated in a datacenter often. IaaS have providers only maintaining the

infrastructure and could also be referred to as Hardware as a Service (HaaS).

Customers using IaaS have a limited control over the actual infrastructure, as their

usage is based on pay-per-use only (Dhar, 2012). IaaS is responsible for various

aspects including running the application and operating systems, housing,

maintaining and operating the various equipment on behalf of the client.

However, IaaS cannot manage the underling cloud infrastructure. Payment by

consumers is based on utility computing basis. Some of the characteristics

associated with IaaS include dynamic scaling, internet connectivity,

administrative tasks that are automated, platform virtualization, as well as lower

total ownership costs leading to lower capital.

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Cloud Computing Deployment Models

Cloud deployment models are classified into four types; public, private,

hybrid and community. These four cloud deployment models are discussed

below.

 Public cloud: Public cloud consists of resources that are shared among

cloud subscribers and the shared resources are accessible over the Internet

(Caroll et al, 2011). Public cloud services are largely provided to the

public by cloud service-providers (Junck & Rahman, 2011). This type of

cloud services is open for public use, meaning any person that has access

to the Internet is a potential user (Wooldridge, 2012). In this type of cloud

hosting, the cloud services are provided through a network that is

accessible by the public. This model is perceived to be the ideal

illustration of cloud hosting. In this type of hosting the provider offers

infrastructure and services to a wide range of clients. Examples of public

cloud are Google Apps, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Salesforce, etc.

 Private cloud: This is also regarded as an internal cloud. The

environment on which the cloud computing platform lies is protected by a

firewall that is monitored by the information technology department

which belongs to the particular organization and can only be used by the

26
 authorized clients only. Enterprises can have their internal cloud and

manage it themselves or get a third party to manage it (Caroll et al, 2011).

Private clouds are largely designed and deployed within the enterprise to

be used by internal users only (Ramgovind et al, 2010).

 Hybrid cloud: Hybrid cloud consists of elements of public and private

cloud (Conway & Curry, 2012). NIST (2011) define hybrid cloud as “a

composition of two or more distinct cloud infrastructures (private,

community, or public) that remain unique entities, but are bound together

by standardized or proprietary technology that enables data and

application portability (e.g., cloud bursting for load balancing between

clouds)”. The main advantage of hybrid is the setup is concerns with

security. It allows businesses to partition their cloud operations into any

combination of public and private that they find necessary. The more data-

sensitive operations can be placed in the private cloud, and the less

sensitive in the public.

 Community Cloud: This denotes a cloud hosting that is mutual and is

shared among many organizations of a specific community including

trading firms, banks, or gas stations among others. The group of users

must have computing apprehensions that are similar. Community

resources such as hardware and network resources are shared among

community members (Wenhao, 2010). Community cloud is formed by

27
 organisations and institutions that typical shares the same set of values,

such as shared mission and goals, security requirements, policies and

compliance (Junck & Rahman, 2011).

Cloud Computing in Education

According to Sultan (2010), the potential of cloud computing for

improving efficiency, cost and convenience for the educational sector is being

recognized by a number of educational establishments across the globe. For some

universities, the availability of awesome computing power through cloud

computing for research and academic purposes was welcomed. Many educational

institutions have begun their movement to cloud computing by outsourcing their

student email provision. Educational institutions are also beginning to use lower

level cloud computing services such as data storage. This may be attractive where

data security is of lower concern such as where audio and video is provided as an

open educational resources. Universities and colleges constantly seek to upgrade

their IT hardware and software as a way of attracting students and keeping up

with the rapidly changing technological environment. Cloud computing can

enable such institutions to accomplish such objectives at an affordable cost.

Moreover, by shifting the responsibility of maintaining and managing hardware

and software to external providers ought to minimize costs because of the reduced

IT labor costs (Sultan, 2010).

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 Another academic use of cloud computing which is beginning to emerge

in education is for the hosting of institutional learning management systems

(LMSs) in the cloud (UNESCO, 2010). Outsourcing the provision of LMSs to

third party makes sense for institution who cannot justify the cost of purchasing,

maintaining and supporting the hardware and software themselves. This approach

will also safe Lecturers from having to wait for the University institution to

provide IT support before utilizing IT resources since they will be able to

accomplish with minimum or no cost on their part.

In today’s world, e-learning has been adopted at different education levels

including trainings for firms, lifelong learning, as well as in academic units. There

are two main entities of the e-learning system including trainers and students. The

students get to access exams, courses, and can relay their assignments online,

whereas the trainers can relay tests manage courses and evaluate homework and

assignments for the students and the two parties can communicate with one

another (Dong et al, 2009). It is not possible for the e-learning solutions to ignore

the current trends associated with cloud computing. Using cloud (SaaS)

applications, it is possible for both teachers and students to access their individual

data using a web browser from a computer or mobile phone at school, home,

library or from any other place, hence ensuring efficient collaboration,

communication and exchange of shared documents, notes, as w ell as contacts

among other data. By using cloud applications, it means that teachers and students

29
can be mobile and at the same time achieve their learning objectives by using

portable laptops, and other devices that are interconnected.

With applications in the cloud (SaaS), students and Lecturers can flexibly

access their data via a web browser from a computer at home, school, library,

student room or some other place, and achieve rapid and efficient communication,

collaboration, exchange or share documents, contacts, notes, audio/video and

other data. With their use, students can operate in a Cloud Based Learning

Environment (Al-Zoube, 2009). The first idea that comes to mind when assessing

such a cloud space for learning, would be the creative potentials that could be

nurtured i.e. the endless ideas, thoughts and knowledge that could be shared,

created and inspired (Kop & Caroll, 2011).

