Abstract
Nowadays, educational and research institutions, especially universities, have considered their focus on cloud computing rather than using conventional prospects to take the most benefits of the services offered to support current trends in teaching and learning strategies. To build these networks in a cost effective way, open source cloud computing platforms are used. One of the powerful tools is Openstack, which allows users to create virtual networks and manage virtual machines within distributed learning environments. In this article, we describe our project on designing and evaluating a private cloud within a university environment using Openstack. To this end, we conduct a survey to measure the students' attitude towards the use of private clouds in which students and experts serve as samples. We design a virtual lab consisting of a number of virtual machines operated by a selected sample. We evaluate the proposed solution by adopting Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) methodology. The results obtained from this study show that the students' acceptance in using the private cloud in performing their tasks is encouraging albeit their anxiety on security issues and their lack of experience.