Muriithi, G.M. and Kotze, J. E. 2012. Cloud Computing in Higher Education: Implications for South...

PROCEEDINGS OF THE 14th ANNUAL CONFERENCE

ON WORLD WIDE WEB APPLICATIONS

7-9 November 2012 Durban

South Africa

Editors:

A. Koch P.A. van Brakel

Publisher:

Cape Peninsula University of Technology PO Box 652 Cape Town

8000

Proceedings published at http://www.zaw3.co.za

ISBN: 978-0-620-55590-6

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Proceedings of the 14th Annual Conference on World Wide Web Applications

Durban, 7-9 November 2012 (http://www.zaw3.co.za) ISBN: 978-0-620-55590-6

TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN The full papers were refereed by a double-blind reviewing process according to South Africa’s Department of Higher Education and Training (DHET) refereeing standards. Before accepting a paper, authors were to include the corrections as stated by the peer-reviewers. Of the 72 full papers received, 64 were accepted for the Proceedings (acceptance rate: 89%). Papers were reviewed according to the following criteria:

Relevancy of the paper to Web-based applications Explanation of the research problem & investigative questions Quality of the literature analysis Appropriateness of the research method(s) Adequacy of the evidence (findings) presented in the paper Technical (e.g. language editing; reference style).

The following reviewers took part in the process of evaluating the full papers of the 14th Annual Conference on World Wide Web Applications: Prof RA Botha Department of Business Informatics Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University Port Elizabeth Mr AA Buitendag Department of Business Informatics Tshwane University of Technology Pretoria Prof AJ Bytheway Faculty of Informatics and Design Cape Peninsula University of Technology Cape Town Mr A El-Sobky Consultant 22 Sebwih El-Masry Street Nasr City, Cairo Prof M Herselman Meraka Institute, CSIR Pretoria Mr EL Howe Institute of Development Management Swaziland

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Dr A Koch Department of Cooperative Education Faculty of Business Cape Peninsula University of Technology Cape Town Dr DI Raitt Editor: The Electronic Library (Emerald) London Mr PK Ramdeyal Department of Information and Communication Technology Mangosuthu University of Technology Durban Prof CW Rensleigh Department of Information and Knowledge Management University of Johannesburg Johannesburg Prof A Singh Business School University of KwaZulu-Natal Durban Prof JS van der Walt Department of Business Informatics Tshwane University of Technology Pretoria Prof D van Greunen School of ICT Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University Port Elizabeth Further enquiries: Prof PA van Brakel Conference Chair: Annual Conference on WWW Applications Cape Town +27 21 469 1015 (landline) +27 82 966 0789 (mobile)

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Cloud computing in higher education: implications for South African public universities and FET colleges

G.M. Muriithi

Central University of Technology South Africa

[email protected]

J.E. Kotzé University of the Free State

South Africa [email protected]

Abstract Cloud computing is a rapidly evolving model that enables institutions to access computing resources as a service directly over the Internet. This model is radically different from current on-premise deployment strategies in part because it shifts the burden of owning (licensing) and operating (support and maintenance) the often complex computing environment to a third party called a cloud service provider (CSP). Currently, the public higher education sector in South Africa is composed of 23 public universities and 50 Further Education and Training (FET) colleges spread across the country’s nine administrative provinces. Adopting the cloud computing model for selected tasks can bring huge benefits to these institutions. For example, sharing resources such as expensive hardware, software and technical expertise can significantly lower the overall IT costs because available resources are better utilized and delivery costs can be shared among multiple institutions. Cloud computing may also make it easier for smaller colleges and universities with limited resources and in-house capacity to gain access to cutting edge IT resources that they would otherwise not be able to procure and operate on their own. A further argument is that public universities and colleges share many similar operational processes such as course offerings, admissions, enrolments, bursaries, research and graduations that can be standardized across the higher education sector, and offered as a set of services to the many colleges and universities in a more cost effective way than is currently the case. Granted, cloud computing is not without its challenges and risks, but it is argued here that its benefits and opportunities far outweigh the risks. Even as cloud computing continues to make inroads into higher education in the developed world, its adoption in South African universities and colleges remain unclear. This paper uses a survey to examine the current state of cloud computing adoption in South African higher education. Results show that although the general awareness of cloud computing among public universities and FET colleges is high, its adoption remains low. Lack of fast, reliable and affordable Internet, concerns on data security and a general lack of mature cloud offerings are among the key barriers to adoption. On the other hand, the need to provide improved IT services with less staff, the need to cut costs and reduce implementation risks are the main drivers for adoption. Institutions consider generic, standard applications such as Email as better candidates for cloud deployment than mission-critical applications such as Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems.

