Abstract:
A computer implemented system and method for providing a computer and collaboration platform around knowledge transfer, expertise, innovation, tangible, intangible and information assets are disclosed. The system converts a static expert content into an active forum in an effective manner to promote collaboration among users in the various categories. The system converts the static content into one or more sections according to a parsing rule. Each section is assigned with one or more categories and one or more plug-ins for forming a framework. The system captures the framework as a model and generates one or more data partnering objects, and stores them in a database. Pursuant to a user&#39;s request and attributes of the user, appropriate one or more of the data partnering objects are retrieved from the database to generate an active forum. The system, then, publishes the active forum.

Description:
CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS 
       [0001]    This application claims priority from U.S. Provisional Patent Application No. 61/095,265, filed on Sep. 8, 2008, the teachings of which are incorporated herein by reference. 
     
    
     STATEMENT REGARDING FEDERALLY SPONSORED RESEARCH OR DEVELOPMENT 
       [0002]    Not Applicable. 
       NAMES OF THE PARTIES TO A JOINT RESEARCH AGREEMENT 
       [0003]    Not Applicable. 
       REFERENCE TO A “SEQUENCE LISTING” 
       [0004]    Not Applicable. 
       BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 
       [0005]    1. Field of the Invention 
         [0006]    The present invention relates to the fields of Internet based computer implemented methods and computer implemented systems for community collaboration. For the purposes of this patent application, a community collaboration software includes any form of collaboration software including without limitation bulletin board, forum software, wikis, blogs, chat, white boards, e-learning software, desktop sharing, file sharing, social media software and social networking software. 
         [0007]    It further relates to the creation of an on-line market for the purposes of authoring and distributing expertise. 
         [0008]    2. Description of Related Art 
         [0009]    It is known in the art to provide collaboration software for groups of individuals to create and share information, interact with each other through the software and generally use the software to achieve an individual or group objective. Generally these systems store the collaboration for future reference and further discussion or collaboration. 
         [0010]    These existing systems have a number of limitations:
       (a) Substantial barriers to entry—there is no efficient automated technique for extracting pre-existing information sources, either legacy, proprietary, database, xml or within the framework itself and perpetuating that access to serve as the basis for community discussion and collaboration;   (b) There is no actionable capability for the most part other than, post, reply, ratings, subscriptions and digest. Consequently they are boundless systems that don&#39;t serve the discreet management functions of decisions, actions, budgets, score-carding and assessment;   (c) There is no technique or process for providing expert based communities with the ability to provide alternative interfaces and controls for authors, assessors and beneficiaries of expertise and serve all audiences in one framework;   (d) There is no capability to provide syndication of expert content conveyed in an assessment model to subscribing forums with controls for opt-in, content inclusion and exclusion;   (e) There is no capability to start discussion with a discussion thread creation capability through email with multiple participants and the ability to redirect that to a central discussion forum or wiki;   (f) There is no capability to provide an infinite organizational capability to discussion and collaboration while still providing an infinite number of plug-in capabilities with propagation of plug-in functionality from any of level of category of discussion to all child categories and topics; and   (g) There is no capability to define and determine the mood around areas of discussion other than to print or view traditional metrics and statistics.       
 
         [0018]    Accordingly, there have been long felt needs for some solutions that address at least one or more of the aforementioned limitations. 
       BRIEF SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION 
       [0019]    An object of the present invention is to provide an extendable community and collaboration platform whereby participants can be involved in the creation, discussion, assessment and management of expert content, innovative ideas and topical information. The basis for this communication and collaboration is openly integrated with existing data sources and therefore requires very little effort to establish the discussion and collaboration base. A discussion, assessment or collaboration can be founded on a variety of data sources from SQL queries, XML and XML based documents and syndication. A multi-tiered organization structure coupled with data partnering between Categories and topics allows communities to exploit preexisting templates, standards, baselines, structures. Plug-ins for scorecarding, team scoring, survey, assessment, tasks delegation, budgets and decisions augment the traditional benefits of discussion and collaboration. The model provides a very robust authoring and distribution capability, effectively turning knowledge and expertise into decisions and action. 
