After the Revolutionary War Essay Example for Free

After the Revolutionary War Essay After the Revolutionary War, many Americans realized that the government established by the Articles of Confederation was not working. America needed a new form of government. It had to be strong enough to maintain national unity over a large geographic area, but not so strong as to become a tyranny. Unable to find an exact model in history to fit Americas unique situation, delegates met at Philadelphia in 1787 to create their own solution to the problem. Their creation was the United States Constitution. Before the Constitution could become the supreme law of the land, it had to be ratified or approved by at least nine of the thirteen states. When the delegates to the Philadelphia Convention signed the Constitution on September 17, 1787, they knew ratification would not be easy. Many people were bitterly opposed to the proposed new system of government. A public debate soon erupted in each of the states over whether the new Constitution should be accepted. More important, it was a crucial debate on the future of the United States. The Federalist Papers Nowhere was the furor over the proposed Constitution more intense than in New York. Within days after it was signed, the Constitution became the subject of widespread criticism in the New York newspapers. Many commentators charged that the Constitution diminished the rights Americans had won in the Revolution. Fearful that the cause for the Constitution might be lost in his home state, Alexander Hamilton devised a plan to write a series of letters or essays rebutting the critics. It is not surprising that Hamilton, a brilliant lawyer, came forward at this moment to defend the new Constitution. At Philadelphia, he was the only New Yorker to have signed the Constitution. The other New York delegates had angrily left the Convention convinced that the rights of the people were being abandoned. Hamilton himself was very much in favor of strengthening the central government. Hamilton’s Constitution would have called for a president elected for life with the power to appoint state governors. Hamilton soon backed away from these ideas, and decided that the Constitution, as written, was the best one possible. Hamilton published his first essay in the New York Independent Journal on October 27, 1787. He signed the articles with the Roman name Publius. (The use of pseudonyms by writers on public affairs was a common practice.) Hamilton soon recruited two others, James Madison and John Jay, to contribute essays to the series. They also used the pseudonym Publius. James Madison, sometimes called the Father of the Constitution, had played a major role during the Philadelphia Convention. As a delegate from Virginia, he participated actively in the debates. He also kept detailed notes of the proceedings and drafted much of the Constitution. Unlike Hamilton and Madison, John Jay of New York had not been a delegate to the Constitutional Convention. A judge and diplomat, he was serving as secretary of foreign affairs in the national government. Between October 1787 and August 1788, Publius wrote 85 essays in several New York newspapers. Hamilton wrote over 60 percent of these essays and helped with the writing of others. Madison probably wrote about a third of them with Jay composing the rest. The essays had an immediate impact on the ratification debate in New York and in the other states. The demand for reprints was so great that one New York newspaper publisher printed the essays together in two volumes entitled The Federalist, A Collection of Essays, written in favor of the New Constitution, By a Citizen of New York. By this time the identity of Publius, never a well-kept secret, was pretty well known. The Federalist, also called The Federalist Papers, has served two very different purposes in American history. The 85 essays succeeded by helping to persuade doubtful New Yorkers to ratify the Constitution. Today, The Federalist Papers helps us to more clearly understand what the writers of the Constitution had in mind when they drafted that amazing document 200 years ago.

Constitution in USA Essay Example for Free

Constitution in USA Essay A constitution is either a written (codified) or unwritten (uncodified) body of fundamental principles or established precedents according to which a state is acknowledged to be governed. Generally, a constitution is only written after a major event. In the case of America their constitution was written in 1787, after the American Revolutionary War came to a close. There are a number of issues with America’s constitution which make it, arguably, unfit for the 21st century. The most apparent issue with the constitution is the overall ambiguity that it’s based upon. Take for example the eighth amendment which forbids the federal government from imposing cruel or unusual punishments on American citizens. However, what’s classed as a cruel or unusual punishment? Many have argued that capital punishment can be seen as a cruel punishment, which has led to some states, such as Illinois, abolishing the death penalty altogether. Though, despite eighteen states abolishing the death penalty so far, there has been no move to amend the constitution to include the death penalty as an example of ‘cruel punishment’. Another example of an ambiguous amendment is the first amendment which protects the right to free speech as well as freedom of religion. However, how far this amendment applies has been questioned on numerous occasions. For example, Texas passed a law which prevented flag desecration (burning of the American flag), however the Supreme Court overturned the Texas law due to it violating citizen’s first amendment right as flag desecration is seen as an expression of belief, which the first amendment protects. This has led to numerous calls for flag desecration being outlawed via a constitutional amendment, however just like the eight amendment this would be incredibly hard to achieve. This is purely due to how difficult it is to amend the American constitution. The American constitution’s amendment process is long and difficult, which is mainly due to it requiring a supermajority. A supermajority is where 2/3rds of both houses of Congress have to agree to the amendment put forward. Even if either house falls short by one vote, the amendment is dropped. This process was made to be hard intentionally by the Founding Fathers. This was  because they believed that the constitution shouldn’t be constantly changing, and so they created the need for a supermajority to stop the federal government from making rash, in the moment, decisions which they could grow to regret later on. However, it is this founding belief that has made the constitution, arguably, untenable for the 21st century, which can be contributed to Congress’ explosive growth over the last 200 years. For example, in 1789 there were only 65 Representatives in the House of Representatives, which grew to 435 by 1963 and plateaued due to the House of Representative s being capped in 1911. This is an increase of 370 over a period of 174 years (meaning that there were two new Representatives every year). This continually increased the amount of people who had to work in unison to pass constitutional amendments, and as evidenced by the 1911 Act which capped the size of the House of Representatives, America grew far more than the Founding Fathers had originally intended. The constitution can also be seen as unfit for the 21st century due to an ever increasing political pace, as well as rapidly changing circumstances which have led to very different outcomes when compared to the British political system. This can mainly be seen with gun control which is protected in America by the second amendment (â€Å"Right to bear arms†) despite the amount of shootings which have occurred in recent times. An example of this would be the Sandy Hook shooting, which occurred on December 14th 2012 at an elementary school in Connecticut. This caused nationwide outrage which in turn caused support for disarmament groups to increase. However, after several months the support fell away and no constitutional amendments were put through, despite pledges and campaigns from Barrack Obama and Joe Biden. Now, when compared to England, there was a shooting spree in a Dunblane Primary School in 1996. Following national outrage, much alike that caused by Sandy Hook, guns were criminalised by an Act of Parliament, which was significantly easier to do as the UK does not have a written constitution, rather an unwritten one which is drawn from several sources. However, despite the faults with the American constitution, it must be fit for purpose if it still exists. This is because if it wasn’t fit for  purpose, and didn’t work at all, it would have been scraped by one of the American administrations after its conception. This is mainly aided by the argument that the constitution’s ambiguity is what allows it to adapt to changing circumstances as well as its ability to change without formal review. What is meant by this is the fact that the Supreme Court can uphold or repeal earlier decisions made in relation to the constitution, meaning that if the correct decisions were repealed the constitution could be drastically changed.

