Motivation and Strategies for Eective Inclusion of Cloud
Solution Provider Certifications in Computing Curricula
James H. Paterson
∗
Department of Computing
Glasgow Caledonian University
Glasgow, Scotland
UK
Joshua Adams
∗
School of Computing, Articial
Intelligence, Robotics, and Data
Science
Saint Leo University
Saint Leo, FL, USA
Derek Foster
∗
School of Computer Science
University of Lincoln
Lincoln, England
UK
Ouldooz Baghban Karimi
School of Computing Science
Simon Fraser University
Surrey, British Columbia, Canada
Zain Kazmi
Execusoft Solutions Inc.
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Ruth G. Lennon
Department of Computing
Atlantic Technological University
Letterkenny, Ireland
Sajid Nazir
Department of Computing
Glasgow Caledonian University
Glasgow, Scotland
UK
Lee Stott
Microsoft
Seattle, WA, USA
Laurie White
Google LLC
Seattle, WA, USA
ABSTRACT
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 certication, produced by
cloud vendors and others, was apparent throughout this work.
This Working Group has focused on the role of certication
within cloud computing curricula, from the viewpoints of a range
of stakeholders: students, graduates, institutions, vendors and other
certication providers; and employers, with the aim to provide
insights and recommendations for educators who are considering
whether to integrate cloud certications into their courses. We
reviewed the landscape of certications 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 certications and
their mapping to our knowledge areas and learning outcomes, and
of the inuence that standards have or should have on learning
∗
Leader
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ITiCSE-WGR ’22, July 8–13, 2022, Dublin, Ireland
© 2022 Association for Computing Machinery.
ACM ISBN 979-8-4007-0010-1/22/07.. . $15.00
https://doi.org/10.1145/3571785.3574128
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 certications and specic
vendors within each of those stakeholder groups, and on dierences
between the groups on the perceived importance of certications
for employability. Finally we explored approaches to integrating
certication 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
ndings of the Working Group’s activities.
CCS CONCEPTS
• Applied computing
→
Education; • Computer systems or-
ganization → Cloud computing.
KEYWORDS
Curriculum, cloud computing, cloud certication, cloud objectives,
cloud skills
ACM Reference Format:
James H. Paterson, Joshua Adams, Derek Foster, Ouldooz Baghban Karimi,
Zain Kazmi, Ruth G. Lennon, Sajid Nazir, Lee Stott, and Laurie White. 2022.
Motivation and Strategies for Eective Inclusion of Cloud Solution Provider
Certications in Computing Curricula. In 2022 ITiCSE Working Group Rep orts
(ITiCSE-WGR ’22), July 8–13, 2022, Dublin, Ireland. ACM, New York, NY,
USA, 26 pages. https://doi.org/10.1145/3571785.3574128
235
ITiCSE-WGR ’22, July 8–13, 2022, Dublin, Ireland James H. Paterson et al.
1 INTRODUCTION
The integration of industry-standard certications into information
technology (IT) curricula in formal education is far from being
new [
69
]. It is, however, a topic of continuing importance. Recent
research has focused on the alignment of learning objectives, job-
specic skills, and the ability of employees to remain current with
ever evolving technologies [
47
]. Moreover, the growth of micro-
credentials, oered by a range of parties including technology
vendors, frameworks bodies, independent learning platforms and
universities themselves, has expanded the options for learners to
demonstrate specic knowledge and skills that employers currently
want [72].
Within the broad domain of IT, cloud computing is a high de-
mand, rapidly evolving job skill need. Employers want assurance
that selected candidates for cloud-related job roles have some foun-
dational knowledge and maintain more advanced skills. Therefore,
certications related to cloud technology are an increasing point of
discourse in higher education curricula to meet job-skill demands
[
18
]. The implementation of cloud computing certications in cur-
ricula has been dicult or challenging at best. One issue is that
the rapid evolution of cloud computing from its early inception
has and is changing annually [
78
,
79
]. We posit this has led to a
shortage of formal industry standards in comparison to elds such
as cybersecurity. There is therefore an associated reliance on pub-
lic/private providers to dene what is required by industry from
their viewpoint, hence this working group.
In a series of previous Working Groups we focused on aspects of
inclusion of cloud computing learning materials within curricula.
Starting by mapping out a comprehensive set of knowledge areas
(KAs) and learning objectives (LOs), then developing exemplar
syllabi and investigating ways of disseminating and validating the
outcomes [
2
,
19
,
20
,
63
]. Evident from this work, certications
can be an important driver in the design of courses which aim
to provide their graduates with industry-relevant skills. A next
step was then to review the relationship between cloud computing
certications and academic curricula. This Working Group has
investigated the perceived value of certication to learners and
employers along with current and emerging practice in the delivery
of certications in an academic context. We provide guidance on
best practice for academics who are designing cloud computing
courses. Our previously proposed KAs and LOs will provide a frame
of reference for this and can be viewed in Appendix A.
The report is structured as follows:
•
Sections 2 and 3 describe and discuss terminology, related
work in certication in IT, and related work currently be-
ing done in implementing certications in cloud computing
courses.
•
Section 4 discusses a set of stakeholders whose actions may
be connected to industry certications and academic quali-
cations in cloud computing. Our work is aligned with these
stakeholders and their perceptions and experiences.
•
Section 5 discusses the nature of certication in relation to
industry’s needs and industry standards, certications pro-
vided by the most widely recognised vendors as evidenced
elsewhere in this report, and the associated support available
for educators.
•
Section 6 discusses standards, the quality management pro-
cedures implemented by vendor certication suppliers and
mapped to quality controls as dened by international stan-
dards groups.
•
Sections 7, 8 and 9 explore the perceptions and experiences
of stakeholders and the implications of these for inclusion
of certications in cloud computing curricula.
•
Sections 10 and 11 discuss recommendations for educators
and conclusions.
2 TERMINOLOGY
At this time, there is still quite a variety of denitions and expec-
tations around what many of the terms in this eld actually mean
[44, 80]. For the purposes and clarity of this paper, we will use:
Credential: General term for a qualication or achievement
Certication:
A process of verication of learning on a spe-
cic body of knowledge, which involves an examination.
Certicate:
A vendor-provided credential provided to a par-
ticipant that involves specied body of content, level, and
examination passed.
Micro-certication:
A vendor-provided credential that in-
cludes interactivity and a form of nal assessment.
Stackable credentials:
A sequence of credentials that are pro-
vided independently and individually and can be accumu-
lated over time towards a learning pathway or a career spec-
ication.
Learning paths:
A range of learning activities taken by an
individual that may or may not lead to a credential.
Skill badge:
A conrmation of progress in a learning pathway,
which may or may not involve examination.
Cloud Solution Provider (CSP):
A company which provides
public cloud services, and usually provides associated certi-
cations. Also commonly referred to as a vendor.
This paper is primarily focused on the use of certication and the
aim of implementing certication courses and exams in academic
courses. However, the other types of credentials listed above will
be discussed and compared throughout the paper.
3 RELATED WORK
The relationship between industry certication and academic de-
grees has been an active area of discussion and debate for many
years in IT disciplines, with questions raised on the relative impor-
tance of these in employability, the beneciaries of certication
within academic settings and a distinction between training and
education [
9
,
35
,
69
,
71
]. The body of literature extends to a wide
range of disciplines in which professional certication is signi-
cant for employment, for example nance [
46
]. In this review of
related work we limit our scope to evidence within the following
areas: certications and curricula in cloud computing specically;
recent work within the broader context of IT certication to cap-
ture current thinking and trends for employability of graduates in
the industry; and coverage of issues that are specically of inter-
est to this working group, for example strategies for embedding
certications with academic delivery and assessment.
The importance of cloud computing certications reects a clear
decit of cloud skills in industry [
10
] with vendors such as Google
236
Motivation and Strategies for Eective Inclusion of Cloud Solution
Provider Certifications in Computing Curricula ITiCSE-WGR ’22, July 8–13, 2022, Dublin, Ireland
[
24
] and Microsoft [
75
] oering certication courses aligned to
high-growth job areas. With the rapid development of new cloud-
based technologies and applications, universities are designing new
degrees in cloud computing that are directly supported by industry.
As an example Flood and Hall [
18
] disseminated their experiences
of running a BSc program in Cloud Computing at a UK university
in partnership with Amazon Web Services (AWS). Interestingly,
one of the main selling points of the program is authentic assess-
ment through access to the AWS platform. However, the AWS cloud
certications themselves are not embedded in the curriculum. Addi-
tional authors report on the integration of cloud vendor resources
in the curriculum, which is a necessary precursor for embedding
certications, but do not consider certications in detail [
15
,
33
,
74
].
While the focus of much of the literature is on AWS, a study by
Meyer and Billionière [
42
] compare the cloud computing learning
oerings of AWS, Microsoft and IBM.
Additional work on the outcomes of integrating an Amazon Web
Services (AWS) certication into an academic IT course has also
been reported by Podeschi and DeBo [
67
]. The study conducted
oers broad insight into the challenges of integrating cloud comput-
ing and vendor certication into an academic course, highlighting
educator expertise as a particular constraint. Another headline chal-
lenge from the work was the inability of educators to have access
and oversight of student project spaces on the vendor platform.
This can result in support being a labour-intensive one-to-one pro-
cess and makes troubleshooting particularly cumbersome. In this
case, shared access to student projects on the cloud platform is a
useful tool for educators to optimise support and something that is
touched on later in this paper.
Soltys [
76
] reports on “cloudifying the curriculum” with AWS
as an initiative across a range of subjects within an institution,
including computer science, business and mathematics, demon-
strating the range of applicability of cloud computing skills. The
importance of working in partnership with a vendor such as AWS
is emphasised, and a number of key issues are discussed, including
instructor training and certication and dealing with curriculum
changes. The focus on certication is limited to classes oered to
working professionals as a service to the community, demonstrating
that through certications academic institutions can reach beyond
the traditional student types.
Such vendors certications and micro-credentials have gained
popularity as diversied educational pathways for keeping skills
current [
17
,
72
]. Major cloud providers including Google Cloud [
25
],
the aforementioned Amazon Web Services [
8
], Microsoft Azure [
1
],
and IBM [
38
] together provide more than 100 dierent certicate
programs and learning pathways.
In other recent work, Valceschini et al. [
77
] found that certica-
tions play an essential role in information technology employment
decisions, reinforcing the idea that graduate outcomes are improved
if students not only graduate with their degree but can do so whilst
achieving aligned certications. This echoes earlier work by Bartlett
et al., [
9
] studied the value of industry certications in employment
of IT professionals. Their ndings suggest dierences in perspec-
tives of employees with and without credentials on the eect of
credentials on the recruitment process.
Ouh and Shim [
62
] have recently studied trends in IT certica-
tions through analysis of job postings and found that while cer-
tications in areas including project management and software
engineering are in high demand, cloud computing, specically
AWS, represents two of the top three certications. This paper
then presents case studies of the authors’ own experiences in in-
tegrating certication into their courses, and discuss a range of
practical issues encountered, including logistics and exam schedul-
ing, concept mapping between academic outcomes and certication
and alternative assessments where students have already taken the
certications.
Other work demonstrated that students of Information Systems
type degree programs benet from earning suitably aligned certi-
cations [23]. Gomillion’s work [23] framed the benet to students
as being partly down to messaging from potential employers that
certication is valuable in the workplace and by default will give
graduates an advantage in the job market. Part of this working
group will also focus on the employee stakeholder perspective and
their relationship to education institutions.
Cybersecurity is an area, like cloud computing, where there is
evidence of growing interest in professional certications, and it
is apparent that while degrees are still in high demand for entry
level jobs, employers are increasingly looking to augment their
requirements with certications [43, 48].
A concern for educators pursuing the integration of certication
in their academic programs is the assessment approach. Saleem et
al. discuss the incorporation of IT certication performance into
academic grades, and provide a useful set of recommendations
on how to approach this [
73
]. Typical academic assessments com-
prise coursework and written exams designed by the educator,
whilst certication exams are externally managed by the vendor.
While some certication exams are purely knowledge based, many
are also competency based with practical performance measured.
Work in this space by Munson [
61
] shines a light on the specic
performance-based approaches used by Microsoft and other ven-
dors, and is critical for educators to fully understand before oering
such competency based certication exams to their students. While
the eectiveness of some of these learning paths are not agreed
upon [
11
], improved employment outcomes are associated with
getting certied [22].
