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An exploratory study for investigating the critical success factors for cloud migration in the Saudi Arabian higher education context

An exploratory study for investigating the critical success factors for cloud migration in the Saudi Arabian higher education context
An exploratory study for investigating the critical success factors for cloud migration in the Saudi Arabian higher education context
Saudi universities have at their disposal a huge number of low cost IT resources to aid in teaching, research and learning. By migrating to cloud services, Saudi universities will be moving data and programs from local servers to the internet, thereby providing users with the ability to access and share information at any time from multiple devices. The migration to cloud-based IT resources is not yet widespread in Saudi universities due to several challenges including security, legal policies and implementation. At present, there is lack of research and guidance for Saudi universities on how to overcome these challenges and how contextual factors can influence the successful migration to the educational clouds.

This research presents a framework for the successful migration to cloud technology in the Saudi Arabian universities. In this research, a set of key critical success factors (CSFs) were identified by synthesizing components from studies concerned with the migration of cloud for higher education and factors identified from the successful implementation of WBL (Web Based Learning) and ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) on higher education in Saudi Arabia. Based on this knowledge, the proposed framework was evaluated via expert review and a survey by IT specialists from the Saudi universities. The initial CSFs were updated based on the expert reviews and the results were analysed. Based on the findings at this stage, additional CSFs were added to the framework as suggested by the experts. Subsequently, in order to confirm the reviewed CSFs, additional investigation via a structured online questionnaire was conducted and the outcome was analysed via one-sample t-test with the data integrity analysed via Cronbach’s alpha. The outcome indicated the majority of CSFs to be statistically significant except the Physical Location CSF. Potential future study and contributions are discussed.
0736-5853
664-678
Alharthi, Abdulrahman
3095419b-deca-441f-a80b-1df9e06c4964
Alassafi, Madini
231b07cb-5a2c-4875-b213-e7c32f328863
Wills, Gary
3a594558-6921-4e82-8098-38cd8d4e8aa0
Walters, Robert
7b8732fb-3083-4f4d-844e-85a29daaa2c1
Alharthi, Abdulrahman
3095419b-deca-441f-a80b-1df9e06c4964
Alassafi, Madini
231b07cb-5a2c-4875-b213-e7c32f328863
Wills, Gary
3a594558-6921-4e82-8098-38cd8d4e8aa0
Walters, Robert
7b8732fb-3083-4f4d-844e-85a29daaa2c1

Alharthi, Abdulrahman, Alassafi, Madini, Wills, Gary and Walters, Robert (2017) An exploratory study for investigating the critical success factors for cloud migration in the Saudi Arabian higher education context. Telematics and Informatics, 34 (2), 664-678. (doi:10.1016/j.tele.2016.10.008).

Record type: Article

Abstract

Saudi universities have at their disposal a huge number of low cost IT resources to aid in teaching, research and learning. By migrating to cloud services, Saudi universities will be moving data and programs from local servers to the internet, thereby providing users with the ability to access and share information at any time from multiple devices. The migration to cloud-based IT resources is not yet widespread in Saudi universities due to several challenges including security, legal policies and implementation. At present, there is lack of research and guidance for Saudi universities on how to overcome these challenges and how contextual factors can influence the successful migration to the educational clouds.

This research presents a framework for the successful migration to cloud technology in the Saudi Arabian universities. In this research, a set of key critical success factors (CSFs) were identified by synthesizing components from studies concerned with the migration of cloud for higher education and factors identified from the successful implementation of WBL (Web Based Learning) and ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) on higher education in Saudi Arabia. Based on this knowledge, the proposed framework was evaluated via expert review and a survey by IT specialists from the Saudi universities. The initial CSFs were updated based on the expert reviews and the results were analysed. Based on the findings at this stage, additional CSFs were added to the framework as suggested by the experts. Subsequently, in order to confirm the reviewed CSFs, additional investigation via a structured online questionnaire was conducted and the outcome was analysed via one-sample t-test with the data integrity analysed via Cronbach’s alpha. The outcome indicated the majority of CSFs to be statistically significant except the Physical Location CSF. Potential future study and contributions are discussed.

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An exploratory study for investigating the critical success factors for cloud migration in the Saudi Arabian higher education context.pdf - Accepted Manuscript
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More information

Accepted/In Press date: 23 October 2016
e-pub ahead of print date: 26 October 2016
Published date: May 2017
Organisations: Electronic & Software Systems

Identifiers

Local EPrints ID: 402722
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/402722
ISSN: 0736-5853
PURE UUID: 9fb91e9e-2303-44ac-b3bd-7886e950e03f
ORCID for Abdulrahman Alharthi: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0002-2160-9515
ORCID for Madini Alassafi: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0001-9919-8368
ORCID for Gary Wills: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0001-5771-4088

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Date deposited: 14 Nov 2016 13:51
Last modified: 16 Mar 2024 02:51

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Contributors

Author: Abdulrahman Alharthi ORCID iD
Author: Madini Alassafi ORCID iD
Author: Gary Wills ORCID iD
Author: Robert Walters

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