Cloud Computing: Its Influence on Career Paths of Business Education Postgraduate Students (OTM Option) in Selected Public Universities, South West, Nigeria

The study investigated the influence of cloud computing on career paths of OTM postgraduatestudents. It was guided by three objectives and two research questions. A descriptive surveydesign was used. The population was 167 comprised of Business Education Postgraduatestudents in Lagos State University (LASU), Olabisi Onabanjo University (OOU) and Tai SolarinUniversity of Education (TASUED). The population size was adopted using a total samplingmethod. The data were sourced primarily with the use of validated questionnaire that wassubjected to a Cronbach Alpha’s reliability test and it produced 0.703 and 0.811 for bothvariables. Out of 167 expected responses, the researchers successfully obtained 97. Theobtained data were analysed using both descriptive statistics for the research questions andinferential statistics for the null hypothesis. The multiple regression analysis was used to test thehypothesis 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 andcloud platforms were among the required competencies for OTM postgraduates for career pathsin cloud computing. In conclusion, OTM postgraduates’ expertise in cloud computing wouldhave more employment options if it increases or improves. However, some factors wereidentified for undermining OTM postgraduate students in acquiring the cloud computing skillsand they were lack of experience, data privacy, data lock-in, insider threats, account hijacking,misconfiguration, cloud cost management, cyberattack, network dependency, and data loss.Itwas recommended among others that OTM postgraduates should be constantly retrainedthrough in-service training, workshops, seminars and conferences to enable them up-date theircloud computing competencies for effective records management.