Prebil and McCarthy [
68
] describe embedding certications into
degree programs as an “attractive by poorly understood institu-
tional strategy”, and report a wide-ranging study of the associated
goals and barriers. They present three strategies which focus on
maintaining data on in-demand certications, the funding model
and tracking employment outcomes.
Finally, an extensive set of articles has recently been published
which provide a wide ranging survey of the state of credential
innovations, trends and issues, and models and strategies, including
the alignment of undergraduate curricula to industry credentials
and the implementation of micro-credentials [36].
The related work discussed in this section clearly highlights that
integrating vendor certications as part of academic programs is a
non-trivial undertaking. Full integration will face signicant inter-
nal policy and regulatory issues that diers from one institution
to the next and will likely involve program and module changes
at a structural level. It is envisaged the working group outcomes
237
ITiCSE-WGR ’22, July 8–13, 2022, Dublin, Ireland James H. Paterson et al.
Stakeholders
Student in Higher Education
Graduate
Employee
Jobseeker
Employer
Recruiter
Cloud vendor
Industry standards body
Higher Education institution
Educator
Products
Learning resources
Certication
Academic course
Academic credits
Credential
Standard
Table 1: Stakeholders and products
presented in this paper will provide educators with robust guid-
ance and insights they can adopt to integrate certications in their
programs.
4 STAKEHOLDERS
There is a range of stakeholders who have an interest in certi-
cation and qualications in cloud computing. This work aims to
explore perceptions and/or practice of three groups of stakeholders:
candidates who take certication exams; persons involved in hiring
decisions; and academics delivering cloud computing courses. In
order to understand the perspectives of these stakeholder groups
we aim initially to dene models which encompasses stakeholders,
the products that they provide and/or consume, the transitions that
the products may enable for them. These models provide a basis
for the design of our instruments in order that these allow us to
explore the dimensions within these perspectives that are relevant
to the study participants.
A stakeholder in each model denes a role held by an individual
or organization at a point in time, rather than the individual or
organisation themselves. One individual may at a certain point in
their career occupy more than one of these roles, and may transi-
tion from one role to another. We also identify products related to
learning which will be experienced in dierent ways by each of
the stakeholders. To assist with identifying roles and products, the
stakeholders and products are listed in Table 1.
We can model the perspective of each stakeholder type in terms
of:
• the transitions that they aspire to make
•
the associations they make with products or other stake-
holders
A transition may reect a change of role or status, for example
from student to graduate. Such a transition may be inuenced by
association with a product - in this example the transition is specif-
ically enabled by the achievement and accumulation of academic
credit to a specied value.
Here we will split the stakeholders into sub-groups in order to
model these transitions and associations. We can identify a sub-
group of stakeholders by considering those with an interest in
achieving certication: students, graduates, employees and jobseek-
ers. Note again that an individual may be in more that one of these
roles simultaneously. Figure 1 shows a model of the perspective
of this sub-group of certication candidates. The jobseeker role
represents a person who is seeking employment and does not have
any degree level academic qualications. The transitions represent
changes of role that are inuenced by the achievement of one or
more products. It is possible that a jobseeker may transition to a stu-
dent, but this transition is not included in the model as it does not
depend on the achievement of an award or certication (although
in some cases, these might be used as evidence for advanced entry
to an academic program). The associations represent the ways in
which the stakeholder may experience the product, for example
being aware of it, perceiving it as having value to them, and actu-
ally achieving it. Based on this, we are interested not only in the
achievement of certication but also awareness and perceptions.
Figure 1: Perspectives - certication candidates
We also identify a sub-group of stakeholders who are associ-
ated with candidates who are employed or transitioning to being
employees. Figure 2 shows a model of the perspective of this sub-
group. Employers and recruiters we take to represent somewhat
dierent roles: employer represents a technical manager or team
which the employer works directly for; while recruiter represents
a non-technical person who may or may not be within the same
company as the employer. The recruiter is involved in the hiring
process and may make decisions that lter candidates on the ba-
sis of qualications and certications but does not make the nal
hiring decision. The vendors play an signicant role here as, in
addition to providing the certication framework associated with
their platform, they have an interest in working with employers and
recruiters to advocate for the importance and value of their own
238
Motivation and Strategies for Eective Inclusion of Cloud Solution
Provider Certifications in Computing Curricula ITiCSE-WGR ’22, July 8–13, 2022, Dublin, Ireland
certication. This may involve a process of educating those stake-
holders on the detail of their certication products. Employers and
recruiters may be aware of specic certications and perceive them
to be of value when achieved by existing or prospective employ-
ees. Employers may incentivize employees to achieve certication,
and may provide specic learning paths developed with their or-
ganisation, which may or may not be based on vendor learning
products.
Figure 2: Perspectives - employment
The nal sub-group that we model is related to the implemen-
tation of certications within an academic environment. Figure 3
shows a model of the perspective of this sub-group. Students are
key stakeholders here, before they transition to becoming graduates.
However, it is possible for an individual who is a student to also
be an employee if they are studying part-time or on a work-based
learning program. We distinguish between an institution and an
educator. The latter is involved with designing and delivering a
course or program, while the institution, in addition to hosting this
may also provide positive direction through policy and vision, but
may also introduce constraints through requirement to adhere to
assessment regulations and process for approving programs. Ven-
dors play a highly signicant role in making it possible to include
cloud certications in the academic context, including provision
of resources, cloud credit, as well as in advocating for certication
inclusion.
Understanding the set of stakeholders in our model allows us
to dene the perspectives that we need to explore, to guide the
questions that we ask in order to do so and to frame the discussion.
This working group includes stakeholders from two of these groups:
representatives of two of the major cloud vendors; and educators
with an interest in cloud computing, and their input is valuable in
exploring these perspectives.
5 CERTIFICATIONS LANDSCAPE
This section presents an overview of the certication landscape
most relevant to educators. The information here has been gath-
ered from public sources such as vendor websites, and also from
the knowledge of our vendor and educator representatives, and
Figure 3: Perspectives - academic
has also been informed by the outcomes of our previous working
groups. We focus on AWS, Google Cloud, and Azure certication.
Our selection of the three aforementioned vendors was done based
on existing working group members and their currently imple-
mented vendor certications. As a working group we acknowledge
there are additional cloud vendors that were not selected due to
lack of participating members utilizing the additional cloud vendor
resources. Our initial selection is in line with the perceived impor-
tance of vendors suggested by our initial survey results discussed in
section 8. We should emphasise that for many of the certications
within this landscape cloud is the underlying context or enabler
for techniques and technologies, such as Articial Intelligence, and
is therefore relevant not just in courses which explicitly reference
cloud in their title.
The certications oered by the leading Cloud Solution Providers
(CSPs) are becoming increasingly important as the business data
and workows migrate to the public cloud platforms. The services
oered by the CSPs are quite similar in terms of addressing the
needs of the industry. However, each cloud provider has their own
strengths, in terms of the range, adoption, and maturity of the
oered services etc. In addition to the certications oered by
the major CSPs, some certications are oered to validate cloud
skills with a vendor-neutral approach, such as, CompTIA Cloud+
certication [14].
Certications usually require payment of an associated fee and
passing a timed exam in accordance with the required qualifying
standard. However, variations exist as some certications might be
oered for free, or at a concessionary price. The certications are
valid for a limited time and have to be renewed usually after one or
two years. This is inevitable as the fast pace of technology adoption
and provision by CSPs is much faster, and newer and better services
are being released all the time. Any higher education institutions
adopting the certication material as a standalone module or em-
bedded as a training unit for a teaching program, will expect that
their students have access to the latest developments and teaching
material.
239
ITiCSE-WGR ’22, July 8–13, 2022, Dublin, Ireland James H. Paterson et al.
The job market currently requires database, data analytics, net-
working and security skills within the context of cloud applications.
Due to the cost-eective cloud storage and computation resources,
the business applications migration to cloud platforms is taking
place. The knowledge and experience of the cloud platforms and
services has therefore assumed added importance. This is reected
in the range of knowledge areas for certications related to cloud
platforms, which include fundamental cloud computing knowl-
edge and also certications in more specic areas such as Articial
Intelligence.
The cloud certications are targeted at both entry and advanced
level jobs, and validate the skills and knowledge not only of the
relevant cloud services but also the related technology area, such as
databases, and machine learning. In general, the certications have
addressed the job demands by creating vertical threads of skills,
for example AWS Solutions Architect certication at Associate
and professional level requiring a recommended experience of one
and two years respectively. The most relevant certications for
computing undergraduates would be the rst tier certications
fullling the industry job demands for entry level positions.
In the following sections, we provide overviews of the certica-
tion programs of each of the main CSPs, including their support
for educators.
5.1 AWS
5.1.1 Certifications. The certications on the AWS platform are
organised in Foundational, Associate, and Professional levels. There
are also other certications in specialty domains, such as security,
and machine learning [3].
5.1.2 AWS Academy. AWS Academy facilitates the higher educa-
tion institutions to prepare their students for cloud careers and
AWS cloud certications through providing a cloud curriculum that
can be used by institutions. For those courses oered through AWS
Academy which are aligned with AWS certications, a student com-
pleting the curriculum will have 85-90 percent of the knowledge
and experience to pass the exam [3].
5.1.3 AWS Educate. AWS Educate [
4
] is a “gateway” that oers
free, self-paced training and resources for cloud learners, includ-
ing university students. The training material is provided free of
charge to the registered institutions and includes a credit of 100
US Dollars for each student to access the AWS services for lab and
project work. Anyone can join irrespective of their education, ca-
reer journey, or technical experience.The training is organised for
easy access through topics, e.g., Cloud Computing, and Security,
and also by levels, foundational, intermediate, and advanced. The
advanced level of training is typically 40 hours of content, and ad-
dresses topics, such as Cloud Support Engineer, and Data Scientist.
AWS Educate provides access to AWS services and other resources
including audio, video presentations, demos and reference materi-
als. The performance metrics included are knowledge checks, nal
assessment, and projects depending on the level of the training.
AWS Skill Builder is the learning centre for building the cloud
skills and provides training organised as digital training and learn-
ing plans. Some of the learning requires a subscription. The re-
sources for certication exam preparation are also available [5].
5.1.4 Academic credit. The AWS Academy [
3
] oers training and
certications that do not themselves have any associated academic
credit. Training and certication material can, however, be used
as part of an academic module, and implemented as considered
appropriate by an academic institution.
5.1.5 Employability. AWS educate has a job board, they explicitly
say a benet for students using their platform is to “land a well-paid
job in one of the fastest growing industries”. The job board can be
used by the learners to search and apply for jobs and internships
all over the world with all types of organisations [4].
5.2 Google Cloud
5.2.1 Certifications. Google Cloud oers certications at Founda-
tional, Associate, and Professional levels. The Foundational and
Associate certications are achievable by many students, needing
less than a year of experience [
28
]. The Foundational certication,
Cloud Digital Leader, is less technical and aimed at more broad
concepts of cloud computing, while the Associate Certication,
Associate Cloud Engineer, focuses on the skills necessary to build
and deploy cloud solutions.
In addition to these certications, Google Cloud Skills Boost [
31
]
provides numerous skill badges [
32
]. These skill badges consist of
a related group of interactive labs which lead a student through
the activities and a nal challenge lab which describes the desired
outcome without indicating all of the steps to ensure the student has
learned from the previous labs. These skill badges can be used with
a class to provide hands-on reinforcement of a variety of concepts.
Figure 4 shows the suggested prerequisite structure for these skill
badges. Table 2 lists the most appropriate of these skill badges for
each of the KAs.
5.2.2 Support for Educators. Google Cloud provides a variety of
support programs for educators [30]. These include:
Google Cloud Skills Boost
Along with providing labs and
skill badges as described above, this program provides on-
demand classes, videos, quests (groupings of labs without a -
nal challenge), and learning paths (groups of on-line courses,
skill badges, quests, and labs) [31].
Training credits
Most of the material at Google Cloud Skills
Boost requires payment to use. Faculty in approved schools
can get credits for their classes at no charge [
26
]. Individual
students may also receive credits through this program.
Career Readiness Programs
This program provides materi-
als including on-demand training modules, professional cer-
ticates, self-paced labs and skill badges to faculty who want
to prepare students for either the Cloud Digital Leader or As-
sociate Cloud Engineer certications and provides a discount
on the exam for students who complete the training [
27
].
There is also a Data Analyst track, but it does not correspond
to a current certication.