In Nigeria, Wyse technology, a cloud provider, offers its services to

Electronic Test Company (eTC) in the conduct of examinations in Nigeria. The

services of eTC are transforming the way examinations are conducted in Nigeria.

eTC has built several centres across the nation’s universities with plans to extend

it to other examinations like WAEC, etc. With this development, testing will be

fast and reliable devoid of inherent fraud that characterized the traditional paper-

based examinations which is time consuming when it comes to marking, scoring

and computation of the results. (Wyse, 2011).

According to Youry & Volodymyr (2010), The role of cloud computing in

University education should not be underestimated, as it can provide important

30
gains in offering direct access to a wide range of different academic resources,

research applications and educational tools. Educational cloud computing services

represent a growing variety of useful services available on the internet, and the

most innovative and rapidly developing element of technology and education. It

also promises to provide multiple services that will be very useful to the students,

faculty and staff.

Cloud Computing Services in Education

cloud computing services in education are listed below;

A) Amazon Cloud Services in Education: Amazon Web

B) Microsoft Education Cloud Computing

C) Google Applications for Educational Cloud Computing

D) IBM Cloud Services to Education

E) Salesforce.com Cloud Computing in Education

F) HP Cloud Computing in Education

G) AMANDA and ZMANDA Cloud Computing for Education

 Amazon Cloud Services in Education: Amazon Web

These services represent the most extensive cloud service to date that

provides resizable compute capacity in the cloud. It is designed to make web

31
 scale computing easier for developers (Vouk, 2008). Amazon offers many

cloud services, including:

 Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2): A web service

that offers virtual machine and extra CPU cycles for the

institutional organization.

 Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3): Allows the

students, faculty and researchers to store items with a limited size

in Amazon’s Virtual storage.

 Amazon Simple Queue Service (SQS): Offers different kinds of

messages passing API, so that educators can talk to each other.

 Amazon SimpleDB: A web service for running queries on a

structured data set in the cloud in real time.

 Amazon Virtual Computing Laboratory (Amazon VCL): A free

source implementation of a secure production level on-demand

utility computing for accessing a wide-area of computational

resources, storage and software.

 Microsoft Education Cloud Computing

The Microsoft software and services strategy are about the power of choice

a hybrid model of resources that enables the students and researcher to

transfer to the cloud. It also lets the researchers to arise workloads across the

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infrastructures and complement their actual IT assets with Web-based

services. Microsoft cloud services give students and researchers the ability

to make full use of the same Microsoft technologies in the educational

institution (Justin et al, 2009). Additionally, all services offer greater

financial flexibility to educational institutions and enable lower costs to

develop, scale, operate and migrate the systems that are distributed between

the cloud and the data center. Microsoft Live@edu can serve a range of

needs as shown below.

Fig 2.3: Microsoft Live@edu

Features of Microsoft Live@edu

 Microsoft Live@edu is usable through popular web browsers for

various types of operating systems.

33
  It is available at no cost, and it helps IT departments reduce the

costs for IT infrastructure, such as maintenance.

 Minimize time spent maintaining e-mail systems and on strategic

initiatives.

 Provide flexibility and collaboration with peers and faculty.

 Reduce the time evaluating risk and help make informed decisions

about the use of educational cloud computing.

 Improve high student expectations, including anywhere access to

the latest technology.

 Free on demand resources.

 Test and deploy large-scales applications in different environment,

 Create applications that can be shared by many students

simultaneously (Toby et al, 2009).

Azure Services Platform

The solution of Microsoft’s cloud computing is also called Windows

Azure, an operating system that allows the universities and colleges to run

operating system applications and stores data by Microsoft server.

Furthermore, the Azure Services Platform (ASP), includes services that allow

the faculty, students and researchers to establish user identities, manage work

flows, execute other functions such as Microsoft’s online computing platform

34
 as shown in the figure above (Herrick, 2009). ASP consists of different keys

illustrated in the figure below;

Fig 2.4: Key component of ASP

 Google Applications for Educational Cloud Computing

Google App Education (GAE) as a new generation of cloud computing-based

Web application development platform, enables its users such as the faculty,

researchers and students and so on, to operate Web applications within the

Google Infrastructure. GAE is available at no cost to institutions, universities and

education community (Elumalai & Ramachandran, 2011). The teachers, students,

and staff can share ideas more rapidly and get things done more adequately they

have got an efficient communication and sharing tools. Google Apps Education

Edition lets technical administrators provide a collection of Web-based messaging

35
tools such as Google Mail, Google Talk, Google Sites, Google Video and Google

Calendar to the faculty, students and staff for free in addition to productivity and

collaboration tools such as Google Docs Package (Sultan, 2010).

Fig 2.5: GAE Services

1) Google Applications for Educational Cloud Computing: GAE

provides a range of online tools and services that give secure

communication and collaboration capabilities to the institutional schools

and let the faculty, researchers and students choose the solutions that suit

their unique needs.

36
2) Google Calendar: Google Calendar is a published, shared, integrated and

accessible calendar for scheduling courses. Moreover, the faculty,

researchers and students can use the Google calendar to manage their

business and organize their work groups.

3) Google Sites: Google Calendar enables the faculty, researchers and

students to build, create and publish information with Google tools.

4) Google Video: Google Video allows the faculty, researchers and students

to share information using secure and private video tools.

5) Google Talk: Google Talk is an Instant Messaging (IM) tool of Google.

Colleagues can communicate remotely with limited conservation by IM.

6) Google Mail: Google Mail uses labels and filters to help students, faculty

and researchers organize their email, manage the flow of incoming

messages and get mail from other email accounts in their Gmail inbox in

addition to sending messages from different addresses.

