Achieving 100% Literacy Doesn’t Seem Impossible Anymore, with Cloud Based e-Learning Solutions.

- Harman Singh, Founder and CEO, WizIQ

Claimed to be the “hottest development in information technology,” cloud computing has changed the course of many industries, eLearning being one of them. The eLearning industry is expected to be $107 billion by the end of 2015 worldwide. And cloud computing has taken major chunk of attention. Although sounding ambiguous at the face of it, cloud computing has a significant impact in creating stable and scalable learning environments.

Harman Singh

Founder and CEO, WizIQ

Looking at the current cloud computing environment, Virtual machines or VMs, such as the provided by Amazon and Google, are the staple amongst cloud computing solution providers. They offer a range of benefits, such as security isolation, the ability to scale up or down, API access for provisioning, and guaranteed computational resources without any overhead for managing physical servers.

Big Data technologies such as Hadoop are also seeing a considerable increase in their usage and size because of their ability to aggregate valuable information that can be used through any publicly accessible API. Disaster recovery is an important area of interest, as previous problems such as testing the recovery systems, high installation cost of a backup system and potential disaster runtime scenarios can be addressed through the cloud.

Hybrid clouds spur eLearning growth

Hybrid clouds also see a growing preference for its services due successful integration of the benefits of public and private cloud systems; Amazon Web Services, or AWS, could potentially play a major part in managing the seamless transition between public and private clouds with their continuous innovations.

These trends are extremely beneficial for eLearning companies where cost and responsiveness are at the heart of many purchasing decisions. Being cloud-based gives platforms a definitive edge – by eliminating the complexities of development and the prohibitive costs of setting up and managing server infrastructure.

By eliminating the need to purchase and install infrastructure, a public-cloud delivery model can lower the entry barrier by transforming the expenditure on capital into operational expenditure. eLearning platforms find this extremely helpful as the low running costs can help them achieve operational stability, scale up to handle more learners and offer services at affordable cost. Software updates or addition of new features are also taken care of behind-the-scenes, allowing educators to focus on what they know best.

These platforms handle large sets of data that grows exponentially as students communicate with instructors and with each other. During school days, exam-time, launch of a popular online course or any other event, the traffic on the website can grow abnormally. Cloud handles the demand reliably. Multiple availability zones also give the resiliency to remove geographic dependencies.

Benefits of cloud for educators

As the cloud is generally third-party and accessed through the Internet, it also provides device and location independence to users, ensuring the data can be accessed regardless of the location and choice of device. Anytime, anywhere accessibility allows educators to transcend the geographical boundaries and provide seamless learning experience. Learners can stream video, attend classes, take tests, submit assignments, edit files through the cloud from anywhere work, home, library, etc., using various devices mobile, laptop and desktop computers.

Enhanced productivity, improved multi-tenancy and virtually unlimited scalability through dynamic provisioning of resources are some of the other benefits of using cloud computing.

Most cloud platforms have multiple servers at remote locations such as the US, Singapore, Sao Paolo and Ireland that ensure adequate distribution of the load demand and continuum in services and counter the disadvantages of network outage.

The cloud is indeed changing the way teachers, trainers, administrators and learners interact and collaborate - facilitates greater collaboration, improves access to quality education and increases organization’s efficiency and effectiveness.

India can now hope to realize its long-standing dream of 100% literacy.