Patent ID: 7668909

Claim:
A bulletin board management system for providing a site for communication and information sharing among members by utilizing a computer network, the system comprising: a memory storing portions for execution, comprising: an information registration portion for an information sender to register bulletin information on a bulletin board and further register designating information corresponding to the bulletin information, the designating information including a first item indicating an expiration date, a second item indicating whether or not the expiration date can be postponed, and a third item indicating whether or not disclosure of the bulletin information is restricted, and further including, only if the third item indicates that the disclosure of the bulletin information is restricted, a fourth item indicating options to be selected as a reply and a fifth item indicating members who are allowed to view the bulletin information and who are requested to answer the fourth item; an information list display portion for extracting and displaying, in a list form, on a terminal device of a member who logged in, bulletin information for which the third item indicates that the disclosure of the bulletin information is not restricted, and at the same time bulletin information for which the fifth item includes the member who has logged in and who is requested to answer the fourth item; a read state monitoring portion for checking whether or not the bulletin information has been read and whether or not there is a reply by the member resulting from answering the fourth item; an information changing portion that makes a change to contents of the bulletin information registered by the information sender, and, if the third item indicates that the disclosure of the bulletin information is restricted, extracts a member who has read the bulletin information before the change from a result obtained by the read state monitoring portion, and if the member who has read the bulletin information before the change is extracted, changes a status of the member who has been extracted as having read the bulletin information from a status indicating “already read” to a status indicating “required to check the change”, resets the reply of the member who has read the bulletin information in accordance with contents of the fourth item, and automatically sends electronic mail urging the member who has read the bulletin information to check the change in content of the bulletin information; a reminding portion for automatically sending a reminder by electronic mail to a member who has not answered , in accordance with whether or not there is a reply by each member obtained by the read state monitoring portion; and an expiration date extension confirmation portion for automatically sending electronic mail to the information sender urging the information sender to postpone the expiration date if there is a member who has not answered the fourth item for the bulletin information whose expiration date is coming soon.