Patent ID: 8825701

Claim:
A computer-implemented method of management of queries for crowd searching in at least one social platform, the method comprising: providing an input template to a master user for coding a query for crowd searching, the input template having an input format; receiving input data in the input template according to the input format, the input data comprising a plurality of search objects, at least one structured query operator corresponding to social interactions and a human-generated question related to the plurality of search objects; assembling the input data in the filled-in input template to generate a platform-independent input model constructing a query task for crowd searching, the input model being a tuple <C, N, S>, where C is a first data collection comprising the plurality of search objects, N is at least one natural language question related to the plurality of search objects, and S is at least one structured query operator relative to the first data collection C and defining what action should be performed in reply to the question; processing the platform-independent input model according to a query task execution plan that defines the query task to be solved by a crowd by applying a mapping model to the platform-independent input model, wherein processing comprises selecting at least one social search engine running on a respective social platform, selecting one or more groups of responders interacting with the at least one social search engine and targeted to respond to the query task, and instantiating, based on the query task execution plan, at least one platform-aware query template as the instance of the input model mapped to the at least one social platform, the at least one platform-aware query template having a data structure supported by the at least one social search engine; importing the at least one platform-aware query template into the respective social platform through a responder application user interface allowing the one or more groups of responders to enter an answer to the query; collecting the answers through interaction with responders of the one or more groups of responders through the at least one platform-aware template; processing the collected answers so as to generate an output model instantiated by a platform-independent output template, wherein the output model is a tuple <C′, S′> obtained by processing the input model according to the query task execution plan, with C′ being a second data collection comprising a plurality of search objects and S′ is at least one structured answer to the at least one query operator S, and rendering the platform-independent output template as a query result to the master user.