Teachers Perceptions of Instructional Supervision

Teachers Perceptions of Instructional Supervision CHAPTER ONE INTRODUCTION This chapter gives a preamble to the whole study. It deals with the problem and the way it is approached. It encloses a brief formulation of background of the study, objective of the study, delimitation and limitation of the study. It also introduces definition of some key terms and the overall organization of the study. 1.1 Background of the Study Teacher education play an important role in promoting the learning and professional growth of teachers. Supervision is one of the functions of education that offers opportunities for schools to be effective and for increasing the professional development of teachers as a means of effectively managing the teaching-learning process (Kutsyuruba, 2003; Arong Ogbadu, 2010). Supervision has existed in all countries for many decades and occupies a pivotal position in the management of education, which can be understood as an expert technical service most importantly concerned with scientific study and improvement of the conditions that surrounds learning and pupil growth (Alemayehu, 2008). According to Vashist (2004), supervision is leadership and development of leadership within groups, which cooperatively assess educational product in light of accepted educational objectives, studying the teaching-learning situation to determine the antecedents of satisfactory and unsatisfactory pupil gr owth and achievement, and improving the teaching learning process. The concept of instructional supervision differs from school inspection in the sense that the former focuses on guidance, support, and continuous assessment provided to teachers for their professional development and improvement in the teaching-learning process, whereas the latter gives emphasis on controlling and evaluating the improvement of schools based on stated standards set by external agents outside the school system (Wilcox Gray, 1996; Tyagi, 2010; Arong Ogbadu, 2010). Instructional supervision is mainly concerned with improving schools by helping teachers to reflect their practices, to learn more about what they do and why, and to develop professionally (Sergiovanni Starratt, 2007). Various authors stated that instructional supervision has clear connection with professional development (Sergiovanni Starratt, 2007; Zepeda, 2007). Kutsyuruba (2003) defined professional development as follows: A major component of ongoing teacher education concerned with improving teachers instructional methods, their ability to adapt instruction to meet students needs, and their classroom management skills; and with establishing a professional culture that relies on shared beliefs about the importance of teaching and learning and that emphasizes teacher collegiality. (p. 11) In Ethiopia, the supervisory services began to be carried out since 1941, with constant shift of its names Inspection and Supervision. Currently, supervision is widely practiced in all schools at all levels (Haileselassie, 1997). In the case of Addis Ababa, Addis Ababa City Administration Education Bureau (AACAEB) has restructured its sub city level supervisory positions from general supervisory approach to subject-area instructional supervisory approach, since the beginning of 2004 (Alemayehu, 2008). 1.2 Problem Statement A research conducted by Alemayehu (2008) in secondary schools of Addis Ababa shows that the subject-area instructional supervision practiced in Addis Ababa City Administration (AACA) has exposed to multiple problems such as, lack of adequate support to newly deployed ( beginner) teachers, less amount of classroom visits and peer coaching by instructional supervisors, focus of supervisors on administrative matters than on academic issues (supporting and helping teachers), and less mutual professional trust between supervisors and teachers. All these and other problems can enable teachers to have a negative perception towards instructional supervision. According to Oliva (1976), the way teachers perceive supervision in schools and classrooms is an important factor that determines the outcomes of supervision process. In addition, previous research and publications revealed that because of its evaluative approaches; less experienced teachers have more negative perceptions on the practice of supervision than more experienced teachers. They consider supervisors as fault finders; they fear that supervisors will report their weaknesses to the school administrator, and consider supervision as nothing value to offer to them (Blumberg, 1980; Olive, 1976; Zepeda Ponticell, 1998). However, literature on perception of teachers toward supervisory practices is very limited in Africa in general and in Ethiopia in particular. Therefore, this study was designed to examine beginning teachers perceptions of the real and ideal supervisory practices and their perceptions on its relationship with professional development in private and government secondary schools of Addis Ababa. This study addressed the following basic research questions: What are the perceptions and preferences of government and private beginning secondary school teachers regarding the actual and ideal supervisory practices? Is there any difference in perception between beginner and experienced secondary school teachers regarding the actual and ideal supervisory practices? What is the perceived relationship between the supervisory practices and teachers professional development? 1.3 Objective of the Study The overall objective of this study was to examine the existing perception of beginning teachers toward instructional supervision and its perceived relationship to professional development in government and private secondary schools of Addis Ababa. Specifically, the study seeks to explore beginning teachers perception of what the ideal supervision should be and how it has been actually implemented in the schools, and their perceived connection to professional development. In addition, it was aimed to explore what differences existed in the perception of instructional supervision between private and government school teachers and between experienced and less experienced (beginner) teachers. 1.4 Significance of the Study Teachers perception of instructional supervision can positively or negatively affect the quality of education. Teachers differ in their preferences and choices of supervisory approaches (Beach Reinhartz, 2000). Though there are some teachers who would like to work alone without additional support, there are other teachers who would appreciate comments about their teaching from their colleagues, supervisors, or school administrators (Augustyn, 2001). In this study, an overview of the theoretical frameworks of supervisory approaches (ideal interpretation) and their practical applications (actual interpretation) were presented. The researcher has a belief that identifying the prevailing perceptions of teachers by undertaking this survey and coming up with sound recommendations can have its own role to play in improving the practical supervisory processes and quality of education at large. To this end, this study will bring about the following benefits: The research findings provided an insight into teachers perception of supervisory practices and thus determined whether teachers were satisfied with such practices and their influence on professional development. The study will enable those involved in supervisory practices to identify the underlying negative perceptions of instructional supervision and seek for application of appropriate supervisory approaches based on teachers preferences and choices. Since the characteristic of education is its dynamism and capacity to respond to changing needs and challenges, the researcher feels that the study will contribute an additional source of information in evaluating the achievement gained as a result of practicing instructional supervision. Finally, the researcher also believes that the study will initiate other researchers to undertake detailed research on the effectiveness of instructional supervision at regional and national levels. In addition, the results of this study may be used to add to the international practices of instructional supervision. 1.5 Delimitation of the study Since Addis Ababa City Administration (AACA) is wide having a total of 112 government and private secondary schools, it will be unrealistic and impractical to attempt to study teachers perception of instructional supervision within a given time limit. Therefore, the study is delimited to 20 private and government secondary schools (10 from each) and 200 teachers (100 beginning and 100 experienced). In addition, public secondary schools in Addis Ababa are not included in this study due to the fact that the government has enacted a law to be included under government control and administration. However, by this movement the schools are not totally shifted to government control. They are partially funded by government and partially by the public, but their name and administration are not yet clear. 