The knowledge creation process in developing academic products and the service system in Universitas Terbuka

Purwanto, Agus Joko and Marisa
Universitas Terbuka
Indonesia

The development of academic products and a service system in the Indonesian Open University (Universitas Terbuka/UT) should be carried out continually so that it can provide good quality products and effective learning support to students. The process of knowledge creation involves tacit and explicit knowledge.

The aim of this research is to explore the factors that influence knowledge creation in developing academic products and a service system in UT. The subjects of the research were five teams in the UT Head Office and Regional Offices. The study focused on the areas of developing learning materials using a tablet; research information systems; work procedures at the Regional Offices; and systems for academic and academic administration services via a short message service (SMS). The data, which were obtained by conducting in-depth interviews of the various team leaders, showed that several factors contribute to the effectiveness of the development process. These factors are team members having sufficient technical ability, experience and knowledge; a high level of authority and a non-hierarchical approach in the work team; leaders tolerating faults and errors during the project development; support from the management; promoting motivation by praise and compensation; and the availability of a reliable IT infrastructure. The factors which inhibited the development process were the time availability of team members, a low level of competence among team members, and the lack of human resources.