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Keywords: Cloud computing, higher education, SaaS, PaaS, IaaS, virtualization, multi-tenancy. 1. Introduction 1.1 What is cloud computing? Although there are many different definitions of the term cloud computing, the one proposed by the US National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has gained widespread acceptance. NIST defines cloud computing as

“ a model for enabling ubiquitous, convenient, on-demand network access to a shared pool of configurable computing resources (e.g., networks, servers, storage, applications, and services) that can be rapidly provisioned and released with minimal management effort or service provider interaction”.

NIST continues; “This model promotes availability and is composed of five essential characteristics, three service models and four deployment models” (Mell and Grance, 2011). Figure 1 below presents a visual model that illustrates the various entities that constitute NIST’s definition of cloud computing. Figure 1: Visual model of NIST working definition of cloud computing (NIST, 2010)

Sections 1.2, 1.3 and 1.4 below will discuss the entities illustrated in figure 1 in more details.

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1.2 Essential characteristics of cloud computing 1.2.1 On-demand self-service A consumer can unilaterally provide computing capabilities, such as server time and network storage, as needed automatically without requiring human interaction with each service provider ( Mell and Grance, 2011). 1.2.2 Broad network access Capabilities are available over the network and accessed through standard mechanisms that promote use by heterogeneous thin or thick client platforms (e.g., mobile phones, tablets, laptops, and workstations) ( Mell and Grance, 2011). 1.2.3 Resource pooling The provider’s computing resources are pooled to serve multiple consumers using a multi-tenant model, with different physical and virtual resources dynamically assigned and reassigned according to consumer demand. There is a sense of location independence in that the customer generally has no control or knowledge over the exact location of the provided resources but may be able to specify location at a higher level of abstraction (e.g., country, state, or datacenter). Examples of resources include storage, processing, memory, and network bandwidth (Mell and Grance, 2011). 1.2.4 Rapid elasticity Capabilities can be elastically provisioned and released, in some cases automatically, to scale rapidly outward and inward commensurate with demand. To the consumer, the capabilities available for provisioning often appear to be unlimited and can be appropriated in any quantity at any time (Mell and Grance, 2011). 1.2.5 Measured service Cloud systems automatically control and optimize resource use by leveraging a metering capability at some level of abstraction appropriate to the type of service (e.g., storage, processing, bandwidth, and active user accounts). Resource usage can be monitored, controlled, and reported, providing transparency for both the provider and consumer of the utilized service (Mell and Grance, 2011). 1.3 Service models According to the NIST definition (Mell and Grance, 2011), cloud services can be broken down into three broad categories.

o Software as a Service (SaaS) o Platform as a Service (PaaS) o Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS).

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1.3.1 Software as a Service (SaaS) The capability provided to the consumer is to use the provider’s applications running on a cloud infrastructure. The applications are accessible from various client devices through either a thin client interface, such as a web browser (e.g., web-based email), or a program interface. The consumer does not manage or control the underlying cloud infrastructure including network, servers, operating systems, storage, or even individual application capabilities, with the possible exception of limited user-specific application configuration settings. Popular examples of SaaS range from enterprise-level applications such as Salesforce.com’s Customer Relationship Management (CRM) application (Salesforce.com, 2011), office productivity and collaboration tools such as Google Apps (Google, 2012) and Microsoft Office 365 (Microsoft, 2012) to personal applications such as Gmail, Hotmail, TurboTax Online, Facebook, or Twitter. By exploiting massive economies of scale, cloud providers are able to offer SaaS applications either at very low subscription rates or even for free. For example, Salesforce.com’s CRM subscriptions start from as low as R50 per user per month. Gmail and Facebook are offered as free online services. 1.3.2 Platform as a Service (PaaS) The capability provided to the consumer is to deploy onto the cloud infrastructure consumer-created or acquired applications created using programming languages, libraries, services, and tools supported by the provider. The consumer does not manage or control the underlying cloud infrastructure including network, servers, operating systems, or storage, but has control over the deployed applications and possibly configuration settings for the application-hosting environment. Examples of PaaS include Microsoft's Azure Services Platform (Microsoft, 2012), Salesforce's Force.com development platform, Google Apps Engine, Amazon's Relational Database Services and Rackspace Cloud services. 1.3.3 Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS)