1.6 Limitation of the Study The study had limitations in that it includes only government and private secondary schools in Addis Ababa. Primary schools are not included in this study due to time and budget constraints. On the other hand, generalizability of this study was limited by the fact that the research was conducted in secondary schools in one city of Ethiopia. In addition, the study had limitations of all survey type research such as clarity of wording and respondent understanding of some terminologies. Problem of getting recently published books was equally challenging. Therefore, because of these limitations, the study by no means claims to be conclusive. It would rather serve as a spring to study teachers perceptions in a more detailed and comprehensive way. 1.7 Definition of Key Terms For the purpose of this study, the following terms were defined: Instructional supervision: is a process aimed at providing guidance, support, and continuous assessment to teachers for their professional development and improvement in the teaching-learning process, which relay on the system that is built on trust and collegial culture (Beach Reinhartz, 2000). Beginning teacher: refers to a teacher currently in the first or second year of teaching. Experienced teacher: refers to a teacher who has three or more years of teaching experience. Secondary school: is a school usually includes grades 9 through 12. Government secondary school: is a school established and administered by government of Ethiopia. Private secondary school: is a school established and administered by private foreign or local owners. Ideal supervisory approaches: are supervisory approaches stated in various literatures which should be implemented in schools. Real supervisory activities: are those supervisory approaches stated in various literatures which are actually implemented in schools. Professional development: is a major component of ongoing teacher education concerned with improving teachers instructional methods, their ability to adapt instruction to meet students needs, and their classroom management skills, leading to the professional growth of the teacher (Wanzare Da Costa, 2000). Sub-city: in Ethiopian case, it refers to the government administrative hierarchy next to city administration. It is locally called Kifle Ketema. 1.8 Organization of the Study This study comprises five chapters. The first chapter deals with the problem and the way it is approached. It encloses a brief formulation of background of the study, objective of the study, delimitation and limitation of the study, and definition of some key terms. The second chapter reviews some of the current literature pertaining to the area of instructional supervision, different approaches to supervisory process, and their connection with professional development. The third chapter details the research methodology, description of the study area, data sources, samples and sampling techniques, data gathering instruments, validity and reliability of instruments, procedure of data collection, and analysis of the data. Analysis and interpretation of the research findings are presented in the fourth chapter. Lastly, a summary of the study, conclusions, and recommendations are presented in chapter five. CHAPTER TWO THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK AND LITERATURE REVIEW OF INSTRUCTIONAL SUPERVISION AND PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT In this chapter a review of related literature on instructional supervision and its relationship with professional development is provided. The chapter is divided in to four parts as to enable the reader to follow a logical sequence that includes: history of school supervision, overview of supervision approaches, teachers perception of supervisory processes, and the relationship between supervision and professional development. 2.1 History of School Supervision In many developed countries, such as United Kingdom (UK) and United States, much more attention has been given to inspection than school supervision (Lee, Dig Song, 2008). The Inspectorate of Education had originated from France under Napoleons Regime at the end of the 18th century, and other European counties followed the idea in the 19th century (Grauwe, 2007). For example, in UK, the first two inspectors of schools were appointed in 1883 (Shaw, Newton, Aitkin Darnell, 2003) and in the Netherlands it was started in 1801 (Dutch Education Inspectorate, 2008). The terms inspector and inspection are still being used in various developed and developing countries , including United Kingdom (UK), United States, European countries and some African countries such as Lesotho, Senegal, Tanzania and Nigeria (Grauwe, 2007). Traditionally, inspection and supervision were used as important tools to ensure efficiency and accountability in the education system. Later adherents of the terminologies of inspection and supervision are used by different countries in different ways. As outlined by Tyagi (2010), inspection is a top-down approach focused on the assessment and evaluation of school improvement based in stated standards, where as supervision focus on providing guidance, support and continuous assessment to teachers for their professional development and improvement in their teaching- learning process. Nevertheless, since the demand of teachers for guidance and support rendered from supervisors has increased from time to time, some countries changed the terminology and preferring the term supervisor over that of inspector. According to Grawue (2007), some countries have recently developed more specific terminologies: Malawi, uses education methods advisor, and Uganda teacher development advisor. The concepts of supervision and inspection have been changed frequently in Ethiopian education system and the reason was not clearly pedagogical (Haileselassie, 2001). In 19 42, educational inspection was practiced for the first time, then it was changed to supervision in the late 1960s , again to inspection in mid 1970s and for the fourth time it shifted to supervision in 1994 (Haileselassie,2001). Haileselassie stated that: Apart from perhaps political decisions, one could not come up with any sound educational and pedagogical rationale to justify the continuous shift made in the name. With the name changes made we do not notice any significant changes in either the content or purpose and functions. (Haileselassie, 2001, p. 11-12) From 1994 onwards, supervision has been practiced in Ethiopia decentralized educational management. According to the Education and Training Policy (1994), educational supervision is recognized at the center (Ministry of Education), Regional, Zonal, District (Woreda) and School levels. Instructional supervision at school level is practiced by principals, deputy principals, department head, and senior teachers. According to Haileselassie (1997), the functional and true sense of educational supervision depends on the supervisory operation made at the grassroots level, i.e. School level. In this regard, subject-area instructional supervision has practiced in all schools of Addis Ababa since the beginning of 2004. The major responsibilities of subject-area instructional supervisors in Addis Ababa include: (1) examining and reporting the programs, organization and management of the teaching-learning activities; (2) developing and presenting alternative methods used to improve instructional programs; (3) guiding and monitoring schools and teachers; (4) preparing and organizing professional trainings, workshops, seminars, etc.; (5) monitoring and supporting the mentoring (induction) programs for beginner teachers; and (6) providing direct assistance and perform instructional and managerial activities in schools with teachers and principals by organizing and implementing clinical, collegial, peer coaching and cognitive coaching techniques of instructional supervision, etc (Alemayehu, 2008). 2.2 Overview of Supervisory Approaches According to Blasà © and Blasà © (1998), although many supervisory approaches are collaborative in nature, for long time, supervisory of instruction has been viewed exclusively as an inspection issue. Sergiovanni (1992) described supervision as a ritual they [supervisors and teachers] participate according to well established scripts without much consequence (p. 203). This author continued that today, supervision as inspection can be regarded as an artifact of the past, a function that is no longer tenable or prevalent in contemporary education (p. 204). He explained that though functioned for a considerable span of time, this type of supervision caused negative stereotypes among teachers, where they viewed as subordinates whose professional performance was controlled. Supporting this idea, Anderson and Snyder (1993) stated, because of this, teachers are unaccustomed to the sort of mutual dialogue for which terms like mentoring, peer coaching collegial assistance are coming in to u se (p.1). It should be clear, however, that traditional supervisory approaches should not be removed completely because supervisory authority and control are essential for professional development. Mitchell and Sackney (2000) explained this as much of past practice is educationally sound and should not be discarded (p. 37). Having said this, it is important to differentiate instructional supervision from evaluation. Authors described the former as a formative approach and the later as a summative approach (Poole, 1994; Zepeda, 2007). Poole (1994) stated that instructional supervision is a formative process that emphasizes collegial examination of teaching and learning (p. 305). In this regard, participants in the supervision process plan and implement a range of professional growth opportunities designed to meet teachers professional growth and educational goals and objectives at different levels. Teacher evaluation, on the other hand, is a summative process that focus on assessing the compete nce of teachers, which involves a formal, written appraisal or judgment of an individuals professional competence at specific time (Poole, 1994, p. 305). The supervisory (formative) and evaluative (summative) processes should go hand in hand (Sergiovanni Starratt, 2007). While supervision is essential for teachers professional growth, evaluation is essential to determine this growth and teacher effectiveness (Kutsyuruba, 2003; Wareing, 1990). The widely used approaches to evaluation are administrative monitoring, report writing, checklists, and self-assessment. On the other hand, approaches to supervision are categorized as clinical supervision, peer coaching, cognitive coaching, mentoring, self-reflection, professional growth plans, and portfolios (Alfonso Firth, 1990; Clarke, 1995; Poole, 1994; Reninan, 2002; Sergiovanni Starratt, 2007; Zepeda, 2007). Implementing different supervisory approaches is essential not only to give choices to teachers; it is also important to provide choices to the administrators and schools (Kutsyuruba, 2003). Each component of supervisory approaches are discussed as follows. Clinical Supervision According to Sergiovanni and Starratt (2007), clinical supervision is a face- to- face contract with teachers with the intent of improving instruction and increasing professional growth (p. 23). It is a sequential, cyclic and systematic supervisory process which involves face-to-face interaction between teachers and supervisors designed to improve the teachers classroom instructions (Kutsyuruba, 2003). The purpose of clinical supervision according to Snow-Gerono (2008) is to provide support to teachers (to assist) and gradually to increase teachers abilities to be self-supervising (p. 1511). Clinical supervision is a specific cycle or pattern of working with teachers (Sergiovanni Starratt, 1993, p. 222). It is a partnership in inquiry where by the person assuming the role of supervisor functions more as an individual with experience and insight than as an expert who determines what is right and wrong (Harris, 1985). Goldhammer, Anderson and Karjewski (1980) described the structure o f clinical supervision that includes pre-observation conference, class room observation, analysis and strategy, supervision conference, and post-conference analysis. Clinical supervision is officially applicable with: inexperienced beginning teachers, teachers are experiencing difficulties, and experienced teachers who are in need of improving their instructional performance. Sergiovanni and Starratt (2007) stated that clinical supervision is typically formative than summative in its evaluative approach in order to enable beginning teaches collaborate to research their practices and improve their teaching and learning (p. 233). As a result of this, the writers further described that the focus of clinical supervision is not on quality control, rather on the professional improvement of the teacher that guarantees quality of teaching and students performance (Sergiovanni Starratt, 2007). Collaborative Supervision Collaboration and collegially are very important in todays modern schools. According to Burke and Fessler (1983), teachers are the central focuses of collaborative approach to supervision. Collaborative approaches to supervision are mainly designed to help beginning teachers and those who are new to a school or teaching environment with the appropriate support from more experienced colleagues. Thus, these colleagues have an ethical and professional responsibility of providing the required type of support upon request (Kutsyuruba, 2003). In this regard, a teacher who needs collegial and collaborative support should realize that needs do not exist for professional growth, that feedback from colleagues and other sources should be solicited in order to move toward improvement (Burke Fessler, 1983, p.109). The major components of collaborative approaches to supervision which are especially needed for beginner or novice teachers are: peer coaching, cognitive coaching and mentoring (Shower s Joyce, 1996; Sergiovanni Starratt, 2007; Sullivan Glanz, 2003; Kutsyuruba, 2003). Peer coaching Peer coaching, according to Sullivan and Glanz (2000), is defined as teachers helping teachers reflect on and improve teaching practice and/or implement particular teaching skills needed to implement knowledge gained through faculty or curriculum development (p. 215). The term coaching is introduced to characterize practice and feedback following staff development sessions. According to Singhal (1996), supervision is more effective if the supervisor follows the team approach. This would mean that the supervisor should have a clear interaction with teachers and group of teachers, provide an open, but supportive atmosphere for efficient communication, and involve them in decision making. The goal of coaching as described by Sergiovanni and Starratt (2007), is to develop communities within which teachers collaborate to honor a very simple value- when we learn together, we learn more, and when we learn more, we will more effectively serve our students (p. 251). Thus, peer coaching provid es possible opportunities to beginner teachers to refine teaching skills through collaborative relationships, participatory decision making, and immediate feedback (Bowman McCormick, 2000; Sullivan Glanz, 2000). In this regard, research findings showed that beginning teachers rated experienced teachers who coached than as highly competent and the process itself as very necessary (Kutsyuruba, 2003). Cognitive coaching According to Costa and Garmston (1994), cognitive coaching refers to a nonjudgmental process built around a planning conference, observation, and a reflecting conference (p. 2). Cognitive coaching differs from peer coaching in that peer coaching focuses on innovations in curriculum and instructions, where as cognitive coaching is aimed at improving existing practices (Showers Joyce, 1996). As Beach and Reinhartz (2000) described, cognitive coaching pairs teacher with teacher, teacher with supervisor, or supervisor with supervisor, however, when two educators are in similar roles or positions, the process is referred as peer supervision. The writers further identified three components of cognitive coaching: planning, lesson observation, and reflection. Costa and Garmston (1994) described three basic purposes of cognitive coaching, namely: (1) developing and maintaining trusting relationship; (2) fostering growth toward both autonomous and independent behavior; and (3) promoting learning. In a cognitive coaching process, teachers learn each other, built mutual trust, and encouraged to reach at a higher level of autonomy- the ability to self-monitor, self-evaluate, and self-analyze (Garmston, Linder Whitaker, 1993). Mentoring Mentoring as defined by Sullivan and Glanz (2000) is a process that facilitates instructional improvement wherein an experienced educator agrees to provide assistance, support, and recommendations to another staff member (p. 213). Mentoring is a form of collaborative (peer) supervision focused on helping new teachers or beginning teachers successfully learn their roles, establish their self images as teachers figure out the school and its culture, and understand how teaching unfolds in real class rooms (Sergiovanni Starratt, 2007). Sullivan and Glanz (2000) stated the works of mentors as: The mentor can work with a novice or less experienced teacher collaboratively, nonjudgmentally studying and deliberating on ways instruction in the class room may be improved, or the mentor can share expertise in a specific area with other educators. Mentors are not judges or critics, but facilitators of instructional improvement. All interactions and recommendations between the mentor and staff members are confidential. (p. 213) Research projects and publications revealed that mentoring has clear connections with supervision and professional development which serve to augment the succession planning and professional development of teachers (Reiman Thies-Sprinthall, 1998).In addition, Sergiovanni and Starratt (2007) described that the emphasis of mentoring on helping new or beginner teachers is typically useful for mentors as well. By helping a colleague (beginner teacher), mentors able to see their problems more clearly and learn ways to overcome them. As a result, mentoring is the kind of relationship in which learning benefits everyone involved. Self-Reflection As the context of education is ever changing, teachers should have a professional and ethical responsibility to reflect on what is happening in response to changing circumstances. Thus, they can participate in collective reflection practices such as peer coaching, cognitive coaching, or mentoring, as well as self-assessment reflective practices (Kutsyuruba, 2003). According to Glatthorn (1990), self- directed development is a process by which a teacher systematically plans for his or her own professional growth in teaching. Glatthorn further described that self-directed approaches are mostly ideal for teachers who prefer to work alone or who, because of scheduling or other difficulties, are unable to work cooperatively with other teachers. Sergiovanni and Starratt (2007) considered this option to be efficient in use of time, less costly, and less demanding in its reliance on others. Thus, the writers indicated that in self-directed supervision teachers work alone by assuming responsi bility for their own professional development (p. 276). Furthermore, Glatthorn (1990) suggested that self-development is an option provided for teachers that enable them to set their own professional growth goals, find the resources needed to achieve those goals, and undertake the steps needed to accomplish those outcomes (p. 200). In addition, this approach is particularly suited to competent and experienced teachers who are able to manage their time well (Sergiovanni Starratt, 2007). Portfolios As teachers want to be actively participated in their own development and supervision, they need to take ownership of the evaluation process (Kutsyuruba, 2003). The best way for teachers to actively involve in such