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Emerald Article: An Online Knowledge-Centred Framework for Faculty Support and Service Innovation Wu He, M'Hammed Abdous

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This is an EarlyCite pre-publication article: Wu He, M'Hammed Abdous, (2013),"An Online Knowledge-Centred Framework for Faculty Support and Service Innovation", VINE, Vol. 43 Iss: 1 (Date online 8/1/2013) Downloaded on: 14-01-2013 To copy this document: permissions@emeraldinsight.com

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An Online Knowledge-Centred Framework for Faculty Support and Service Innovation

Author Details Author 1 Name: Wu He Role: Assistant Professor Department: Information Systems University/Institution: Old Dominion University Town/City: Norfolk State (US only): VA Country: USA Email: whe@odu.edu Author 2 Name: MHammed Abdous Role: Assistant Vice-President for Teaching and Learning with Technology and the Director of the Center for Learning and Teaching Department: Center for Learning and Teaching University/Institution: Old Dominion University Town/City: Norfolk State (US only): VA Country: USA Email: mabdous@odu.edu Corresponding author: Wu He Corresponding Authors Email: whe@odu.edu Please check this box if you do not wish your email address to be published Acknowledgments (if applicable): n/a Biographical Details (if applicable): Wu He is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Information Technology and Decision Sciences at Old Dominion University. Wu He received his Ph.D. at the University of Missouri. His research interests include knowledge management, data mining, cased-based Reasoning, and information technology education. Mhammed Abdous is the Assistant Vice-President for Teaching and Learning with Technology and the Director of the Center for Learning and Teaching at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia, where he provides leadership and assistance to the Provosts Office and to the Distance Learning office to (1) conceive, implement, and evaluate processes for effectively integrating technology into teaching and learning practices, and (2) manage and produce quality online programs and courses. Structured Abstract: Purpose This paper aims to share our experience gained while implementing a systematic knowledge-centred support approach to providing both support and service innovation within an organization whose mission is the offering of instructional design, learning technologies integration, multimedia production, and faculty development to faculty members. As it proposes a knowledge-centred support (KCS) framework for faculty support and service innovation, this paper aims to help other faculty support organizations to improve their current knowledge management and support practices. Design/methodology/approach This paper shares our practical experience in implementing a knowledge-centred support approach for both faculty support and service innovation. The paper uses our experience to introduce the proposed framework. Findings This paper develops a knowledge-centred support (KCS) framework for faculty support and service innovation. Practical concerns and insights are provided to help other faculty support organizations adopt and

implement the framework. We hope that our sharing of best practices can increase discussion about using knowledge management approaches to improve service quality and innovation among other faculty support organizations. Research limitations/implications Because the framework has been developed based on our organizational environment, the framework may lack generalizability. However, other faculty support organizations are encouraged to revise or to adapt our framework to suit their specific organizations cultures and goals. Practical implications Increasing service quality and innovation are major concerns for many faculty support organizations. Many faculty support organizations are exploring ways to provide a better service experience to faculty. This paper shares our experience in this area and has the potential to inspire other faculty support organizations to examine, rethink, and improve their current practices, using a knowledge management perspective. Originality/value Few articles discuss how faculty support organizations can use knowledge management approaches to increase service quality and innovation. This paper identifies such a shortage in the literature and can be used as a starting point to motivate other faculty support organizations to share their knowledge management experience for improving service quality and innovation. Keywords: Knowledge management, knowledge-centred support, service innovation, service quality, faculty support, faculty development Article Classification: Conceptual Paper For internal production use only