         [0020]    According to one embodiment of the present invention, it provides an efficient method and system for experts to package their expertise and for organizations and users to acquire and consume expertise in the context of their business or industry and optionally in the context of their data partnered elements. 
         [0021]    Another object of the present invention is to remove many of the barriers and weaknesses of existing community and collaboration computer implemented methods and systems. In the context of barriers, people frequently begin discussions in email rather than in community discussion software. According to another embodiment of the present invention, it provides a computer-implemented method and system to re-create the discussion in the community collaboration software. 
         [0022]    Additionally, another object of the present invention is to provide a computer-implemented method and system to capture the essence of whether discussion threads and community interaction is negative or positive. According to yet another embodiment of the present invention, it provides a computer-implemented method and system for abstracting moods based on user definable metaphors. 
     
    
     
       BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE SEVERAL VIEWS OF THE DRAWING 
         [0023]      FIG. 1  shows a flow diagram of a process of transforming a state of conventional expert content into a dynamic state of an active forum of an embodiment of the present invention; 
           [0024]      FIG. 2  shows a flow diagram of a process of extracting category mapping and topic from an input document into an active forum; 
           [0025]      FIG. 3  shows a flow diagram of a process of changing states based on e-mail communications among the users, and transforming them into an active forum; 
           [0026]      FIG. 4  shows a flow diagram of a process of detecting mood from data in an active forum; 
           [0027]      FIG. 5  shows a flow diagram of a subscription process to and dynamically creating an active forum from a model; 
           [0028]      FIG. 6  shows a system overview of the embodiment of the present invention; 
           [0029]      FIG. 7  shows a flow diagram of a process of creating categories and topics in an active forum from one of several types of import documents; 
           [0030]      FIG. 8  shows the basic data model of the embodiment of the present invention; and 
           [0031]      FIG. 9  shows an exemplary schema, defining a relationship between categories, groups and users who participate in the model and the active forum in various capacities as administrators, experts and users. 
       
    
    
     DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION 
       [0032]    According to one embodiment of the present invention, it provides a computer-implemented method and system for discussion and content dimensioning, the ability to size, organize, scale and populate discussion categories and topics in a number of ways:
       (a) First, the topic and topic discussion threads, wiki and blogs can be nested in a 1 to N structure restricted only by the interface, computing power and storage; and   (b) Second, each category is open to data partnering which allows the user to extract content one time or provide on-going synchronization with external data sources through XML, SQL Queries, CSV and existing Categories and Topics.       
 
         [0035]    The present invention also provides a computer implemented server system and method for discussion and content propagation from email, whereby a user is able to forward an email to an address that is mapped to a category designated as an email posting category. An unlimited number of categories can be setup to receive email from unique email addresses. 
         [0036]    A user (expert user and/or end user) that belongs to a community will also be able to invoke within a conventional e-mail client software, such as Outlook, an add-in to Outlook, which will provide an interface to start a discussion category or topic based on the email&#39;s subject and content as well as an interface to select and invite other users through email to participate in ongoing discussions within the community platform rather than continuing through email. 
         [0037]    The present invention further provides a computer implemented server system and method to augment the basis for discussion(s) and content(s) and allow the server system to be used for very different horizontal and vertical applications. A set of personality plug-ins allows the computer implemented server system and method to be used as a platform for the purpose of authoring and distributing expertise. Team authoring with full discussion capability is provided. Groups with authoring rights can develop expert content which then can be exported and syndicated to other individuals, groups or communities that want to use that expert content to form their own discussions. 
         [0038]      FIG. 6  shows a system overview of an embodiment of the present invention. One or more network servers  140  having an access to a data storage device(s) such as a hard disk or memory, comprising one or more databases  24 . The network servers  140  are in communication with network communication means, such as Internet  100 . One or more expert users  120 , one or more administrative users  110  and one or more end users  130  access through the Internet  100  to the network servers  140 . 
         [0039]    The network servers  140  are computer implemented server systems, implementing a framework  141 , a process of which is shown as reference numeral  16  in  FIG. 1 , including but not limited to an internal forum parser  142 , model creation module  143 , model capture module  144 , and model publishing module  145 . 
