Perceived security and privacy of cloud computing applications used in educational ecosystem

Abstract

When employed in educational settings, cloud computing applications enable users to create, store, organize, and share divergent artefacts with their peers. As an outcome, they have a large number of users worldwide which makes them vulnerable to a variety of security and privacy related threats. With an aim to examine the extent of the perceived security and privacy in the context of cloud computing applications that are most commonly used for educational purposes, an empirical study was carried out. Participants in the study were students from two Croatian higher education institutions. Data was gathered by means of the post-use questionnaire. Study findings uncovered pros and cons of examined cloud computing applications with respect to the manner they are addressing security and privacy concerns of their users.