An Online Knowledge-Centred Framework for Faculty Support and Service Innovation

1. Introduction Todays support organizations are facing a number of challenges, including decreasing budgets, rising costs, increasing complexity, and increasing demand for services (Custy, 2007). In response to these challenges, many forward-looking organizations are embracing knowledge management (KM) and service innovation. As a result, various KM initiatives and service innovation approaches have been implemented to help support organizations to improve their service performance, to increase service innovation, and to achieve competitive advantage (Lubit, 2001; Adams and Lamont, 2003). As Lubit (2001) suggests, knowledge management is key to help companies to create and maintain a competitive advantage over time. Facing similar external and internal pressures for effectiveness, efficiency, and accountability, educational institutions are seeking to understand how they can improve their management and administrative practices and procedures. As these organizations realize that knowledge is a strategic resource capable of giving them a competitive advantage and helping them achieve long-term organizational goals, many educational organizations are seeking better ways to manage knowledge systematically and effectively. To this end, some educational organizations have attempted to incorporate knowledge management practices to support their traditional triumvirate: education, services, and research. As a result, knowledge management practices have gained acceptance in the field of education over the past decade (Sallis and Jones, 2002; Ubon and Kimble, 2002; Kidwell, Vander Linde, and Johnson, 2000; Ramachandran, Chong, and Ismail, 2009; Sohail and Daud, 2009). However, an extensive review of the literature reveals that the majority of knowledge management articles in education are focused on learning, teaching, and research purposes. Our review shows that few articles discuss the ways in which educational organizations have applied knowledge management practices within the faculty service support area. Even though they are faced with budget pressures and growing demands for performance improvement and accountability in education, faculty members are being asked to become more involved in teaching, learning, research, and various other services (DarlingHammond, 2009). To succeed in this endeavour, faculty are seeking more support from their universities in terms of faculty development and on-going support. The Center for Learning and Teaching (CLT) at our large US university is a faculty support service organization which houses a pool of experts including designers, technologists, programmers, and project managers. CLT has been providing a variety of services including instructional design, the teaching of the use of learning technologies, multimedia production, and faculty development to a wide audience, including nearly 800 faculty members (and their teaching assistants), nearly 700 adjuncts, and more than 450 faculty administrators at this university for more than ten years. Knowledge is regarded as a vital asset and is the main source for the services provided to faculty by CLT. As a support organization, CLT encounters the same traditional issues faced by faculty support organizations, including the need to respond to faculty requests quickly, the need to answer the same questions over and over, the need to lower support costs, and the need to avoid providing different answers to the same question. In addition, as

Page 2 of 14 technologies become increasingly complex and diverse, resolving issues and meeting faculty requests often becomes complicated and time-consuming. The complexity and diversity of technology can increase the stress level/burnout of the staff providing the service support. Furthermore, occasionally a key staff member leaves and takes his/her knowledge with him/her, which can threaten the maintenance of projects and the overall quality of service. Therefore, innovation is increasingly a requirement, as faculty need better support services to help them succeed in an environment of burgeoning competition in teaching and research. To meet these challenges, the Center has invested heavily in developing a systematic approach to knowledge management by designing several web-based systems intended to create, update, share, and streamline knowledge while improving and ensuring quality service. Outside of academia, knowledge management systems implementation has yielded mixed results. According to Thomas (2006) corporations that have implemented KMS have seen a wide range of outcomes ranging from enormous savings to significant losses. Among the first group, corporations, such as Ford and Texas Instruments, have reaped the benefits of knowledge management systems (KMS). These benefits include cost savings and improved efficiency (Bose, 2004; Nantapanuwat, Ractham, and Kaewkittipong, 2010; Hassan and Al-Hakim, 2011). In contrast, other researchers have reported that almost 70% of the surveyed knowledge management systems did not achieve the expected outcomes (Bose, 2004; Malhotra, 2005; Nantapanuwat, Ractham, and Kaewkittipong, 2010).
Alavi and Leidner (2001) point out that limited empirical work has been done regarding knowledge management. In particular, empirical evidence remains sparse regarding the implications for value creation through IT-supported knowledge management systems (Kautz and Mahnke, 2003). There is also a large gap in the literature regarding the interrelationship of knowledge management and service innovation (Hassan and Al-Hakim, 2011). Case studies and empirical research that discuss the relationship between knowledge management and service innovation are rather limited. As far as organizational performance is concerned, many factors have been recognized to have an effect on organizational performance (Kaplan and Norton, 1996). Thus, it is difficult to measure the contributions of a factor such as KM in improving organizational performance. Currently, only a small number of studies focus on the value and the effect of KM on organizations and organizational performance (Alavi and Leidner, 2001; Kruger and Johnson, 2011).

In an effort to enrich the body of knowledge in this area, this paper shares our experience of implementing a KMS to improve organizational performance and service innovation in a campus-level faculty support and service organization. The remainder of the paper is organized as follows: Section 2 presents a review of the literature in order to explore and identify the interrelationships between knowledge management, innovation, and organizational performance. In Section 3, the paper describes a knowledge-centred support framework that has transformed faculty support and has enhanced service innovation. Section 4 describes the practical concerns and insights of implementing the framework for faculty support organizations. Section 5 presents our conclusion and makes suggestions for future research. 2. Literature Review