The capability provided to the consumer is to provision processing, storage, networks, and other fundamental computing resources where the consumer is able to deploy and run arbitrary software, which can include operating systems and applications. The consumer does not manage or control the underlying cloud infrastructure but has control over operating systems, storage, and deployed applications; and possibly limited control of select networking components (e.g., host firewalls). Amazon's Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2), Rackspace, Joyent, Terremark and RSAWeb (locally based in South Africa) are all good examples of providers that provide IaaS services. 1.4 Deployment models

NIST proposes four deployment models that specify how to deliver the cloud services discussed in section 1.3 above: private cloud, community cloud, public cloud and hybrid cloud.

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Private cloud: The cloud infrastructure is provisioned for exclusive use by a single organization comprising multiple consumers (e.g., business units). It may be owned, managed, and operated by the organization, a third party, or some combination of them, and it may exist on or off premises. Community cloud: The cloud infrastructure is provisioned for exclusive use by a specific community of consumers from organizations that have shared concerns (e.g., mission, security requirements, policy, and compliance considerations). It may be owned, managed, and operated by one or more of the organizations in the community, a third party, or some combination of them, and it may exist on or off premises. Public cloud: The cloud infrastructure is provisioned for open use by the general public. It may be owned, managed, and operated by a business, academic, or government organization, or some combination of them. It exists on the premises of the cloud provider. Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2), Google and Microsoft Azure are all public clouds. Hybrid cloud: The cloud infrastructure is 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). 1.5 Cloud computing and higher education From an IT perspective, the main users of a typical higher education institution include students, lecturers, administrative staff, developers and researchers (Sultan, 2010). Traditionally, the hardware and software necessary to support the demands of these users is managed by an IT services department that is conventionally housed on-premise. A dedicated team of IT staff oversees the routine delivery of IT services on a day to day basis. (Sultan, 2010) Figure 2 below illustrates the main users in a typical university. Figure 2: Main users of IT services in a typical university (adapted from Sultan, 2010)

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Students and staff need workstations with software such as email, operating systems, and productivity tools such as MS Office. Additionally, administrative staff members may need access to Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software such as Integrated Tertiary Software (ITS) or PeopleSoft that is important for carrying out their line duties (e.g. admissions, payroll etc.). Researchers and post graduate students may need access to specialised hardware and software tools for their research. Developers on the other hand need access to development tools such as compilers and CASE tools needed to write and test applications for the university community. 1.5.1 International perspective The use of cloud computing in higher education is gaining momentum around the world although the pace and scale of adoption vary (Fatima and Razak,2009; Sultan, 2010; Ercan, 2010; Flood, 2010). Several adoption strategies that can accelerate the adoption of cloud computing in higher education have been proposed (Mircea and Andreescu, 2011; Masud and Huang, 2012; Behrend, Wiebe, London and Johnson, 2011; Cisco Corporation, 2012; Fatima and Razak, 2009). The 2011 United States Campus Computing Survey (Green, 2011) reports that over 89% of higher education institutions in the US currently use or are actively considering adopting cloud services. Further to this, 65% of U.S. colleges and universities have outsourced their student email services to the cloud - 60% are using Gmail, 40% are using Zimbra and Hotmail. Office productivity and collaboration tools such as Google Apps for Education (Google, 2012) and Microsoft Office 365 (Microsoft, 2012) are also finding their way into higher education. Google apps for Education are available for free, and widely available to North American higher education institutions. In the US, higher education institutions that have selected Google Apps for Education as their collaboration platform include Harvard University, University of Texas at Austin, Wellesley College, University of Amsterdam, Stanford Graduate School of Business, University of York and University of Bristol. There are a number of community cloud initiatives for higher education including

• HathiTrust (2012) – a shared digital repository that serves more than 10 universities in the US, and rapidly growing.

• ETUDES – a not-for-profit consortium of 23 California community colleges that provides course management services to its members via a closed community SaaS cloud(ETUDES,2012).

