Toward a cloud computing learning community

Cloud computing continues to be an important technology in higher education. This domain is a rapidly evolving space, and continues to gain momentum as a primary infrastructure topology for technological advances across emergent industries. The on-the-cloud paradigm provides numerous affordances and new methods of working in industry, and also for end users within recent fields of study, such as machine learning and artificial intelligence. As we move into the Industry 4.0 era with technology pillars such as the internet of things and cybersecurity, the importance of skillsets for cloud-based services will be an essential attribute for the majority of technology-related professions. Many higher education institutions have focused on offering training opportunities and programs for cloud computing, however, a lack of high-quality, contextualized to industry, curricula materials continues to be a challenge for educators. The purpose of this paper is to report on analyses conducted to categorize cloud computing courses currently taught in the higher education sector and to determine the possibility of moving towards the goal of a model curriculum. Additionally, the paper aims to provide guidance to educators about cloud computing skill-sets sought in the job market, and to report on a community platform designed to host cloud learning resources.