Risk tolerance and trust issues in cloud-based E-learning

Abstract

Moving in tandem with internet services nowadays, education institutions should leverage cloud computing which is considered as ready-made platform. One of the key performance index (KPI) for educational institutions progress in teaching and learning process is the level of enhancement in e-learning applications such as adopting the cloud computing. However, trust and risk issues obstruct the adoption process, whereas many questions arise regarding the reliability of cloud as a public platform for running and storing important and confidential data. This paper aims to identify the factors that affect the risk tolerance and user trust in cloud-based e-learning and proposes a method to deal with users and providers requirements. In particular, this paper identify risk tolerance and trust factors in cloud-based e-learning through surveying previous studies the users perspective. Moreover, a case study is included that conducts a survey regarding user trust factors in cloud-based e-learning system in Malaysian Higher Education institutes, which reflects the factors influencing the Malaysian real educational environment. Multi-criteria Decision Making (MCDM) method is used to confirm the most significant user trust factors through Analytical Hierarchical Process (AHP) technique. The outcomes from result analysis show that the identified factors affect user trust in cloud-based e-learning environment significantly.