Google Cloud Computing Foundations
This is a no cost 10
module, 40 hour curriculum designed to give faculty the
tools to teach critical concepts like infrastructure, application
development, data, and machine learning to students with
little or no cloud computing experience. Faculty may edit
240
Motivation and Strategies for Eective Inclusion of Cloud Solution
Provider Certifications in Computing Curricula ITiCSE-WGR ’22, July 8–13, 2022, Dublin, Ireland
Figure 4: Pre-requisite dependency of Google Cloud Micro-credentials
this curriculum and select just the modules that apply to
their classes [29].
Teaching Credits
Faculty in approved schools who want stu-
dents to work on cloud projects outside of the constraints of
the labs provided by Google Cloud Skills Boost may request
Google Cloud credits for their students [
30
]. Students typi-
cally receive 25 to 50 US Dollars per class and do not need
to use a credit card to apply these credits [30].
5.2.3 Academic credit. None of Google Cloud’s certications or
micro-credentials currently have academic credit associated with
them. However, some of the related Career Certicates in areas such
as data analytics, user experience design, and project management[
34
]
have been received as academic credit recommendation in the US
from the American Education Council[
6
] and many colleges and
universities do grant transfer credit for these certicates[6].
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ITiCSE-WGR ’22, July 8–13, 2022, Dublin, Ireland James H. Paterson et al.
Table 2: Mapping KAs (KA codes are provided in Appendix
A) to Micro-certications
KA Micro-credential
FCC Create and Manage Cloud Resources
Perform Foundational Infrastructure Tasks in Google
Cloud
Build a Website on Google Cloud
Integrate with Machine Learning APIs
SRC Insights from Data with BigQuery
NRC Build and Secure Networks in Google Cloud
Develop and Secure APIs with Apigee X
FTRR
Measure Site Reliability using Cloud Operations Suite
CMM
Deploy and Manage Cloud Environments with Google
Cloud
Set Up and Congure a Cloud Environment in Google
Cloud
Monitor and Log with Google Cloud Operations Suite
Optimize Costs for Google Kubernetes Engine
Monitor Environments with Google Cloud Managed
Service for Prometheus
CO Cloud Architecture: Design, Implement, and Manage
Deploy to Kubernetes in Google Cloud
Automating Infrastructure on Google Cloud with Ter-
raform
Implement DevOps in Google Cloud
SDCA Build Interactive Apps with Google Assistant
Integrate with Machine Learning APIs
Build and Optimize Data Warehouses with BigQuery
Migrate MySQL data to Cloud SQL using Database
Migration Service
Manage PostgreSQL Databases on Cloud SQL
Serverless Cloud Run Development
Serverless Firebase Development
Secure and Rate Limit API calls with API Gateway
Deploy and Manage Apigee X
Automate Data Capture at Scale with Document AI
CSPPE Secure Workloads in Google Kubernetes Engine
Ensure Access & Identity in Google Cloud
CAIML
Perform Foundational Data, ML, and AI Tasks in
Google Cloud
Engineer Data in Google Cloud
Explore Machine Learning Models with Explainable
AI
Create ML Models with BigQuery ML
Build and Deploy Machine Learning Solutions on Ver-
tex AI
Create Conversational AI Agents with Dialogow CX
Manage Data Models in Looker
Detect Manufacturing Defects using Visual Inspection
AI
5.3 Microsoft
5.3.1 Course content oerings and certifications.
•
Microsoft fundamentals curriculum. Provides foundational
level knowledge of Microsoft cloud and business application
services. They are ideal for students starting or thinking
about a career in technology and align with fundamentals
certications such as AZ-900. [58]
•
Microsoft Advanced Role-Based curriculum. Provides asso-
ciate level knowledge of Microsoft cloud and business appli-
cation services. They are ideal for students looking to begin
learning valuable job role skills and align with role-based
certications such as AZ-104.[49]
•
Microsoft Open Source Curriculum. Provides foundational
level of knowledge of technical focus areas. They are ideal for
students and educators looking to enhance their technical
skills and readiness.[57]
5.3.2 Miroso Learn. Microsoft Learn for Educators (MSLE) [
54
]
provides access to a curriculum of ocial Microsoft learning prod-
ucts. The Microsoft Learn Educator Center, part of MSLE, covers
best practices for learning with interactive lessons, earn profes-
sional development hours, and acquiring certications and nd
programs that help institutions meet their goals.
Each learning pathway and module covers Microsoft Certica-
tion exam objectives through lessons based on real-world scenarios
and practice exercises and can be used as modular items for as-
sessment, lab or tutorials. Microsoft Ocial Courseware (MoC)
[
56
] materials have been designed for instructor-led and blended
learning models and can be delivered remotely or in person. They
directly align to Microsoft Learn online learning paths, which are
collections of training modules, that are delivered wholesale or via
the modular components
•
Online training: Self-paced online learning paths and mod-
ules via Learn supported and localized.
• Microsoft Ocial Courseware: Full course, module content
(including lab components where available), and trainer
guide
•
Course datasheet: Course overview, outline, and learning
objectives
•
Educator teaching guide: General course information to pre-
pare for teaching delivery
•
Assessment guide: Guidance on how to develop formative
and summative assessments for students
•
Microsoft Open Source curricula: 20+ lessons per subject
areas with assignments, Pre- and Post- Quizzes. Made with
teachers in mind, for as self paced learning [57]
•
Microsoft Learn. Localized hands-on lab exercises for Mi-
crosoft course and the self-paced labs which are designed to
accompany the learning materials and enable educators [
53
]
and students [55] to practice using the technologies.
5.3.3 Academic credit. The American Council on Education (ACE)
is a United States nationally recognized institution in the evaluation
of workforce and military training, providing standards, practices,
and tools that higher education institutions acknowledge. Most
schools in the United States are members of ACE, which repre-
sents all U.S. accredited, degree-granting institutions. ACE member
242
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Provider Certifications in Computing Curricula ITiCSE-WGR ’22, July 8–13, 2022, Dublin, Ireland
Table 3: Estimated resource costs for Microsoft AI-900
Resource Est. Cost (€)
x125 candidate exam pack 1900
x125 candidate practice test pack 800
Azure resource costs per candidate 35
Total cost per candidate (based on x125 exam
pack)
56
schools accept some Microsoft certications for college credit. This
includes two-year, four-year, public, and private colleges and univer-
sities. ACE has reviewed and established credit recommendations
for a range of Microsoft certications [51].
5.3.4 Microso Micro-certification. Micro-credentials in this con-
text are recognized proof of the learning outcomes that a learner
have achieved following a short learning experience. The micro-
certications are short, competency-based recognition, issued by
Microsoft in the form of badges [
16
] and transcripts that a students
has completed the requirements of the learning experience. These
experiences and microcertication are provided by Microsoft Learn
with free, interactive, hands-on training and world wide students
can receive free Microsoft certication vouchers [59].
Microsoft learning paths, enable students and educators,learn
how to implement Microsoft technologies. Academics can blend
these resources in new or existing academic degree programs.
There are dedicated educator resources which introduce [
53
],
institutions to dierent approaches for implementing certication
at the course and program level and the benets it oers students. A
real-life case study and contextualized examples are used through-
out the learning path to walk through a complete cycle of designing
a new technical degree program that implements certication. Mi-
crosoft in partnership with a UK university have also developed
a learning path title ‘Implement Certications into Academic Pro-
grams’ [60] to support educators to:
•
Understand the benets of implementing certication in
degree programs
•
Choose the level of certication that is suitable for your
course or program needs
• Identify the academic and industry requirements for imple-
menting certications
•
Describe the processes involved in creating a new program
proposal document
•
Choose the most suitable learning outcomes for your course
or program
• Map certication outcomes to academic learning outcomes
•
Understand how to launch a new course or program with
certication
5.3.5 Integration Costs. In this section, an overview of estimated
costs involved in oering students the opportunity to take two
types of Microsoft certication are presented and discussed, speci-
cally AI-900 Microsoft Azure AI Fundamentals (Fundamentals) and
PL-300 Microsoft Power BI Data Analyst (Role-based). The costs
will cover exam sits and practice tests, as well as costs of cloud
services for the practical elements of the certication. Practical
elements in this case are Microsoft Learn modules and labs hosted
Table 4: Estimated resource costs for Microsoft PL-300
Resource Est. Cost (€)
x30 candidate exam pack 2200
x30 candidate practice test pack 1150
Azure resource costs per candidate 10
Total cost per candidate (based on x30 exam
pack)
121
on GitHub. The costs are presented in Tables 3 and 4 which list
the core resources required to give students an exam sit, access to
a practice test, and access to cloud resources to do the associated
practical elements.
It is important to highlight again the costs are estimated and can
vary dependent on the exam pack size as generally the unit cost is
reduced with larger exam packs and the Microsoft Learn Educator
program provides additional discount.[
54
] For the cloud resources
the costs presented are based on best practices of only using the
resources when completing the practical tasks, and closing services
down when not required.
There are free Azure for student subscriptions [
1
] which can
use to help mitigate costs an institution would incur for running
certications, such as the Azure for Students subscription or in-
stitutions can utilize Azure Enterprise subscriptions [
52
]. Azure
for student oers $100 of credit each year a student is enrolled on
a suitable course. However, it should be noted that only students
have direct access to the subscription with educators unable to have
any oversight of the services deployed and credit used.
5.3.6 Digital Badges. Microsoft provides Digital Badges once a
candidate has successfully passed the exams requirements for certi-
cation. Digital Badges are a symbol of real-world skills and com-
mitment to keeping pace with technology. These can be shared on
a LinkedIn prole, career-related social media posts, or embedded
in email signature, the digital badge is recognized as a trusted vali-
dation of achievement. Certication certicates can be downloaded
and printed for the candidate’s records [16].
5.3.7 Training and Certification. Academic institutions can also
utilise partners and educators can become Microsoft Certied Train-
ers [
50
] who deliver instructor led courses on behalf of the academic
institution.
Microsoft Learn has created an extensive number of code reposi-
tories which contain training, labs, resources and workshops for
all Microsoft professional exams [
58
] these resources are also lo-
calized into various languages to support world wide adoption.
These repositories contain the hands-on lab exercises for Microsoft
course [
56
] and the self-paced modules on Microsoft Learn [
53
].
The labs are designed to accompany the learning materials and
enable educators and students to practice using the technologies.
Worldwide organisations such as Certiport [
65
]oers a very
broad and comprehensive portfolio of courseware products that are
specially crafted from the nest online courses, hardcopy books, and
e-books all focused on certication exam success. These resources
are designed specically to help students and workers prepare to
take and pass certication exams. They target the areas covered
in the certication exams and align directly to exam objectives.
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ITiCSE-WGR ’22, July 8–13, 2022, Dublin, Ireland James H. Paterson et al.
Certiport partners with industry-leading authors, publishers, and
instructional technology developers to make these resources easily
available to Certiport customers[65].
5.3.8 Institutions becoming certification testing centers. The certi-
cation authority Certiport [
66
] oers institutions the ability to
become a Certiport Authorized Testing Center (CATC). A CATC
is authorised to run Microsoft exams for Microsoft Fundamentals,
Microsoft Certied Educator, and Microsoft Oce Specialist certi-
cation. Benets of becoming a CATC, include:
•
Educators can use their exam voucher without having to
travel to another test center.
•
Students will be able to conveniently take their exams onsite
or online.
•
Institutions are able to buy and oer certication exams to
students at a discounted price.
The certication authority for Microsoft’s Advanced Role-Based
certication exams is Pearson Vue [64].
5.4 Mapping certications to KAs
Table 5: Certicate Codes and Names
Code Certicate Name
CLF-C01 AWS Certied Cloud Practitioner
SAA-C02 AWS Certied Solutions Architect - Associate
DVA-C01 AWS Certied Developer - Associate
SOA-C02 AWS Certied SysOps Administrator - Associate
CDL Google Cloud Digital Leader
ACE Google Associate Cloud Engineer
AZ-900 Microsoft Azure Fundamentals
DP-900 Microsoft Azure Data Fundamentals
AI-900 Microsoft Azure AI Fundamentals
SC-900 Microsoft Security, Compliance, and Identity Fun-
damentals
AZ-104 Microsoft Azure Cloud Administrator
AZ-204 Microsoft Developing Solution for Azure
AZ-500 Microsoft Azure Security Technologies
AZ-700
Microsoft Designing and Implementing Microsoft
Azure Networking Solutions
DP-203 Microsoft Data Engineering on Microsoft Azure
DP-300
Microsoft Administering Relational Databases on
Microsoft Azure
SC-200 Microsoft Security Operations Analyst
Our previous working groups dened cloud computing KAs and
LOs and showed how to map these to course content [
2
]. To extend
this we now consider how the certications map to the KAs. From
this, if faculty members cover particular KAs in their courses, they
can see which certications, if any align with their courses. The
specic certication programs we examined and the certications
within them are shown in Table 5. We focused specically on cer-
tication programs designed for those who have less than a year
experience with cloud computing.
