Developing an Integrated Framework to Utilize Big Data for Higher Education Institutions in Saudi Arabia

In recent years, there has been widespread use of the Internet, the Internet of things, mobile devices, networks, and applications. All this usage produces daily huge data that cannot be processed using existing database management techniques and tools because of the size, the volume, the heterogeneity, and the unstructured nature of the data. This has led many sectors like healthcare, business, education, and so forth to start using Big Data technologies to analyze, process, decision making and performance. Big Data is “datasets which could not be captured, managed, and processed by general computers within an acceptable scope” [1].Education sectors are one of the most important sectors that use information and communication technology (ICT).However, the education sector in Saudi Arabia is still behind other developed countries in terms of the adopting and implementation of Big Data techniques. The aim of this study is to develop an integrated framework to utilize Big Data for higher educational institutes in Saudi Arabia and to support decision making and improve performance. While many studies look at data mining and Big Data in the education sector, there are few studies that touch on this issue in Saudi education, especially in universities. The study collected data through self-administered surveys as a principal quantitative method and through semi structured in depth interviews as the follow-up qualitative method. The study used SPSS software to analyze the data from surveys and used manual analysis to analyze the interview data. This study’s major contribution addresses issues related to the development of a research framework that presents factors affecting the adoption and implementation of Big Data.