         [0040]    In  FIG. 1 , expert content  1  is authored and entered through Expert Author Interface  2  by an author (not shown) to form an expert framework  16 . The Expert Author Interface  2 , then, initiates and activates the internal forum parser  142 . The internal forum parser  142  examines the expert content  1 , splits the expert content  1  into sections according to a parsing rule(s) and associated or related context(s), and assigns attributes, categories, topic mappings, etc to each of the sections of the expert content  1  manually based on inputs by the author via the Expert Author Interface  2  or automatically by the internal forum parser  142 . The Expert Author Interface  2  further allows the author to enable variety of actionable plug-ins  3  and corresponding associated host applications thereto for each of the sections of the expert content  1  separately and independently. The actionable plug-ins  3  include, but not limited to, scorecard  5 , assessment  6 , budgets  7 , tasks  8 , and 3 rd  party plug-ins  9 . The core plug-ins are scorecard  5  (individual, team and survey), assessment  6 , budgets  7  and tasks  8 . 
         [0041]    The author can also set certain values for in context plug-in values  4 , which optimize the utility of the expert framework  16 . Without context, the expert content would be poorly defined in terms of optimizing the utility of having expert content  1  convert to a higher value proposition of assessment, benching marking and improvement. Context plug-in values go beyond descriptors and capture status or process in the context of systematic improvement of the expert content  1 . The scorecard  5  is controlled via scorecard controls  15 , and can be managed by a single user, multi-users or survey (unspecified multiple users). The scorecard  5  can be either editable by users other than the author of the expert content  1  or locked to a particular group(s) of users for preventing others from editing and, therefore, to force to maintain the integrity and authenticity of the original authored expert content  1 . Once this process is complete, such framework is captured as a model at step  11 , and the model is stored in the database  24 . 
         [0042]    These plug-ins  3 ,  5 ,  6 ,  7 ,  8  and  9  compliment expert authored content (or expert content)  1  and allow communities to go beyond discussion and allow them to benchmark or assess against the expert standard, provide assessment comments, set priorities, action plans and budgets. The network servers  140  furthermore provide an end user(s) or expert user(s) to augment the expert content  1  while still respecting a syndicated relationship with the expert content  1  so that the end user(s) or expert user(s) can streamline, advance and provide a turnkey expert assessment framework based on their unique needs. 
         [0043]    Additionally, a user (expert user or/and end user) that assessing an expert(s) can then propagate documentation(s), suggestion(s), guideline(s), warning(s) coming out of a particular assessment process that would be beneficial for the general membership (for example, commonly employees). It is essentially a life cycle knowledge based framework involving authoring, assessment, improvement and dissemination. The present invention provides a computer implemented server system and method that allows authors to use web based authoring tools in order to offer syndicated content(s) to less capable user organizations, which in turn will be benchmark, improve and publish broader direction to a user community(ies). The platform basically matches experts to managers who then serve community(ies). 
         [0044]    The plug-ins  3  other than the core plug-ins include, but are not limited to: audit, analysis, assets, ads, agreements, bugs, chat, content, contracts, controls, decisions, copyright, discovery, forms, chart, innovation, invention, copyright, patents, knowhow, trademarks, trade secrets, domains, innovation, meetings, IP, map, newsgroups, operations, outlines, policy, process, procurement, projects, reports, sponsorship, strategy, tactics, teams, trends, analytics. 
         [0045]    The author can then control order, security (or access privilege), look and feel, and program behavior  10  to create a model for the expert content  1  for framework  16 . This process extends to any one or more categories for one or more frameworks or models. The various roles of users are handled through this process and a data dictionary depicted in  FIG. 9 .  FIG. 9  shows an exemplary schema  160  that supports N level Categories  161 , N Level Groups  163 , N Level users  164 , Group and User Category relationships  162  and User Group relationships  165 . 
         [0046]    Since the network servers  140  support data partnering with categories and different plug-ins and security accesses for partnered categories, the network servers  140  provides an active forum for different audiences and for completely different purposes. 