1.5.2 Sub-Sahara Africa perspective In Sub-Saharan Africa, Google Apps for Education are currently available in South Africa, Kenya and Senegal, with some universities in these countries already using or busy piloting the tools (Google, 2012). Google plans to extend the rollout to cover other regions. Another example of cloud computing in Africa is a partnership between Microsoft and the Ethiopian government in which the former has committed to help Ethiopia roll out 250,000 laptops to its school teachers, all running on Microsoft’s Azure cloud platform. The laptops

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will enable teachers to download curriculum, keep track of academic records and securely transfer student data throughout the education system, without the extra cost of having to build a support system of hardware and software needed to connect them (Seattle Times, 2009). 1.5.3 South-African perspective The current state of cloud computing adoption in South African higher education is largely unknown. This paper will attempt to close this gap. 1.6 Proposed model In the traditional on-premises deployment model, all IT resources are housed and managed in-house (Buyya, 2009; Armbrust, Griffith, Joseph, Katz, Konwinski, Lee, Patterson, Rabkin, Stoica and Zaharia, 2009). Many aspects of these services and tools may be migrated to the cloud and consumed directly over the Internet either as fully functional applications (SaaS), development platforms (PaaS) or raw computing resources (IaaS). Figure 3 proposes a model of how the different categories of university users may consume cloud services. Figure 3: Main Users of typical university in a cloud computing setting (adapted from Sultan, 2010)

For South African higher education, things like shared course content, shared applications for research, shared servers such as high performance computing platforms, things like shared admission services for students, shared enrolments and so on can all be availed via a shared community cloud. But who hosts the cloud? A large university or college could sponsor the hosting on a cost recovery basis, with smaller universities or colleges subscribing for services. Another approach is to have a commercial provider run the cloud and sell services to colleges and universities. For this to happen there must be demand from colleges or universities. This demand could come from say a shared ERP such as Integrated Tertiary Software (ITS) being rolled out as a service. Instead of each university

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running their own in-house implementation, ITS could cloud-enable some of the services such as course administration, student enrollment, invigilation, alumni administration, Graduations etc that can be standardized across the higher education sector and then provided as a service. Another approach is if an interested stakeholder such as the government decides to operate the community cloud as a free service to colleges and universities. For example, the DHET has recently floated the idea of a centralized body to process the admission of first year students to avoid the sort of chaos that ensued at UJ last year and that continue dogging the tertiary sector every year. 1.7 Organization of paper The paper is organized as follows. Section 2 discusses the methodology used to undertake the work. Section 3 discusses the key findings. Section 4 concludes the paper with recommendations for future work. Section 5 gives the references. 2. Research methodology This study uses a survey research methodology. According to Gable(1994), survey research is a quantitative method that involves the collection of data from a number of organizations or other entities using tools such as questionnaires, telephonic interviews and published statistics. The data is then analyzed using statistical techniques, and used to discover relationships that are common across the organizations. General conclusions can then be drawn about the object of study. The use of survey research in information systems study is widespread (Gable, 1994). As reported by Katz et al(2009), Educause Centre for Applied Research (ECAR) successfully used a survey approach to study the adoption and use of alternative sourcing strategies for IT services (including cloud computing) within the US higher education sector. The European Network and Information Security Agency (ENISA) also used a survey technique to determine the adoption of cloud computing among European Small and Medium Scale Enterprises (SME’s)(ENISA, 2009). The study described here adopts a similar approach. A survey questionnaire was distributed, via email, to the IT service departments of 23 public universities and 50 FET colleges across South Africa. The survey specifically requested that the questionnaire be completed by the head of IT service department or a senior IT staff member. The reason for this request was that these are the people most likely to be involved in advising top management on technology trends, and would be involved in decisions related to cloud computing evaluation and adoption. An online cloud based survey tool, SurveyMonkey.com was used to design the survey questions and host the survey as well as collect responses from respondents. The responses were collected between 29 June 2012 and 25 July 2012. 2.1 Survey structure and response rate Out of the 73 institutions targeted, 18 responded, representing a 23% response rate. About 60% of respondents were FET colleges, with universities representing the remaining 40%.

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/27467098_Integrating_Case_Study_and_Survey_Research_Methods_an_Example_in_Information_Systems?el=1_x_8&enrichId=rgreq-e9be5b0d-3a4c-4aa8-b4d1-1d4df4a9ee6a&enrichSource=Y292ZXJQYWdlOzI1Nzk5MDEwNjtBUzoxMDI3Nzc1NTY1NzAxMjRAMTQwMTUxNTQ4NzgwNA==

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The survey involved a questionnaire with 50 questions. The first part of the questionnaire consisted of general questions designed to establish the current IT infrastructure available at the institution. This included details such as the main IT platforms in use (hardware and software server platforms, database management systems, Learning Management Systems (LMS) etc.), Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems in use, Internet connectivity, and the current data warehousing and business intelligence tools. The second part was designed to gauge the current state of cloud computing at the institution. This part starts off with the following question: How well understood is the concept of cloud computing at your institution? There are four possible answers:

a) We know what cloud computing means, we are already using it in my institution b) We know what cloud computing means, BUT we are not currently using it in my

institution. c) We have heard of the term cloud computing, but we are not sure what it means. d) Never heard of the term cloud computing, no idea what it means.