We then mapped the major areas as given by each of the exami-
nation descriptions and compared them to the KAs (see Appendix
A for the full names of each of these KAs). The resultant mappings
can be seen in Table 6, where a check mark indicates that a signi-
cant part of the examination is included in the KA. In some cases,
examinations have long lists of topics, so we tried to determine
what topics would be most heavily covered by reading descriptions,
sample problems, and similar materials.
6 STANDARDS OVERVIEW
We argue that a potential issue with the implementation of vendor
certications in university courses is that the quality management
procedures are not transparent. Quality management includes poli-
cies and procedures related to quality planning, assurance, control
and improvement. Universities require transparent and clear qual-
ity procedures for all sections of the educational experience. When
embedding vendor certicates into a course it is expected that the
quality procedures are consistent in all aspects. To this end a review
of certicate providers was carried out to establish their quality
management procedures. We then reviewed educational quality
controls as dened by international standards groups. From this we
can establish that quality procedures can be applied in a consistent
manner. The rapid pace of change in vendor certicates leads to up-
dates to courses or new course oerings every few weeks. The pace
of change in universities is often slower with validation processes
taking 6 months or more. It is therefore important for universities
considering taking on vendor certicates to use curricula language
that is vendor neutral. Is is even better if the curricula denes high
level concepts and is linked to a course announcement document
that can change regularly, in line with the curricula, without the
need for re-validation. For example, the curriculum may refer to
Containers as a Service, whilst the course announcement descriptor
document may state topics including Google Kubernetes Engine,
Amazon Elastic Kubernetes or Azure Kubernetes Service Service
as per vendor certication.
When reecting on whether both the certication and the KAs
are appropriate we studied frameworks and standards in the area
of education and cloud computing. As cloud computing is a nar-
row term we had to expand the scope to cloud enabled topics and
systems engineering. Our research in this aspect is two-fold. First,
we consider standards for education. Secondly, we appraise cloud
standards and their application of techniques for knowledge man-
agement.
A number of organizations provide guidance for vendors on
how to write their curriculum. Professional bodies such as the IEEE
and the ACM have done so on a regular basis. However, if the
guidance is not written with a view to future proong the results
can be disastrous. As noted in the 2020 report [
13
], the Computing
Curricula from the ACM suggests a competency of “Analyze and
compare several networking topologies in terms of robustness,
expandability, and throughput used within a cloud enterprise." for
Information technology. This leaves much to be desired. Indeed
the very limited denition of cloud computing as found in the 2020
Report is an indicator of how poorly many organizations review or
dene curriculum
The IEEE Standards Association (IEEE SA) work with 175 coun-
tries to develop standards in the area of computing. However, a
quick search of their standards show little that focus specically
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Provider Certifications in Computing Curricula ITiCSE-WGR ’22, July 8–13, 2022, Dublin, Ireland
Table 6: Mapping Certicates to KAs
Certicate FCC CAC SRC NRC CES FTRR CMM CO SDCA CPMF SOA CSPPE IoTMEC CAIML
Amazon Web Services
CLF-C01 ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓
SAA-C02 ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓
DVA-C01 ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓
SOA-C02 ✓ ✓ ✓
Google Cloud
CDL ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓
ACE ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓
Microsoft Azure
AZ-900 ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓
DP-900 ✓
AI-900 ✓
SC-900 ✓
AZ-104 ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓
AZ-204 ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓
AZ-500 ✓
AZ-700 ✓
DP-203 ✓ ✓ ✓
DP-300 ✓
SC-200 ✓
on cloud computing. Distributed systems of a variety of types are
mentioned. Similarly, certication in the area of cloud computing
is not specically called out. Whilst we can argue that some of the
existing standards are generic enough to cover educational aspects
of cloud computing it would be interesting to see a technical report
outlining a mapping of the areas.
6.1 ISO and Knowledge Management
There are a number of standardization bodies but the most notable is
the International Standards Organization (ISO). The ISO represents
standards bodies from 167 countries worldwide. In this role, they
work to create consensus based, market relevant standards. This
is important as it represents best practice across market leaders in
industry. In 2021 the ISO had over 22,000 standards published [
70
].
The ISO recognizes the wealth of avenues for learning both
formal and informal. The ISO provides standard requirements for
services in the area of knowledge management outside of formal
settings through ISO 29993 [
40
]. This set of standards covers both
in-house training and outsourced training which is relevant to the
cloud based training courses discussed here. The recognition of
informal learning by standardisation bodies is relatively new. The
recognition of this form or learning by industry has no doubt led
to the prevalence of micro certicates such as those discussed here.
Interestingly the ISO 29993 standard [
40
] on informal learning
discusses the needs analysis from the perspective of the learner
but not the industry to which the learner may work. It denes
the learner needs as a key factor “... in the learning service as
it ensures that the objectives, program, content and assessment
methods meet those needs". The standard is surprisingly limited
given the prevalence of micro certications. Indeed, references to
the parties with vested interest in the outcomes of the learning
beyond that of the learner would seem to indicate the tertiary
institute in our example. The tertiary institutes are also considered
sponsors as they acquire the service on behalf of the learner. A high
level of responsibility is placed on the institute in ensuring that
quality management practices are put in place.
The work of applying ISO standards to education has been car-
ried out previously in Portuguese vocational schools [
21
] with
respect to ISO 9001. However this work applies standardization in
a broad manner to management rather than referring specically
to educational practices. Work in Kenya [
7
] shows that the work
of academic sta correlates with ISO 9001. Whilst not denitive it
is an indicator that standards can be applied to quality of learning
resources, pedagogy and general teaching practices. Challenges in
implementing these standards begins with a lack of awareness of
the international standards [
37
] the are specically written for the
quality management of education whether in formal or informal
learning settings.
Further standards and umbrella standard groups include the ISO
21001 management system standard [
41
]. Although some work
exists on presenting a case for adoption within the educational
sector [45], case studies could not be found.
A list of some of the standards specically relevant to education
are shown in Table 7.
6.2 Discussion on Certication to Standards
Microsoft notes that they comply with many standards in their
service oerings including Cloud Security Alliance and ISO 27001
no specic quality standard is listed for quality control of their
courses, whether certied or not. Further investigation into their
245
ITiCSE-WGR ’22, July 8–13, 2022, Dublin, Ireland James H. Paterson et al.
Table 7: Sample Relevant Standards
Note: Standards and Technical Reports such as ISO/IEC TR 19759, SWEBOK are not considered in this section as they are too tightly aligned
with software engineering.
Organizations Number Std. Title Description Note
ISO 21001
Educational organiza-
tions – Management
Systems for educational
organizations – require-
ments with guidance
for use
This is applicable where the
organization needs to demon-
strate their ability to support
the acquisition and develop-
ment of competencies.
This refers to the quality of the knowl-
edge management systems rather than
to the KAs themselves.
ISO/IEC 24773
Software and systems
engineering — Certica-
tion of software and sys-
tems engineering pro-
fessionals
This is an umbrella set of stan-
dards regarding certication. It
is applicable to systems and soft-
ware engineering.
This refers to the description of compe-
tencies. Given the mismatch in descrip-
tions previously discussed this is a very
important standard.
ISO 29993
Learning services out-
side formal education —
Service requirements
This standard presents require-
ments for informal learning
where goals are dened and
measured. Interaction with the
learner is typical in this form of
learning.
It is the combination of micro certi-
cates such as vendor certications that
provide lifelong learning for many in
industry. Lifelong learning including in-
company training whether outsourced
or in-house. This standard is provided to
ensure consistency in these pathways.
ISO 29994
Education and learning
services — Require-
ments for distance
learning
This standard provides guid-
ance on distance learning.
The certications we have discussed
in this document are primarily pro-
vided as distance learning courses. This
brings about challenges that are not nec-
essarily encountered during in-person
courses.
EN 16234
e-Competence Frame-
work (e-CF)
A Common European Frame-
work for ICT Professionals in
all industry sectors. This frame-
work provides high level guide-
lines on the types of KA needed
by all industry sectors.
Whilst primarily targeted at computing,
the standard is set at a level too abstract
to be of particular interest to this study.
INCOSE None
Systems Engineering
Competency Frame-
work
This Framework covers com-
petencies, knowledge, skills an
abilities for systems engineers.
Tailoring of this framework is required
to such an extent that it is not consid-
ered in depth here.
IEEE 2675
IEEE Standard for De-
vOps:Building Reliable
and Secure Systems
Including Application
Build, Package, and
Deployment
This standard focuses on build-
ing systems including those
hosted in the cloud. Strong em-
phasis is placed on communica-
tions and collaboration of the
team.
This standard has been included due to
the shifting nature of cloud computing.
The creation of resources through In-
frastructure as Code has become impor-
tant. Knowledge management is preva-
lent in this standard.
quality controls does show that quality management was carried
out within the examination process. The process described in Figure
5 shows that consideration is given to quality checks at multiple
stages of exam development. However no such process is described
for the development of the course or the course material.
Google mention conformance to the ISO 9001 as part of their
quality management system. The authors could not nd any specic
mention to quality management of courses or related materials.
AWS similarly specify that they are ISO 9001, ISO 27001 and Cloud
Security Alliance certied. Again, there is no specic mention of
compliance to standards specically regarding training, learning
and related areas.
6.3 Standard Case Study
This section provides a discussion on cloud based standards and how
they make reference to the importance of knowledge management.
The IEEE 2675 DevOps standard for Building Reliable and Secure
Systems Including Application Build, Package, and Deployment
was the second standard reviewed in this case study. This standard
concerns the creation of infrastructure and systems using services.
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Provider Certifications in Computing Curricula ITiCSE-WGR ’22, July 8–13, 2022, Dublin, Ireland
Figure 5: Microsoft Examination Quality Process
The ‘left-shift’ discussed within the standard focuses on the con-
sideration of quality earlier in the life-cycle. Part of this is realized
through the description of tasks which need to be carried out more
regularly. Another signicant component of the standard is the
requirement for systems thinking. In the KAs listed here for cloud
computing we note the breath of topics that now are considered
core. For this reason syllabi must clearly show the relationship with
topics not traditionally considered part of cloud computing. The
stated KAs map at a conceptual level to the tasks highlighted in
IEEE 2675 [39] as shown in Figure 6.
Figure 6: KAs and the IEEE 2675 Standard
The second interesting aspect of this standard is the prominence
of knowledge management. The standard denes knowledge man-
agement as a
Multi-disciplinary process of obtaining, preserving,
sharing, using, and refreshing knowledge.
The standard further goes on to establish the need for support
structures from management. This is interesting as it further gives
weight to the value of short courses or vendor certicates provided
by industry. It specically mentions the requirement to support
micro-learning as part of typical practice. This standard acknowl-
edges alternative paths for learning including embedded learning,
mentoring, shadowing and technical exchanges which are often
embedded in institutional courses. This works towards the insti-
tutional need to validate and encourage lifelong learning through
alternative paths as part of continuous professional development.
If more standards included such recognition of micro-learning and
alternative sources of knowledge it would become signicantly
easier for institutes to include mechanisms for embedding vendor
certicates within the courses.
6.4 Competencies Framework
The Skills Framework for the Information Age (SFIA) is not for
prot organisation. SFIA denes the skills and competencies for
computing and engineering professionals. It is specically targeted
at people involved in data and technology throughout the systems
life-cycle. The purpose of SFIA is to provide a common language for
the description of skills and competencies. When mapping vendor
certicates to university course requirements the application of a
common languages will aid the process. The IEEE 2675 standard
[39] denes competence as:
"Ability to demonstrate and apply the combination of
knowledge, formal and informal skills, training, expe-
rience, and behavioral attributes to achieve intended
organizational and technical results."
In line with the description of competencies in the SFIA Frame-
work, the ISO have described competencies as containing key char-
acteristics of measurable, task oriented, modied behaviours and
skills. Considering this further we would suggest that competence
in a topic requires consistence in demonstration of skill. Figure 7
describes some of the identiable characteristics of competency as
dened across standards and frameworks such as SFIA.