Page 3 of 14 Our literature review will give a brief overview about the concepts of knowledge management, innovation, and organizational performance, and about the interrelationships among the three concepts. Knowledge Management (KM) Knowledge Management (KM) is a process used to create, store, retrieve, transfer, and apply knowledge (Alavi and Leidner, 2001). A KMS is a system which captures knowledge and allows the knowledge to be applied at a variety of levels in organizations (Gallupe, 2001). A KMS is typically used to manage organizational knowledge and to support the organizational process in terms of knowledge creation, storage/retrieval, transfer, and application (Alavi and Leidner, 1999). As knowledge is the key asset of support organizations, creating, managing, integrating, and maintaining knowledge is considered to be critical to the survival and success of support organizations. An organizations ability to learn and to acquire knowledge quickly in an ever-changing technical environment is believed to be its major source of competitive advantage (Winter, 1995). As a knowledge management framework, the knowledge-centred support (KCS) methodology has received much attention in recent years. The KCS is a powerful method developed by the Consortium for Service Innovation, a non-profit industry alliance which comprises a number of support organizations. Over the course of five revisions, the KCS has evolved into a rich methodology which provides a set of practices for creating and maintaining knowledge and for implementing KM in a support environment (Service Innovation, 2011; Gilbert, Morse, and Lee, 2007). According to Service Innovation, the KCS has four basic concepts: 1) Integrate the creation and maintenance of knowledge into the problem solving process; 2) Evolve content based on demand and usage; 3) Develop a knowledge base of collective experience to date; and 4) Reward learning, collaboration, sharing, and improving. (Service Innovation, 2011) However, many organizations have struggled with the implementation of KCS or KM. In practice, many organizational KM initiatives have not realized the goals that they had set out to achieve (Bagchi, 2010). Successful implementation of knowledge management must fully understand the work processes or activities that create and leverage organizational knowledge, build a technology infrastructure to support knowledge capture, transfer, and use; and develop an organizational culture to support effective knowledge use (Alavi and Leidner, 2001; Long, 1997). In addition, many factors also affect the success of KM implementation. These factors include human resource management, information technology, leadership, organizational learning, organizational strategy, organizational structure, and organizational culture (Hassan and AlHakim, 2011). Innovation Innovation is very important to the survival and growth of any organization (Geroski and Machin, 1992). The word innovation, though, has many definitions. According to Rogers (1998), innovation is concerned with the process of commercialising or extracting value from ideas. An innovation may also be perceived as an interrelated bundle of new ideas (Rogers, 2003). The adoption of one idea may trigger the adoption of others. According to Thomas Edison, one of the

Page 4 of 14 greatest innovators in history, innovation is more than simply coming up with a good idea; it is the process of growing that idea into practical use (Tidd and Bessant, 2008). Recently, du Plessis (2007) has defined innovation as the creation of new knowledge and ideas to facilitate new business outcomes, aimed at improving internal business processes and structures and to create market driven products and services. Innovation can be classified into many types, based on environmental conditions, organizational factors, innovation processes, and organizational sectors (Hassan and Al-Hakim, 2011). For example, Gloet and Terziovski (2004) distinguish between radical and incremental innovation. Radical innovation is a major change that represents a new technological pattern (Pedersen and Dalum, 2004). Incremental innovation is defined as the small technological changes in an organization which extend or modify existing products or services (Darroch and McNaughton, 2003; du Plessis, 2007; Roberts, 2008; Uden and Naaranoja, 2011). For service organizations, Damanpour et al. (2009) have identified three types of innovations: service innovation, technological innovation, and administrative innovation. Service innovation is defined as a company's new service offering beyond its usual service (i.e., an offering not previously available to a firm's customers), in terms of a new service potential, process, and/or result (Burrill and Ledolter, 1998; van der Aa and Elfring, 2002). Technological innovation is the knowledge that links methods, components, and techniques with processes in order to create a product or service (Popadiuk and Choo, 2006). Administrative innovation refers to changes in organizational structure and processes, including the authority, structuring of tasks, recruiting of personnel, and allocating of resources and rewards (Lin, Chen, and Chiu, 2010). Successfully innovative organizations usually: 1) have solid innovation processes; 2) have developed an innovation culture; 3) have visible innovation champions at all levels; and 4) use a mix of internal and external knowledge sources (Andersen and Queck, 2011). Organizational Performance According to Pitt and Tucker (2008), organizational performance is a vital sign of the organization, showing how well activities within a process or the outputs of a process achieve a specific goal. Hassan and Al-Hakim (2011) define organizational performance as the integration between organizational knowledge and innovation competence to achieve positive goals that have been identified previously. To compare the expected results with the actual results, in order to measure organizational performance, a number of metrics have been developed. According to the balanced scorecard (Kaplan and Norton, 1996) which is used extensively to align business activities to the vision, strategy, and performance measurements of business organizations, these metrics can be generally grouped into four major sections: financial perspective metrics, customer perspective metrics, internal business process perspective metrics, and learning and growth perspective metrics (Kaplan and Norton, 1996; Visser and Sluiter, 2007).