practices is the teaching portfolio (Painter, 2001). A teaching portfolio is defined as a process of supervision with teacher compiled collection of artifacts, reproductions, testimonials, and student work that represents the teachers professional growth and abilities (Riggs Sandlin, 2000). A portfolio, according to Zepeda (2007), is an individualized, ongoing record of growth that provides the opportunity for teachers to collect artifacts over an extended period of time (p. 85). Similarly, Sergiovanni and Starratt (2007) stated that the intent of portfolio development is to establish a file or collection of artifacts, records, photo essays, cassettes, and other materials designed to represent some aspect of the class room program and teaching activities. As Sullivan and Glanz (2000) stated portfolio documents not only innovative and effective practices of teachers, but also it is a central road for teachers professional growth through self-reflection, analysis, and sharing with colleagues through discussion and writing (p. 215). The writers further described that portfolio can be used to support and enrich mentoring and coaching relationships. Professional Growth Plans Professional growth plans are defined as individual goal-setting activities, long term projects teachers develop and carry out relating to the teaching (Brandt, 1996, p. 31). This means that teachers reflect on their instructional and professional goals by setting intended outcomes and plans for achieving these goals. In professional growth plans as part of instructional supervisory approach, teachers select the skills they wish to improve, place their plan in writing including the source of knowledge, the type of workshop to be attended, the books and articles to read, and practice activities to be set. In this regard, Fenwick (2001) stated that professional growth plans could produce transformative effects in teaching practice, greater staff collaboration, decreased teacher anxiety, and increased focus and commitment to learning (p. 422). Summative Evaluation There is a clear link among instructional supervision, professional development and teacher evaluation (Zepeda, 2007). Teacher evaluation involves two distinct components: formative evaluation and summative evaluation (Sergiovanni Starratt, 2007). The writers differentiated formative teacher evaluation as an approach intended to increase the effectiveness of ongoing educational programs and teachers professi

Scopes Monkey Trial :: essays research papers

I think the Scopes trial brought together a great cast of characters: three-time presidential candidate William Jennings Bryan; America's best defense attorney, Clarence Darrow: and its most popular journalist, H. L. Mencken. It was a trial about ideas, a contest between traditionalism, the faith of our fathers, and modernism, the idea that we test faith with our intellect. And it had what the New York Times called the most memorable event in Anglo-Saxon court history: Darrow's calling of William Jennings Bryan, the prosecutor, to the stand and examining him on his interpretation of the Bible. Seventy-five years later, this trial has stood the test of time. Clarence Darrow was a nearly-70 year old attorney who was largely regarded as America's most eloquent defense attorney. He had the ability to transform almost any courtroom trial into a much larger context, and raised large social and political issues that captured the public imagination. He also had a very good sense of humor, which sometimes got him into trouble, as in the Scopes case, when complaining to the judge after his request to introduce scientific expert testimony had been rejected said, "Why is it that all of our requests are rejected?" The judge answered, "I hope you do not mean to reflect upon the Court?" Darrow replied, "Well, Your Honor has the right to hope." H. L. Mencken was the reporter who played a large role in the trial, and is well-known as one of America's most colorful, acerbic, and in his own way, prejudiced reporters, but his colorful reporting added greatly to our understanding of the trial. William Jennings Bryan was a three-time failed presidential candidate who, in the years preceding the Scopes trial, had transformed himself into a sort of fundamentalist pope. He campaigned against evolution, at one time offering to pay $100 to anyone who personally could prove that he descended from a monkey. If the trial were held today, the law would be held unconstitutional as a violation of the U.S. Constitution's establishment clause in the First Amendment. The trial would thus have been decided on the motion to quash the indictment, and there would have been no witnesses and none of the entertainment that we got in 1925. Scopes' Place in Culture The Scopes trial came at a crossroads in history - as people were choosing to cling to the past or jump into the future.

Balance Of Power :: essays research papers

The Balance of Power Throughout the semester, a theme that has guided our thoughts has been the idea that the self is the capacity to have capacities. Through what we have read, written about, and discussed, we have been trying to come up with our own answers to the questions about the self; what a capacity is, how we find them, which ones are essential to human flourishing, what we do with them once they are found? Yet all of these questions lead us to answer that final and defining question of "what is the 'truth'?" A capacity is a capability or a realized power in a person. Some of the authors that we read throughout the semester believed that these capacities must be implanted into us, and then nurtured and trained. C.S. Lewis says that, "The task of the modern educator is not to cut down jungles, but to irrigate deserts."(1-p.27) However, in this statement he contradicts his own belief. In order for irrigation to work and make things grow, there must be something there beneath the surface to begin with. This is exactly my belief. I agree with Lewis that our capacities must be trained and educated, but those that are essential to human flourishing are inside our hearts waiting to be uncovered. But how then, do we go about uncovering these capacities? The answer is so simple, and yet far to complex to completely explain in one paper. It takes thought. In fact, thought is the best example of a capacity. No one can teach thought. It is an innate quality of all human beings. However, thought is not complete in its original state. We must train and educate our ability to think. We can train it to be analytical, critical, evidential, logical, careful, clear, subjective, objective, etc. The list could go on and on. We can 'irrigate' it and watch it grow. But that is assuming that it is there in the first place. Kierkegaard was on the right track to uncovering what is inside of us. He believed that it would take subjective thought about ourselves, not being detached from our feelings, but letting our emotions be our guide to what we truly believe. However, subjective thinking alone cannot decipher what capacities are essential to our lives. It gives us a place to start from with what really matters to us in our hearts, but it is clouded by our biases and prejudgements.

Chisholm Trail :: essays research papers

Chisholm Trail When the railroads moved west to the Great Plains, the "Cattle Boom" began. Southern Texas became a major ranching area with the raising of longhorn cattle from Mexico. Cattle was branded by the rawhides who guarded them on horseback on the ranges. Before the Civil War, small herds of Texas cattle were driven by the cowboys to New Orleans, some as far west as California, and some to the north over the Shawnee Trail. This trail passed through Dallas and near the Indian Territory, ending in Sedalia, Missouri. In 1866, the Shawnee Trail presented some major problems for the cattle drivers Farmers along the route did not like their fields being trampled. They also objected to the spread of tick fever. Longhorns carried the ticks but were immune to the fever. A few farmers were so angry, they armed themselves with shotguns to convince the cattle ranchers to find another trail north. There was a large increase icattle by the end of the Civil War. Over 1,000,000 cattle roamed the open range. At this time, people in the north had money to buy beef and cattle which was in great demand. A cow that cost 4 to5 dollars a head in Texas was going for 40 to 50 dollars a head in the east. Ranchers hired cowboys for the cattle drives north, realizing the great opportunity for a large profit if they could reach the railroads in Abilene, Kansas. Joseph McCoy, a stock dealer from Springfield, Illinois, decided a new trail was necessary west of the farms. In 1867, he chose a route that would reach Abilene and the railroads with the least amount of problems. This route was to become well-known as the Chisholm Trail. Jesse Chisholm was a half-breed, a Scotch Cherokee Indian trader, who in 1866 drove a wagon through the Indian territory, known now as Oklahoma, to the Wichita, Kansas, where he had a trading post. Cattlemen use the same trail in the years to come, following Chisholm's wagon ruts to Abilene, Kansas, and the railroads. The trail began below San Antonio, Texas, and stretched north for about 1,000 miles. The main course then passed through Austin, Fort Worth, The Indian Territory, and Wichita to Abilene. Side trails fed into the Chisholm Trail. The cattle fed on grass along the trail. Cattlemen moved about 1,500,000 cattle over the trail during a three year span. The biggest year was in 1871, when 5,000 cowboys drove over 700,000 head of cattle along the trail from Texas to Abilene. The Chisholm Trail was the most popular route because of the good terrain.

