Abstract:

Education is to be affordable and reachable to the learners at an affordable cost. An E-learning platform based on open standards with minimum initial cost of investment, will be able to educate people to achieve knowledge based economy. The current E-learning platforms require high initial cost on the infrastructure and software applications. Adoption of cloud computing can help the educational institutions in developing countries to reduce expenditure on infrastructure, software and human resources to a considerable extent. The author focuses on the higher education programs in India and suggests a framework for access along with equity and excellence. The paper also discusses the advantages of adopting cloud computing for educational institutions and suggests how institutions could migrate to the cloud.