Interrelationship of Knowledge Management, Innovation, and Organizational Performance

Page 5 of 14

According to Uden and Naaranoja (2011), knowledge management (KM) is important to innovation. Generally, knowledge and innovation are inseparable. Innovation depends intensively on the availability of knowledge. A recent survey study by Rahimi, Arbabisarjou, Allameh, and Aghababaei (2011) also found that there is a positive and significant relationship between KM and creativity. They found that KM helps to promote creativity for innovation. Thus, it can be noted that knowledge management competencies and capacities are essential to any organization that aspires to be innovative. Uden and Naaranoja (2011) conclude that innovation and knowledge management are closely related. Furthermore, Uden and Naaranoja (2011) indicate that the use of knowledge management can enhance exploitation (i.e. where existing knowledge is captured, transferred, and deployed in other similar situations) and exploration (i.e., where knowledge is created) (Levinthal and March 1993). Exploitation can help reduce the problem of reinventing the wheel by reusing existing knowledge more effectively. Exploration through knowledge sharing supports the development of new ideas and solutions and is critical to any organizations ability to innovate. Previous studies have shown that there is a strong relationship between critical success factors of KM (such as human resource management, information technology, leadership, organizational learning, organizational strategy, organizational structure and organizational culture) and organizational performance (Asoh et al., 2007; Hassan and Al-Hakim, 2011). For example, Egbu et al. (1999) found that KM can promote innovation and improve business performance in the construction industry. Yang et al. (2009) found that culture, structure, and information technology (some of the critical success factors of KM) have positive effects on organizational performance. Zack, McKeen, and Singh (2009) found that KM practices showed a direct relationship with the intermediate measures of organizational performance, and organizational performance showed a significant and direct relationship to financial performance. As for the relationship between innovation and organizational performance, a number of previous studies have agreed that innovation has a positive effect on performance (Akgn, Keskin, Byrne, and Eng, 2009; Carmen, and Jos, 2008). The success of Apple Inc. in the past several years demonstrates that innovation is central to organizational performance. The balanced scorecard (Kaplan and Norton, 1996) also indicates that an organization's ability to innovate, improve, and learn ties directly to its performance. 3. A Knowledge-centred Support Framework for Faculty Support and Service Innovation Since service quality and service innovation are considered by service organizations to be important factors both in creating a positive user experience and in improving user satisfaction (Brady, Cronin, and Brand, 2002; Magnusson, Matthing, and Kristensson, 2003), CLT works hard to study and absorb best practices in order to improve the quality of its service and to enhance service innovation for continued success. Figure 1 depicts our knowledge-centred support (KCS) framework, which is used for faculty support and service innovation. The framework was developed based on KCS methodology and on our many years of authentic experience in providing support services to faculty. Specifically, to develop this framework, the authors examined the practices and systems used by CLT during

