Incorporation of Cloud Computing in Education Sector

Recently, cloud computing has grown significantly to almost all sectors in the economy. Cloud computing is a computing model that offers data storage capability and software service related capabilities such as communication models. In education sector, cloud computing has been incorporated in to various programs in order to make education service delivery robust and more efficient. From the survey that was conducted, it was evidenced that, the need for cloud computing in education cannot be underrated as it has greater influence. The objective of the study would be analyzing the effects of cloud computing in Bangladesh education programs. Important to note is that, there are various sectors and levels of education that were analyzed from the survey that was concluded. As the real program is viewed as cloud model, scholars, tutors and relevant stakeholders would require internet connection in order to make access to information. The rationale behind this study has been triggered by the government need to evaluate why literacy need has not been growing as expected while large amount of resources has been channeled in the education sector. Due to the need by Bangladesh government to improve literacy level, it has initiated some measures duped “Digital Bangladesh’ working on ICT” in conjunction to some projects such as “establishment of ICT network to remote areas” with aim of installing primary schools with network. There are several values that are associated with incorporation of ICT network in education sector. First, it will help in reducing the level of illiteracy in Bangladesh as many people will be able to get access to required and relevant information. Secondly, there would be improved communication as people would be able to use modern forms of communication such as emails and social media platforms. Similarly, ICT incorporation in the education sector would result into job opportunities as relevant people would be able to work online.

Worldwide, there are several cloud computing programs that have been incorporated into education sector. In all aspects, these ICT programs in education have been focusing on streamlining and making education sector advanced [11]. Many platforms have been developed to steer education sector but no much results have been achieved. This presents drawbacks that has been faced by education sector in implementing e-learning education system by many institutions. E-learning platforms are the main systems that institutions have implemented to offer off-institutions education based programs. These systems are mainly implemented and run by tertiary institutions such as colleges and universities. With e-learning systems, tutors are able to send course programs to students, administer some exams and communicate on progress of their studies [2]. This is mainly being achieved through ERP systems where students have portals to access their details to specific tertiary institution. It is from the portal that, students are updated on fees payments, programs are posted, assignments and exams are sent and semester performance are posted. In this case, education access is only limited to registered students in a given institution. Though it may seem diverse, it is not robust as it is required by some users. The main issue with e-learning platform is that, there is not direct collaboration tool that can have direct contact of all students on real time [8]. Therefore, this rises question of how tutors can reach all students on real time through audio visual communication. This develops need to come up with tools that can bring together both students and tutors to replace physical need of tutors in the classroom [17]. 

Drawbacks of E-Learning Platforms

Similarly, tertiary institutions have been using emails to offer some courses instead of having physical class attendance [5]. Emails are common mode of communication but does not offer required modern communication capabilities in education. Tutors make use of emails to share course programs as well as required professional materials required for the study. According to [13], emails offer various disadvantages since it does not offer visual communication. On this case, all other methodologies of offering education despite cloud computing does not meet today’s education communication standards. Cloud computing seems to be the best alternative to these drawbacks since it can store, transmit and offer both audio- and visual communication of different modes such as real time [1]. Therefore, this makes cloud computing more suited to solve Bangladesh education problems which promises future economic development in near future. With cloud computing, more scholars would be able to get access to education services which in turn would spur economic growth by opening avenues that are economically viable to generate income for the country [14].  

To solve Bangladesh education squabbles, some measures should be taken to address prevailing situations. The proposed solution would mainly focus on upgrading education from Bangladesh remote parts. Since government has focused on installing schools with network, introducing cloud computing on education would be simple. The solution would entail desktops or laptops that would be connected to the internet via school provided network [16]. Similarly, it teachers and students would require to print some items from cloud computing servers for later referencing. In this case, school LAN would require interconnection with several printers

Since this project is aimed on improving education from Bangladesh remote parts, content delivery to learners would be quite essential. In order to promote equal access to education in Bangladesh in both developed and remote parts, introducing cloud computing to support content delivery would be quite important. To work in the best way, the proposed education platform would be enabled to work in all devices such as smartphones and tablets [20]. The connecting device such as laptop would connect to the internet through network, get access to the cloud server where content would be retrieved. Once content has been retrieved, it can be stored on a file server for local future access in an offline mode. To save time and requirements of online content access, it would be important for government to provide each school with file server where all content are stored for reference and reduce frequent online access [3]. On the same note, the cloud content can be printed for manual reference by leaners. The content would be set in such a way that, it is user friendly, self- elaborate and easy to access with even low network strength [6]. In the case of tertiary institutions, tutors would be able to set their presentations earlier and set them such that, during class, they can offer them in real time but remotely. Communication over the LAN should be laid down appropriately to reduce disturbance from one point of access to the other by different learners.  

