57,683 research outputs found
On Evaluating Commercial Cloud Services: A Systematic Review
Background: Cloud Computing is increasingly booming in industry with many
competing providers and services. Accordingly, evaluation of commercial Cloud
services is necessary. However, the existing evaluation studies are relatively
chaotic. There exists tremendous confusion and gap between practices and theory
about Cloud services evaluation. Aim: To facilitate relieving the
aforementioned chaos, this work aims to synthesize the existing evaluation
implementations to outline the state-of-the-practice and also identify research
opportunities in Cloud services evaluation. Method: Based on a conceptual
evaluation model comprising six steps, the Systematic Literature Review (SLR)
method was employed to collect relevant evidence to investigate the Cloud
services evaluation step by step. Results: This SLR identified 82 relevant
evaluation studies. The overall data collected from these studies essentially
represent the current practical landscape of implementing Cloud services
evaluation, and in turn can be reused to facilitate future evaluation work.
Conclusions: Evaluation of commercial Cloud services has become a world-wide
research topic. Some of the findings of this SLR identify several research gaps
in the area of Cloud services evaluation (e.g., the Elasticity and Security
evaluation of commercial Cloud services could be a long-term challenge), while
some other findings suggest the trend of applying commercial Cloud services
(e.g., compared with PaaS, IaaS seems more suitable for customers and is
particularly important in industry). This SLR study itself also confirms some
previous experiences and reveals new Evidence-Based Software Engineering (EBSE)
lessons
Fog Computing: A Taxonomy, Survey and Future Directions
In recent years, the number of Internet of Things (IoT) devices/sensors has
increased to a great extent. To support the computational demand of real-time
latency-sensitive applications of largely geo-distributed IoT devices/sensors,
a new computing paradigm named "Fog computing" has been introduced. Generally,
Fog computing resides closer to the IoT devices/sensors and extends the
Cloud-based computing, storage and networking facilities. In this chapter, we
comprehensively analyse the challenges in Fogs acting as an intermediate layer
between IoT devices/ sensors and Cloud datacentres and review the current
developments in this field. We present a taxonomy of Fog computing according to
the identified challenges and its key features.We also map the existing works
to the taxonomy in order to identify current research gaps in the area of Fog
computing. Moreover, based on the observations, we propose future directions
for research
Evaluation of a global MBA programme
E-learning continues to develop rapidly supported by increasing sophistication of information technology and by better understanding of how to make content and delivery more effective. Moreover, new forms of e-learning support system are being introduced to higher education institutions in an effort to meet the student-centred learning paradigms recommended by UNESCO (UNESCO, 1998). The creation and implementation of effective quality assurance for such learning processes has been identified as one of the most challenging tasks. Jara & Mellar (2010) and MartĂnez-ArgĂŒelles et al. (2010) point out that the collection of student feedback should be a central part of strategies to monitor the quality and standards of teaching and learning in higher education institutions for both conventional learning and e-learning. Jara & Mellar (2010) note also that while research into e-learning abounds, studies that focus on the effectiveness of the provision of e-learning are limited, and that this is a gap to be filled.
This article reports on the evaluation of, and the consequent changes to, the global e-learning MBA programme from the University of Bedfordshire. The research was conducted by three members of the MBA team - two Senior Lecturers and the E-learning Development Manager. The aim was to investigate the learning experiences and perceptions of the students and to evaluate the effectiveness of the e-learning support system
The evaluation of the national learning network
In December 1998, the Department for Education and Employment announced that ÂŁ74 million would be made available, over a threeâyear period, to fund improvements in information and learning technology within English further education: this initiative is known as the National Learning Network. An evaluation team has been appointed to report on whether the investment is being used nationally and locally in an efficient and effective manner. This paper outlines the process by which this task is being fulfilled and how the impact of the investment is being evaluated through the close monitoring of fortyâone representative English FE colleges. It also presents a range of freeâstanding evaluation tools which have been developed by the evaluation team for use within these colleges by internal practitionerâevaluators. These tools will enable colleges to assess the effectiveness of the investment and enable the evaluation team to monitor the impact of the national investment on a small, representative cohort of students and staff over a twoâyear period The paper concludes with a brief look at the role this development is playing in designing a universally applicable model for assessing costâeffectiveness across all educational sectors
Institutional Learning and Change: An initiative to promote greater impact through agricultural research for poverty alleviation
The ILAC Initiative consists of an evolving community of individuals committed to increasing the contributions of agricultural research to sustainable poverty reduction around the world. ILAC promotes research, methodology development and capacity development to increase understanding of agricultural change processes and increase the effectiveness of interventions to stimulate pro-poor innovation. This paper presents a broad overview of ILAC, including its background, origins and evolution, objectives and activities. It also presents the initiativeâs central hypothesis and a set of guiding questions. Theoretical frameworks that show promise for increasing understanding of issues related to capacities to learn, facilitate innovation, and contribute to poverty reduction are introduced.agricultural, research, ILAC, pro-poor, innovation, farmers, Agricultural and Food Policy, Food Security and Poverty, Research and Development/Tech Change/Emerging Technologies,
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