SFIA goes beyond a common terminology to dene a number
of skills necessary for computing and engineering professionals
not least of which is cloud related skills. Some of the skills listed
apply across a range of areas. Quality Management, QUMG, for
example is a skill that can apply to the daily framework of processes
and practices right through to strategy practices to determine if
quality seems meet an organizations needs. We have mapped the
knowledge areas previously dened by our working group [
2
] to
the skills listed in SFIA. From this, the knowledge areas from vendor
certicates and university courses can be easily aligned together
for quality assurance purposes.
SFIA denes seven levels of responsibility and accountability
which can also be used to guide the curriculum author as to the
level of skill described. This ensures that professional skills are
distinct from lower level skills. In considering the quality of goals
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ITiCSE-WGR ’22, July 8–13, 2022, Dublin, Ireland James H. Paterson et al.
Figure 7: Competency Characteristics
and objectives of cloud micro-credentials Levels 3, Apply, to 7, Set
Strategy are considered. Of particular interest is that at level 6 re-
quires quality assurance procedures to evaluate that competency
is assessed in such a manner as to ensure internal and external
consistency in assessment outcomes. Table 8 shows a mapping of
KAs to SFAI skills. The levels of responsibility are shown without
presenting the detailed tasks at that level. We recommend that insti-
tutes look to the current version of SFIA to see the most up to date
tasks at each level before mapping to their individual curriculum.
7 METHODS
The previous sections have focused on the perspectives of vendors
and to some extent institutions. We now consider other stakehold-
ers and explore their perceptions framed by the three perspectives
described in section 4. For the “certication candidates” perspec-
tive we were interested in the perceptions of students including
their awareness of certications, the value of academic qualica-
tions and certications and their expectations of how these enable
transition to employment. For the “employment” perspective we
wanted to know about the perceptions of employers including their
awareness of certications, the inuence of academic qualications
and certications on their evaluation of potential employees and
the importance of certication for their employees once in the
workplace. For the “academic” perspective we were interested in
perspectives regarding the value of certications but also in the de-
tails of their experience of and strategies for including certication
in their courses.
7.1 Data Collection
The data collection process consisted of surveys and semi-structured
interviews. Separate surveys were designed and distributed to stu-
dents and employers. For student perspectives, we invited cohorts
of students from within institutions where working group mem-
bers are based. For employer perspectives we invited persons who
were contacts within organisations that had some relationship with
the working group members’ institutions and were in technical
roles related to cloud computing, such as industrial advisory board
members.
A dierent approach was taken from the outset to explore the
academic perspective as we were interested in more in-depth in-
formation. Through messages distributed to a number of academic
organizations via professional messaging boards and referrals we
identied a small number (three) of participants based on willing-
ness to participate and the requirement that they had already run
at least one course that had implemented cloud certications as
part of the course. These participants were used as case studies, and
included educators working with cloud certications in a range of
contexts: dierent countries, institution types, course levels and
vendors. A further two participants were drawn from the working
group members who, as a consequence of the nature of the group
and its recruiting process met the criteria for inclusion.
Semi-structured interviews were carried out with these partic-
ipants, and qualitative analysis was done on the interview tran-
scripts. Ethical approval was sought and obtained from the home
institution of one of the working group leaders and data collection
was carried out under the terms of that approval. Data was securely
stored with all participants giving informed consent.
7.2 Threats to validity
Student participants were drawn from courses in the working group
members’ institutions, hence in which cloud computing played a
prominent role in some form. They cannot be considered to be rep-
resentative of computing or computer science students in general.
However, this is appropriate for this work as we wanted to know
about students who can be considered as likely to be stakeholders
as dened in our model. Further, we are aware that some of the
student participants were work-based learners, who are students
and employees at the same time, which may aect some of their
responses.
As a result of the criteria for inviting students and employers, the
number of survey participants is low, which limits the conclusions
that can be drawn. While the number of case study interview par-
ticipants is smaller still, we consider that the in-depth nature of the
data gathered provides a sucient basis to identify commonalities
and dierences in experience and strategy.
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Table 8: Working Group KAs mapped to SFIA Skills
Note: Mapping is subjective and would require further validation.
Knowledge Areas (KAs)
Level 1 Level 2 Level 3 Level 4 Level 5 Level 6 Level 7
Fundamental Cloud
Concepts (FCC)
TEST, ITOP
TEST, ITOP,
ASUP
TEST,
ITOP,
ASUP,
DESN
TEST, ITOP,
ASUP, DESN
TEST, ITOP,
ASUP, DESN
TEST, DESN
Computing Abstrac-
tions on the Cloud
(CAC)
INCA INCA
INCA, SYSP
INCA, SYSP INCA, SYSP INCA
Storage Resources on
the Cloud (SRC)
STMG
STMG, DATM,
CPMG
STMG, DATM,
CPMG, POMG
STMG, DATM,
CPMG, POMG
POMG
Networking Resources
on the Cloud (NRC)
NTDS,
SINT, SYSP
NTDS, SINT,
SYSP
NTDS, SINT,
SYSP, POMG
NTDS, SINT,
POMG
POMG
Cloud Elasticity and
Scalability (CES)
SYSP SYSP, CPMP
SYSP, CPMP,
POMG
CPMP, POMG POMG
Fault Tolerance, Re-
silience and Reliability
(FTRR)
COPL
COPL,
STMG
COPL, STMG
COPL, STMG,
POMG
COPL, POMG
Cloud Monitoring and
Maintenance (CMM)
VURE
VURE, ITSP,
POMG
VURE, ITSP,
POMG, GOVN
ITSP,
POMG,
GOVN
Cloud Orchestration
(CO)
SYSP SYSP, ARCH
SYSP, ARCH,
POMG
ARCH, POMG,
ARCH, ISCO
ARCH,
POMG,
ISCO
Software Development
using Cloud APIs
(SDCA)
SYSP SYSP SYSP
Cloud Programming
Models and Frame-
works (CPMF)
SINT SINT SINT, BPRE SINT, BPRE BPRE
Service Oriented Archi-
tecture (SOA)
SLMO ARCH, SLMO
ARCH, POMG,
SLMO, STPL
ARCH, POMG,
SLMO, STPL
POMG,
SLMO,
STPL
Cloud Security, Privacy,
Policy and Ethics
(CSPPE)
SUPP
SUPP,
ARCH,
POMG,
ITCM,
QUMG
VURE, SUPP,
ARCH, POMG,
ITCM, QUMG
VURE, SUPP,
ARCH, POMG,
ITCM, QUMG,
STPL
VURE, SUPP,
ARCH, POMG,
ITCM, QUMG,
STPL, GOVN
SUPP,
POMG,
QUMG,
STPL,
GOVN
IoT, Mobile, Edge and
the Cloud (IoTMEC)
EMRG, INOV,
POMG
EMRG, INOV,
POMG, INOV
EMRG, INOV,
POMG, INOV
INOV,
POMG,
INOV
Cloud-based Arti-
cial Intelligence and
Machine Learning
(CAIML)
DENG
DENG,
SYSP,
DBDS
DENG, SYSP,
DBDS, DATM
DENG, SYSP,
DBDS, DATM
DENG, DBDS,
DATM
Level 7
The inclusion of working group members among the case study
participants was a potential concern. We considered that this ap-
proach was justied as they met the criteria to be the basis of highly
relevant case studies. This is not surprising: it is a distinctive feature
of the working group concept that members are typically accepted
on the basis of their expertise and experience related to the topic to
be addressed, and it was considered to be appropriate to make use
of the experience of specic members in this case. To mitigate the
risk of bias or other inuence on their responses, those participants
were not involved in designing or conducting interviews, or in
the analysis of the data. They had no sight or knowledge of the
other interviews or the outcomes prior to their own interviews.
We are condent that their responses accurately represented their
experience and strategies.
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8 STUDENT AND EMPLOYER PERSPECTIVES
This section describes the main ndings from stakeholder survey
submissions.
8.1 Survey: Student Perspective
8.1.1 Design and implementation. The relevant model in section 4
identies associations that students may have with certications
and academic credit, and the transitions in their careers that these
may enable. The survey questions were designed to elicit infor-
mation on whether the participants actually did have those asso-
ciations, for example were they aware of certications, had they
achieved certications, or if they are planning to achieve certica-
tions. Further questions were included to nd out about the scope of
their interest within the landscape of certications, such as which
vendors or providers and what knowledge areas were meaning-
ful to them, and their intentions regarding future acquisition of
certications. Finally, ranking questions were included to nd out
about their motivations and perceptions in relation to certication,
including the relative importance for nding a job of certication,
experience and academic credit. We included the three main CSPs
highlighted in section 5 in options within the survey questions,
but also gave the opportunity for students to show awareness of
IBM Cloud and others that they might specify. The student survey
questions are shown in Appendix C.
The survey was implemented in Microsoft Forms and the URL
advertised to our chosen student cohorts. The respondent groups
were selected based on anticipated student intention to work in
related cloud industry. The URL was advertised in authors’ cloud-
related classes including junior and senior undergraduate students
and professional graduate degrees in Scotland, and Canada. 78
responses had been received from the advertised sources.
44% of the respondents were senior undergraduate students,
36% were junior undergraduate students, and 5% were studying
post-graduate degrees and 15% of the respondents have already
graduated in a related subject. 40% of the participants were em-
ployed in a eld related to cloud computing and 9% held jobs in
an unrelated area. 51% of the participants consisted of student not
currently working, or seeking an employment within a related area.
8.1.2 Awareness. All of our student survey participants were aware
of at least one cloud computing provider. Familiarity across vendor
platforms varied among Microsoft Azure, Amazon Web Services,
Google Cloud Platform, IBM Cloud with 96.1%, 94.9%, 80.77%, and
78.72% awareness among the participants respectively. Sources of
these awareness varied among students, with 78.08% of the students
indicating that they had received information about at least one
cloud computing vendor in a course within their degree programs.
Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure ranked rst and second
among cloud computing vendors covered in degree courses.
The comparatively lower awareness of platform certications
were still at 91%. These participants were aware of cloud certica-
tions whether generally or aware of specic vendor certication or
a certication exam. 23% of the participants had already received
at least one cloud computing vendor certication. Only 6% of par-
ticipants had no intention to pursue any certications, and 71% of
participants were planning (28%) or intend to (43%) receive certi-
cation in the future.
8.1.3 Perceptions. 33 out of 78 (42.3%) students assigned the high-
est factor in employability as relevant experience and 19 students
out of 78 (24.4%) indicated the highest factor to be certications.
This ranks certications higher than both degrees, but lower than
relevant experience in student opinion. In totality, Students ranked
relevant experience, certications, Bachelors degrees, and Masters
degrees as the most important factors for employments respectively
as shown in Figure 8.
We should note to interpretation of data in relevance to our goal
and target population. First, for our purposes ordering of masters
and bachelors is irrelevant as our goal is analyzing perception of
academia in-relation to certications, regardless of degree level.
However, the ndings might imply higher tendency to achieve cer-
tications rather than graduate degrees if the participants aim to
enter the cloud computing workforce. Second, all of the survey par-
ticipants were either in a degree program or already had acquired
a degree at the time of survey. This might imply the certications
and relevant experience are not considered as a substitute for de-
gree education, but an important fact after degree program for the
participating population.
Figure 8: Student Perspectives: Eect on Employability
8.1.4 Intentions. Students were also asked to rank in importance
a set of factors which might have inuenced their choice of cer-
tications to achieve in future. 34% chose employment prospects
or requirements as the most important factor. The answers also
indicated that personal interests, cost, availability of a learning path
and progression, and having existing knowledge on the certication
content rank in their importance in this decision respectively. The
relevance or inclusion of a certication in their academic course
ranked the last in the participating population’s choice to achieve
a certication.
Cloud fundamentals, software development, and data were do-
main areas with the highest number of achieved certications as
well as the domain areas with the highest popularity among the
students planning to achieve certications or further certications
in the future. Microsoft Azure and Amazon Web Services were
most popular vendor certications among the students planning to
pursue certications in the future.
8.1.5 Summary and next steps. In general, it appears that our re-
spondents are well aware of certication and connect it with em-
ployability and recognise AWS, Google Cloud, and Azure as the key
vendors. They show an interest over a wide range of knowledge
areas. There are, however, varied perceptions of the relative im-
portance of experience, academic credit and certication. Further,
there is surprisingly little connection made between the content of
their academic course and their intentions for future certication.