7) Google Docs: It is considered the main task tool of the course, because it

allows participants to collaborate synchronously in the same document

37
 IBM Cloud Services to Education

IBM offers a new set of cloud services to deliver programs, computer lab

contents and services to the faculty, students and researchers at schools,

colleges and universities, without the need for advanced IT expertise at

those locations. The IBM SmartCloud for Education is a set of cloud

services and offerings designed to help education systems leverage

predictive analytic to get real-time insights on educators and institutional

performance, enhance researcher effectiveness, and alleviate constrained lab

resources for learning (IBM cloud Academy, n.d.). By using the IBM

SmartCloud for Education services, schools and higher education

institutions can address the significant challenges they face: student

achievement, graduation rates, scholarship funding, and demands for IT

resources for research, so that educators can also benefit from self-service

reservation of, and seamless access to virtual computer resources both on

campus and on the IBM public cloud as show in Figure below (IBM cloud

Academy, n.d.).

Fig 2.6: IBM Cloud Computing Components for Education shown

below

38
Classroom labs and
mobile access built Faculty, Students and
around virtual
desktop
Virtualized Desktop Services
Virtualized computer
resources of legacy
desktop applications
Open source
eLearning and
ePortfolios
Virtualized Cloud
services centrally
supports & distributed
IBM hosted delivery
Open
Education
Researchers Thin Clients and
Mobile Device for
accessing the services
Business Analytics
provides insights on
student performance
Information on
Demand
Integrated Portal
provides consolidated
On Demand Workplace acc3ss to applications
and contents
Broadband
Infrastructure
Administrative Services
provide for
management of
resources and assets to
supports learning
Legacy
Public Network Services
Desktop
Cloud Provide high speed
connectivity between
thin clients and servers
IBM
39 Web Services from IBM
and others for
collaboration and
productivity
 IBM Cloud Computing Services in Education:

Educational institutions, universities and schools face constant demands

from the students, staff, faculty and researchers for stable, quick and

security rich access to labs and computing resources. However, setting up

and maintaining the IT environment for this purpose can affect several

challenges such as high costs and lack of scalability to perform fluctuating

demand and quality of service challenges despite budget constraints. Cloud

computing can assist in addressing these challenges and provide cost-

effective access to the resources required to meet the needs (CJB & Evans,

2010). IBM Virtual Computing Lab (VCL) Solutions for Cloud, part of the

IBM Smart Cloud for Education, can support open/free source software and

a technical infrastructure that serve the needs of educational institutions.

IBM’s solutions for VCL includes:

 Ready-to-use communication and collaboration tools that connect the

students, faculty and administrative staff for learning outside the campus

 IBM Tivoli Provisioning Manager to manage images and provisioning with

VCL

 IBM Global Business Services (GBS) VCL fast and secure Services to assist

plan, implement and support emigration to a VCL-based cloud

40
  IBM Smart Cloud services and resources for VCL private cloud users are

available.

 Salesforce.com Cloud Computing in Education

Salesforce is a trusted leader in cloud computing and customer

relationship management, as well as a respected pioneer in the educational

institutes. As part of these philanthropic efforts, the Salesforce.com

Foundation makes its products available at the educational institutes at a

big discount. Salesforce is being used by higher institutions of all sizes and

across all sectors to:

 Work more efficiently

 Deepen engagement with constituents

 Measure and share impact and success

 Work more collaboratively

 Deliver programs and services in innovative new ways.

Higher education institutions are using the Salesforce.com cloud

computing platform for its instant scalability, ease of configuration, and

support for multiple functional roles.

Key Features of the Salesforce.com Cloud Computing in Education

41
 The salesforce.com can help the students, researchers and faculty

manage their tasks more efficiently to provide different features as shown

in figure below (Salesforce.com foundation). The key features of the

salesforce.com in education are:

 App. Development

 Team Collaboration

 Real Time Analysis

 Mobile Applications

 Recruitment and Marketing

 Advancement

 Student Record Management

 Student Tracking.

42
Fig 2.7: Salesforce.com cloud computing in education

43
 HP Cloud Computing in Education

With integrated support and service tools, HP gets the students, faculty and

researchers to the cloud and ensures they get the most from the cloud once the

educators are there. Services from HP can transform the IT infrastructure and

optimize several clouds. HP Cloud computing in education is a way to build,

operate, and consume IT that makes educational resources such as the student

records, knowledge management, faculty collaboration and etc. available on

demand. HP Cloud Computing delivers a comprehensive, integrated cloud

solution on one platform, with all the services so prized by service providers in

the institutions, and IT professionals (Hewlett-Packard Development Company,

2011).

1) HP Cloud Computing in Education: HP Cloud Computing Curriculum

and HP Cloud System courses from HP Education Services help the

educators address their cloud needs. With award winning on-line or face-

to-face courses from HP Education Services, the students, faculty and

researchers can combine mission critical computing with HP &

heterogeneous management of their existing environment with HP

Software. The characteristics of a cloud system in HP are as following:

 True Integration

 Complete management and automation

 Security

44
  Scalability.

2) Cloud Map of HP Education for Cloud Computing: HP Cloud System

is the product of HP’s experience in delivering application management,

and Converged Infrastructure capabilities. It enables the educational

institutions to build and manage cloud services across private, public

clouds, and traditional IT environments without having to know about HP

Cloud System’s infrastructure. The core of HP Cloud in education is

illustrated in figure below (Hewlett-Packard Development Company,

2011).

Fig 2.8: The Core Cloud System in HP

45
 AMANDA and ZMANDA Cloud Computing for Education

Amanda Enterprise was built to address these challenges providing a backup

and added functionality that support fast installation, simplified

management, enterprise-class functionality, and low-cost subscription fees.

As an open source backup and archiving software, Amanda Enterprise only

uses standard formats and tools, thus effectively freeing the students from

being locked into a vendor to retrieve the data (Kumar, Kommareddy &

Rani, 2013). Zmanda Cloud Computing is a radically simple-touse and cost-

effective backup and disaster recovery solution. Backup and recovery

solutions have been focused to several products such as Amanda Enterprise,

Zmanda Recovery Manager for MySQL and Zmanda Internet Backup to the

educational organizations (Kumar et al, 2013).