Page 6 of 14 the past six years. Feedback is being collected to continuously refine the framework. In general, the framework summarizes the way CLT creates and shares knowledge, continuously creates new services, and empowers all staff members to create, share, modify, and reuse knowledge. This framework is the key to effective problem solving and service innovation in support organizations, and has worked well at CLT. A description of the framework is offered below. INSERT FIGURE 1 HERE To better meet the variety of requests from faculty and to ensure continuous service improvement, CLT has implemented and integrated the KCS into its day-to-day operations. A number of tools including a web-based faculty contact tracking system, a web-based project management system, and a web-based knowledge base have been developed and deployed to capture, maintain, share, and reuse support knowledge. All of the support requests from faculty by email, telephone, and face-to-face talk have been recorded by CLT staff using a web-based faculty request tracking system. These requests are also categorized and organized by staff to facilitate online retrieval and reporting. In essence, we capture all of the support requests as well as relevant knowledge or solutions for answering faculty requests at all times through the faculty request tracking system. Meanwhile, we have developed a knowledge base to store our collective support knowledge earned while addressing faculty needs to date. All of the knowledge in the knowledge base has been verified and is regularly updated to ensure the quality of the content. The content in the knowledge base has been evolving and growing and provides an effective means of solving problems and offering self-service. When a staff member receives a support request, he or she can check the knowledge base to see if there is an article or solution about this type of request or situation. If a relevant article or solution is found in the knowledge base, then the staff member can easily address the support request. If the staff member cannot find anything pertinent to the support request within the knowledge base, then the staff member does research to resolve the problem independently or by collaborating with others. The research process involves creating new knowledge, sharing knowledge, and verifying knowledge. CLT is involved in a variety of efforts, ranging from simple, small-scale projects to complex, large-scale projects. Faculty submit their project requests to CLT for review. Once a project is approved, a team of CLT staff members is assigned to the project and is responsible for its execution and completion. During this process, staff members are actively engaged in knowledge creation and application. The newly created knowledge is also recorded into the knowledge base, depending on the demand and usage. And lastly, designated CLT staff members also conduct data mining and content analysis on the support requests and the project information stored in the web-based faculty request tracking system and in the project management system on a regular basis to discover patterns, insights, and issues. As a result, new knowledge can be created or discovered. This new knowledge can be stored in the knowledge base and shared with other staff members (Abdous and He, 2009). Within the framework, the knowledge base has also made support knowledge available to faculty members, who can now look for answers at their convenience, in a self-service format. The self-

Page 7 of 14 service element of the knowledge base has also lowered the cost of support and has saved staff time in supporting faculty requests. Faculty members are able to obtain immediate assistance, at all times, from the content in the knowledge base. This web-based self-service offering provides a valuable support channel to faculty, in a controlled and managed way. The knowledge-centred support framework provides distinct benefits to CLT as it offers support to the faculty. It enables CLT to increase its support capacity and to improve the facultys satisfaction. With the implementation of the knowledge-centred support framework, CLT is able to leverage its newly available knowledge capacity, to increase service innovation capability, and to offer new services to faculty, including the teachBANK (its teaching and learning repository), an online course development system (Abdous and He, 2008a), and a syllabus generator (Abdous and He, 2008b). In March 2011, CLT polled faculty members about their overall satisfaction with CLT services. Overall, on a rising Likert scale of 1 to 5, satisfaction with the quality of the project received a 4.70 rating, and the effort and willingness of the CLT staff to understand and solve problems earned a 4.75 rating. These results show that the implementation of the knowledge-centred support framework at CLT has achieved good outcomes. 4. Practical Concerns and Insights of Implementing the Framework Although many organizations have implemented KM, not many of them are considered to have been successful in their KM effort (Rahimi, Arbabisarjou, Allameh, and Aghababaei, 2011). Martins (2000) found that certain environmental circumstances, strategic approaches, the values and actions of top management, the organizational structure, and the technologies used are related to the success of KM implementation in organizations. As KM implementation is an investment that needs extensive resources and effort, it is important to ensure that people, processes, and technologies are aligned to effectively support the management of organizational knowledge. The implementation of a knowledge-centred support framework such as the one described above is not easy and requires a supportive environment and a culture that explicitly supports and recognizes knowledge sharing, creation, use, and innovation (Kamath, Rodrigues and Desai, 2011). Barriers that prevent successful implementation of KM must be identified, reviewed, and addressed (Alavi and Leidner, 2001). Based on our experience, the main barrier for the successful implementation of KM is related to knowledge sharing and creation (He, Means, and Lin, 2006). The performance of an organization depends upon how effectively its people can create and share knowledge around the organization, and how effectively they can use that knowledge. Thus, it is critical to have an open culture that encourages knowledge sharing, promotes dialogue in the workplace, and supports innovation. The development of such an open culture needs multi-level support, including leadership commitment, supervisor and co-worker support, and incentives (Kulkarni, Ravindran and Freeze, 2007). Particularly, in an organization that supports innovation, employees who share specialized knowledge and bring new ideas and experiences should be recognized and rewarded, in order to make knowledge sharing a reality (Uden and Naaranoja, 2011). To enable and to accelerate service innovation, the framework must be implemented in an