Need for Cloud Computing in Bangladesh Education Programs

To provide equal access to education to all students in Bangladesh, various assumptions would be made. First, it would be assumed that, all areas in Bangladesh are well connected to electricity that can support introduction of ICT services in education sector. In this case, since this is a government initiated program, connecting all parts with stable electricity would not be a challenge. In cases where stable electricity connection is not available, alternative sources of power would be provided in order to make sure education processes are not interrupted by power breakdowns [9]. Additionally, to run effective ICT supported education, there is need for enough trained personnel. It would be assumed government would roll out a project aimed on equipping teachers with necessary skills to facilitate incorporation of ICT in education sector. Training of teachers would help to ease the burden of government hiring ICT specialist in each school. Similarly, it would be presumed that cloud service provider would offer stable services that are available at all times. To make sure there is no disruption during learning due to unavailability of cloud service, prior access of the content would be recommended. Finally, online content delivery would be quite simple and cost effective [18]. Network bandwidth should not be too high and content should be light enough to work under even slow networks. All cloud education services are expected to work equally nationwide since it is under same provider. Once all these factors are unified, it would be quite easy for government to roll out cloud computing in education sector.

All projects are expected to work under certain limitations. Incorporation of ICT in Bangladesh education system would be faced by several challenges. Financial constraints would be a big challenge since there is continuous funding required to cloud service provider. Though it is a government related funding, it might not have direct impact on individual but to the Bangladesh economy which in turn affect standards of living [4]. Similarly, it is quite obvious that, technological implementation in any developing country is a big challenge. This would be a challenge considering country would be required to import all required technological infrastructure as well as acquire and train all teachers to be relevant in regard to proposed cloud education system. Finally, as it has been evidenced in any other sectors that have tried to implement ICT in its operations, resistance has been the norm. Therefore, adoption resistance would be evidenced from various stakeholders.

Proposed Solution

There are several programs that are run by various institutions in their bid to incorporate ICT in the education sector. Though these programs have been effective, the proposed system would offer more benefits and working capabilities that existing ones. First, most of the programs that have tried to implement ICT in education sector have focused not only in entire institution but a section of individuals. Though this has been implemented by some colleges and universities, it does not cover all education aspects. It has not been easy to implement and offer audio-visual content on real time [4]. When implementing ICT program in education sector for tertiary institutions, government would implement audio-visual programs that would be delivered remotely to students on real-time. In this case, the chosen service provider should be able to facilitate real-time content delivery to tertiary scholars [14]. Similarly, cloud service delivery has been only in tertiary institutions but not in primary schools. In the proposed system, this would be made a reality in Bangladesh primary schools as it would be aimed in offering equal access to all learners. Finally, on tertiary institutions, tutors would be able to record their class presentations prior to actual class and upload it for real-time access by students during class hours. This would make it easy for tutors to prepare quality presentations at their own time.                

The proposed solution is compose of various elements such as desktops, smartphones and laptops. These are the device which are used to connect to the cloud server in order to retrieve content. Their display windows and resolution should be set in such a way that, it gives clear dimensions of the required content. Device processing speed would be optimum to make sure there is no delay when accessing the content from cloud server. Read access memory should be sufficient enough to facilitate efficient data exchange from processor and the windows. Besides, the government provided network should be able to support required content retrieval and be stable enough for availability in order to support required services. The provided bandwidth ought to be sufficient enough to avoid wastage of signal. Availability in any system is an important aspect as it makes reliability of the system dependable [7]. All system parameters should be set in such a way that, they are available when needed for service delivery. In this regard, cloud services should be readily available to offer required education services. Since availability of the system would be determine by large combination of factors, it is important for all stakeholders to play their roles well in order to avoid system surges. As government through cloud service provider ensures stable services in order to guarantee availability of the system, teachers in schools should ensure their LAN connection is well secured to avoid cable break downs. Similarly, power supply ought to be stable to make sure system can run without much interference. If all these aspects would be clearly met, system availability and reliability would be guaranteed to support education and would be boost literacy level in remote parts of Bangladesh. From the currently existing system, the subject of system availability is not a major aspect since it is managed by specific organization [12]. In this case, it would be quite difficult to guarantee availability as it is determined by unknown service provider.    