         [0047]    The network servers  140  allow a user and/or expert user to initiate and activate the model capture module  144  for capturing the model created based on the expert content  1 , storing the model in the database  24 , generates data partnering objects according to the model and store same to the database  24 , and published an active forum that is generated by retrieving appropriate one or more data partnering objects and models from the database  24  in response to a request from a user and/or attributes of the user, such as categories that the user is interested in, topics, etc, by the model publishing module  145 . The network servers  140  allow the expert framework  16  to be applied to create an active forum  12  or/and in a plurality against virtually any relevant data partner object  13 . This is vastly superior to other change state documents such as PDF&#39;s that offer a sequential reading with just bookmarking and search. The expert content  1  is replicated with framework controls across data partner objects  13  at far greater efficiency than others, such as spreadsheet or PDF documents. 
         [0048]    The network servers  140  do not provide means to propagate discussion and content only via web client software (for example, a web browser) but also via email, whereby a user is able to forward an email to an address that is mapped to a category designated as an email posting category. An unlimited number of categories can be setup to receive email from unique email addresses. 
         [0049]    A new active forum(s) or a new category(ies) of expert content  1  are created dynamically from the model  12  and are data partnered with a variety of data sources representing data partnering objects  13  against which you can benchmark, manage or assess the expert content against. These can be buildings, people, hazards, employees, processes, patents or any number of data partnering objects  13 . 
         [0050]    The expert content  1 , framework  16  and associated data partnering objects  13  are then made available through an interface  14  and via the model publishing module  145  to users (expert users and/or end users) who can perform an evaluation or assessment. 
         [0051]    Referring to  FIG. 5 , the network servers  140  also allow for the expert user(s) and/or end user(s) who contribute subject matter expertise to a library to be rewarded for their contribution through an ongoing royalty distribution  93 . It also provides means for subscribers  80  to gain individual access to the expert  94  to contract through the network servers  140  for changes to the content or to provide one on one service  93 . 
         [0052]    The network servers  140  further implement a subscription system  81  that allows subscribers  80  through an online facility to select the content/expert library that they would like to license, along with administrative credentials, the number of assessors assessing the expert content  1 , and the number of end users that would want access thereto. 
         [0053]    The assessors and/or end users would also indicate whether they would want to subscribe to content improvements including the term of subscription. The network servers  140  then activate or call e-commerce settlement module (for example, a third party ecommerce settlement application)  82  to process the billing and payment method for the subscribers  80 . Once the transaction is verified, the network servers  140  generates an active forum according to the subscriber&#39;s categories and topics based on expert models through an API  23  which accesses the expert models  85  that reside in the database  24  and generates an active forum or a unique instance of an expert content based community  92  with pre-set expert contents, administration, groups and access rights. 
         [0054]    A verified transaction by the e-commerce settlement module  82  with the creation of a subscriber forum (or active forum) triggers an expert royalty agreement and contract system  93  which is accessible by Experts  94 . to provide instructions to an e-commerce settlement system (or third party payment processing system)  95  and outputs payment processing process  96  to the Experts  94  according to the usage of the corresponding expert content. 
         [0055]    The expert(s)  94  may provide new or changed expertise  88  which updates the expert content(s)  87 . An expert content change service  89  is invoked based on any change to the expert content  87 , and the expert content change service  89 , in turn, invokes a notifier  90  which alerts the associated forum administrator(s) through the active forums  92  related to the expert content  87  and further invokes the content update process  91  as an interface which retrieves the updated expert content(s) from the expert model  85 , present changes to a subscriber(s) for receiving approval(s), and applies the changes subject to the subscriber approval(s). 
         [0056]    Beyond expertise, which essentially addresses the management of anything, the network servers  140  are also applicable to innovation and intellectual property. The network servers  140  can data partner, for example, using known data partnering protocols, with intellectual property and legal agreement databases (not shown) and provide scorecarding for patent valuation, invention classification, license risks and opportunities, and agreement exposure. 
         [0057]    The network servers  140  are provided with an existing innovation database schema that can supplement existing intellectual asset management systems, accounting systems, human resource systems or can be run independently. The network servers  140  allow, via an active forum, employees, managers, contractors, owners, consultants, advisors and shareholders to contribute, build-on, debate and assess ideas and opportunities. 