Respondents who chose (a) were directed to Part B1and treated as current cloud users. Respondents who choose (b) are directed to Part B2, and treated as non-users of cloud computing at present but who may consider using it in future. Choosing (c) or (d) terminates the survey. Figure 4 below illustrates the general flow. Figure 4: General structure of the cloud computing questionnaire

Part A: Current IT Infrastructure

Part B1: Currently Using Cloud Computing Part B2: Currently NOT Using Cloud Computing

1. Cloud Computing Issues

(Service Models, Deployment Models)

1. Cloud Computing Issues

(Service Models, Deployment Models)

2. Cloud Adoption Issues (Barriers, Drivers, Plans)

2. Cloud Adoption Issues (Barriers, Drivers, Plans)

Part C: Submit Questionnaire

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3. Survey findings 3.1 Cloud computing awareness and adoption 92.9% of respondents stated that they are familiar with the term cloud computing. This indicates a high level of cloud computing awareness among public universities and FET colleges in South Africa. The results show a 43% cloud computing adoption rate among the respondents. About 57% of institutions responding to the survey do not use cloud computing at all. Table 1 below shows the adoption levels among the institutions who responded. Table 1: Cloud computing awareness and adoption How well understood is the concept of cloud computing at your institution?

Answer Options Response Percent

We know what cloud computing means, we are already using it in my institution 42.9% We know what cloud computing means, BUT we are currently not using it in my institution 50.0% We have heard of the term cloud computing, But we are not sure what it means 7.1% Never heard of the term cloud computing, we have no idea what it means 0.0% 3.2 Cloud deployment models Public clouds are the most popular deployment model, chosen by 50% of respondents that are currently using cloud computing. Next in popularity are private clouds, currently used by 33.3% of respondents. 16.7% chose hybrid cloud. No respondent chose a community cloud. Table 2 below shows the results. Table 2: Cloud models currently in use

Which of the following cloud models is your institution currently using?


Private cloud 33.3% Public cloud 50.0% Community cloud 0.0% Hybrid cloud 16.7% Don’t Know 0.0%

The popularity of public clouds compared to the other deployment models is not surprising. By leveraging massive economies of scale, public cloud providers can afford to provide services (IaaS, PaaS or SaaS) at extremely low rates or even for free. On the downside though, security and privacy concerns as well as limited customization options can make public cloud services unappealing for certain applications. Public clouds are particularly suitable for general purpose, non-critical, standardized applications and services that can easily be delivered to millions of subscribers as a commodity without the need for

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modifications such as Gmail, Yahoo and Hotmail and Social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter. 33% of respondents chose that they are currently using a private cloud in their institution. This would indicate a move towards server consolidation using virtualization, with the subsequent virtual resources consumed internally within the institution. Private clouds, though more expensive to set up and run, have the advantage of giving total control over data, leading to better security. Only larger institutions with sufficient in-house capacity are likely to consider private clouds. Hybrid clouds combine two or more clouds. 16.7% indicated they are currently using hybrid clouds at their institutions. A possible arrangement of a hybrid cloud is where sensitive data and applications are held in-house behind corporate fire walls, and a public application service is accessed from a public cloud provider. No respondent chose community cloud, indicating that collaborative clouds are yet to take root in South Africa. Community clouds targeting academic institutions hold huge potential, partly because it will be possible for institutions to share resources within a cloud environment that provides more guarantees for security than can be obtained from a public cloud (Wheeler and Waggener, 2009). 3.3 Key adoption drivers i.e. why adopt cloud computing? Respondents were asked to rate, using a Likert scale, how the following factors influenced their decision to adopt cloud computing.

