Patent ID: 7209906

Claim:
A knowledge discovery system for determining relationships between documents, people, and categories of information within an organization, the system comprising: a data repository that stores a plurality of documents; a discovery server that determines metric values representing relationships between the documents stored in the data repository, a plurality of categories, and a plurality of people that interact with the documents, the discovery server comprising: a usage data collector that collects document usage data regarding interactions of the people with the documents; a document valuation metrics service that calculates a document value for each of the documents, wherein the document value of a given document reflects a value of content contained in the document to the plurality of people collectively, the document values being calculated based on the document usage data; a metrics calculator that calculates fit values for the documents in the plurality of documents with respect to the categories, wherein the fit value for a given document with respect to a given category reflects a strength of correspondence between content contained in the given document and the given category; an affinity calculator that calculates affinity values for the people with respect to the categories, wherein the affinity value of a given person with respect to a given category reflects a strength of a relationship of the given person to the given category, the affinity values being calculated based on (i) the document values, (ii) the fit values, and (iii) the document usage data; and a people profile database that contains user profiles corresponding to the plurality of people, wherein the people profile database receives affinity values from the affinity calculator and stores the affinity values for a give person from the plurality of people in a user profile that corresponds to the given person.