Preparation and execution of final year student projects on the cloud

Cloud Computing has become an important element of computer science education. This notion is supported by the main cloud service providers that offer resources to facilitate cloud-based module instruction. They focus however on specific topics and do not yet cope with final year projects (or dissertations), a semester or year-long task with particularities: the student works individually and not as part of a class and dives deeper into multiple and diverse technologies. We present a modular methodology to fill in this gap and address the end-to-end delivery of such projects in a way that can be evaluated through a set of assessment criteria and is transferable to other academic institutions. This methodology consists of six phases: from preparing and attracting students to undertake a cloud-based project, through their on-boarding and initial training to monitoring project work and activities beyond the project completion. By addressing this issue, we simplify the upskilling of students (and supervisors) and ease their adaptation to cloud related career pathways.