Motivation and Strategies for Effective Inclusion of Cloud Solution Provider Certifications in Computing Curricula

A series of Working Groups has met at previous ITiCSE conferences to explore ways of incorporating cloud computing into courses and curricula, including mapping industry job skills to knowledge areas and those areas to student learning objectives. The importance of industry-standard learning content and certification, produced by cloud vendors and others, was apparent throughout this work. This Working Group has focused on the role of certification within cloud computing curricula, from the viewpoints of a range of stakeholders: students, graduates, institutions, vendors and other certification providers; and employers, with the aim to provide insights and recommendations for educators who are considering whether to integrate cloud certifications into their courses. We reviewed the landscape of certifications provided by the most widely recognised cloud vendors, based on publicly available information and the knowledge embedded within the Working Group through the inclusion of vendor representatives in the membership. An overview is provided of the scope of available certifications and their mapping to our knowledge areas and learning outcomes, and of the influence that standards have or should have on learning design. We then explored the perspectives of stakeholders, through surveys of students on courses with a cloud computing element and of employers who have employed graduates of those courses, drawing conclusions on the awareness of certifications and specific vendors within each of those stakeholder groups, and on differences between the groups on the perceived importance of certifications for employability. Finally we explored approaches to integrating certification in academic cloud curricula, and challenges involved in doing so, through thematic analysis of in-depth interviews with a range of educators who have experience of doing so successfully. A set of recommendations for educators is presented, based on the findings of the Working Group's activities.