• Reduce IT costs • Get access to cutting edge IT resources at reduced cost • Reduce Implementation risks • Lack of In-house Technical Expertise • Enable in-house IT staff to focus on core-business areas. • Improve IT Services • Make IT services more reliable

Figure 6: Main drivers for cloud computing adoption in SA Higher Education

3.67

3.17

3.00

2.83

2.67

2.33

2.33

Enable in-house IT staff to focus on core-business …

Improve IT Services

Make IT services more reliable

Reduce IT costs

Reduce Implementation risks

Get access to cutting edge IT resources at reduced …

Lack of In-house Technical Expertise

Which of the following factors influenced your decision to adopt cloud computing(Pick an area for which you are currently using cloud computing)

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As shown in figure 6 above, respondents rated the need to enable in-house staff to concentrate on core business areas as the most important factor that drove them to adopt cloud computing. Two data items obtained from this survey seem to explain this finding. First, more than 60% of the respondents in this survey indicated that they have a small IT staff complement of less than 20 employees (see Table 3 below). Second and probably as a consequence of having inadequate in-house IT staff, 53.3% of all institutions surveyed stated that they employ the services of external consultants for the delivery of routine IT functions (see Table 4 below). These figures suggest that most institutions struggle to attract and retain scarce IT talent in-house. It is thus not surprising that a large proportion of respondents strongly feel that their limited in-house IT staff should concentrate more on rendering support to the core business of teaching, learning and research as opposed to expending valuable staff time on non-critical tasks such as student email. Table 3: IT staff complement in SA Higher Education Approximately how many full time staff does the IT services department have? (N= 15)


1- 20 60.0%

20 – 50 13.3%

More than 50 26.7%

None - All our IT functions are outsourced to external providers. 0.0% Table 4: Use of external consultants in SA Higher Education Does your institution make use of external consultants to support the delivery of routine IT functions and services?(N=15)


Yes 53.3% No 46.7%

The need to improve IT services and making IT more reliable also scored highly as a motivation to adopt cloud computing. This should be viewed against the backdrop of small and inadequate in-house staff and the associated reliance on external consultants for the delivery of IT services. Reliance on external consultants may imply that these institutions would be more inclined to adopt cloud services where possible. Reducing IT costs is also rated as a significant factor, scoring an average of 2.83/5 among the respondents that are currently using cloud computing. A key promise of cloud computing is allowing smaller players with limited resources to access cutting edge computing resources (be it SaaS, PaaS or IaaS) cheaply and on-demand via the Internet without committing huge upfront costs demanded by on-premise deployments.

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Respondents also cite reducing implementation risks as an important factor scoring 2.67/5. A common problem with on-premise deployment is the significant risk of failure associated with in-house IT deployments (Keil et al, 1998; Charette, 2005; Standish Group, 2010). Cloud computing eliminates such risks because tenants can test drive cloud applications off the Internet and only commit funds when sure the solutions meet their requirements. 3.4 Key barriers to adoption As stated earlier, 50% of all respondents have not adopted cloud computing in any form. The question is what factors influenced their decision not to consider cloud computing, despite being aware of the potential operational and financial benefits that cloud computing can bring. Using the Likert scale, the respondents were asked which of the following potential barriers may have influenced their decision not to consider cloud computing: Figure 6A and figure 6B below show the average ratings obtained from those respondents that are currently not using the cloud and those using the cloud respectively. Figure 6A: Barriers to cloud computing adoption (those currently not using the cloud)

3.38

3.00

3.00

3.63

3.63

3.38

3.25

2.13

0.00 0.50 1.00 1.50 2.00 2.50 3.00 3.50 4.00

Data security and privacy risks

In-house operation is more cost effective

Lack of mature cloud offerings

Bandwidth Limitations

Performance concerns

Reliability concerns

Fear of vendor lock-in

Inadequate knowledge about cloud computing

Which among the following are the most significant factors that have contributed to your reluctance to consider cloud computing?(N=8)

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Figure 6B: Barriers to cloud computing adoption (those currently using the cloud)

Inadequate internet connectivity: Bandwidth limitations and performance and reliability concerns emerged as the most significant factors that affect the adoption of cloud computing among the respondents who are not currently using cloud computing (see figure 6A). When respondents who are currently using cloud computing in some areas were asked why they were reluctant to adopt cloud computing for some of their IT services, bandwidth limitations and performance concerns again emerged as the most serious impediment to cloud computing adoption (see Figure 6B). Institutions are clearly concerned about their current Internet service which they feel may not be fast and reliable enough to support their cloud ambitions. Access to fast and affordable bandwidth is a key pre-requisite to reliable cloud services, especially data intensive applications like enterprise resource planning and data warehousing (Armbrust, 2009; Marston et al, 2010; Abadi, 2009). When asked to estimate their current internet bandwidth, more than 80% of the respondents indicated their total bandwidth is less than 1Gbps, and considered their current Internet slow, unreliable and costly.