Applications of Biometrics in Cloud Security

CHAPTER ONE 1. 1 INTRODUCTION The success of modern day technologies highly depends on its effectiveness of the world’s norms, its ease of use by end users and most importantly its degree of information security and control. Cloud computing is a style of computing in which dynamically scalable and often virtualized resources are provided as a service over the Internet. Users need not have knowledge of, expertise in, or control over the technology infrastructure ‘in the cloud’ that supports them [15, 16].Authentication, thus, becomes pretty important for cloud security. Biometric is the most secure and convenient authentication tool. It cannot be borrowed, stolen, or forgotten and forging one is practically impossible. The term comes from the Greek words bios (life) and metrikos (measure). To make a personal recognition, biometrics relies on who you are or what you do—as opposed to what you know. OBJECTIVES 1 To know and understand the meaning of biometric, its uses, the characteristics and also its advantages and challenges. To know and understand the full meaning of cloud computing its type and its service providers 3 To explain the about cloud security and its shortfalls 4 To know how biometric technology can be applied to enhance security in cloud computing CHAPTER TWO 2. 0 BIOMETRICS The word â€Å"biometrics† comes from the Greek language and is derived from the words bio (life) and metric (to measure). Biometrics (or biometric authentication) refers to the identification of humans by their characteristics or traits.Computer science, biometrics to be specific, is used as a form of identification [1]. Biometrics is automated methods of recognizing a person based on a physiological or behavioural characteristic [2]. Biometrics offers new perspectives in high-security applications while supporting natural, user-friendly and fast authentication. Biometric technology uses these characteristics to identify individuals automatica lly1. Ideally the characteristic should be universally present, unique to the individual, stable over time and easily measurable [5]. 2. Biometric systems A biometric system provides an automated method of recognizing an individual based on the individual's biometric. A biometric is a measurement of a biological characteristic such as fingerprint, iris pattern, retina image, face or hand geometry; or a behavioural characteristic such as voice, gait or signature. Behavioural biometrics are related to the behaviour of a Person, including but not limited to: typing rhythm, gait, and voice. Some researchers have coined the term behaviourmetrics to describe the behaviour class of biometrics [1].A biometric system is essentially a pattern-recognition system that recognizes a person based on a feature vector derived from a specific physiological or behavioural characteristic that the person possesses [3]. Biometric systems can be used in two different modes. Identity verification occurs wh en the user claims to be already enrolled in the system (presents an ID card or login name); in this case the biometric data obtained from the user is compared to the user’s data already stored in the database Identification (also called search) occurs when the identity of the user is a priori unknown.In this case the user’s biometric data is matched against all the records in the database as the user can be anywhere in the database or he/she actually does not have to be there at all [4]. The combination of biometric data systems and biometrics recognition/ identification technologies creates the biometric security systems. 2. 2 Biometric Authentication Authentication on the other hand, is a process where a known person's live biometric is compared to a stored template of that person.For example, an individual’s identity is revealed to the biometric system upon entering a PIN (Personal Identification Number). To authenticate that this is the person associated wi th this PIN, a live biometric is presented by the individual and compared to the template and a match is determined. This is known as a ‘one to one’ search. It is more accurate than the ‘one to many’ application and is the predominant biometric process in place today and the more privacy friendly of the two systems.This answers the question – Are you who you say you are? Two general uses of biometrics are identification and verification which both require the existence of reference data that the person’s measured traits will be compared with reference templates or raw data. During these processes, a biometric data sample is compared against the respective biometric data of every person enrolled in the database or against a single reference template of a particular enrolled individual in order to confirm the identity of that person respectively.When a biometric system correctly identifies a person, then the result of the identification process is a true positive, whereas if the system correctly rejects a person as not matching the respective enrolled template, the result is a true negative. Similarly, when the system incorrectly identifies or rejects a person then we speak about a false positive or a false negative. Fig 2. 1 Components of a Biometric Authentication System[31] 2. 3 BIOMETRIC SECURITY SYSTEM The biometric security system is a lock and capture mechanism to control access to specific data.In order to access the biometric security system, an individual will need to provide their unique characteristics or traits which will be matched to a database in the system. If there is a match, the locking system will provide access to the data for the user. The locking and capturing system will activate and record information of users who accessed the data. The relationship between the biometric and biometric security system is also known as the lock and key system. The biometrics security system is the lock and biometric s is the key to open that lock [11]. 2. 4 CRITERIA FOR BIOMETRIC SYSTEM[12]There are seven basic criteria for biometric security system: [12] * Uniqueness: uniqueness is considered as the priority one requirement for biometric data. It will indicate how differently and uniquely the biometric system will be able to recognize each user among groups of users . For instance, the DNA of each person is unique and it is impossible to replicate. * Universality: Universality is a criterion for the biometric security that indicates requirements for unique characteristics of each person in the world, which cannot be replicated. For example, retinal and iris are characteristics will satisfy this requirement. Permanence: permanence parameter is required for every single characteristic or trait which is recorded in the database of the system and needs to be constant for a certain period of time period. This parameter will mostly be affected by the age of the user * Collectability: The collectabil ity parameter requires the collection of each characteristic and trait by the system in order to verify their identification * Performance: performance outlines how well the security system works. The accuracy and robustness are main factors for the biometric security system.These factors will decide the performance of the biometric security system * Acceptability: The acceptability parameter will choose fields in which biometric technologies are acceptable. * Circumvention: circumvention will decide how easily each characteristic and trait provided by the user can lead to failure during the verification process. DNA is believed to be the most difficult characteristic leading to the failure of the verification process [13]. Figure 2. 2 Basic Criteria for Biometrics Security System [26] 2. 5 TYPES OF BIOMETRIC systems Two classes of biometric methods are: 1) Physical Biometrics:Physiological biometrics is based on measurements and data derived from direct measurement of a part of the human body. * Fingerprint: Fingerprint recognition is one of the best known and most widely used Biometric technologies. Fingerprint recognition technology extracts features from impressions made by the distinct ridges on the fingertips. * Iris-scan: Iris recognition technology is based on the distinctly coloured ring surrounding the pupil of the eye. Iris recognition systems use a small, high-quality camera to capture a black and white, high-resolution image of the iris. Retina-scan: Retina recognition technology captures and analyses the patterns of blood vessels on the thin nerve on the back of the eyeball that processes light entering through the pupil. * Hand geometry: Hand geometry technology takes 96 measurements of the hand, including the width, height, and length of the fingers; distances between joints; and shape of the knuckles. * Facial recognition : Facial recognition technology identifies people by analysing features of the face not easily altered—the upper out lines of the eye sockets, the areas around the cheekbones, and the sides of the mouth..Facial recognition can be used in both verification and identification systems. 2) Behavioural characteristics are based on an action taken by a person. Behavioural biometrics, in turn, are based on measurements and data derived from an action, and indirectly measure characteristics of the human body * Voice recognition: Voice authentication is unique and non-intrusive method and also the hardware requirements required for this type of authentication are cheap and are available readily. Microphones can be used for this purpose.However the back ground noise must be controlled, high storage is required for this kind of authentication. This type of authentication can also be extraneously influenced by once sore throat and cold. [7] * Keystroke-scan: Keystroke dynamics is a biometric based on the assumption that different people type in uniquely characteristic manners. Observation of telegraph operato rs in the 19th century revealed personally distinctive patterns when keying messages over telegraph lines, and telegraph operators could recognize each other based on only their keying dynamics [22].Keystroke dynamics is known with a few different names: keyboard dynamics, keystroke analysis, typing biometrics and typing rhythms [22]. Currently users begin information to computer systems via physical keyboards or keyboards on touch screens. The main advantage of using keystroke dynamics is that it can be used without any additional hardware. Thus it is inexpensive. The user acceptance of a keystroke dynamics biometric system is very high, since it is not intrusive and users do not necessarily even notice that such a system is used [22, 27]. Signature Recognition: Signature recognition authenticates identity by measuring handwritten signatures. The signature is treated as a series of movements that contain unique biometric data, such as personal rhythm, acceleration, and pressure flo w. In a signature recognition system, a person signs his or her name on a digitized graphics tablet or personal digital assistant. The technology can also track each person’s natural signature fluctuations over time. The signature dynamics information is encrypted and compressed into a template.One of the defining characteristics of a behavioural biometric is the incorporation of time as a metric – the measured behaviour has a beginning, middle and end [6]. A number of biometric methods have been introduced over the years, but few have gained wide acceptance. 