Designing Dissemination and Validation of a Framework for Teaching Cloud Fundamentals

Three previous Working Groups (WGs) met at ITiCSE conferences to explore ways to help educators incorporate cloud computing into their courses and curricula by mapping industry job skills to knowledge areas (KAs). These WGs identified, organized, and grouped together student learning objectives (LOs) and developed these KAs and LOs in a repository of learning materials and course exemplars. This WG focused on the sustainability of the work of its predecessors through dissemination, community building and validation of the framework of KAs and LOs and its contribution to curriculum development. Firstly, a case study is presented which analyzed the implementation of a new Masters program which was based on the KAs and LOs. It was found that these provide a useful basis for program development and approval and demonstrate that successful program development of this nature can provide a valuable opportunity to communicate the work of the previous WGs. Thereafter, a plan was formulated for dissemination of the work done in order to drive adoption and to encourage instructors with an interest in teaching cloud computing to participate and grow the community. While the strategy included a range of dissemination methods, the importance of interaction with users was a guiding principle. Initial pilots of webinar and workshop activities have been implemented. Approaches to validating that a cloud computing course designed around the KAs and LOs can meet the needs of industry have been outlined with further iterations being considered. A research plan has been designed for a study to be implemented over the coming year in order to perform this validation.