3.00

2.67

3.00

3.17

3.33

3.00

2.83

2.00

0.00 0.50 1.00 1.50 2.00 2.50 3.00 3.50

Data security and privacy risks

In-house operation is more cost effective

Lack of mature cloud offerings

Bandwidth Limitations

Performance concerns

Reliability concerns

Fear of vendor lock-in

Inadequate knowledge about cloud computing

Which of the following factors influenced your decision NOT to adopt cloud computing(Pick an area where you are not using cloud computing)

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Figure 7: Current bandwidth in SA higher education

These figures compare badly with figures from more developed counterparts. According to Steve Song from the International Development Research Centre (Song, 2005), “the average university in Africa has the same aggregate bandwidth as a single home user in North America or Europe…. and pays more than 50 times for this bandwidth than its counterparts in Europe or North America do for much more capacity”. Data security concerns: Another important barrier to cloud computing adoption among South African universities and colleges is concerns on data security and privacy which scored an average of more than 3/5 for both current users of cloud computing and those that have not adopted cloud computing. It is clear that in cases where IT infrastructural challenges are less (such as in the developed economies), data security and privacy concerns rank higher as barriers to cloud adoption. In developing countries such as South Africa, Internet speeds and cost are more significant. Moving sensitive data such as financial and scholarly records out of a private data center to the cloud, especially a public cloud (meaning loss of direct control) needs a huge leap of faith even among public universities who are traditionally less sensitive to confidential business leaks because they are not profit driven. In a survey conducted by research firm IDC in 2009(IDC, 2009), almost 75% of IT executives identified security as their most serious issue when asked what concerns them most in their attempts to adopt cloud computing. In a related survey targeting American Universities, more than 70% of university CIOs identified data security as their top concern when considering cloud adoption(Katz et al, 2009). Several other studies and industry reports concur with this finding (Armbrust et al,2009;Gartner,2009; Hauck, 2010; Erin et al, 2008). Marston et al (2010), Hauck (2010) and Subashini et al(2010) predict that research on cloud security is bound to grow significantly in the coming years. Ambrust et al(2009) argue that security and privacy challenges for cloud computing can be alleviated by deploying cryptography, employing virtual LANs (VLANs) and fire walls. The challenge,

<10 Mbps 13%

10-100 Mbps 27%

100 – 1 Gbps 40%

>1 Gbps 20%

I Don’t Know 0%

What would be a close estimate to your current Internet bandwidth?

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according to them, is to ensure that cloud providers and users comply with these security provisions. Marston et al (2010) argue that smaller firms may actually experience much better security in the cloud than they are able to provide in-house because they lack the resources and expertise to mount a reasonable security infrastructure. We argue here that the opportunity costs lost by not adopting cloud computing is far worse than the risks brought about by its adoption, especially for smaller universities and colleges with limited resources. Lack of mature cloud offerings: Among the current users of cloud computing, lack of mature cloud offerings scores a solid 3/5 as a key barrier to adoption. This seems to suggest that the rate of adoption could accelerate if the market were to make available more mature cloud offerings that closely matched the needs of higher education. A significant number of respondents reported lack of what we consider important IT applications and resources for supporting the core functions of teaching, learning and research. Among the respondents;

• More than 35% have no Learning Management System (LMS). • Almost a fifth (17%) have no integrated Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP)

software • More than 50% have no functional data warehouse, putting to question their ability

to harness the information resources at their disposal to improve the decision making process.

• Almost 43% do not provide free email services to students.

When asked to identify the main obstacles to building a data warehousing solution, complexity of building one and the prohibitive cost of available solutions in the market emerged as the major limitations. If credible cloud solutions were to become available at a fair cost, these gaps in shortage of key software within colleges and universities could be plugged. 3.5 Nature and type of current cloud services: i.e. applications on the cloud Respondents were asked to indicate how extensively the following areas have been adopted for cloud computing.