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It should be noted that the respondents were in student cohorts
where working group members teach and hence in which we know
there is signicant cloud content in their courses. Participants were
asked if they would be willing to take part in a follow-up interview.
Conducting these did not fall within the scope of this working
group but there is an opportunity to explore the perceptions in
more depth.
8.2 Survey: Employer Perspective
8.2.1 Design and implementation. The relevant model in section 4
identies associations that employers may have with certications
and academic credit and with other stakeholders in relation to cer-
tication. As for the employer survey the questions were designed
to elicit information on whether the participants actually did have
those associations, for example were they aware of certications,
did they value require or incentivize certications for their employ-
ees and candidates, and how often do they require their employees
to upgrade their certications or pursue additional certications.
Further questions were included to nd out about the scope of their
interest and return on investment within the landscape of certica-
tions. Finally, we asked them to rank the importance of the same
factors for employability as the student survey to look for evidence
of any mismatch between employer and student perceptions here.
The employer survey questions are shown in Appendix D.
The survey was also implemented in Microsoft Forms and the
URL advertised to employers with connections to working group
members’ institutions, for example Industrial Advisory Board mem-
bers. 20 responses had been received. It was expected that the
individuals concerned would mainly be in technical or technical
management roles, and this was borne out in the responses.
8.2.2 Awareness. 15 respondents were in technical or technical
management roles. All were aware of certications although only 2
indicated awareness of specic exams. They were mostly aware of
specic vendors, however, and like the students place more value
on the AWS, Google Cloud and Azure than other vendors.
8.2.3 Perceptions. Out of the 20 responses we have received from
employers 80% of our respondents indicated having a role in the hir-
ing process. One respondent believed certications to be of highest
ecacy in hiring decisions. Of the 10 respondents that put certica-
tions at second highest ecacy, 6 put certication ahead of degrees
and 4 put a bachelors degree ahead of relevant experience. Regard-
ing the benets of having employees with certication, the most
important was considered by the largest number, 39 percent, to be
enhanced job performance, while only one respondent identied no
benet. 27% of respondents indicated a role in employee promotion
decisions.
8.2.4 Practice. 14 respondents said they incentivize employees
to achieve certication, and 15 provide some kind of certication
pathway for employees. A smaller number, 11, said they see a return
or signicant return on investment for these activities.
8.2.5 Summary and next steps. Firstly, we note that the number
of responses is small and we continue to gather data in order to
obtain a sample representing a wider range of employers. We know
the sectors that these respondents work in, but it would be useful
to have richer data to understand more about examples of practice.
Again, we have indication of areas that are interesting to explore,
such as the details of certication pathways and how they evaluate
return on investment.
In general, however, it appears that our respondents are, like the
students, well aware of certication and connect it with employabil-
ity and recognise AWS, Google Cloud and Azure as the key vendors.
These ndings suggest that it is important to be aware that cloud
certications are an important aspect of the employability of their
students. Again there is scope for further in-depth exploration as
some participants indicated willingness to take part in follow-up
interviews.
9 ACADEMIC PERSPECTIVE
We now explore further stakeholder perspectives, in the case those
of educators who have engaged with the certication landscape and
are integrating cloud certications into their courses. Rather than
exploring the perceptions of a wide group of educators who are
teaching cloud computing, and may or may not have included certi-
cations in their courses, we are interested in in-depth exploration
of the experience of educators who have done so in order to identify
areas of successful practice along with issues and barriers that need
to be overcome. It can be assumed that these educators have been
motivated by a positive perception of the value of certications
for their students, although the precise basis for that perception is
interesting to explore.
We explore this perspective through a set of ve case studies
based on educators working with cloud certications in a range
of contexts: dierent countries, institution types, course levels,
vendors. Qualitative interviews were conducted to explore the ex-
perience of designing and delivering academic courses with some
integration of cloud vendor certications, within the context of a
higher education institution, reecting the associations in gure 3.
This model informed the design of a semi-structured interview
script, which explores the following aspects
• the institutional context and the nature of the course
•
the specic cloud certications included and the reasons for
the choice of these
•
approach taken to curriculum design and assessment and
how these map to certication
• institutional support/barriers
The interview script is shown in Appendix B. This lists the
questions to be asked and indications of the kind of information
that might need to be elicited with further discussion. All inter-
views were conducted as Microsoft Teams meetings, by the same
interviewer. Interviews were recorded and verbatim transcripts
generated automatically from the audio recording. The transcripts
were edited for accuracy only, with reference to the audio. The
interviews lasted between 33 and 44 minutes.
9.1 Case studies
The educational contexts for the case studies were as follows:
•
Case study 1 - University of Lincoln: A postgraduate
(MSc) program in cloud computing in a UK university which
has a focus in the cloud computing space with the recent
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ITiCSE-WGR ’22, July 8–13, 2022, Dublin, Ireland James H. Paterson et al.
launch of its MSc Cloud Computing program. Given the ap-
plied nature of the degree program on oer, it was a good t
for oering students vendor certication, with a specic fo-
cus on Microsoft Fundamentals and Role-based certication,
with the latter being credit-bearing.
•
Case study 2 - Saint Leo University: A range of courses
taught by an educator in a US university that supports edu-
cation learning for a diversity of student populations. Stu-
dents range from young learners, diverse student popula-
tions, to adult and military veterans. An approach to skill
development that is used involves embedding cloud com-
puting curriculum in some form within courses that map to
cloud computing certications, such as Microsoft AZ-900
and various Google Cloud certications.
•
Case study 3 - VTC Hong Kong: A diploma program in
cloud administration in a Hong Kong vocation education in-
stitution that provides valuable credentials for some 200,000
students each year through a full range of pre-employment
and in-service programm with internationally recognised
qualications. The Higher Diploma in Cloud and Data Centre
Administration is a two year program which is recognised by
the Hong Kong Computer Society. Graduates can articulate
to a number of local degree programs. Azure and Google
Cloud certications are integrated into courses at VTC.
•
Case study 4 - Miami Dade College: Two programs taught
in a US university which is a Hispanic Serving Institution
with eight campuses and outreach centres. The Associate in
Science in Networking Services Technology immerses stu-
dents in the eld of network design and administration, with
an Enterprise Cloud Computing track delivered through a
collaboration with AWS, while the Enterprise Cloud Com-
puting Credit Certicate program focuses on learners who
already have a degree or are trying to get back into industry
and want to upscale in cloud computing.
•
Case study 5 - University of Cardi: A DevOps module
which is part of the BSc Applied Software Engineering in a
research-intensive UK university. Microsoft’s AZ900 certi-
cation is integrated in the module. DevOps and the need for
cloud and cloud awareness is growing and likely to feature
in more programs moving forward.
9.2 Thematic analysis of interview data
A reexive thematic analysis approach, as described by Braun et al.,
was used to derive themes from the interview transcripts [
12
]. This
approach was considered to be more appropriate here than a coding
reliability approach: the intent was to construct themes through a
collaborative and reexive process rather than seeking consensus
on meaning. The transcripts were analysed using descriptive coding
process, by two coders, with a second cycle of pattern coding to
determine commonalities as well as key dierences (important to
explore areas where a range of practice occurs).
From this analysis, a set of key themes was identied: benets of
including certication; costs; course design; maintaining currency;
testing infrastructure; awarding academic credit for certications;
types of assessments used; teacher preparation; and quality pro-
cesses. These themes are addressed in turn below. Following each
quote from the transcripts there is an indicator of which case study
it was drawn from.
9.2.1 Benefits. Participants talked about the factors that motivated
them or their institutions to introduce certications into their pro-
grams or courses/modules and of the evidence they have for the
benets realised by doing so. Enhancing the employability of their
students was a signicant motivation in the rst instance, based,
for example, on market analysis of job postings for employers likely
to hire their graduates: “And you see that just the job postings alone,
all request some level of cloud certication, knowledge or skill. And
so we understand that’s an important thing for our students to have”
(CS2). Conversations with employers revealed that there is often an
expectation that new employees should achieve certication: “More
recently, it se ems like most employers are now putting our graduates
when they get jobs with them through certication in the rst six
months of getting those jobs, so it made sense for us as an institution
to start embedding them and teaching that material because it is
not only aligned with our academic modules any way, but it really
enhances the graduate outcomes for those students for when they go
to interview” (CS1).
Participants’ perceptions based on their experience are that their
courses perform well in terms of supporting employability. Certi-
cation plays a role in this: “I’ve had numerous students connect with
me. They graduated from university and they’ve consistently stated
that they really appreciated the opportunity to take the certications.
Even if they didn’t pass, they appreciated the opportunity to even
participate in those activities because according to them, it was a
very important part of their interview process or even the job that
they’re in” (CS2). It was noted that certications from one provider
were valuable regardless of which platform employers use: “The
ones that I’ve seen have actually got jobs that are not necessarily with
Microsoft, but are very close. Jobs where they’re deploying stu in
cloud, whether it’s Amazon or Azure” (CS5).
In one context, certications were observed to be more impor-
tant than academic qualications: “The basic requirement for the
graduate to join the AWS partner Azure partner or Google partner
is the certication. Not the degree, not the higher diploma, actually”
(CS3). However, another participant emphasised the importance of
the learning achieved through project based assessment in allowing
students to demonstrate employable skills: “I think out of the 14 of
my students that were in that class, the ones that nished and passed,
the majority of them now have jobs in cloud and the majority said that
was because of that project” (CS4). The inclusion of certications is
also a factor in making a course attractive to students: “We have two
major KPI for courses. First of all, we need to recruit students and then
the second KPI is graduate employment” (CS4). It is apparent that
these educators are focused strongly on the other key stakeholders
(students and employers) and see the inclusion of certications in
their courses as benecial to all.
9.2.2 Costs. Teaching cloud computing using public cloud solution
providers’ platforms involves cost in two main areas:
•
platform costs: enabling students to use cloud services to
carry out practical activities as part of their learning
•
certication costs: charged by test providers for each attempt
at a certication exam (whether successful or not)
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The current landscape for support from AWS, Google and Mi-
crosoft in relation to costs is discussed in section 5. We focus here
on certication costs and the approaches that have been taken to
enabling students to attempt certication exams through the insti-
tution (as opposed to making their own arrangements to sit those
exams independently).
Participants have taken advantage of support from the cloud
solution providers, to various degrees such as 50% discounts or
even completely free exams oered to students: “The cost point
was zero cost to myself or the students. I can understand why they’re
oering these free certications, because they want people to come out
of universities educated and then available with those certications to
drop straight into jobs” (CS5). Without that support it would not be
possible for some educators to oer certications within the course:
“There’s no way I would’ve been able to do it because again, I could not
justify the budget for my department to cover that. We can’t go out
and even add on an additional technology charge or testing charge or
something like that as part of the course fees because our tuition is
already pre-established outside of our control” (CS3).
In other cases it has been possible to obtain institutional support
for certication costs: “AWS provide the discount, 50% of the price
for student. And the second half we covered by our institution” (CS3).
As a strategy for making the case for institutional support, one par-
ticipant was successful in applying for external funding to support
costs, including certication costs, associated with starting up their
program: “We use some of the money from the grant, but then it got
institutionalized because it was so good. The student feedback said
this is a great tool to improve on the certication and get tested that
the school decided to include it in terms of the course” (CS4).
Exams represent a cost that needs to be met, and when certica-
tion is embedded within a course educators need to be clear how
this cost can be supported without passing this on to individual
students.
9.2.3 Course design. The participants had all designed courses
that included cloud solution provider certications in some form,
but were primarily academic courses. Course design was driven by
some form of expected outcomes to allow learning to be evidenced:
“So it’s, it’s based on strictly upon knowledge and skills required to do
the job. And then we map that directly to course competency and then
map that to a certication” (CS4). It can be important to ensure that
courses are not tied too closely to certication outcomes which
may change during the lifetime of the course: “We did map that
out to the specic learning outcome, academic learning outcomes to
the certication outcomes. But we also made those module learning
outcomes slightly broader as well to capture any changes in that
certication, which are absolutely bound to happen” (CS1). This
loose coupling of academic outcomes to certication extends to
allowing the exibility to deliver the same course using dierent
platforms if necessary: “It’s not specic to any cloud platform. So
if a faculty wants to use Google Cloud, they can, the competency
of the course is not the service provider” (CS4). There is, however,
an alternative approach in which the course is much more closely
coupled to certication outcomes:“ We just copy the course content
from AWS and put into our syllabus directly, just so we do a direct
mapping” (CS3). The extent of the decoupling that is appropriate
may depends on whether the certication content comprises the
whole course or just a part of a broader unit of learning.
