The Ministry of Science and ICT announced that it will provide private cloud services to 9 universities and 125 elementary, middle, and high schools in Korea in order to expand the introduction of private cloud in the education sector.

The Ministry of Science and ICT has been receiving requests for private cloud usage from 430 universities across the country since May through the Korea Information Society Agency. As a result, a total of 31 universities applied, and 9 of them were selected for support.

The schools eligible for support for use of private cloud universities are Konkuk University, Kyunghee University, Kongju National University, Dongguk University, Dongseo University, Seoul National University, Pusan National University, Sejong University, and Handong Global University. The services provided are SaaS for cloud-based software education, course registration, writing editing guidance, email, online lecture evaluation, etc., and IaaS for cloud-based web services. Approximately 60,000 students and faculty members will use the services.

Through the 'Public Sector (University) Private Cloud Leading Utilization Project', we plan to discover best practices in private cloud utilization by universities by organizing and providing customized services for each university centered on areas with high actual demand, and share these with other universities to support further expansion of private cloud service use by universities in the future.

In addition, the Ministry of Science and ICT will expand the “Digital School Backpack” that began in 2015 targeting 23 elementary, middle, and high schools to 125 schools this year.

Digital School Backpack is a cloud service that provides SW education content, class/assignment management, communication/collaboration functions, etc., and it can reduce the burden of device/SW management on teachers who experience PC-centered SW education, and it can also provide students with the benefit of being able to continue their studies in a convenient online environment similar to class time, even after returning home.

Lee Sang-hak, Software Policy Officer at the Ministry of Science and ICT, said, “We will improve the educational environment and enhance the quality of education through various private cloud leading projects in the education sector, while supporting the introduction of private cloud services required by each field, thereby promoting private cloud in the public sector.” We expect that this will also help to activate its use,” he said.