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Table 5: Current cloud services

For each of the following areas, indicate how extensively cloud computing has been adopted in your institution.(N = 7)

Answer Options Rating

Average (Max 5)

Cloud Service

Student Management (Admissions, Registration, Enrolments, Bursaries, Graduations, Alumni etc.) 1.33

SaaS

Administrative Systems (HR, CRM, Supply Chain, Finances, Payroll, Asset Management etc) 1.67

Learning Management System (LMS) 1.67

Business Intelligence and Reporting tools 1.67

Office Productivity Tools(eg Word, Excel) 1.50

Student Email 1.83

Staff Email 2.50

Software Development Platforms 1.33 PaaS

Data Warehousing/Data Marts 1.17

Backup and Storage 2.17 IaaS

Infrastructure (Hardware servers) 2.17 The most popular cloud service is staff email (2.5/5), followed by Backup and storage and cloud based hardware servers (2.17). Student email scores 1.83. These figures indicate a very low uptake across the board (SaaS, PaaS or IaaS), revealing that only a few aspects of these services have migrated to the cloud. From these results we can deduce that universities and colleges are very reluctant to move mission-critical applications such as student management systems that are important for their day to day operations to the cloud. This is quite understandable in view of the various concerns expressed regarding issues such as bandwidth limitations, cloud performance and data security. In addition, institutions have made substantial investments in their in-house systems and it will take some convincing to just abandon these systems and migrate to the cloud. Vendors such as ITS have also been slow in unveiling cloud-enabled versions of their products or portions thereof. On the other hand, non -core applications such as email (especially student email) as well as Infrastructure resources such as storage and cloud servers (we suspect for occasional cloud experiments) fare much better as candidates for cloud adoption. The availability of popular email services such as Gmail, Hotmail, and Yahoo and cloud storage services such as DropBox that are widely used by the general population may also explain the heightened willingness for higher education to consider cloud adoption. 4. Conclusion These results show that although higher education institutions are well aware of cloud computing, the predominant model among the higher education institutions in South Africa remain the on-premise model where institutions own and operate their own dedicated IT resources in-house. Almost 95% of respondents operate in-house data centers. Lack of fast, affordable and reliable Internet connectivity remains a significant barrier to the

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adoption of cloud computing in South African Higher Education. Data security concerns as well as lack of mature cloud offerings are other important factors that contribute to the low adoption of cloud computing in South African higher education. The need to release IT staff to concentrate on core areas of teaching and research by outsourcing non-core items to the cloud, the urge to provide improved IT services more reliably at reduced costs are major drivers for cloud adoption. Standard, non-core applications that require little or no customization by consumers such as email and online backup and storage services (e.g. Drop Box) that can be outsourced to large public cloud providers (e.g. Google or Microsoft) are good candidates for cloud deployment. On the other hand, institutions are reluctant to adopt cloud computing for mission critical applications such as student management systems whose strict security and performance requirements may not be met by present cloud computing environments. For cloud computing to gain traction within South African higher education, the issue of Internet connectivity has to be addressed. Successful completion of the South African Research Network (SANREN, 2012) promises to dramatically improve connection speeds (a 10Gbps backbone), and will hopefully resolve the bandwidth and connectivity issue. Access to faster and more affordable Internet will make cloud computing more appealing to higher education and accelerate the pace of adoption. Even though cloud computing offers attractive options, most universities and colleges have made substantial in-house investments for critical applications such as ERP and Data warehousing. In the foreseeable future these systems will remain in-house. Newer systems may however have a substantial cloud component. Cloud offerings targeting higher education are expected to grow and offer competition to established on-site solutions such as ITS (Integrated Tertiary Software) and Oracle’s PeopleSoft that dominate higher education in South Africa. These ERP systems are usually quite expensive and only accessible to bigger universities and colleges. Cloud offerings with a smaller cost footprint may be attractive to smaller institutions and colleges with limited resources who make up the bulk of 17% of institutions with no integrated ERP solution. If the internet connectivity issue is resolved, community clouds joining together academic institutions will become more viable. Larger institutions may decide to become cloud providers themselves by hosting services that they sell to smaller colleges and universities. Commoditization of standard applications such as processing student applications, course management, invigilation, asset management and CRM may become web services that are consumed off jointly owned community clouds. Running joint data centers will become more cost effective than going it alone. For example, all FET colleges in a province could jointly run a shared data center at a fraction of the cost of running one themselves. DHET may also provide services via the cloud. 5. References Armbrust, M., Fox, A., Griffith, R., Joseph,A.D., Katz, R.H., Konwinski, A., Lee, G., Patterson, D.A., Rabkin, A., Stoica I. and M. Zaharia .2009 Above the Clouds: A Berkeley View of cloud computing, University of California at Berkeley. Retrieved 24 May 2012 from

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