Regardless of the approach to mapping outcomes, in all cases
considered here the syllabus that is delivered contains topics that
related directly to one or more certications. The cloud solution
providers play an important role in providing supporting materials
that educators can use: “So that means slide decks. It means practical
labs. So there’s a huge amount of investment in producing that mate-
rial and the amount of time that it saves myself as an academic and
my colleagues who develop that material is signicant” (CS5). The
learning materials which are provided drive the selection of topics
in the syllabus, an approach which was described in the creation
of exemplar modules by a previous Working Group [
2
]. The cloud
solution providers have developed their oerings for supporting
learning in academic contexts signicantly in recent years: “Their
(AWS) original training was simply designed ... for people already
working in the industry. And they tried to apply that to the college
level. And we had to convince them that ... you needed better training,
better pe dagogy and better materials” (CS4)
The courses here represent a broad range of contexts, with spe-
cic goals and constraints in each case, although there are some
common issues. One thing that is common throughout is the value
of the learning materials that the cloud solution providers make
available and the support they provide for educators.
9.2.4 Maintaining currency. Cloud computing is subject to rapid
technological change, and certications are intended to evidence
current industry-relevant knowledge and skills. In terms of provid-
ing those within an academic context, three distinct but concurrent
lifecycles were identied by the participants:
•
Academic program or course - typically validated or ap-
proved for a xed period of a number of years
•
Certication - can change or be discontinued or replaced on
a much shorter and irregular timescale which is not within
the educator’s control
•
Technology - can also change on a short/irregular timescale,
will drive changes in certications
From the educator’s viewpoint the management of technology
change is to some extent delegated to the provider: “the powerpoint
slides, the lab material, it will be supporte d by the vendor. It will
keep up to date and then we don’t have to” (CS3). However, the
lifecycle for certications is consequently not within the control
of educators and may not align well with the academic lifecycle:
“another concern is that certications are consistently changing in
some respects. The exams themselves are consistently changing so
there might be a bit of a dierence from one year to the next. There’s
not some consistency where we as a university or an institution cannot
always change or update our courses” (CS2). Educators need to be
aware also that there is a challenge for the providers in aligning
the certication and technology lifecycles and may want students
to work on projects using technology newer than the certications
can test: “To be honest, they are not changing fast. Their technology
is moving very fast...They are not, they are not teaching student their
latest version technology” (CS3). Similar considerations apply to the
providers’ learning materials: “they just need to be on top of them
and keep them up to date and make sure that all of what the students
see is what’s on the worksheet or the lab sheet” (CS5).
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9.2.5 Testing infrastructure. It is in principle possible to support
students to sit exams with putting any specic arrangements in
place: “in terms of setting certication exams, there’s really only two
options to do that. You either give the students a voucher code and
they book their own exam...”(CS1). However, all our participants had
put in place the infrastructure to allow students to sit certication
exams through their institution becoming a testing center (see
section 5.3.8) if it was not already one. The experience of trying
to get students to sit exams without that in place was not good:
“We had to go outside of the college. So we had to run buses to take
students to take the test, because if you don’t take the students, they’re
not gonna go. I’m just being honest” (CS4). There is a strong shared
opinion among the participants: “the educator really does need to
take ownership of as much of that exam process as possible, because
we don’t have control over the exam content, but we do have some
control over the delivery of that” (CS1).
An important part of the testing process is nding out students’
exam results, and this can be achieved in dierent ways depending
on the specic arrangements of the institutional test center. This
can involve students self-reporting their results: “we can’t directly
access the system to see the grades. They gave us a PDF copy of their
test score... so if they don’t report the score, they will get zero for that
nal grade” (CS4), or the educator may be able to access the results
directly: “So at the end of exam, you’ve got access to the student’s
transcript or score sheet. And it means obviously we can see if the
students pass a fail and we can ... also get access to the score sheet for
the various objective domains for that exam” (CS1).
Based on this experience it is clear that the infrastructure for
testing is an important consideration in setting up to include certi-
cations.
9.2.6 Academic credit. While it is possible to view certication as
an "extra" that students can attempt on their own initiative (and
at their own cost) with some alignment between their academic
course and the certication learning outcomes, all participants in
this study include some academic credit which is based on the
results of certication exams. There are dierent approaches to
dening the relationship between certications and credit, notably
the following:
•
credit within an individual course can be split between the
certication exam and other assessments: “There’s 15 credits
in the module and we give them half of those credits, um, for
taking that exam ... we adopted the approach in each one of
those modules where the certication for academic credit is
integrated is that there should always be another academic
assessment within that module” (CS1)
•
while the curriculum content may provide preparation for a
range of certications, in some cases the academic credit was
only awarded for specic certications. This included award-
ing credit for the exams from one cloud solution provider
while students could attempt other providers’ exams if they
wished. Another approach is to select only certications
from one provider for credit that closely match the intended
learning outcomes: “the Microsoft fundamentals are extra-
curriculum. They’re not oered as credit for students as part of
the program, and the other two certications AZ104 and PL300
are oered for academic credit” (CS1)
Where academic credit is awarded there is a need to consider
and potentially mitigate the consequences of students’ failing to
pass the certication exams as it may not be possible or desirable
to support multiple attempts at those exams. One approach is to
design the assessment structure for a course so that passing the
certication exam is not an absolute requirement in order to pass
the course: “the nal exam is, is a certication exam. Um, but there are
multitude little projects and stu that go between the start of the class
and the certication, so they can theoretically still pass the class...so
it ends up not even being an issue” (CS4). Another participants
described the use of academic reassessments so that the student
can pass the course even if they don’t achieve the certication: “we
decided that we weren’t going to give the students another second sit
of the certication exam as part of the program, but we are going to
give them a second sit of the exam. If they fail as an extracurricular
opportunity. And then in place of that for the resit, they’ll be given a
standard academic resit assessment to do now” (CS1).
9.2.7 Types of assessment. Certication exams are generally de-
signed to scale to large numbers of candidates worldwide and to
return results immediately, and hence are based on question types,
such as multiple-choice questions (MCQs) that can be scored auto-
matically. Academic assessments, on the other hand, can include
a wide range of other types of assessment, and while autograd-
ing is possible in some cases, marking and feedback are generally
provided by instructors. Practical projects and research-based as-
signments can provide a good balance in assessment types alongside
certications: “We also got a project there and the project is, somehow
it’s very practical. It’s just a real world problem” (CS3).
For the certication tests, the style of question encountered and
strategies for answering may be unfamiliar to students used to
more academic assessments, and it can be necessary to prepare
students specically for this: “I found that the certication exams
and that at least with AWS, uh, there, the style of question they have
are nonacademic they’re technical...you know, very dicult, you have
to understand what all the words mean, you have to be able to parse
it and put it in context to then be able to go nd the right answer”
(CS4). When assigning academic credit it is important to consider
the learning objectives and the part that all types of assessment
used in the course contribute to demonstrating that those objectives
are met.
9.2.8 Teacher preparation. Should teachers have passed the rele-
vant certication before teaching the content to students? “So it’s
really important for students, for faculty to actually sit for the certi-
cation. So they know better how to prepare student for the certication”
(CS4). Unlike all the other themes identied in the interviews, this
was raised by only one participant. In fact this was agged up as a
concern in light of a recent change whereby AWS no longer require
teachers to be certied for the courses they teach: “I think it’s going
to reduce the number of people are going to go for certication. Be-
cause if you don’t pass the certication, you may not understand how
to take the AWS test” (CS4). While there may be an expectation that
academic faculty are subject experts, preparedness for teaching in
the context of certications is something that should be considered.
9.2.9 ality processes. Academic programs are subject to a range
of quality processes, from initial approval before the program can
254
Motivation and Strategies for Eective Inclusion of Cloud Solution
Provider Certifications in Computing Curricula ITiCSE-WGR ’22, July 8–13, 2022, Dublin, Ireland
run, to ongoing monitoring and enhancement processes once it is up
and running. When including certications in academic programs
educators must work within those processes and may require some
inventive thinking in order to manage dierent sets of constraints.
Participants commented that the institutional approval process
for their courses involved academics from other disciplines, and
it could not be assumed that these individuals would have an un-
derstanding of the nature of certications within IT and cloud
computing in particular: “It’s also a bit dicult to implement some
type of certication, because of course you have others outside the
computer science eld that don’t necessarily understand the impor-
tance of those. And in those cases they have say over whether the
course can be approved or not. And so if we don’t provide enough
support or justication then that makes it dicult in persuading them
to approve” (CS2).
An interesting observation regarding monitoring and enhance-
ment was made in a UK context. Exam questions papers and other
assessment instruments in UK universities are typically required
to be moderated by an external examiner who is a peer from a
dierent institution who can give assurance that the standard of
assessment is in line with equivalent institutions. However, certi-
cation exam questions are closely guarded to protect the integrity
of the certications: “generally when you’re running exams as an
academic, you are the person who designed that exam. You created
the exam and you run the exam under university conditions and, and
rules for your exam policies. But the certication, you’re not in control
of that as an academic, you don’t write the questions, you don’t get
to se e the questions and, and therefore it was a bit of a gray area.
So by going through practice tests I was able to pull out a bunch of
sample or indicative questions and send it to the external examiner so
they could at least have some sort of view of what that exam might
look like in terms of what the student will see and the challenge for
the student or the rest of it. And the external was happy with that
approach” (CS1).
10 RECOMMENDATIONS FOR EDUCATORS
Based on our ndings on stakeholder perceptions, the scope and na-
ture of certications in cloud computing, and the strategies adopted
by educators who have successfully integrated cloud certications
into the academic curriculum, we make the following recommen-
dations:
•
While academic curricula and course oerings have dierent
intended outcomes and scope to certications, we recom-
mend integrating appropriate certications in courses which
aim to provide industry-relevant skills in cloud computing
or cloud-enabled computing areas, and that these include at
least one of AWS, Google Cloud and Azure.
•
We recommend that institutions and vendors comply with
global standards of education to ensure consistency of qual-
ity management process in developing and managing ed-
ucational content as the content evolves with technology
advancement, and that educators play a role in encouraging
this in their interactions with these stakeholders.
•
While course announcements should include reference to
vendor programs for student interest and perception of skills
relevance, we recommend that university curriculum should
be vendor-agnostic and cover the targeted knowledge areas
regardless of vendor platform or certicates.
•
We recommend that institutions and educators discuss their
needs with the vendors and develop a clear understanding of
the costs of supporting students to obtain their preferred cer-
tications, taking into account the support that is available
from vendors and other sources and consider the feasibility
of providing support for costs within the institution.
•
We recommend that an institution that wants students to sit
certications takes steps to become a test center if it is not
one already.
•
We recommend that certication exams are included within
the academic credit for courses as this will motivate students
to achieve certifcations, but that appropriate attention is paid
in the assessment strategy to enabling students to have the
opportunity to pass the course if they fail the certication
exam.
•
Finally, we recommend that educators consider the benets
and issues identied here of including certication in a pro-
gram or course, and include a clear analysis and justication
in their proposal for approval from the institution to run the
course.
11 CONCLUSIONS
This working group has built on the work of previous groups on the
cloud curriculum to explore the integration of industry-recognised
vendor certication related to cloud computing into the academic
curriculum. We have focused specically on certications on the
platforms and technologies and related job roles associated with
the main cloud solution providers. More specically, we focused
on AWS, Google Cloud and Microsoft Azure certications even
though there are many other providers, and the survey results in-
dicate that those are the most widely recognised. We present an
overview of the certication programs of these vendors, including
the certications most likely to be appropriate for the experience
level of students in higher education, and the programs that the
vendors have established to support educators. This overview in-
dicates considerations that educators should have in mind when
deciding on which certications to include in their courses, and
signposts sources of more in-depth information. We also map the
certications to the KAs dened by our previous working groups
to support the inclusion of certication in the approach to curricu-
lum development proposed in the previous work. We also present
a review of relevant standards that we believe should underpin
learning and certication for institutions and vendors.
We have investigated perceptions of stakeholders in academia
and industry who have an interest in degree level academic qual-
ications and cloud certications, and identied that there cur-
rently strong awareness of and value placed on both and that they
are important contributors to employability in cloud-related roles.
