Dissertation Help

[tholding]

Hey!

 

I am trying to gather some data for my dissertation so I was wondering if you could complete my really short questionnaire, I promise you it will take you less than 5 minutes!

 

To give you a bit of background, I have financed my study by working within the educating sector, supporting schools with their Management Information Systems. My dissertation (in a nutshell) is the positives and negatives of moving from a local based MIS to a cloud based MIS (for example from SIMS or Facility Admin to Progresso).

 

The survey can be completed by clicking the link below.

 

If you have any questions please let me know!

 

Thanks in advance for your help.

 

https://www.esurveycreator.com/s/65210cc

[6Foot2]

Hi,

 

I tried to complete your survey but I couldn't get past question 1:

 

http://i.snag.gy/gOaFz.jpg

[tholding]

If you try now it should work. I had to suspend it momentarily and make a slight amendments. Cheers :-)

[6Foot2]

OK. Survey completed and submitted.

 

Thanks for getting back so quickly.

[tholding]

No, thank you for completing it.

[6Foot2]

No, thank you for completing it.

 

No problem. Good luck with the dissertation and welcome to Edugeek.

[GREED]

Would you share, even privately, your finished piece. Would be interesting to read...

 

Plus, would prove you are not just a supplier looking for market research. We had someone ask basically the same last year too.

[tholding]

Yes of course. I understand your concerns. To help releive those concerns I'll paste below parts of my ethical approval form which you may find interesting and relevant:

 

1. What is the aim of your study? What are the objectives for your study?

Cloud computing is becoming more prevalent within small to medium enterprises (SMEs). The aim of the study is to clearly establish the key differences between an in-house MIS solution and a cloud based MIS solution. This will increase understanding on why the shift is occurring as well as offering a resource to key decision makers within organisations when deliberating over whether or not to make the change. As explained by (Tak, Urgaonkar, & Sivasubramaniam, 2011) this is not a straightforward question to answer as applications vary vastly from SME to SME. Therefore I am going to focus my study on two popular MISs within the education sector in order to give my study a specific subject matter while also identifying areas of comparison which can be transferred to MISs within other sectors. The primary objectives of the research are:

> Compare and evaluate the performance indicators (Memory usage, retrieval times CPU usage and reliability), cost and customer experience across two MISs with the use of network monitoring tools and questionnaires

 

> Identify the benefits, concerns and potential impact of moving to a cloud based MIS

 

2. Explain the rationale for this study (refer to relevant research literature in your response).

The popularity of cloud computing is increasing due to the commercial potential it offers as well as the ability to assist an organisation to succeed (Intel, 2012). The computing paradigm has evolved from users connecting from terminals to powerful mainframes and has arrived at Cloud computing which allows the user to ‘exploit all available resources on the Internet in a scalable and simple way’ (Voas & Zhang, 2009). However, as well as the promise of cost reduction and scalability potential, there are many questions that have been raised with regards to if the Cloud is now a suitable option for organisations to migrate their MIS from an in-house solution onto the Cloud.

 

The Cloud is not the only options for organisations in the pursuit of improving their business, indeed Service-Orientated Computing (SOC) and Grid Computing have been a around for sometime (Dillion et al., 2010). My study will enable me to either justify why Cloud computing is the more favourable option for MIS migration or allow me to suggest alternatives and how Cloud computing can learn from the related paradigms. In addition to this I hope to suggest a way that Cloud computing could improve and where it is currently lacking: High Performance Computing (HPC). This will be an interesting avenue to explore as I look to establish the future of Cloud Computing and how technological advances can enhance the user experience.

 

Concerns

One particular issue (Intel, 2012) raised is the uncertainty IT professionals have with the location and infrastructure of the Cloud. For example, a network manager can be confident in the measures he has put in place to ensure the security of his own environment, whereas a Cloud infrastructure typically has servers located across the globe, which can be shared amongst several businesses. This broad network access raises questions for the IT professional around the uncertainty of how the Cloud is meeting certain compliance requirements. These concerns are only exasperated by the increased number of security breaches users are seeing in the Cloud in comparison to traditional IT infrastructure.

 

Benefits

Looking specifically at cloud migration in education, it has increasingly been considered as not only a beneficial, but also viable option for many schools (Sultan, 2010). The financial crisis leading to cuts in governmental education spending have been attributed for the reasons as to why schools are seriously considering the move, with the promise of cost cutting through cloud migration too good an opportunity to turn down. An example of this being the University of Westminster. My study will try where possible to make the research relevant to the education sector while also discussing the transferrable areas of interest, for example Security, Performance, On-demand self service, Broad network access, Resource pooling, Rapid elasticity, Measured Service and Flexible Service Granularity (Azeemi et al., 2013). In addition to this there is wide discussion on Cloud adoption and Interoperability and breaks these two main sections down into subsections which will provide a good basis of future research, for example costing and service level agreements (Dillon et al., 2010). There will also be investigation into what is new about this computing paradigm and how it can benefit the consumer such as scalability, simplicity and pricing (Grossman, 2009).

 

 

 

 

 

I hope that helps :-)

Edited January 3, 2014 by tholding

[FN-GM]

Done.

[hawc]

Done too....

[witch]

Done

[GREED]

Wow. My apologies for the insinuation. I really would like to read the final piece when finished if that is appropriate. Personal interest.

 

I will reply when I am next at my PC

[TechieWils]

Done, good luck with it

[michael2k6]

Done. I've worked with Tom previously on his placement year, anyone reading this in a position to complete it, please do, he's a good lad, and I too can confirm he doesn't work for a supplier doing a bit of research, he's legit.

