Contextual Analysis of Educational Monitoring and Progression as a Service (EMPaaS) System in Higher Education

Abstract

The arrival of new technologies has opened a window of opportunity for UK higher education institutions. Although UK Higher education (HE) has recently become a huge phenomenon owing to an increase in students attending University, many UK universities are not investing enough in technology to facilitate teaching, management and research practices that aim to improve the student experience. This paper discusses the potential for an information system solution, which can facilitate the institutional practices in UK HEIs from multiple stakeholder perspectives. An existing system employed at a UK University known as “MyPGR” was evaluated in order to shed some light on the existing technical problems UK Universities are currently facing, with the support of a soft systems approach (CATWOE). The proposed solution is the Educational-Monitoring-and-Progression-as-a-Service (EMPaaS), which is based on the Cloud Computing model. EMPaaS has the potential to monitor student progression and key milestones relating to their PGR programme, in addition to enabling students to use free cloud applications to keep track of milestones and progressions. The highly accessible and flexible nature of cloud applications adds to the cost-effectiveness of adopting cloud services, which in turn frees up additional funds for UK Universities to pursue other important investments.