Cloud Based Solutions are highly flexible and versatile in their inherent nature. This makes them suitable for a wide range of industries. Over the past few years, we have seen a major revolution in the education sector that has largely been driven by the advancements in the field of Information Technology (IT).
IT has greatly influenced the way education is imparted these days. We are moving towards technology driven classrooms that have been made possible by high tech gadgets. Cloud Based Solutions have added a whole new dimension of versatility and efficiency in the .
Also Read: The Future of The Education Industry
In this post, we will highlight some of the major advantages and functionality that have been contributed by cloud based solutions:-
Data Centrality
This is one of those advantages of any cloud based solution that act as a best fit for the field of education. The entire curriculum can be migrated and delivered over the cloud from a unified data center. Any changes in the existing academic curriculum would have to be made at a single location and they would be fully implemented.
Also Read: 7 Shifting Trends in Cloud Computing for Year 2020
Security
If we see education as a certain service, not all educational institutions offer the same quality of education. The quality of education heavily relies on two key factors namely the curriculum and the teachers. Of these two factors, we can consider the curriculum of each institution as intellectual property.
Also Read: Security Benefits of Cloud Computing Solutions
Once we conclude that curriculum is intellectual property, its security is of paramount importance. A cloud based solution converges the syllabus at a single point, generally a data center of the Cloud Service Provider (CSP).
From a data security stand point, securing a single repository of data is a much more feasible option as compared to securing many end point devices where data is sporadically dispersed. If the entire syllabus is migrated to a single location, securing it becomes a much more manageable task.
Student Record
On the same lines as that of the curriculum, the entire record of students can be moved over the cloud network. In this way, the management of the educational institution would have to update a single database of student record. This database would be accessible in real time to all tiers of the institution.
The aspects of student record that are directly relevant to students can be made available to students over the same cloud based infrastructure. Each student can be provided unique login credentials to access pertinent educational data such as test results, fee status and upcoming educational assignments.
To further streamline the process, the parents or guardians of the students can also be granted access to the student’s progress over the cloud network. In this way, parents can track the progress of their child in real time and whenever convenient. This will greatly help students remain on track with their academic activities.
Hardware Costs
When the core processes of any educational institution move over to the cloud, there is no longer the need for investing heavily in on premise IT infrastructure. In addition to saving capital expenditures, the educational institute no longer has to maintain a small army of skilled IT technicians to maintain the IT hardware.
In a cloud based solution, all the hardware is the sole domain of the Cloud Service Provider (CSP). This gives a lot of peace of mind to the cloud tenant as neither the investment, nor human capital is required to procure and maintain the in house IT hardware.
Wide Selection
Today’s cloud solutions market is highly matured with multiple service providers catering to even the smallest market niche. This gives each educational institution a lot of choice and sway in selecting the most suitable cloud solution provider.
With the entry of more service providers in the market, cloud based solutions are becoming ever more customized and flexible. As the competition grows across the industry, the costs of cloud based solutions are bound to come down, which is another great news for the users of cloud based solutions.
In addition to cost savings, educational institutions that adopt the cloud relieve themselves of the hassle of procuring, maintaining and constantly upgrading IT hardware. The same time, effort and resources can be channelized towards the core activity of imparting high quality education.
Scalable Costs
When an educational institution goes for an on premise infrastructure, it always has to plan for the worst case scenario. Due to this reason, entities end up deploying much more resources that required during the normal course of events. All the additional resources generally lie getting wasted and add to inefficiencies.
On the other hand, outsourced cloud based solutions are charged purely on a usage basis. The other great aspect of a robust cloud based solution is that it can be scaled up or down virtually in real-time, at no fixed costs. Each educational institute can align its costs with the associated workload at any particular point in time.
Automation
In case of an efficient cloud based solution, many key processes can be automated by employing a very basic level of automation or Artificial Intelligence (AI). Some of the processes that can be automated include the preparation and checking of periodic students examinations.
Once this key process is automated, or a good part thereof, the whole process would become highly efficient and free of errors or omissions. This will streamline the whole examination process and as it is automated, the element of human error is virtually eliminated.
Conclusion
The cloud based solutions can do wonders in the field of education. High quality education otherwise greatly contributes to the overall development of any country or even a whole region. Educational institutions that are still prospecting for a cloud solution should waste no further time and embrace the cloud.
