Patent ID: 8126820
Filing Date: 2012-02-28
Classification: G06Q

Abstract:
1. A method for determining trust levels, comprising: selecting a first software application configured to provide data, wherein the first software application is selected from a plurality of data providers in a community; selecting a data import software configured to process data provided by the first software application into input data to a second software application, wherein the data import software is a data entry entity selected from a plurality of data entry entities in the community, wherein the first software application and the data entry entity together form a data source, and wherein the community comprises the plurality of data providers providing a plurality of provided data, a plurality of data entry entity providers for providing the plurality of data entry entities and assigning a quality level to each of the plurality of data entry entities, a plurality of software application providers for providing the first software application and the second software application, and a plurality of reviewers for rating each member of the community; obtaining, using a processor of a computer system, the data provided by the first software application and a trust level of the data provided by the first software application; retrieving, using the processor, the quality level of the selected data entry entity from a community system, wherein the quality level of the selected data entry entity is stored in the community system by a corresponding one of the plurality of data entry entity providers, wherein the community system is shared by the community and comprises a plurality of data entry quality levels corresponding to the plurality of data entry entities; obtaining, using the processor, a pre-determined formula configured by a first reviewer of the plurality of reviewers for determining a data source trust level, wherein the first reviewer uses the second software application to configure the pre-determined formula; determining, using the processor and by the second software application, the data source trust level based on the trust level of the data provided by the first software application and the quality level of the selected data entry entity according to the pre-determined formula, wherein the data source trust level indicates validity of data produced by the selected data entry entity; obtaining an input trust level scale configured by the first reviewer for trust level conversion; converting the data source trust level to an input trust level of the input data to conform to the input trust level scale; retrieving a trust structure of the second software application from the community system, wherein the trust structure comprises nodes representing data fields of the second software application and edges each representing a relationship between two corresponding data fields containing data with associated trust levels; identifying, within the nodes of the trust structure, a leaf node representing a first data field containing the input data with the input trust level and an inner node representing a result with a result trust level, wherein an edge between the leaf node and the inner node represents the relationship between the input data with the input trust level and the result with the result trust level, wherein the result is calculated from at least the input data by the second software application; and determining the result trust level from at least the input trust level according to the trust structure, wherein the result trust level indicates validity of the result.