Assumptions

Security is a fundamental aspect in system operations and maintenance. Cloud services have presented security concerns due to maintenance of large pool of data from various clients. To make sure data storage and retrieval from cloud server is secure and free from interception, data encryption would be the best option [10]. During data storage, all data in the cloud server should be secured by providing strong authentication and authorization measures when accessing stored data. Similarly, to secure cloud data, it would still be a good idea to protect it so that eavesdropping does not take place. In this case, the proposed solution would offer high level data security to both data and IT infrastructure that has been set to support ICT implementation in education sector. Through comparison of the other existing education systems, it is very clear other systems do not put enough security features to safeguard data and related IT infrastructure but they are only concerned with data transfer and reaching out to the required scholars [19]. In the existing systems, content is only targeted to only one user and this makes security of less concern. In the proposed system, education content would be accessed by many users at the same time and security should be a fundamental aspect when accessing the content. Every access code should be assigned to a specific school and all passwords from a particular school should begin with school code in order to validate the user.       

Similarly, system usability is very important as it gives subject organization ability to reuse the system in other business operations. The proposed cloud computing education program supporting content delivery should be able to support other school running operations such as government fund management. Since government is very keen on education improvement in its bid to spur economic growth in near future, funds management should be given a priority in the system so that it is quite possible to do an assessment of government in education sector. On the same criterion, it the same propose system would be able to capture the number of leaners in each level of study. In this regard, the proposed system would be able to bring together various aspects of schools operation from various levels and government would be able to assess prospect of future growth once ICT project implementation would be done [15]. From current working systems that are meant to help implement ICT in education sector, none of the system are run by government and government cannot use it to manage government funds in school funding programs. Even in their own working criterion, they only work on basis of delivering content to scholars in tertiary institutions. This is a clear indication of how current system does not meet any threshold to help incorporating ICT in education sectors as compared to proposed cloud computing system.

Challenges

Finally, there is customer sense of responsibility and customer service which enables customer contact service provider on service delivery. The sense of responsibility in this case lies on service provider responsibility on some of the events that may arise. Service provider sense if responsibility is installed on organizational service delivery to guarantee users on quality of services being offered [7]. In current systems that are geared towards incorporating ICT in education sector, none has demonstrated sense of responsibility because they are offered on local basis. When some services are not available, users have no choice rather than waiting. In the proposed system, sense of responsibility would be a fundamental aspect because services needed are quite sensitive and cannot be left on hands of service provider only. In this case, the Bangladesh government would be in charge of services required by the schools and should make sure its service provider offers very scalable and robust services at all times. The response that would be received by government from various schools and tertiary institutions would help government request for better services. Therefore, even if current system has not been tested on service delivery and service provider sense of responsibility, it is expected to offer quality services as well as being responsive to customers.     

Conclusion

Current technological need has made cloud computing to be a necessity in today’s business where ICT is involved. To open remote parts of Bangladesh and incorporate ICT in education sector effectively, cloud computing has been regarded as the key initiative to help government reduce illiteracy level. Some of the reasons that has made it key aspect is its ability to set all required projects running once few objects are set in place. From the survey that was conducted, it was possible to observe that related service structures are available. When current service structures implementing ICT in education sector are compared to the proposed cloud computing services, they have demonstrated a diverse sense of capability and working modalities. The proposed solution targets to solve challenges that have been faced when incorporating ICT in education sector. Its success would largely depend on government initiative to streamline and increase literacy level in the country. The proposed system is expected to offer reusability of the system, increased security on service delivery as well as system availability in governments bid to offer quality services. Therefore, cloud computing would serve as key aspect in ICT education service delivery and it has demonstrated capability to help government eliminate illiteracy level by increasing rate of education access at anytime and anywhere.         

Comparison with Existing Programs

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