Patent ID: 7761409

Claim:
A method for a collaborative analysis of information, wherein all the steps are performed on suitably programmed computers, comprising: maintaining an analysis dataset comprising information units, including: a plurality of topic information units represented as a matrix of hypotheses and evidence, each topic information unit representing an analysis topic, wherein various evidence values associated with each hypothesis represented by a value cell; a plurality of contribution information units each representing an information contribution associated with one of the analysis topics; and associating each contribution information unit with the respective topic information unit; obtaining a plurality of analysis datasets; generating a combined analysis dataset, comprising: determining a set of unique topic information units found in the plurality of analysis datasets; determining a set of unique contribution information units found in the plurality of analysis datasets for each unique topic information unit; associating an instance of each unique topic information units found in the set of unique topic information units with the combined analysis dataset; and associating an instance of each contribution information unit found in the set of unique contribution information units that was determined for each unique topic information unit with that unique topic information unit; designating one of the contribution information units associated with each topic information unit as a top-level value; displaying a visual representation of the topic information unit in a user interface; and displaying a visual representation of the contribution information unit that is designated as the top-level value in the user interface such that the information contribution is visually associated with the analysis topic.