BENEFITS AND DRAWBACKS OF CLOUD COMPUTING IN

EDUCATION SYSTEM

 Benefits of Cloud Computing in Education System

 No more carrying around devices, such as thumb drives or CDs.

You don’t need to worry about losing the device, breaking the CD,

or not having your information load properly.

46
 Easy access! Lesson plans, labs, grades, notes, PowerPoint slides

– just about anything digital that you use in teaching is easily

uploaded and accessed anytime.

 Stability: cloud computing is now to the point of being a very

stable technology that you can rely on.

 Security: Your data, content, information, images – anything you

store in the cloud usually requires authentication (ID and

password, for example) – so it is not easily accessible by anyone.

In addition, should something happen to the technology at school,

your content will still be available to you and your students if it is

stored elsewhere.

 Shareability: Working on an instructional assignment with other

teachers/Lecturers? You can share some or all of your files that

you have stored in the cloud. No more obtaining an extra thumb

drive or burning another CD or DVD. You just need to send a link

to the file(s) destination.

 Trackability: Make changes to a lesson and want to change it

back? No problem. Cloud computing will save multiple revisions

and versions of a document so that you can chronologically trace

back the evolution of an item.

47
 Minimal training on the personnel: Fewer people are required to

perform more tasks on cloud. The level of skill regarding software

and hardware issues is also minimal, hence easy to deploy and

develop.

 Cost saving: The costs of installing IT infrastructure are always

high and are considered to be capital expense. Through resource

pooling, these costs are averted in cloud computing. Optimal use

of software and hardware is achieved through resource pooling,

hence increasing the efficiency and effectiveness of the available

resources

 Green Computing: Harmful emission due to extensive use of the

systems, electronic waste generated as time passes and energy

consumption is the one of the main disadvantage of the present day

computing. By using some extent cloud computing services,

harmful emissions due to extensive use of systems in the

organization will be reduced. This leads to environment preserving

and also e-waste is generated to minimum extent.

 Disaster management: An offside is always helpful, in case of

disasters, keeping critical data backup using cloud storage services

is the need of the hour for most of the organizations. Cloud storage

service also not only keep the user data off site, but they also

48
 ensure that they have systems in place for disaster. (Jadeja &

Modi, 2012)

 Drawbacks of Cloud Computing in Education System

 Cloud computing depends on the availability of high speed

internet access and reliability of the cloud. Without it academia

(i.e. Lecturers, students, etc.) cannot access their files or

applications.

 If proper authentication is not available then anyone will have

access to files anywhere, anytime, this is the security concern

which must be handled.

 The cloud services run on remote servers which make it hard for

subscribers to have control over software and hardware. The

services at times do not run the way it should. This could be tagged

flexibility issues of cloud computing.

 At times the bandwidth is low as many users are accessing cloud at

the same time which causes its bandwidth to go down. With less

speed, the benefits of cloud computing cannot be realized.

 Cloud Service Failure: Insufficiency of financing and immature

markets could guide some cloud providers out of business and any

loss or deterioration of service delivery performance, as well as a

loss of investment, make the universities and schools to the risk of

49
 having to perform their own duties and obligations, thus being

exposed to contractual or legal liability to their employees, third

parties, the students or even the public.

 Compliance Regulations: Due to the increasing number of

regulations and need for operational transparency, the educational

institutions are increasingly adopting consolidated and consistent

sets of compliance controls.

 Data Privacy: The multi-tenancy, reuse of hardware and software

profiles, and resiliency due to the redundant nature of cloud means

a greater risk of incomplete or unlock deletion or denial of service

attacks on institutions’ confidential data.

 Assurance to Service Provider: This proposes a dependency on a

particular cloud service provider for service preparation, especially

when data portability is not supported.

50
Appraisal of reviewed literature

This chapter has been devoted to review the relevant literature related to the

issue of awareness and readiness of the use of cloud based academic computing

among Lecturers in higher institution. In the literature review there are many

definitions of cloud computing being the core component, it was broadly defined

according to the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), cloud

computing is a model for enabling 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. A major characteristic

of cloud computing is its ability to be accessed anywhere there is a reliable

Internet connection. The ability to promote on-demand self service allows a

consumer to have computing capabilities without the need of human interaction

with a service's provider. This provides the user the flexibility to access data in

real time without having to wait for the service to "boot up" (Mell & Grance,

2009 cited in Irshad & Gapar, 2017). Cloud is made up of hundreds or even

thousands of computers linked together and can be accessed via the internet.

51
 The different layers of service of cloud computing are also pinpointed.

According to Awosan (2016), Infrastructure as a Services (IaaS), is the bottom

layer and is basically what software applications run and where data is stored.

This service provides available storage, servers, networking, management and

support components for organizations, on demand, making use of virtual servers.

These servers and storage are accessed through the internet, thereby allowing

users to move their data to cloud and dissolve in house data centers. With the

Platform as a Service (PaaS) layer, the layer serves as the middle layer between

SaaS and IaaS, it consists of the operating systems and application development

platform which can be accessed and utilized through the internet. Developers use

this platform to develop, test and deploy and host web application as a service

via the internet (Awosan 2016). In a simple form, PaaS allows supplies more

than just infrastructure but an integrated set of software with all the stuff needed

to build application at every stage of its development. The Software as a Service

(SaaS) is the top-most and easiest layer of cloud computing, this is because this

layers involves applications such as word processors, video editors and databases

to be hosted by cloud service provider and is made readily available to the users

on demand as pay as you go (Awosan, 2016). The above emphasizes that cloud

services offer varying degree of control where educators can decide how they

want to use its space and what sort of services they need. Cloud services can also

be implemented in various ranging from “public cloud” where there won’t be

52
access restriction to the public, this can be used in schools to share information

that are not confidential or “private cloud” which is perfect for individual users.

