Cloud Computing: Its Influence on Career Paths of Business Education Postgraduate Students (OTM Option) in Selected Public Universities, South West, Nigeria
Keywords:
Career Paths, Cloud Computing, Office Technology and Management, Business EducationAbstract
The study investigated the influence of cloud computing on career paths of OTM postgraduate
students. It was guided by three objectives and two research questions. A descriptive survey
design was used. The population was 167 comprised of Business Education Postgraduate
students in Lagos State University (LASU), Olabisi Onabanjo University (OOU) and Tai Solarin
University of Education (TASUED). The population size was adopted using a total sampling
method. The data were sourced primarily with the use of validated questionnaire that was
subjected to a Cronbach Alpha’s reliability test and it produced 0.703 and 0.811 for both
variables. Out of 167 expected responses, the researchers successfully obtained 97. The
obtained data were analysed using both descriptive statistics for the research questions and
inferential statistics for the null hypothesis. The multiple regression analysis was used to test the
hypothesis at 0.05 level of significance. The result [R² = 0.396; Adj. R²=0.390; F= 28.913]
revealed that cloud security, data-based management, cloud architecture, cloud analytics and
cloud platforms were among the required competencies for OTM postgraduates for career paths
in cloud computing. In conclusion, OTM postgraduates’ expertise in cloud computing would
have more employment options if it increases or improves. However, some factors were
identified for undermining OTM postgraduate students in acquiring the cloud computing skills
and they were lack of experience, data privacy, data lock-in, insider threats, account hijacking,
misconfiguration, cloud cost management, cyberattack, network dependency, and data loss.It
was recommended among others that OTM postgraduates should be constantly retrained
through in-service training, workshops, seminars and conferences to enable them up-date their
cloud computing competencies for effective records management.