Page 8 of 14 environment conducive for innovation to take place. As knowledge sharing is important to innovation, a knowledge sharing culture needs to be created to promote close collaboration among staff members and between staff members and faculty. To that end, the Director of the CLT has been committed to the encouragement of knowledge sharing. Staff members are asked to provide topics for knowledge sharing and professional development sessions on a regular basis. The sessions are usually facilitated by staff members who want to share specialized knowledge. To sustain long-term service innovation, top management must encourage individual learning and personal growth. The Director of CLT continues to encourage innovative thinking on the part of staff members. Staff members who come up with new ideas often receive support with resources and time release to further develop their ideas, and they are also recognized and rewarded. For example, an instructional technology specialist recently offered an idea for interactive informational kiosk. His idea received support from CLT and the kiosk, was developed and deployed, and is now widely used. To offer a practical roadmap for other faculty support organizations, we suggest the following steps for implementing the framework presented in Figure 1. 1. During the planning phase, the top management of faculty support organizations must clarify expectations with the staff in order to gain their buy-in and participation (He, Means, and Lin, 2006). Both a summary of best practices and an analysis of current practices need to be provided to the staff so that they can understand any gaps and the targeted goal. Policies such as accountability, roles, responsibilities, workload, performance review, rewards, and recognition should be discussed and established with the involvement of the staff. 2. During the implementation phase, it is important to engage both faculty and support staff in continuous dialogue in order to co-develop solutions through a knowledge exchange of needs and ideas (Uden & Naaranoja, 2011). For example, CLT offers 5-10 faculty innovation grants each year to encourage faculty members to work with CLT to develop new ideas, techniques, and products for teaching and learning. Some of these grant ideas and products have been implemented and disseminated across the entire campus. Magnusson (2003) found that the service innovations suggested by users were more creative and useful than those suggested by professionals. On the other hand, the suggestions of the professionals were deemed easier to produce (Magnusson, 2003). However, oftentimes it is not easy to implement what the users demand. Thus, the key is to find an effective balance between exploiting their organizational capability and exploring new technologies, solutions, and innovative ideas. In addition, we recommend using a request tracking system to document faculty needs and to manage dialogue with faculty at all times. The recorded requests from faculty can be integrated with other faculty-related systems to provide a rich data set for data analysis and data-driven decision making. 5. Conclusions and Future Research The importance of managing organizational knowledge and innovation processes has long been recognized (Paiva and Fensterseifer, 2002; Nonaka, 2006; Kangas, 2006; Uden and Naaranoja,

Page 9 of 14 2011). It is important for service organizations to improve the quality of existing services and to develop new services constantly in order to gain a competitive advantage. The literature concludes that knowledge-centred support and service innovation are critical to the success of support organizations. This paper describes the real-time experiences of a campus faculty support organization that has successfully implemented and integrated knowledge-centred support in its day-to-day operations. In the paper, a knowledge-centred support framework for faculty support and service innovation is validated with evidence from a faculty support organization and is presented in order to provide guidance and inspiration to other similar support organizations, in the hope that it will stimulate them to follow, fine-tune, and expand this framework. Few empirical studies are conducted to determine the effects of KM and innovation on improving organizational performance (Hassan and Al-Hakim, 2011). In particular, an extensive search on the Internet and across academic databases shows that few articles discuss the ways in which faculty support organizations have used knowledge management approaches to increase their service quality and innovation. This paper notes this shortage in the literature and as attempts to provide a starting point that will motivate other faculty support organizations to share their knowledge management experiences regarding the improvement of service quality and innovation. Future work will focus on the further identification of obstacles to service innovations and will explore the role of informal knowledge sharing in service innovation as well as the effect of service innovation on service performance. CLT also plans to expand its effort in using social media to encourage and enable multiple-level interaction and collaboration aimed at developing ideas, solving problems, sharing knowledge, and improving responsiveness and innovation productivity. And CLT would also like to find ways to further enrich its knowledge base and thus improve the rate at which faculty use self-service before they request person-to-person assistance. References Abdous, M., and He, W. (2009), Using text mining to support learning in live video streaming, British Journal of Educational Technology, 40(5), pp. 40-49. Abdous, M., and He, W. (2008a), Streamlining Online Course Development Process by Using Project Management Tools, Quarterly Review of Distance Education, 9(2), pp.181-188. Abdous, M., and He, W. (2008b), A Design Framework for Syllabus Generator, Journal of Interactive Learning Research, 19(4), pp. 541-550. Adams, G., and Lamont, B. (2003), Knowledge management systems and developing sustainable competitive advantage", Journal of Knowledge Management, 7(2), pp.142154. Akgn, A. E. , Keskin, H., and Byrne, J. (2009), Organizational emotional capability, product and process innovation, and firm performance: An empirical analysis, Journal of

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Figure 1. A knowledge-centred support framework for faculty support and service innovation