It also provides “hybrid cloud” which incorporate public cloud and the private

cloud as well as their characteristics. There is also the community cloud which

can shared amongst groups which has similar needs e.g. different universities

might use the same community cloud to share information amongst one another.

The contributions of the major IT providers towards the promotion of cloud

services in education are also highlighted in the literature reviewed. Finally,

several potential values of Cloud Computing for education to buttressed those in

the literature reviewed as stressed by Shimba (2017) to include creating

economies of scale by waiving upfront cost for infrastructure acquisition hence

leads to cost savings. It allows enterprises such as those in educations to scale

down and give more focus to the core business areas and activities of education as

information system and technology had been taken care of by the cloud vendors.

This model of computing environment is very much suitable for

universities, which do not have the enough resources in terms of money, time and

expertise. It also means students can create a repository of information that stays

with them and keeps growing as long as he wants them. According to Achmad

(2016), other benefits of cloud computing to institution and students include,

personalized learning i.e. cloud computing affords opportunities for greater

student choice in learning, Accessibility i.e. availability of service being the most

53
important and desired quality by users using education cloud, 24/7 availability of

the system without failure from anywhere is an obvious benefit of the cloud.

Improved administrative efficiency of schools and universities is another well

desired benefit of the cloud to education, colleges and the administrative staff can

focus on the core functions of the institution instead of futile efforts on IT

infrastructure and the applications set-up. Allow students to work from multiple

Places (home, work, library ... etc.), find their files and edit them through the

cloud and browser-based applications can also be accessed through various

devices (mobile, laptop and desk top computers), provided internet access is

available (Al-Zoube, El-Seoud & Wyne, 2010 cited in Omotunde & Omotunde,

2016). Improved improbability: it is almost impossible for any interested person

(thief) to determine where is located the machine that stores some wanted data

(tests, exam questions, results) or to find out which is the physical component he

needs to steal in order to get a digital asset (Pocalitu, Alecu & Vetrici, 2010 cited

in Omotunde & Omotunde, 2016). The risk though limited has also been

highlighted in the literature review.

54
 CHAPTER THREE

METHODOLOGY

This chapter presented the method and procedures adopted to gather

and analyze the data that was collected in this study. It was presented under

the following subheadings: Research Design, Populations, Sample and

Sampling Technique(s), Research Instrument, Validation of Research

Instrument, Procedure for Data Collection and Data Analysis Techniques.

Research Design

This study employed a descriptive research design of the survey

type. Descriptive survey research was adopted based on its appropriateness

for large population sample. The survey involved the use of researcher-

designed questionnaire to elicit relevant information on the awareness and

readiness of the use cloud based academic computing by University

Lecturers.

55
Population, Sample and Sampling Technique

The population sample for this study were Lecturers in University of

Ilorin, Ilorin, Kwara State. The target sample population consisted of a total

of 100 Lecturers drawn from the various faculties in the University of

Ilorin. Simple random sampling techniques which gives the Lecturers equal

chances of being selected was used to select the Lecturers who were

involved in this research.

Research Instrument

The research instrument was a researcher designed questionnaire.

The questionnaire consisted of four sections (A-D), Section A was made up

of the respondents’ demographic data, Section B contained questions and

responses options relating to accessibility to cloud computing

infrastructures, Section C is concerned with information relating to the

awareness of Lecturers on the use of cloud computing infrastructure for

academic purposes, and Section D, was contained information relating to

the readiness of the Lecturers to adopt the use of cloud based academic

computing. The responses in the questionnaire took the form of Yes or No

in Section B, Aware or Not Aware in Section C. Section D had a Likert-

56
Scale mode of strongly agree (SA), agree (A), disagree (D) and strongly

disagree (SD).

Validation of Research Instrument

To ensure face and content validity of the questionnaire used in this

study. After the initial draft of the questionnaire was drawn, the

researcher’s supervisor and two other Lecturers from Educational

Technology Department, University of Ilorin vetted the instrument. Their

advice and suggestions were used to modified the items in the instrument

and prepared the final draft.

Procedure for Data Collection

Data was collected by direct administration. Firstly, permission was

sort from the researcher’s supervisor and the relevant authorities. The

instrument was administered to the respondents and retrieved immediately

after the respondents had filled them. This is to ensure hundred percent

return of the instrument.

Data Analysis Technique

For data analysis, the responses obtained from the administered

questionnaire were subjected to descriptive and inferential statistics.

57
Statistical package for social science (SPSS) were used to analyze the

research question. Using simple frequency count and percentage, Data

collected was coded and analyzed using SPSS package with the hypotheses

tested at 0.05 alpha level of significance.

CHAPTER FOUR

DATA ANALYSIS AND RESULTS

Data Analysis

This chapter presented the results of the data collected in line with the

study using SPSS Version 20.0. In order to investigate the awareness and

readiness of University Lecturers on the use of cloud-based academic computing,

a researchers’ designed questionnaire was administered on the respondents

which were randomly selected. A total of one hundred copies of the

58
questionnaire were distributed and retrieved after the respondents had filled

them. The data obtained were analyzed using frequency counts and percentages.

Demographic data

Table 1: Frequency counts and Percentage Distribution of respondent by gender.

Gender Frequency Percent Cumulative Percent
Male 59 59.0 59.0
Female 41 41.0 100.0
Valid Total 100 100.0
The demographic information revealed that out of 100 respondents, more male

Lecturers participated in the study with 59% representing 59 respondents while

their female counterpart with 41% representing 41 respondents as shown in table

1 above.

