A thorough investigation of Cloud Computing: Sustainability Modelling and Enterprise Portability for Industry and Academia

Cloud Computing (CC) has transformed the way many organisations work. It offers a variety of benefits including cost-saving, agility, efficiency, resource consolidation, business opportunities and green IT. This brings technical and business challenges in many organisations. To address increasing requirements from Industry and Academia, there are two major areas need to be addressed: (i) the organisational sustainability and measurement of Return on Investment (ROI); and (ii) enterprise portability, so that the entire applications and services can moved from desktops to clouds, and between different clouds, with ease and convenience

The OMII Software – Demonstrations and Comparisons between two different deployments for Client-Server Distributed Systems

This paper describes the key elements of the OMII software and the scenarios which OMII software can be deployed to achieve distributed computing in the UK e-Science Community, where two different deployments for Client-Server distributed systems are demonstrated. Scenarios and experiments for each deployment have been described, with its advantages and disadvantages compared and analyzed. We conclude that our first deployment is more relevant for system administrators or developers, and the second deployment is more suitable for users’ perspective which they can send and check job status for hundred job submissions

How to encourage educators to create and share reusable eLearning materials

A reusable learning object (RLO) is a web-based multimedia digital resource based on a single learning objective, comprising a stand-alone collection of presentation, activity, assessment and links (Leeder et al, 2002, 2003), the advantage of which allow instructional designers to build small instructional components that can be re-used a number of times in different learning context (Wiley 2001). Reusable e-learning materials (REM) are known as the e-learning resources generated in the form of RLOs that utilise a wide range of multimedia components such as assessments and activities (Leeder tl al, 2003). REM offers a competitive advantage over interactive multimedia due to its cost effectiveness, reusability and scalability (Leeder et al, 2003, 2004; Muzio et al, 2001). Maximising learners’ engagement and motivation in the process of learning is critical towards learning outcomes (Alexander 2001). The integration of REM and face-to-face learning, known as interactive learning (IL), has been proposed in order to achieve this (Katzy, 2000; Sloman, 2001; Chang, 2002, 2003). There are problems involved during the integration, and technical problems often become the centre of attention (Grudin 1994). However, focus on the needs of educators and demands of their teaching and learning practice are ignored but important aspects in IL (Katzy, 2000; Sloman, 2001; Chang, 2002, 2003). Engaging educators in the creative process of REM content development is a recommended way for motivating educators and also allowing them to understand the benefits of using technology for teaching, learning and sharing purposes. (Leeder et al, 2002). By making “human factor” at the centre of practising e-learning, reuse of learning resources is further encouraged from active participation, feedback, peer sharing and IL, thus maximising learners’ engagement and motivation. In order to effectively create REM, a virtual learning environment (VLE) is often adopted at the heart of learning activities. But one such a disadvantage is the expectation of high quality materials required due to its principle of self-directed learning. However, a place for providing a forum for circulating ideas and resolving both technical and pedagogic problems is a solution (Leeder et al, 2003). This offers different educators and learners a collaborative environment face-to-face and in VLE, thus encouraging educators creating and sharing REM. User feedback on the use and effectiveness of REM delivered in the VLE is also an important step, since the peer review process can reflect REM evaluation (Leeder et al, 2003). This provides essential information for (1) knowing whether REM is helping to create and share REM and (2) knowing the extent of acceptance, adoption and uses of REM among educators. If the outcomes of (2) are not up to the expectation, providing practical workshops is a key factor, since this offers educators hand-on experience in creating, discussing and sharing REM, thus increasing their interests and enthusiasm in using REM. Finally, the active involvement of an organisation for providing learning assistance, workshops, consultancy, VLE and a series of interactive learning, is critical for maintaining momentum for encouraging educators in creating and sharing REM. This is an ongoing process that requires a strong collaboration and support between educators and this organisation, which can act as (1) a centre for learning, training and sharing and (2) a centre for providing recommended ways of practicing REM that suit individual cases, thus delivering the most effective REM by maximising the adoption of REM

The role and effectiveness of e-learning: key issues in an industrial context

This paper identifies the current role and effectiveness of e-learning and its key issues in an industrial context. The first objective is to identify the role of e-learning, particularly in staff training and executive education, where e-learning (online, computer-based or videoconferencing learning) has made significant impacts and contributions to several organisations such as the Royal Bank of Scotland, Cisco and Cap Gemini Earnst Young. With e-learning, staff training and executive education provides more benefits and better efficiency than traditional means. The second objective of this research is to understand the effectiveness of e-learning. This can be classified into two key issues: (1) methods of e-learning implementations; and (2) factors influencing effective and ineffective e-learning implementations. One learning point from (1) is that centralized e-learning implementations may prevail for big organizations. How-ever, more organizations adopt decentralized e-learning implementations due to various reasons, which will be discussed in this paper. From the research results, a proposed way is to retain the decentralized way. The second learning point is about interactive learning (IL), the combination of both e-learning and face-to-face learning. IL has been making contributions to several organizations, including the increase in motivation, learning interests and also efficiency. The popular issues about IL are (a) how to minimize the disadvantages of IL and (b) the degree of interactivity for maximizing learning efficiency. One learning point from (2) is to analyze the factors influencing effective and ineffective implementations, which reflect the different focuses between industrialists and academics. In terms of effective e-learning implementations, factors identified by both groups can map to particular cases in industry. In contrast, factors causing ineffective implementations rely more on primary source data. In order to find out these factors and analyze the rationale behind, case studies and interviews were used as research methodology that matched the objective of the research

