Purpose The university social responsibility (USR) is still in embryonic stage compared to corporate social responsibility (CSR) which is still debatable by researchers. The purpose of this paper is to propose the contemporary dimension (on top of teaching and research dimensions) of USR in most educational institutes. Based on this new definition, a proposal of a mechanism to quantify USR sustainability was presented. Design/methodology/approach Based on a review of the theme of the CSR with the inter-related recent research on USR with researchers perspectives, characteristics of USR were identified and incorporated in the proposed newly definition of USR. The new definition takes into account the interrelationship of university–corporate communication and create shared value (CSV) principle, as well as the knowledgeability and sustainability. Findings Based on the review of most active research in the USR development and the concluded contemporary definition of USR, this paper proposes a new extended version of sustainability suitable for educational institutes, where it is composed of different zones, and each zone was defined in terms of value of sustainability with associated knowledgeability in each zone. The Green Cloud project was taken as a vehicle to demonstrate collaboration between a university and cloud service provider located in Middle East (Dubai). Sustainability quantification was provided with hypothetical numbers to illustrate the technique. Research limitations/implications This paper is focused on University-specific social responsibility rather than general CSR. The proposed contemporary definition of the USR is a hybrid of a mutated latest research on CSR as well as cascaded recent development on USR. The view of this new definition can have different arguments depending on the ideology (communitarianism as opposed to individualism) adopted by specific university admiration of the objective of social responsibility which is sometimes driven by the political and strategic views of countries and the regions. However, the proposed sustainability zone-split between the CSV type of projects and the reputation values (described via hypothetical example) can minimize the gap between the two ideologies. Originality/value This paper attempts to provide a universally acceptable definition of the USR based on different points of views of researchers and tries to accommodate both ideologies toward social responsibility into one coherent framework. The sustainability Venn diagram was extended and made suitable for educational institutes. This approach facilitates the mechanism of quantifying the value of sustainability of a university or educational institutes. Hypothetical “Green Cloud” project was used as a mechanism to show the quantification process.

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Purpose Cloud computing is relatively a new type of technology demanding a new method of management techniques to attain security and privacy leading to customer satisfaction regarding “Business Protection” measure. As cloud computing businesses are usually composed of multiple colocation sites/departments, the purpose of this paper is to propose a benchmark operation to measure and compare the overall integrated people-process-performance (PPP) among different departments within cloud computing organization. The purpose of this paper is to motivate staff/units to improve the process performance and meet the standards in a competitive approach among business units. Design/methodology/approach The research method was conducted at Cirrus Ltd, which is a cloud computing service provider where a focus group consists of six IT professionals/managers. The objective of the focus group was to investigate the proposed technique by selecting the best practices relevant criteria, with the relevant sub-criteria as a benchmarking performance tool to measure PPP via an analytic hierarchy processing (AHP) approach. The standard pairwise comparative AHP scale was used to measure the performance of three different teams defined as production team, user acceptance testing team and the development team. Findings Based on best practice performance measurement (reviewed in this paper) of cloud computing, the proposed AHP model was implemented in a local medium-sized cloud service provider named “Cirrus” with their single site data center. The actual criteria relevant to Cirrus was an adaptation of the “Best practice” described in the literature. The main reason for the adaptation of criteria was that the principle of PPP assumes multiple departments/datacenters located in a different geographical area in large service providers. As Cirrus is a type of SMEs, the adaptation of performance measurement was based on teams within the same data center location. Irrelevant of this adaptation, the objective of measuring vendors KPI using the AHP technique as a specific output of PPP is also a valid situation. Practical implications This study provides guidance for achieving cloud computing performance measurement using the AHP technique. Hence, the proposed technique is an integrated model to measure the PPP under monitored cloud environment. Originality/value The proposed technique measures and manages the performance of cloud service providers that also implicitly act as a catalyst to attain trust in such high information-sensitive environment leading to organizational effectiveness of managing cloud organizations.