Table 2: Frequency counts and percentages of respondents based on number of

hours spent on the internet per week;
Hours spent on the Frequency Percent Valid Percent Cumulative

internet per week Percent

6-10 hours 2 2.0 2.0 2.0

10-15 hours 4 4.0 4.0 6.0
Valid 15-20 hours 32 32.0 32.0 38.0
above 20 hours 62 62.0 62.0 100.0
Total 100 100.0 100.0

59
Also, demographic information revealed that out of 100 respondents, the number of

hours they spent on the internet varies, with 2 (2.0%) respondents spending between 6-

10 hours on the internet per week, 4 (4.0%) respondents using between 10-15 hours on

the internet per week, 32 (32.0%), respondents using 15-20 on the internet per week and

62 (62.0) of the respondents using above 20 hours per week as shown in table 2.

Results

Research Question 1: What is the extent of the accessibility of University

Lecturers to cloud-based computing infrastructure?

Table 3: Percentage and the frequency counts of responses on the accessibility to

cloud computing tools or infrastructure
S/No Items Yes No
1 I have access to a personal computer (PC) 100.0% 0%

with an internet connectivity to which I 100 0

connect to the web

2 I have access to web-based electronic mail 100.0% 0.0%

also known as email such as Hotmail, 100 0

Gmail, Yahoo! Mail etc.

3 I have access to information on the web 100.0% 0.0%

using servers or search engines with which 100 0

helps me stay updated and also to

complete research and project purposes

60
Table cont.
4 I have access to storage space(s) on the 82.0% 18.0

internet to which I save my files or 82 %

documents online 18
5 I have access to software such as open-office 86.0% 14.0

that I can otherwise use on my personal 86 %

computer on the internet 14

6 I have access to web-based services like 88.0% 12.0

google doc to create my document, 88 %

spreadsheet, presentation etc. 12

Table 3 shows the percentages of the responses of accessibility to cloud

computing infrastructure The results revealed that 100% of the respondents

choose Yes to signify that they have access to a personal computer with an

internet connection on which they connect to the internet while 0% choose No.

Also, 100% of the respondents choose Yes to signify that they have access to

web-based electronic mail also known as email such as Hotmail, Gmail, Yahoo!

Mail while 0% choose No. In addition, 100% of the respondents choose Yes to

signify that they have access to information on the web using servers or search

engines with which helps me stay updated and also to complete research and

project purposes while 0% choose No. Furthermore, 82% of the respondents

choose Yes to signify that they have I have access to storage space(s) on the

internet to which I save my files or documents online while 18% choose No. 86%

61
of the respondents choose Yes, stating that they have access to software such as

open-office that I can otherwise use on my personal computer on the internet,

while 14% of the respondent choose No. Lastly, 88% of the respondents elect that

they have access to web-based services like google doc to create my document,

spreadsheet, presentation by choosing Yes while 12% choose No.

Research Question 2: Is there awareness of cloud computing resources for

academic purposes among the University Lecturers?

Table 4: Percentage and the frequency counts of responses on the awareness of

cloud computing facility or academic purpose
S/No Items Aware Not Aware
1 I am aware of web-based resources for teaching 100.0% 0%

such as google classroom 100 0

2 I am aware that using cloud services enables one 96.0% 4.0%

to access resources from anywhere and at any 96 4

Table cont.
time .
3 I know about some web hosted learning 94.0% 6.0%

management system to monitor Students’ 94 6

learning progress
4 I am aware that E-learning tools can be of better 90.0% 10.0%

application when hosted on the web 90 10

5 I am aware of web hosted examination such as those 64.0% 36.0%

offers by Wyse technology to Schools’ CBT and 64 36

examination bodies such as JAMB

6 I am aware of the impact of the cloud (or web) 92.0% 8.0%

62
 Table cont.

as a core tool in finding academic resources, 92 8

research applications and educational tools

7 I am aware of the contributions of the cloud in 88.0% 12.0%

promoting communications within faculties and 88 12

between other academic institute and as a means

to share and exchange resources

8 I am aware of the impact of the leading IT 98.0% 2.0%

Providers such as Amazon, Google, IBM, 98 2

Microsoft, HP etc. in contributing cloud service

dedicated purely to educational purposes

Table 4 shows the percentages of the responses of awareness of cloud computing

facility or tools for academic purposes. The results revealed that 100% of the

respondents are aware of web-based resources for teaching such as google

classroom. 96.0% of the respondents are aware that using cloud services enables

one to access resources from anywhere and at any time while 4% of the

respondents are not aware. 94% of the respondents know about some web hosted

learning management system which are used to monitor Students’ learning

progress while 6% of the respondents do not. 90% of the respondents picked that

E-learning tools can be of better application when hosted on the web while 10%

of the respondents picked otherwise. Furthermore, 64% of the respondents are

aware of web hosted examination such as those offers by Wyse technology to

63
 Schools’ CBT and examination bodies such as JAMB while 36% of them are not.

92% of the respondents elected that they are aware of the impact of the cloud (or

web) as a core tool in finding academic resources, research applications and

educational tools and 8% which represent the remaining respondents elected that

they are not aware. 88% of the respondents are aware of the contributions of the

cloud in promoting communications within faculties and between other academic

institute and as a means to share and exchange resources while 12% are not aware

of it. Lastly, 98% of the respondents are aware of the impact of the leading IT

Providers such as Amazon, Google, IBM, Microsoft, HP etc. in contributing

cloud service dedicated purely to educational purposes while the remaining 2%

are not aware.

Research Question 3: Do University Lecturers express readiness to adopt (and or

use) cloud computing resources for academic purposes?