[pcstru]

Done. Good luck.

[vikpaw]

Survey done. Definitely interested in seeing the finished piece.

 

Would you share, even privately, your finished piece. Would be interesting to read...

 

Plus, would prove you are not just a supplier looking for market research. We had someone ask basically the same last year too.

 

Currently working for advanced learning, part of ACS aka the new Serco - so not sure how much bias that introduces. I guess it depends on your conclusion

[michael2k6]

He's there on placement though, and that's the whole point. Bear in mind that ACS have Facility, ePortal and Progresso - Facility and ePortal being the locally hosted version and Progresso being the cloud. So it's not as though he's biased towards one or the other, he's worked with both. The work placement is there to help his degree and dissertation, rather than the dissertation being there to help Advanced.

[vikpaw]

I know. just saying is all, as the question was raised.

All research is funded and it usually comes from the same sector as the topic of discussion.

In fact an in-house comparison of offerings would be a great case study.

[GREED]

Did I miss somewhere that he is working for ACS? Apologies if I did

[vikpaw]

In the profile and OP mentions working for a company

[GREED]

See that is why you are a mod

[tholding]

Thanks to all who have complete the survey, I've had a great response so far, but please do continue to pass the survey onto colleagues

 

I can assure you there is no bias to my research. As mentioned by Mike (cheers mate) ACS offer in-house AND cloud solutions to education institutes so the outcome of my research won't have any major impact on their business.

 

The only benefit I get from working for ACS is the access i have to resources i.e. server performances, cloud and security topologies and school contacts.

 

Once again thanks a lot.

[tholding]

I know. just saying is all, as the question was raised.

All research is funded and it usually comes from the same sector as the topic of discussion.

In fact an in-house comparison of offerings would be a great case study.

 

The only place the funding of my study is coming from is my back pocket! I'll be paying student fees for years to come :-)

[Ephelyon]

Done. For information, we're using locally-hosted SIMS.

 

One comment: many of the questions relate to the "reliability" of the MIS. While the inherent stability of any product is always a factor, I think it should be noted that, if you're hosting it locally, the way one might answer those questions - indeed, the way that I have answered many of them - is likely to be skewed by how reliable and well-developed the underlying infrastructure is (re IT strategy and Development Plans, available time and funding etc). It's something that applies far less, if at all, when using someone else's infrastructure.

 

Consequently, comparing the reliability of any MIS product running on local vs hosted infrastructure will lead to apples and pears in a sense, as different schools using (for the sake of argument) a single cloud-based infrastructure or MIS solution provider are more likely to experience any reliability issues "across the board", whereas for a group of schools each using the same MIS on their wildly varying infrastructures, it's more likely that any issues experienced would have considerably greater scope for variety.

 

(I'm not saying these questions or the survey itself aren't appropriate, just potentially some food for thought for when you come to justify the evidence used in the dissertation as it's a typical hole that people like to poke in academic studies - damn troublemakers!)

 

Also, are you drawing a distinction between: 1) a MIS that could just as well be locally-hosted, but happens to be hosted elsewhere; and 2) a MIS designed from the ground up for cloud-based hosting (e.g. web-based perhaps)?

Edited January 4, 2014 by Ephelyon

[tholding]

Done. For information, we're using locally-hosted SIMS.

 

One comment: many of the questions relate to the "reliability" of the MIS. While the inherent stability of any product is always a factor, I think it should be noted that, if you're hosting it locally, the way one might answer those questions - indeed, the way that I have answered many of them - is likely to be skewed by how reliable and well-developed the underlying infrastructure is (re IT strategy and Development Plans, available time and funding etc). It's something that applies far less, if at all, when using someone else's infrastructure.

 

Consequently, comparing the reliability of any MIS product running on local vs hosted infrastructure will lead to apples and pears in a sense, as different schools using (for the sake of argument) a single cloud-based infrastructure or MIS solution provider are more likely to experience any reliability issues "across the board", whereas for a group of schools each using the same MIS on their wildly varying infrastructures, it's more likely that any issues experienced would have considerably greater scope for variety.

 

(I'm not saying these questions or the survey itself aren't appropriate, just potentially some food for thought for when you come to justify the evidence used in the dissertation as it's a typical hole that people like to poke in academic studies - damn troublemakers!)

 

Also, are you drawing a distinction between: 1) a MIS that could just as well be locally-hosted, but happens to be hosted elsewhere; and 2) a MIS designed from the ground up for cloud-based hosting (e.g. web-based perhaps)?

 

I agree, IT strategy, development plans, available time and funding etc can have a direct implication on the reliability of a given system and thus implicate how one may answer the survey, but I take no issue with this.

 

The reason being is that the factors you've mentioned may impact the locally hosted MIS (and thus how one may answer the survey) and not an MIS hosted on the cloud, however there will be factors that impact the reliability of a cloud based MIS, which won't be relevant to the internal solution. All I'm really after is a very high level view of the end users experience, and if you consider these other factors when answering the survey thats great, but not everyone will be privy to that level of detail of an organisations IT infrastructure, so the fact the questions can be (to a certain extent) left to interpretation doesn't overly concern me. The more people I get to answer the survey, the better, as it's averages I'm after. It would be near impossible for me to complete an undergraduate dissertation (when considering the time constraints and resources available to us) to that level of detail. So as I said, the very high level view of the end users experience is fine.

 

This is not to say I won't address the issue you've raised when writing the analysis of my findings, but the main thrust of my argument will come from the quantitative data I will receive from the server monitoring tools.