         [0058]    The network servers  140  consists of a participation, contribution and awards systems that allow administrators to establish how they want to incent the various participants (expert users and/or end users), including financial, recognition and in-kind contributions to charitable organization of the either the individual or organizations choice. 
         [0059]    The online signup for expert users based content/libraries provides a calculator for displaying the amount of time the users saved by licensing, the expert based library based on the assessors skill level and that of the average member. 
         [0060]    Referring back to  FIG. 2 , the network servers  140  of the embodiment of the present invention allows an expert user  120  to enter expert content  1  using xml documents, Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, Microsoft PowerPoint and/or Adobe PDF files  21  as input (or imported document) to an extractor interface  22 . The extractor interface  22  parses the imported document according to a parsing rule(s), and presents a mapping of categories and topics against the outline of the imported document. The extractor interface  22  includes the expert author interface  2 , which invokes the model creation module  143 , model capture module  144  and model publishing module  145  in the similar manner as the aforementioned. The lowest data element in the imported document, for example, is presented by default as a topic while upper elements in the outline are presented hierarchically as categories. Outline elements can be combined to form a category or topic. 
         [0061]    When the design of the content is completed, the extractor interface  22  invokes the API  23  to create or update category and topic content for one or more active forums, blogs and wikis in the database  24 . 
         [0062]    The extractor interface  22  initially parses the documents to determine a hierarchy  25  and the scope of the content in terms of the starting point or highest point of the imported document  26 , for example, the title or the header, the number of levels (for example, sections, chapters, outline levels and topic endpoint such as a sentence or paragraph). The extractor interface  22  displays to the expert user (or author) a view of the original imported content in a separate pane and then provides a machine generated layout of the imported document in nested categories and topics  27  in a separate pane and allows the author to reorganize the nested categories and topics  28 . Once a desired layout is achieve, confirmation of final extractor  29  occurs and then the extractor calls the API  23  to create or update Forum, Blog or Wiki, Categories and Topics in the database  24 . 
         [0063]    The embodiment of the present invention provides a computer-implemented system and method that takes a static content, parsing and splitting the imported content into sections so that the imported content can be made available within an active forum, blog or wiki for discussion and collaboration. The extractor interface  22  further invokes the framework  16 , allowing users/expert users to bring the full framework  16  to bear on the expert content (or imported document). 
         [0064]    For example, the importation of a large Word document which covers 100s of areas of improvements for Government. By importing the 100s of areas of improvements, the present invention allows users to hold discussions and score, assess, budget and assign tasks to very specific section areas of improvement. 3rd party plug-ins can further augment the capability of making information actionable. Category and topic data partnering as well as database data partnering provides means of propagating specific sections to specific forums. 
         [0065]    In  FIG. 7 , we see an example of a CSV file  250  by which the import process  251  creates new categories and topics based on the mapping. The CSV files  250  may have rows of data delimited by a carriage return(s). The user may define a parsing rule for a parser of the importing process  251 . For example, the user may define which indexes in a line would map to topic name, summary section, body section, etc. The import process  251  may creates new topics within the network servers  140 . Since each of the new categories can have N number (one or more) of plug-ins associated with it, each topic inherits the plug-ins available to the category. Each of the topics can have one or more plug-ins like a Scorecard associated with the topic and provide additional functionality(ies) to each of the sections that came from the CSV file  250 . The result is Category and Topic creation  252 . 
         [0066]    The basic data model is shown in  FIG. 8 . The basic data model consists of an Active Forum  253  that can have 1 to N Categories  254 , with 1 to N Topics  255  and  1  to N Messages  256 . The Categories can also have 1 to N Plug-Ins  257  as well as 1 to N Data Partnerships  258 . 
         [0067]    In  FIG. 3 , graphic elements  41 ,  42 ,  43 ,  44 ,  45 ,  46 , and  47  portray a traditional email communication between multiple recipients. For example, E-mail  41  comprises e-mail addresses of recipients, subject of the e-mail, contents (or e-mail body text) and attachments. Originating e-mail  42  may be sent or received via Internet and Mail Servers  45 . Or, various e-mail responses (being replied to the original or forwarded therefrom)  47  comprises the similar elements as original e-mail  41 , including addresses of recipients, subjects, content, attachments and history of correspondences. Such E-mail replied and forwarded  46  travels through Internet and Mail Servers  45  as well. Such correspondences (original e-mails  42  or replied/forward e-mails  46 ) may be monitored via the network servers  140  for its effectiveness. Once the effectiveness has been declined or has determined to be declined at step  43  or  44 , the network servers  140  may be used to take over the e-mail thread, published in an active forum to improve the communication effectiveness. 