However, we see indications that employer, student and academic
perception is not necessarily a singular vision and that students
do not necessarily make connections between the content of their
academic course and the certication landscape. However, it is
dicult to unpick the reasons behind these perceptions based on
the data we have, and we intend to explore this further, through
255
ITiCSE-WGR ’22, July 8–13, 2022, Dublin, Ireland James H. Paterson et al.
extending the survey to a wider range of students and employers
and through conducting interviews or focus groups with survey
participants. Our case studies based on successful implementation
of this nexus are evidence of successful integration of vendor certi-
cations within an academic context but identify a range of issues
that educators should take into account. We conclude that there
is signicant value for students and employers in the inclusion of
certications as an aspect of industry-relevant courses in cloud com-
puting, but that educators and institutions should consider a range
of recommendations based on our ndings if they are considering
doing so to increase the likelihood of success.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
We would like to acknowledge the contributions of all past working
group members whose work we are building on. We would also
would like to thank all survey and case study participants.
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4616521162206/WN_Lv8cpfe6SOKDYJEQqVfRmA
A KNOWLEDGE AREAS
This report refers to the Knowledge Areas (KAs) dened by previous
cloud WGs. They are summarised briey here for the convenience
of the reader. The set of 14 KAs dened by the rst WG [
19
] is
shown in Table 9.
Table 9: Knowledge Areas (KAs) dened by previous WG
Code Title
FCC Fundamental Cloud Concepts
CAC Computing Abstractions on the Cloud
SRC Storage Resources on the Cloud
NRC Networking Resources on the Cloud
CES Cloud Elasticity and Scalability
FTRR Fault Tolerance, Resilience and Reliability
CMM Cloud Monitoring and Maintenance
CO Cloud Orchestration
SDCA Software Development using Cloud APIs
CPMF Cloud Programming Models and Frameworks
SOA Service Oriented Architecture
CSPPE Cloud Security, Privacy, Policy and Ethics
IoTMEC IoT, Mobile, Edge and the Cloud
CAIML
Cloud-based Articial Intelligence and Ma-
chine Learning
B SEMI-STRUCTURED INTERVIEW SCRIPT
Indicates topics, main questions to lead each discussion point o
with, and suggested areas to explore or clarify the question.
I'd like to start by talking generally about your course/ program
1. Please describe the type of institution this course/program
is delivered in
e.g. research intensive university, community college, location
2. Please tell me about your course or program
Is it a complete program, a single course/module that is part of a
program, or a standalone course?
What is the academic level and duration of your course/program?
(use terminology appropriate to your location)
What is the credit value of your course/program? (use termi-
nology appropriate to your location, compare to credit value of a
complete academic year)
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3. What certication(s) does your course/program include
or map to?
Be specic - vendor/provider and exam numbers
4. Why did you choose certications from this vendor or
vendors?
Try to relate to participant’s context and needs e.g. learning
resources available, faculty support from vendor initiatives/ pro-
grams/certication academies, discounted certs/cloud credit, sup-
port within your institution, content structure, pre-existing sta
skills, industry inuence
Now I'd like to talk about the design of your course/program
5. Could you explain how you started your course design?
Involvement of industry in initial course design/concept? Inu-
ence from industry to include certication?
Did you start with LOs, or specic projects/certications in
mind?
6. Describe how you mapped academic LOs to certication
outcomes?
e.g. Formally documented mapping, or a more informal or no
specic mapping
7. How did you design the syllabus or the content that you
teach?
Was this based on the content of vendor learning materials? If
so were these materials linked to certications?
Now I'd like to talk about assessment and certication exams
8. Describe how you enable your students to prepare for
certication?
e.g. standalone courses specically aimed at certication or part
of an academic syllabus
9. How does certication relate to academic credit in your
course?
E.g. certication confers academic credit, or students can option-
ally attempt certication exams in addition to academic credit
10. (Only ask if academic credit conferred) Describe any
issues that arose with this approach?
how do you deal with disparities between academic regulations,
e.g. pass mark, and certication? what arrangements are in place
for students who do not pass the required certication?
11. Describe any facilities or support you oer to students
in sitting certication exams?
E.g. subsidise the cost or provide discounts through the vendor,
access to in-house test centre or online exams proctored by program
team, or leave students to make their own arrangements
12. Are you able to get feedback on your students’ perfor-
mance in certication assessments?
Ethical aspects of this?
Finally, I'd like to talk about institutional approval and evaluation
of your course/program
13. Were there any institutional inuences, positive or
negative, on your plans for including certication in your
course/ program?
e.g. policy on employability, regulations, approval process De-
scribe any steps taken to successfully mitigate any barriers
14. Please describe the outcomes that you are able to share
of evaluation of your course/program specically in relation
to certication and/or preparation for certication
C STUDENT SURVEY QUESTIONS
These questions comprised the student survey.
1. Which of the following cloud computing vendors/providers
are you currently aware of? Choose all that apply.
Required to answer. Multiple choice.
• Amazon Web Services
• Google Cloud Platform
• Microsoft Azure
• IBM Cloud
• None of the above
2. How would you describe your awareness of industry-recognised
certications in cloud computing?
Required to answer. Single choice.
• not at all aware of these
• aware that industry-recognised certications are available
•
aware of specic vendors/providers of industry recognised
certications in cloud computing
• aware of specic certication exams
3. What is your current education status related to computing
or other IT subjects?
Required to answer. Single choice.
• studying - junior undergraduate
• studying - senior undergraduate
• studying - postgraduate
• have graduated in a related subject
• have not studied a related subject academically
4. If you are studying or have completed a degree, which of the
following best describes your course?
Required to answer. Single choice.
•
Exclusively or predominantly focussed on cloud computing
• Includes content on cloud computing
• Does not include any content on cloud computing
5. If you are studying or have completed a degree, in which of
the following ways has your course contributed to your awareness
of industry-recognised certications? Choose all that apply.
Required to answer. Multiple choice.
• has not contributed
• mentioned certications in general
• mentioned specic certications
• used learning materials related to specic cloud vendors
• provided preparation for specic certications
•
included certications as part of the assessment for your
course
• supported the cost of achieving certication
6. If you are studying or have completed a degree, which of the
following specic vendors’ services have you learned about or used
in your course? Choose all that apply.
Required to answer. Multiple choice.
• Amazon Web Services
• Google Cloud Platform
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Provider Certifications in Computing Curricula ITiCSE-WGR ’22, July 8–13, 2022, Dublin, Ireland
• Microsoft Azure
• IBM Cloud
• None of the above
7. What is your current employment status related to cloud
computing or other IT areas? Choose all that apply.
Required to answer. Multiple choice.
• employed in a related area
• employed in an unrelated area
• seeking employment in a related area
• not employed
8. How would you describe your intentions in relation to industry-
recognised certications in cloud computing?
Required to answer. Single choice.
• no intention to achieve certication
•
intend to achieve some certications but not sure which ones
• plan to achieve specic certications
• have achieved certication(s)
9. If you have achieved certications, which of the following spe-
cic vendors’/providers’ certications have you achieved? Choose
all that apply.
Required to answer. Multiple choice.
• Amazon Web Services
• Google Cloud Platform
• Microsoft Azure
• IBM Cloud
10. If you have achieved certications, in which of the following
specic domain areas have you achieved certication? Choose all
that apply
Required to answer. Multiple choice.
• cloud fundamentals
• software development
• data
• articial intelligence
• security
• not sure
11. If you plan to achieve certications, or further certications,
which of the following specic vendors’/providers’ certications
are you likely to consider? Choose all that apply.
Required to answer. Multiple choice.
• Amazon Web Services
• Google Cloud Platform
• Microsoft Azure
• IBM Cloud
• not sure
12. If you plan to achieve certications, or further certications,
which of the following specic domain areas would you consider
for certication? Choose all that apply.
Required to answer. Multiple choice.
• cloud fundamentals
• software development
• data
• articial intelligence
• security
• not sure
13. Please rank how the following factors may inuence your
choice of certications to achieve
Required to answer. Ranking.
• cost
• employment prospects or requirements
• personal interest
• learning path/progression
• existing knowledge
• relevance to or inclusion within academic course
14. Please rank how important, in your opinion, the following
are as benets to achieving certication. If you don’t consider there
to be any benet, please just rank "no benet" rst.
Required to answer. Ranking.
• dierent perspective to your academic learning
• alternative to academic learning
• learn industry-relevant skills
• evidence of industry-relevant skills
• help get a job
• help to progress in your job
• no benet
15. Please rank how valuable, in your opinion, the following
are likely to be for you in nding employment related to cloud
computing
Required to answer. Ranking.
• degree (Bachelors)
• degree (Masters)
• certications
• relevant experience
D EMPLOYER SURVEY QUESTIONS
1. What is the primary function of your organisation?
Required to answer. Single choice.
• Technology
• Finance
• Healthcare
• Manufacturing
• Construction
• Retail
• Government
• Education
2. What is your job function?
Required to answer. Single choice.
• Technical
• Human Resources
• Management - Technical
• Management - Other
3. Which of the following best describes your area of employ-
ment?
Required to answer. Single choice.
• Exclusively or predominantly focused on cloud computing
• Includes working on cloud computing
• Is not related to cloud computing
4. Do you have a role in hiring and/or promotion decision mak-
ing?
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ITiCSE-WGR ’22, July 8–13, 2022, Dublin, Ireland James H. Paterson et al.
Required to answer. Multiple choice.
• Yes - hiring
• Yes - promotion
• No
5. How would you describe your awareness of industry-recognised
certications in cloud computing?
Required to answer. Single choice.
• Not at all aware of these
• Aware that industry-recognised certications are available
•
Aware of specic vendors/providers of industry recognised
certications in cloud computing
• Aware of specic certication exams
6. Please rank how important, in your opinion, the following are
in hiring decisions?
Ranking.
• degree (Bachelors)
• degree (Masters)
• certications
• relevant experience
7. How would an applicant’s cloud certication in relation to
each of the following vendors aect your hiring decision?
Required to answer. Likert.
very positively / positively / neutral / negatively / very negatively
• Amazon
• Microsoft
• Google Cloud
• IBM Cloud
• Other
8. A recent Working Group identied the following as key Knowl-
edge Areas (KAs) in cloud computing. In which of these knowledge
areas, and to what degree, would you consider certication as a
strength in a job applicant’s resume?
Required to answer. Likert.
very strong / strong / neutral / weak / very weak
• Fundamental Cloud Concepts
• Computing Abstractions on the Cloud
• Storage Resources on the Cloud
• Networking Resources on the Cloud
• Cloud Elasticity and Scalability
• Fault Tolerance, Resilience and Reliability
• Cloud Monitoring and Maintenance
• Cloud Orchestration
• Software Development using Cloud APIs
• Cloud Programming Models and Frameworks
• Service Oriented Architecture
• Cloud Security, Privacy, Policy and Ethics
• IoT, Mobile, Edge and the Cloud
• Cloud-based Articial Intelligence and Machine Learning
9. Does your organization provide incentives for your new em-
ployees to get certied on cloud computing?
Required to answer. Single choice.
• Yes
• No
• Sometimes
• Not sure
10. Does your organization provide incentives for your existing
employees to get certied on cloud computing?
Required to answer. Single choice.
• Yes
• No
• Sometimes
• Not sure
11. If you encourage cloud certications, how often do you re-
quire your employees to get re-certications?
Required to answer. Single choice.
• Sometimes, depending on the certicate
• Need employees to obtain the latest certicates
• Yearly
• More often than yearly
• Never
• Not sure
12. What percentage of your employees who attempt cloud cer-
tication programs complete the certication?
Required to answer. Single choice.
• 0-20%
• 20-50%
• 50-75%
• 75-100%
• Not sure
13. Does your organization provide cloud certications or certi-
cation pathways that can be achieved by its own employees?
Required to answer. Single choice.
• Yes (in-house)
• Yes (third-party)
• No
• Not sure
14. Do you see a return on investment from getting your em-
ployees certied?
Required to answer. Single choice.
• Signicant return
• Some return
• No clear return
• Not sure
15. Please rank how important, in your opinion, the following are
as benets to your organisation of employees having certication.
If you don’t consider there to be any benet, please just rank "no
benet" rst.
Ranking.
•
Useful evidence of industry-relevant skills to inform hir-
ing/promotion decisions
• Enhanced job performance of employees
• Increased retention of skilled employees
• Enhanced prole/reputation for team or organisation
• No benet
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