A Case Study for Business Integration as a Service

This paper presents Business Integration as a Service (BIaaS) to allow two services to work together in the Cloud to achieve a streamline process. We illustrate this integration using two services; Return on Investment (ROI) Measurement as a Service (RMaaS) and Risk Analysis as a Service (RAaaS) in the case study at the University of Southampton. The case study demonstrates the cost-savings and the risk analysis achieved, so two services can work as a single service. Advanced techniques are used to demonstrate statistical services and 3D Visualisation services under the remit of RMaaS and Monte Carlo Simulation as a Service behind the design of RAaaS. Computational results are presented with their implications discussed. Different types of risks associated with Cloud adoption can be calculated easily, rapidly and accurately with the use of BIaaS. This case study confirms the benefits of BIaaS adoption, including cost reduction and improvements in efficiency and risk analysis. Implementation of BIaaS in other organisations is also discussed. Important data arising from the integration of RMaaS and RAaaS are useful for management and stakeholders of University of Southampton

Two research contributions in 64-bit computing: Testing and Applications

Following the release of Windows 64-bit and Redhat Linux 64-bit operating systems (OS) in late April 2005, this is the one of the first 64-bit OS research project completed in a British university. The objective is to investigate (1) the increase/decrease in performance compared to 32-bit computing; (2) the techniques used to develop 64-bit applications; and (3) how 64-bit computing should be used in IT and research organizations to improve their work. This paper summarizes research discoveries for this investigation, including two major research contributions in (1) testing and (2) application development. The first contribution includes performance, stress, application, multiplatform, JDK and compatibility testing for AMD and Intel models. Comprehensive testing results reveal that 64-bit computing has a better performance in application performance, system performance and stress testing, but a worse performance in compatibility testing than the traditional 32-bit computing. A 64-bit dual-core processor has been tested and the results show that it performs better than a 64-bit single-core processor, but only in application that requires very high demands of CPU and memory consumption. The second contribution is .NET 1.1 64-bit implementations. Without additional troubleshooting, .NET 1.1 does not work on 64-bit Windows operating systems in stable ways. After stabilizing .NET environment, the next step is the application development, which is a dynamic repository with functions such as registration, download, login-logout, product submissions, database storage and statistical reports. The technology is based on Visual Studio .NET 2003, .NET 1.1 Framework with Service Pack 1, SQL Server 2000 with Service Pack 4 and IIS Server 6.0 on the Windows Server 2003 Enterprise x64 platform with Service Pack 1

Reusable e-learning development: Case studies, practices and issues of awareness for knowledge-based organisations

Reusable e-learning development (RED) is defined as the cloning, modification and customisation of existing files or source codes for developing another website or another web-based application. RED does not imply just copying and changing existing files or source codes but rather, it provides a practical technique for time-saving, improving efficiency and maximising utility of existing resources for creating another website or another web-based application. RED is particularly useful for a large-scale web development, where there is an extremely high degree of overlapping of information, resources and web designs. Therefore, RED has been widely adopted by many knowledge-based organisations (KBO). In order to investigate the impacts of RED on KBO, various case studies, practices and issues of awareness for KBO are presented and analysed. This paper particularly focuses on studies and recommended practices from the University of Cambridge. Results from these case studies reveal a number of outcomes

Web Service Testing and Usability for Mobile Learning

Based on the summary of recent renowned publications, Mobile Learning (ML) has become an emerging technology, as well as a new technique that can enhance the quality of learning. Due to the increasing importance of ML, the investigation of such impacts on the e-Science community is amongst the hot topics, which also relate to part of these research areas: Grid Infrastructure, Wireless Communication, Virtual Research Organization and Semantic Web. The above examples contribute to the demonstrations of how Mobile Learning can be applied into e-Science applications, including usability. However, there are few papers addressing testing and quality engineering issues – the core component for software engineering. Therefore, the major purpose of this paper is to present how Web Service Testing for Mobile Learning can be carried out, in addition to re-investigating the influences of the usability issue with both quantitative and qualitative research methods. Out of many mobile technologies available, the Pocket PC and Tablet PC have been chosen as the equipment; and the OMII Web Service, the 64-bit .NET e-portal and the GPS-PDA are the software tools to be used for Web Service testing