Table 5: Percentage of responses on the readiness to use cloud computing for

academic purposes.
S/No Items SA A D D
1 I am willing to use cloud based 80.0% 20% 0% 0%

application such as google doc, open

office etc. in preparing my teaching

64
 resources and other academic materials
2 I am ready to adopt the use of 64.0% 34.0% 2.0% 0%

applications such as Google classroom to

supplement my classroom teachings

3 I am willing to adopt the use of cloud 70.0% 30.0% 0% 0%

based Learning management system to

monitor my student’s academic progress

4 I am ready to use applications such 54.0% 40.0% 6.0% 0%

Google calendar to arrange my academic

Table cont.
as well as personal schedules
5 I am ready to adopt the use cloud based E 60.0% 40.0% 0% 0%

learning tools to supplement my

classroom teaching and also promote

individualized learning amongst my

students
6 I am willing to adopt the use cloud based 64.0% 36.0% 0% 0%

applications to conduct the continuous

assessment (C.A.) of my students.

Table 5 shows the percentages of the responses of readiness to use cloud

computing infrastructure The results revealed that 80% and 20% of the

respondents strongly agreed and agreed they are willing to use cloud based

application such as google doc, open office etc. in preparing for their teaching

65
resources and other academic materials respectively while 0% disagreed and

strongly disagreed. 64% and 34% of the respondents strongly agreed and agreed

respectively to be ready to adopt the use of applications such as Google classroom

to supplement for their classroom teachings, 2% of the respondents disagreed. In

addition, 70% and 30% of the respondents strongly agreed and agreed they are

willing to use cloud based application such as google doc, open office etc. in

preparing for their teaching resources and other academic materials respectively

while 0% disagreed and strongly disagreed. Furthermore, 54% and 40% of the

respondents strongly agreed and agreed that they are ready to use applications

such Google calendar to arrange their academic as well as personal schedules

while 6.0% disagreed and no one strongly disagreed or disagreed. 60% and 40%

strongly agreed and agreed respectively that they are ready to adopt the use cloud

based E learning tools to supplement their classroom teaching and also promote

individualized learning amongst their students while no respondents neither

strongly disagreed or disagreed to adopt it for the purpose. Lastly, 64% and 36%

of the respondents strongly agreed and agreed respectively they are willing to

adopt the use cloud based applications to conduct the continuous assessment

(C.A.) of their students while 0% of the respondents disagreed or strongly

disagreed.

66
Research Hypotheses 1: There is no significant relationship between

accessibility to cloud-based computing infrastructures and awareness of cloud

computing resources for academics.

The result from table 6 below showed that the calculated chi-square 6.569 at

degree of freedom 3 is greater than the tabulated chi-square of 0.20 (i.e. Cal.X 2 =

6.569 > Cri.X2 = 0.20, df =3, P<0.05). Therefore, the hypothesis is hereby

rejected. This implies that there is a significant relationship in the accessibility to

cloud-based computing infrastructures and awareness of cloud computing

resources for academics purpose among Lecturers.

Table 6: Analysis on the relationship between accessibility to cloud computing

resources and awareness of cloud computing infrastructure in education

Cal.X2 Df Crit.X2 Sig

Accessibility to cloud computing

infrastructure

Awareness of cloud computing 6.569 3 0.20 <.05

resources for academic purposes

Summary of the major findings.

67
 From all the data gathered, the summary of the findings can be summarized as

follows:

1. This result implied that University Lecturers have considerably high

access to cloud computing resources.

2. The result indicates that University Lecturers are considerably aware of

the cloud computing resources available for education.

3. The result indicates that most University Lecturers are willing to use cloud

computing tools for academic purpose.

4. The demographic data suggests that University Lecturer spend

considerably high amount of time on the internet per week which suggest

that they mostly compute their work in the cloud.

5. The result of the hypothesis also indicates that there is significant

relationship between accessibility to cloud computing and the awareness

of cloud computing resources for academic purpose.

68
 CHAPTER FIVE

DISCUSSION, CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS

The chapter presented the discussions of the findings of the study and

conclusion of the findings. Recommendations made were based on the findings of

the study and suggestion were made for further studies.

Discussions

The discussion of this study was based on findings of the research

questions and hypothesis formulated.

In the simplest terms, cloud computing means storing and accessing data

and programs over the internet instead of your computer’s hard drive. The cloud

is just a metaphor for the internet. Cloud computing is something that most

69
academia uses almost every day of the week for their academic and personal

purposes. The findings revealed that University Lecturers that responded to the

questionnaire have access to cloud computing resources. All the Lecturers who

responded indicated that they spend varying amount of hours every week working

online, with all of the respondents affirming they have access to a personal

computer with internet connectivity which they used to connect to the internet.

Access to an electronic mail which is a strong indication of access to a cloud

computing resources is a common trait among all the respondent of the

questionnaire. The findings almost shown that all the respondents have access to

information on the web which are used for their research purposes and to stay

updated. The findings of the research also shown a varying degree of access to

cloud computing resources by the respondents ranging from access to a storage

space on the internet to the used of application software such as open office on

the internet.

The findings also shown a high percentage of awareness of cloud

computing resources used for educational purposes amongst University Lecturers.

All the respondent of the questionnaire indicated that they are aware of google

classroom which is virtual classroom on the internet which uses cloud computing

architecture. A high number of Lecturers who responded to the questionnaire also

indicated that they know about web hosted learning management system which

can be used to monitor student’s progress in his learning. The Lecturers also
70
indicated that they are aware that e-learning will be of the best application when it

is hosted on the web. Quite a number of the Lecturers who responded also

indicated they are aware of some examination which are hosted on the web. The

contributions of the major IT provider were also in the view of majority of the

respondents.