         [0068]    The network servers  140  of the embodiment of the present invention address the issue of providing a system that is able to provide a communications and interface change of state when the history and involvement of multiple email recipients results in a loss of productivity as defined as a decline in effectiveness  43 ,  44 . The network servers  140  interface with an e-mail client(s), available as an add-on to an e-mail discussion client program interface such as add-on to Outlook  49  or as an e-mail discussion web service interface  48  that is available as an http address or as an email address. These interfaces  48  and  49  extract the component parts of the email thread  50  and present a preview of all of the content arranged by category and topic  51 , which resembles to the process denoted as reference numeral  16  in  FIG. 1 . Upon acceptance of the preview the API  23  is called and invokes the systematic processes of creating an active forum  53 , registering participants to the active forum by setting security, groups and subscriptions  54 , creating categories and topics  55 , inserting history and attachments  56  and issuing invitation to other uses associated with the groups, subscription, topic and/or categories  57  in accordance with the preview criteria. The embodiment of the present invention provides a collaborative discussion based interface as an alternative to email. 
         [0069]    The network servers  140  of the present invention may further provide a user definable reporting system, which is based on taxonomy provides for metaphor based reporting. For instance the weather report for communities allows the user to define types of weather associated with the mood reflected in discussion. Each type of weather has a set of words or slang, symbols, punctuation, emoticons, and business rules. The system is flexible in terms of the number of metaphors. The system can also be historical, current or predictive in terms of displaying the metaphors—in this case the weather. A community discussion that has a lot of frustrated users for instance might display a weather metaphor of a storm. The words depicted might be very negative, the punctuation emphatic, the emoticons bitter, angry, and the business rules may show slow responses from the community to questions or problems etc. The overall result is that for this category there is a fairly negative mood and therefore the current weather is stormy depicted by a grey sky and storm cloud. The historical works on the same basis and the predictive is based on the trend (% change from one mood to another). 
         [0070]    For example, in  FIG. 4 , an extractor  65  of the network servers  140  parses and extracts data from active forums and blogs  61  by discussion topics  62 , replies  63  and ratings  64 . The extractor  65  looks at all of the elements in the active forums and blogs for text, punctuation, ratings and emoticons. 
         [0071]    Separately, a mood definition facility creates a mood lexicon  68  which is contained in a server database. The mood lexicon  68  is created from mood metaphors  74  and mood definitions  73 . 
         [0072]    The dashboard generator  66  examines the extractor  65  output in the context of the mood lexicon  68  and generates a dashboard  70  showing past, present and future (forecasted) moods. 
         [0073]    The user then provides accuracy feedback through the verification facility  71  by drilling down and or view accuracy reports  67  as output. The mood interpreter updater  72  takes accuracy feedback from the verification facility and updates the mood lexicon  68  accordingly. 
         [0074]    The present invention addresses the problem that fixed data does not provide adequate feedback for community and collaborative sites where forums and blogs and freeform text, punctuation, symbols, ratings and emoticons capture the mood of the community. Users are communicating with short forms, acronyms, symbols and have created a lexicon that is not embodied in standard dictionaries. Lexicons can be community specific according to gender and subject matter. The present invention provides a computer-implemented method and system to capture the mood in the context of a mood lexicon. Examples might be a consumer forum where the mood that is mapped is metaphorically shown as the weather. Where a state of happy is projected as the sun and a state of dissatisfaction or frustration is depicted as thunder showers. 
         [0000]    The foregoing is considered as illustrative only of the principles of the present invention. Further, since numerous modifications and changes will readily occur to those skilled in the pertinent art, it is not desired to limit the present invention to the exact construction and operation shown and described herein, and accordingly, all suitable modification and equivalents may be resorted to, falling within the scope of the present invention.