By Samuel Msiska

If you graduated from college ten years ago, the word "college" may mean being a full-time student staying on a college campus however, things have changed over the years especially after the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic. Many institutions offering higher education have gone digital, offering lessons and coursework via the internet thanks to cloud computing; distance learning as it is called. To gird up its loins for challenging times ahead, one of the top universities in the world, the University of Toronto, has made a significant enhancement by teaming up with Microsoft Azure to integrate cloud computing into its IT infrastructure. This move will reduce latency as cloud computing services are better are resolving issues at a faster rate compared to legacy servers. According to the university, a process that was taking 36 hours now only takes 2 minutes to finish ever since they incorporated cloud computing. Let`s look at some of the reasons colleges are migrating to cloud computing. 

Reduces operating costs

After the 2007-2008 financial crisis, many colleges and university which suffered budget cuts from federal funding, have had to challenge to increase their computational power to meet the ever-increasing demand for computational resources. As a result, these colleges have found cloud computing as a cheaper, secure alternative IT solution to share information between the university database and the students. There is a large cost implication when it comes to buying and maintaining on-site IT infrastructure and with the current pandemic, many universities have experienced massive budget cuts.  In addition, there is a high cost of running an on-premise IT infrastructure largely due to the installation and maintenance of a cooling system for the IT devices in a data center and the consumption of electricity by these devices. Since the IT infrastructure is maintained by a service provider and not the university, cloud computing reduces all these costs plus many other costs that would come from employing an onsite cloud architect or engineer, therefore, leading to fewer expenditures.  

Protects students and staff from uncertainty

The current Covid-19 global pandemic caught many institutions of higher learning off guard. As many colleges and universities completely shut down in the middle of the teaching and learning term, some looked for alternative solutions to continue with their curriculum. The adoption of cloud computing by these universities has made remote learning possible, bringing learning out of the classroom and delivering it to students in their homes. The University of Toronto is one good example of an institution that acted swiftly during the pandemic to avoid the abrupt change in the operational norm, caused by the pandemic, from bringing it to a complete halt. "Over the last few years, the University has made significant enhancements to our infrastructure that will help us get through challenging times, not the least of which is moving to cloud services that are scalable during events like this pandemic.", said Bo Wandschneider, the Chief Information Officer of the university.

Expands access to education across the globe

With 33 major online degree programs/courses, Rutgers University is one of the prominent research institutions in New Jersey. With a total enrollment of 50,173 students, 11,925 have enrolled for online programs either exclusively online or in some online courses. In 2019, the university partnered with Oracle cloud on a five-year plan to modernize and unify its IT system. Cloud computing allows education institutions to create management portals and deploy high applications for remote learning with virtual classrooms. Rutgers is one fish out of the school of many other reputable institutions around the world that are expanding to reach out to more students in a way largely made possible by adopting cloud technology.

Reduces processing latency

Latency is defined as the time it takes for a packet of data to travel from the source to a destination. One of the factors affecting latency is the geographical location (the distance between the server and the requestor). A student who stays miles away from the university campus will experience an increase in response time when trying to access materials from the university`s servers. The reason cloud computing has become famous in the education sector is that when applications are put on the cloud, providers are able to reduce the distance between the user and the nearest node of the system hence reducing geography-based latency.

Students can learn at their own pace

Cloud computing makes it possible for students to have access to up-to-date content at any time. This really helps students who are slow as they can create their own work schedule and learn at their own pace. Cloud computing also enables flipped learning which according to Smallhorn, increases student engagement. In flip learning, students complete pre-class work usually in form of short videos or readings while class time is focused on live problem-solving. Because the students already know the content beforehand, they utilize their time to collaborate and solidify their understanding. Cloud computing helps in the deployment of applications that can be used in flipped learning and also eases access to lecture videos and resources.