Regional computing approach for educational big data

The educational landscape is witnessing a transformation with the integration of Educational Technology (Edutech). As educational institutions adopt digital platforms and tools, the generation of Educational Big Data (EBD) has significantly increased. Research indicates that educational institutions produce massive data, including student enrollment records, academic performance metrics, attendance records, learning activities, and interactions within digital learning environments. This influx of data needs efficient processing to derive actionable insights and enhance the learning experience. Real-time data processing has a critical part in educational environments to support various functions such as personalized learning, adaptive assessment, and administrative decision-making. However, there may be challenges in sending large amounts of educational data to cloud servers, i.e., latency, cost and network congestion. These challenges make it more difficult to provide educators and students with timely insights and services, which reduces the efficiency of educational activities. This paper proposes a Regional Computing (RC) paradigm designed specifically for big data management in education to address these issues. In this case, RC is established within educational regions and intended to decentralize data processing. To reduce dependency on cloud infrastructure, these regional servers are strategically located to collect, process, and store big data related to education regionally. Our investigation results show that RC significantly reduces latency to 203.11 ms for 2,000 devices, compared to 707.1 ms in Cloud Computing (CC). It is also more cost-efficient, with a total cost of just 1.14 USD versus 5.36 USD in the cloud. Furthermore, it avoids the 600% congestion surges seen in cloud setups and maintains consistent throughput under high workloads, establishing RC as the optimal solution for managing EBD.