How to Enhance and Sustain Free Knowledge Services? A Service Science Research Agenda for Open Knowledge Portals (OKPs) in East Asia

Abstract

Open Knowledge Portals (OKPs) are considered public educational service providers. Without charging usage fees, OKPs are facing financial woes in recent years. One solution is to acquire external sponsorships. Sponsors, however, only go to services that have scalable user bases. To understand how to sustain a strong OKP user base, this paper reports a research agenda implemented in East Asia to investigate user experiences and design features of OKPs. The study concluded that the OKP interface design should consider users' extrinsic motivation. Furthermore, an auxiliary system should attach to OKP to allow users to mentor peer users and share ideas.