A Study of Cloud Computing Adoption in Universities as a Guideline to Cloud Migration

Universities face many challenges such as budget costs, licensing, and software and hardware management in their activities related to information and communications technology (ICT). Through overcoming these challenges, universities may deliver smart, secure, and fluent services for their instructors, students, researchers, information technologies (IT) staff, and administrators. Cloud computing can be a solution to these challenges. The transition to cloud computing in universities is an important step in terms of online education, economic crisis, globalization, and high and constantly changing requirements, especially in the COVID-19 period. Cloud computing can play a very important role in quickly solving the problems faced by universities during this coronavirus period. The purpose of this research was to determine the position of universities in Turkey within the context of cloud computing and to present an abstract hybrid cloud framework for these universities. Descriptive method and survey technique were used in the research. SPSS program was used to analyze the data. Percentage, frequency, and chi-square statistics were used in the analysis process. As a result of the research, the existing conditions and problems in the use of the cloud service model in universities were tried to be identified and a road map for solving these problems was drawn up. In this context, a hybrid framework for adopting cloud computing in universities for them to overcome their identified challenges was proposed. The results are primarily intended to provide a guideline to universities in cloud computing adoption.