2. 6 PERFORMANCE OF BIOMETRICS SYSTEMS The following are used as performance metrics for biometric systems [8]. * False Accept Rate FAR and False Reject Rate FRR: The FAR gives a measure of the probability that an individual will be ‘falsely accepted’ by the system (i. . that the system accepts someone who is not enrolled on the system, or makes an incorrect identification). The FRR indicates how like ly it is that a legitimate user will be rejected. The balance between the FAR and the FRR greatly influences both the security and usability of the system. The False Rejection Rate (FRR) is usually caused by lighting, climate conditions, low quality equipment or inexperience. The False Acceptance Rate (FAR) is caused by the security standard being too low [9]. False Match Rate FMR and False NonMatch Rate FNMR: A false match occurs when a system incorrectly matches an identity, In verification and positive identification systems, unauthorized people can be granted access to facilities or resources as the result of incorrect matches. That occurs when a subsequent reading does not properly match the enrolled biometric relating to that individual, something that results in Denial of Access to services. * The Crossover Error Rate (CER): The Crossover Error Rate (CER) is defined as the error rate of the system when the FAR and FRR are equal.Usually expressed as a percentage, the CER can b e used to compare the performance of different biometric systems. * False enrol rate: This occurs when a person’s biometric is either unrecognizable, or when it is not of a sufficiently high standard for the machine to make a judgment, something that does not allow the user to enrol in the system in the first place. The fingerprints of people who work extensively at manual labour are often too worn to be captured. A high percentage of people are unable to enrol in retina recognition systems because of the precision such systems require.People who are mute cannot use voice systems, and people lacking fingers or hands from congenital disease, surgery, or injury cannot use fingerprint or hand geometry systems [10]. Applications of biometrics 2. 7ADVANTAGES OF BIOMETRIC SECURITY [14] 1. The first advantage of using this new technology is the uniqueness and it is also the main characteristic which allows biometrics technology to become more and more important in our lives. With un iqueness of biometrics technology, each individual's identification will be single most effective identification for that user.A chance of two users having the same identification in the biometrics security technology system is nearly zero. 2. Secondly, the highly secure way of identifying users makes this technology less prone for users to share access to highly sensitive data. For example, users can share their fingerprints, iris and so forth allowing other users access to secure information. Each trait used during identification is a single property of that user. In other words, it is extremely hard or impossible to make duplicate or share biometrics accessing data with other users.This makes it ever more secure allowing user information and data to be kept highly secure from unauthorized users. 3. This identification of users though biometrics cannot be lost, stolen or forgotten. This aspect of biometrics technology allows it to become more popular in its use. This method of ide ntifying and giving access to user makes user identification a lot easier. Finally, most biometrics security systems are easy to install and it requires small amount of funding for equipment (except modern biometrics technology such as: DNA/retinal/iris recognition). . 8 CHALLENGES AND ISSUES Nothing is 100% secure, not even biometrics. Nevertheless, biometrics does provide the means to present security credentials that are unique. Unlike other systems that may rely on passwords or tokens that can be vulnerable to loss or exploitation, no one is going enter your live biometric as a means of impersonation Just as a firewall does not constitute a network security solution but rather a component of a defensive strategy, biometrics could be viewed in the same manner.It is not enough to assume absolute verification with biometrics alone but rather as part of a well designed security implementation that considers strong two factor authentication. The second major threat is concerned with modification of the components of the authentication system. The capture device could be modified to output a different image to the one captured. Alternatively, it could be modified to create a denial-of-service (DoS) that will prevent legitimate users accessing the system (by smashing a camera, for example). The processes of emplate generation or template matching could be subverted to produce erroneous results; for example, a piece of malicious code could interfere with the template generation software to produce the attacker’s template rather than that of the legitimate user, or the matching process could be modified to produce an artificially high or low matching score. CHAPTER THREE 3. 1 CLOUD COMPUTING Cloud computing is a means of accessing computer facilities via the Internet, where the adjective â€Å"cloud† reflects the diagrammatic use of a cloud as a metaphor for the Internet.Most of us have been using cloud-computing facilities in one form or another for years through ordinary email and the World Wide Web. Recently, the term has come to reflect the use of software and the running of computer applications via the Internet where the computer infrastructure and software are not â€Å"on premises. † Cloud computing, as a form of service provisioning, has given rise to several related concepts, such as mesh computing, cloud platforms, and software plus service. Cloud Computing is a new computing model that distributes the computing missions on a resource pool that includes a large amount of computing resources.In a survey undertaken by the International Data Corporation (IDC) group between 2008 and 2009, the majority of results point to employing Cloud computing as a low-cost viable option to users [17] developers or research projects and even e-commerce entrepreneurs. Using Cloud computing can help in keeping one’s IT budget to a bare minimum. It is also ideally suited for development and testing scenarios. It is the easie st solution to test potential proof of concepts without investing too much capital.Using cloud computing service, users can store their critical data in servers and can access their data anywhere they can with the Internet and do not need to worry about system breakdown or disk faults, etc. Also, different users in one system can share their information and work, as well as play games together. Many important companies such as Amazon, Google, IBM, Microsoft, and Yahoo are the forerunners that provide cloud computing services. Recently more and more companies such as SalesForce, Facebook, YouTube, MySpace etc. also begin to provide all kinds of cloud computing services for Internet users . 2 TYPES OF CLOUDS [18] In providing a secure Cloud computing solution, a major decision is to decide on the type of cloud to be implemented. Currently there are three types of cloud deployment models offered, namely, a public, private and hybrid cloud. A. Public Cloud A public cloud is a model whic h allows users’ access to the cloud via interfaces using mainstream web browsers. It’s typically based on a pay-per-use model, similar to a prepaid electricity metering system which is flexible enough to cater for spikes in demand for cloud optimisation.This helps cloud clients to better match their IT expenditure at an operational level by decreasing its capital expenditure on IT infrastructure [19]. Public clouds are less secure than the other cloud models because it places an additional burden of ensuring all applications and data accessed on the public cloud are not subjected to malicious attacks. Therefore trust and privacy concerns are rife when dealing with Public clouds with the Cloud SLA at its core. B. Private Cloud A private cloud is set up within an organisation’s internal enterprise datacenter.It is easier to align with security, compliance, and regulatory requirements, and provides more enterprise control over deployment and use. In the private clo ud, scalable resources and virtual applications provided by the cloud vendor are pooled together and available for cloud users to share and use. It differs from the public cloud in that all the cloud resources and applications are managed by the organisation itself, similar to Intranet functionality. Utilisation on the private cloud can be much more secure than that of the public cloud because of its specified internal exposure.Only the organisation and designated stakeholders may have access to operate on a specific Private cloud [20]. C. Hybrid Cloud A hybrid cloud is a private cloud linked to one or more external cloud services, centrally managed, provisioned as a single unit, and circumscribed by a secure network [20]. It provides virtual IT solutions through a mix of both public and private clouds. Hybrid Clouds provide more secure control of the data and applications and allows various parties to access information over the Internet. It also has an open architecture that allow s interfaces with other management systems. . 3 CLOUD COMPUTING DELIVERY MODELS [18] The architecture of Cloud computing can be categorised according to the three types of delivery models, namely Infrastructure as a service (IaaS), Software as a service (SaaS) and Platform as a service (PaaS). A. Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) Infrastructure as a Service is a single tenant cloud layer where the Cloud computing vendor’s dedicated resources are only shared with contracted clients at a pay-per-use fee. This greatly minimizes the need for huge initial investment in computing hardware such as servers, networking devices and processing power.They also allow varying degrees of financial and functional flexibility not found in internal data centers or with co-location services, because computing resources can be added or released much more quickly and cost-effectively than in an internal data center or with a colocation service [21]. B. Software as a Service (SaaS) Software as a Service also operates on the virtualised and pay-per-use costing model whereby software applications are leased out to contracted organisations by specialised SaaS vendors. This is traditionally accessed remotely using a web browser via the Internet.Software as a service applications are accessed using web browsers over the Internet therefore web browser security is vitally important. Information security officers will need to consider various methods of securing SaaS applications. Web Services (WS) security, Extendable Markup Language (XML) encryption, Secure Socket Layer (SSL) and available options which are used in enforcing data protection transmitted over the Internet. C. Platform as a Service (PaaS) Platform as a service cloud layer works like IaaS but it provides an additional level of â€Å"rented† functionality.Clients using PaaS services transfer even more costs from capital investment to operational expenses but must acknowledge the additional constraints and possi bly some degree of lock-in posed by the additional functionality layers [20] . The use of virtual machines act as a catalyst in the PaaS layer in Cloud computing. Virtual machines must be protected against malicious attacks such as cloud malware. Therefore maintaining the integrity of applications and well enforcing accurate authentication checks during the transfer of data across the entire networking channels is fundamental.Figure 3. 1 CLOUD COMPUTING MAP [18] 3. 4 CLOUD SECURITY Cloud computing have many advantages in cost reduction, resource sharing and time saving for new service deployment. While in a cloud computing system, most data and software that users use reside on the Internet, which bring some new challenges for the system, especially security and privacy. Since each application may use resource from multiple servers. The servers are potentially based at multiple locations and the services provided by the cloud may use different infrastructures across organizations.Al l these characteristics of cloud computing make it complicated to provide security in cloud computing. To ensure adequate security in cloud computing, various security issues, such as authentication, data confidentiality and integrity, and non-repudiation, all need to be taken into account. The biggest challenge in implementing successful Cloud computing technologies is managing the security. As with any new technology enhancements, criticisms are driven by fear of unknown variables and changes to current control procedures. How can cloud stakeholders ensure and promote the security of Cloud computing?In the Cloud Computing Services Survey conducted during August 08/09 by IDC IT group [17], users were asked to rate their issues and challenges experienced with Cloud computing. The results illustrate that security is the biggest concern. Security is the main issue users are concerned with when considering Cloud computing solutions. CHAPTER FOUR 4. 1 APPLICATION OF BIOMETRICS IN CLOUD SECURITY One of the Security risks in cloud computing according to Garfunkel [23] is hacked passwords or data intrusion. If someone hacks a password they get control over the resources.They can manipulate the information or disable the services. Furthermore, there is a possibility for the user’s email (Amazon user name) to be hacked (see [24] for a discussion of the potential risks of email), and since Amazon allows a lost password to be reset by email, the hacker may still be able to log in to the account after receiving the new reset password [25]. As an excellent storage scheme for tenants’ big data, cloud computing has been a hot issue for a lot of consumers, generally, tenants’ different data should be processed by different security modes.Biometric authentication has the advantage of exclusive for tenant in data access. When any registered cloud tenant , want to access the data stored in cloud, first, he must pass the cloud system check such as cloud_sys_c hecker A Hybrid biometric method can be developed by fusing finger prints and voice biometric methods. The fused value can be used as signal sign on for multiple resources provided by cloud. This encrypted data is used for authentication 4. 2BIOMETRIC AUTHENTICATION SYSTEM AS A CLOUD SERVICE:The authentication service provider maintains the biometric data base . The data has to be stored in encrypted format using cryptography on biometric for the security reasons 4. 2. 1ARCHITECTURE BIOMETRICS AUTHENTICATION SYSTEM A secure data access scheme based on identity-based Encryption and biometric authentication for cloud communication Cloud Services1 CS1 Cloud Services1 CS3 Cloud Services1 CS2 Biometric Authentication Service Org1 User1 User2 †¦ Org2 User1 User2 Fig4. 1: Biometric Authenticating System in cloud [30].The user initially enrols with the biometric system which is provided by a cloud, once the identity is registered his/her biometric authentication details are stored in c loud service provider database. The authorization details are also entered at the registration time which is also encrypted. Whenever the user wants to use any cloud service user first uses the biometric authentication service rather than a traditional password mechanism. Once authenticated, the user is redirected to the actual cloud service for which he is authorized to use. 4. 3 A PROPOSED METHOD [29] Step1: Setup cloud side parameters . Initialization On the cloud service side, given a security parameter 2. Key generation When tenants are registered in cloud computing providers, each tenant will obtain a unique identity to identify him or her. The phase generates private key corresponding to given registered ID of every tenant in cloud computing. Step2: Generate tenant’s biometric template Cloud computing is a pervasive service environment for tenants, different tenants have different security requirement. To these tenants who have special security concern on data can gene rate their biometric template and be stored in cloud database.Biometric authentication must be needed when someone wants to access the data. Step3: Encrypt cloud data Input: cloud data (which is created by cloud tenants and stored in the database of cloud platform), a private key (the cloud service providers), and an ID (the cloud tenant who want to access the data); output: encrypted cloud data. Step4: Biometric authentication As an excellent storage scheme for tenants’ big data, cloud computing has been a hot issue for a lot of consumers, generally, tenants’ different data should be processed by different security modes.Biometric authentication has the advantage of exclusive for tenant in data access. Step4: Biometric authentication As an excellent storage scheme for tenants’ big data, cloud computing has been a hot issue for a lot of consumers, generally, tenants’ different data should be processed by different security modes. Biometric authentication has the advantage of exclusive for tenant in data access. When any registered cloud tenant say, p, want to access the data stored in cloud, first, he must pass the cloud system check such as cloud_sys_checker.Then, cloud tenants use registered identity ID to create their biometric template and all of the created templates are stored in cloud_sys_database. In cloud data access, cloud tenant p must pass the biometric authentication performed by biometric matcher in cloud computing. Step5: Decrypt cloud data Input: encrypted cloud data ciphertext (which is generated in Step3), an ID (the cloud service provider’s), a private key (the cloud tenant who want to access the data), and output: the corresponding plaintext i. e. cloud data. CHAPTER FIVE 5. 1 SUMMARYIn summary, as Biometrics allow for increased security, convenience we can say that fused biometric authentication system will be novel solution for authenticating users on cloud computing ,which can be provided as service on cloud . By following guiding principles discussed in this paper, a great deal of insecurities may be easily expelled, saving business owners’ valuable time and investment. Cloud computing has the potential to become a frontrunner in promoting a secure, virtual and economically viable IT solution. Future work and progress lies in standardising Cloud computing security protocols 5. CONCLUSION . Authentication is necessary in Cloud Computing. In order to seek a secure data access method for cloud tenants, a proposed method presented a secure data access mechanism based on identity-based encryption and biometric authentication in this paper, the mechanism set double protection for confidential data of cloud tenants, encryption will make the tenants data secure against the peekers and biometric authentication will eliminate the maloperations over tenants data by root administrator in cloud service. The security of data is maintained even though the same application is shared by mu ltitenant.To ensure the correctness of users’ data in cloud data storage, an effective and flexible biometric is proposed. i believe that data storage security in Cloud Computing, an area full of challenges and of paramount importance, is still in its infancy now, and many research problems are yet to be identified. This proposed method can be implemented with more security by using strong biometric m easures like eye. REFERENCES [1] http://en. wikipedia. org/wiki/Biometrics [2] J. L. Wayman, â€Å"Fundamentals of Biometric Authentication Xhtp:/ww. engr. sisu. edu/biometrics/nbtcw. p 4] http://www. fi. muni. cz/reports/files/older/FIMU-RS-2000-08. pdf [6] http://www. indexbiometrics. com/physiological_or_behavioral. htm [7] http://ntrg. cs. tcd. ie [8] Cernet. â€Å"CHARACTERISTICS OF BIOMETRIC SYSTEMS†. [online] available: http://www. ccert. edu. cn/education/cissp/hism/039-041. html. 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