The findings also revealed high level of willingness of readiness to adopt

the use of the resources provided by cloud computing on the part of the

University Lecturers. This may be due to the advantage of cloud computing

which includes those listed by Achmad (2016) as Accessibility i.e. availability of

service being the most important and desired quality by users using education

cloud, 24/7 availability of the system without failure from anywhere is an obvious

benefit of the cloud. Improved improbability: it is almost impossible for any

interested person (thief) to determine where is located the machine that stores

some wanted data (tests, exam questions, results) or to find out which is the

physical component he needs to steal in order to get a digital asset (Pocalitu,

Alecu & Vetrici, 2010 cited in Omotunde & Omotunde, 2016).

The study also indicated there is significant relationship between the

accessibility to cloud computing and the awareness of the use of cloud computing

resources for academic and educational purposes.

Conclusions

71
 From the result obtained from the data gathered and analyzed in this

study, it could be concluded that the level of awareness of cloud computing

resources for educational and academic purposes is adequate. That is, most of the

Lecturers has considerable awareness level of these resources. It is also inferred

from this study that the University Lecturers are ready and willing to use the

resources provided in the cloud for their academic and educational as well as

personal purposes.

Implication of the Study

From the information gathered from this research, it was generated that

University Lecturers partakes in the use of cloud computing either intentionally or

otherwise, with all of the respondents at one point or another making use of the

internet to satisfy their needs. This implied that adoptions of this technology is

broad and all encompassing.

Limitation of the Study

Due to limited resources and time factor, this research was limited to the

study of the awareness and readiness level of the University Lecturer use of cloud

computing resources while not considering other players in the University system

72
which includes the students and/or other administrative staff. Thus, Lecturers

were the focus of the study. This research was also conducted within the limit of

the University of Ilorin and not considering other University in the country.

Checking for variables such as perception of the use of cloud computing,

influence of gender on the use were also not part of the scope of the study.

Recommendations

Based on the findings of this study, the following recommendations were

made:

1. Authorities in the University should ensure they make internet

connections available at all time so as to enable access to the web as this

will encourage the efficient and effective use of the resources residing in

the cloud.

2. University authorities should organize regular workshop and seminar for

the Lecturers to imprint awareness of latest trends in the IT industries

which might be of use in the educational sectors on them.

73
 3. Lecturers should endeavor they broaden their sphere on IT updates to

find the technologies that will be of useful application in their academic

obligations.

4. For further studies, researchers should venture into checking for

i. perception of users of cloud computing

ii. influence of variables such as gender, area of specialization, etc.

on the use of cloud computing for academic purposes. Etc.

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APPENDIX 1

UNIVERSITY OF ILORIN
FACULTY OF EDUCATION
DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATIONAL TECHNOLOGY
81
 QUESTIONNAIRE ON AWARENESS AND READINESS OF
UNIVERSITY LECTURERS ON THE USE OF CLOUD BASED
ACADEMIC COMPUTING
Dear participant,

This is a survey to determine the awareness and readiness of the use

of cloud based academic computing amongst University Lecturers, while

responding to the item in the questionnaire please ensure that you tick (√)

the option that truly represent your ability or opinions. The data obtained

through the questionnaire will be used for research purpose only.

Section A: Demographics data.

1. Name of the Institution: University of Ilorin

2. Gender Male Female

3. Age 25-30 31-40 41-50

50 and above

(Optional)

4. Department: ……………………………………………………

5. On average how many hours did you spend online in a week

Less than 5 hours 6-10hours 11 10-15

hours

82
 15-20 hours above 20 hours.

Section B: Accessibility to Cloud Computing tools (Please mark the option for
each of the statement)

S/N ITEMS Yes No

1. I have access to a personal computer (PC) with an internet

connectivity to which I connect to the web.
2. I have access to web-based electronic mail also known as
email such as Hotmail, Gmail, Yahoo! Mail etc.
3. I have access to information on the web using servers or
search engines with which helps me stay updated and also to
complete research and project purposes.
4. I have access to storage space(s) on the internet to which I
save my files or documents online
5. I have access to software such as open-office that I can
otherwise use on my personal computer on the internet

6. I have access to web-based services like google doc to

create my document, spreadsheet, presentation etc.

Section C: Awareness of cloud computing facility for academic purposes (please

tick the option for each of the statement)

S/N ITEMS Awar Not Aware

e
1 I am aware of web-based resources for teaching such as
google classroom.

83
2 I am aware that using cloud services enables one to
access resources from anywhere and at anytime
3 I know about some web hosted learning management
system to monitor Students’ learning progress
4 I am aware that E-learning tools can be of better
application when hosted on the web
5 I am aware of web hosted examination such as those
offers by Wyse technology to Schools’ CBT and
examination bodies such as JAMB
6 I am aware of the impact of the cloud (or web) as a core
tool in finding academic resources, research applications
and educational tools
7 I am aware of the contributions of the cloud in promoting
communications within faculties and between other
academic institute and as a means to share and exchange
resources
8 I am aware of the impact of the leading IT Providers
such as Amazon, Google, IBM, Microsoft, HP etc. in
contributing cloud service dedicated purely to
educational purposes.

Section D: Readiness of the use of Cloud computing for Academic Purpose

(please mark the option for each of the statement)

SA: Strongly Agree: A: Agree: D: Disagree, SD: Strongly Disagree

S/N ITEMS SA A D SD

1 I am willing to use cloud based application such

as google doc, open office etc. in preparing my
teaching resources and other academic materials.

84
2 I am ready to adopt the use of applications such
as Google classroom to supplement my
classroom teachings.
3 I am willing to adopt the use of cloud based
Learning management system to monitor my
student’s academic progress.
4 I am ready to use applications such Google
calendar to arrange my academic as well as
personal schedules.
5 I am ready to adopt the use cloud based E
learning tools to supplement my classroom
teaching and also promote individualized learning
amongst my students.
6 I am willing to adopt the use cloud based
applications to conduct the continuous
assessment (C.A.) of my students.

85