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to classify and categorize the vulnerability types emerged with time as information technology (IT) systems evolved. This comparative study aims to compare the seriousness of the old well-known vulnerabilities that may still exist with lower possibility of happening with that of new technologies like cloud computing with Mobility access. Cloud computing is a new structure of IT that is becoming the main part of the new model of business environment. However, issues regarding such new hype of technology do not come without obstacles. These issues have to be addressed before full acceptability of cloud services in a globalized business environment. Businesses need to be aware of issues of concerns before joining the cloud services. This paper also highlights these issues and shows the comparison table to help businesses with appropriate decision-making when joining the cloud. Design/methodology/approach – A historical review of emerged vulnerabilities as IT systems evolved was conducted, then these vulnerabilities were categorized into eight different categories, each of which composed of multiple vulnerability types. Simple scoring techniques were used to build a “risk” analysis table where each vulnerability type was given a score based on availability of matured solution and the likeliness of happening, then in case of vulnerability type, another score was used to derive the impact of such vulnerability. The resulted weighted score can be derived from the multiplication of likeliness to happen score with that of its impact in case it did happen. Percentage of seriousness represented by the percentage of the derived weighted score of each of the vulnerabilities can then be concluded. Similar table was developed for issues related to cloud computing environment in specific. Findings – After surveying the historical background of IT systems and emerged vulnerabilities as well as reviewing the common malicious types of system vulnerabilities, this paper identifies 22 different types of vulnerability categorized in eight different categories. This comparative study explores amount of possible vulnerabilities in new technology like cloud computing services. Specific issues for cloud computing were also explored and a similar comparative study was developed on these issues. The result of the comparative study between all types of vulnerabilities since the start of IT system development till today’s technology of cloud computing, shows that the highest percentage vulnerability category was the one related to mobility access as mobile applications/systems are relatively newly emerged and do not have a matured security solution(s). Practical implications – Learning from history, one can conclude the current risk factor in dealing with new technology like cloud computing. Businesses can realize that decision to join the cloud requires thinking about the issues mentioned in this paper and identifying the most vulnerability types to try to avoid them. Originality/value – A new comparative study and new classification of vulnerabilities demonstrated with risk analysis using simple scoring technique.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to investigate elements of socio-academic-related sustainability in educational institutes and propose a structure of an advising system that can aid the most critical stakeholders in such educational institutes, i.e the student. Hence, after reviewing the contemporary University Social Responsibility (USR) Venn diagram, the paper focuses on the need to develop a social and academic responsibility advisor (SARA) system as a catalyst toward fulfilling social responsibility to the most important stakeholder and alternatively leads to enhanced sustainability of such educational institutes. Design/methodology/approach A combination of research methods used in this paper, defined as by identifying the need for SARA from a literature survey. By distributing a questionnaire to students investigating their desire of an academic advisor system and by establishing a focus group to study the academic and social aspects and its implications to students’ “quality of life” as an essential aspect toward the educational institutes' sustainability. Various issues related to the features of the SARA discussed. Findings Literature review shows only a few articles combine both aspects of advising activities (social and academic), most of which are not interrelated to the sustainability of educational institutes. This paper highlights the need and connectivity of SARA to contemporary USR sustainability. The descriptive statistics of the questionnaire showed about 86 per cent of student participants interested in applying the proposed features. The outcome of the focus group resulted in more detailed features of academic and social aspects of the expected SARA system. Research limitations/implications The proposed features of SARA described where the inter-related social and academic activities could be managed, logged and used by students. The proposed “heterogeneous study group” was investigated by observation implemented in four different courses in two different semesters. The result was not conclusive, and further study recommended. Even though this experimentation was not conclusive, the lesson learned from this study highlighted different issues associated with “study groups” within a course. Practical implications Applicability of SARA would enhance the quality of life of students in general and provide a mechanism to motivate low aptitude students to get engaged with study and projects with high-aptitude students. Social implications Avoiding the “feel” of isolation by some students due to the inability to find study partner who can also act as mentor to a study group. The proposed “Heterogeneous study group” would provide a mechanism for “Practiced student-to-student Social responsibility”. Originality/value The paper highlights and proves the need for SARA in contemporary USR where SARA can act as a catalyst for enhancing the socio-academic zone of the reviewed USR Venn diagram. Features of SARA identified as an outcome of the study in this paper. Proposal of “Heterogeneous Study Group” was proposed as mechanism of “social learning”. “Group health” testing was proposed as a criteria resulted from a balance between collaboration, social affinity and project effort.

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PurposeThis paper seeks to identify and propose a standard approach for the selection and optimization of fuzzy sets used in fuzzy decision‐making systems.Design/methodology/approachThe design was based on two principles: selection and optimization. The selection methodology was based on the “Fuzzimetric Arcs” principle, which is an analogy of the trigonometric circle principle. This would allow an initial sinusoidal fuzzy set shape. Other shapes may also be selected using the described formula (trapezoidal, triangular, … , etc.). As the proposal methodology is based on the trigonometric circle, other trigonometric formulae can be applied. For example, linguistic hedges can be defined using standard trigonometric formulae. Regarding optimization, the initial fuzzy set selection was assumed to be of regular shape (sinusoidal, trapezoidal or triangular). An irregular shape may be required by some systems. Hence, a genetic algorithm was proposed as a methodology to optimize the performance of fuzzy systems by mutating different regular shapes.FindingsA simplified business decision‐making application was described and the proposed selection methodology was explained in the form of an example. Currently, there is no standard for the selection of fuzzy sets as this is dependent on knowledge engineering and the type of application chosen. The proposed methodology offers an easy‐to‐use possible standard which all developers/researchers may adopt irrespective of their application field. Moreover, the proposed methodology may integrate well with object‐oriented technology.Originality/valueThe paper presents standardization of the fuzzy sets selection and optimization technique used in any type of management information systems. This will aid all developers and researchers to enhance their technical communication. It would also enhance the simplicity and effectiveness of optimizing the performance of such systems.