Cloud computing as technological solutions for higher education institutions: Adoption readiness assessment model: Reseach in-progress

Cloud computing recently offers immense benefits. But higher education institutions (HEIs) are hesitating to adopt. As a result, they are not benefited more from such technology. This is because key adoption capabilities are not explored in detail in HEIs context. In addition to this, there is no comprehensive empirically validated adoption readiness assessment model which helps them to adopt Cloud solutions efficiently. Hence, to fill this gap this study identifies the critical capabilities and develops a model to assess Cloud computing adoption readiness of higher education institutions before initiating the adoption. Resource based view theory was used as theoretical lens to identify capabilities and to build the model. The conceptual model considers adoption readiness and adoption success from technological, human, organizational, financial and external environment dimensions. The model proposes that the degree to which an organization holds these capabilities is related to the degree to which they are ready to deploy and use computing resources, thereby increasing the possibility of adoption success. Further empirical research will be used to validate and refine the conceptual model.