System and method for finding the acceleration of an information aggregate

• US 20040088275A1
• Filed: 10/31/2002
• Published: 05/06/2004
• Est. Priority Date: 10/31/2002
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Elder, Michael D., Rokosz, Vaughn T., Schultz, Matthew, Jho, Jason Y.
• Granted Patent: US 7,080,082 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 707/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/34 Browsing; Visualisation therefor
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/38 Retrieval characterised by using metadata, e.g. metadata not derived from the content or metadata generated manually
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99933 Query processing, i.e. searching

Abstract

Information in a database collection of knowledge resources is evaluated by collecting a plurality of documents having non-unique values on a shared attribute into an information aggregate; assigning to each document an usefulness value; and calculating and visualizing the acceleration of the aggregate as a ratio of a sum of the usefulness values for documents recently included in the information aggregate to a sum of the usefulness values for all documents in the aggregate

Claims

1. A method for evaluating information aggregates, comprising:

collecting a plurality of documents having non-unique values on a shared attribute into an information aggregate;

assigning to each said document an usefulness value; and

calculating and visualizing the acceleration of said aggregate as a ratio of a sum of said usefulness values for documents recently included in said information aggregate to a sum of said usefulness values for all said documents.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

visualizing said acceleration for a plurality of categories.

3. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

visualizing said acceleration for a plurality of communities.

4. System for evaluating an information aggregate, comprising:

means for collecting a plurality of documents having non-unique values on a shared attribute into an information aggregate; and

means for identifying and visualizing aggregate acceleration for a plurality of categories and communities.

5. System for evaluating an information aggregate, comprising:

a metrics database for storing document indicia including document attributes, associated persons and assigned usefulness value;

a query engine responsive to a user request and said metrics database for aggregating documents having same, unique attributes in an information aggregate;

said query engine further for calculating aggregate acceleration values as the ratio of said usefulness values of documents recently added to said information aggregate to said usefulness values of all documents in said information aggregate; and

a visualization engine for visualizing said acceleration values at a client display.

6. The system of claim 5, said visualization engine visualizing said acceleration values for a plurality of communities.

7. The system of claim 5, said visualization engine visualizing said acceleration values for a plurality of categories.

8. A program storage device readable by a machine, tangibly embodying a program of instructions executable by a machine to a perform method for evaluating information aggregates, said method comprising:

collecting a plurality of documents having non-unique values on a shared attribute into an information aggregate;

assigning to each said document an usefulness value; and

calculating and visualizing the acceleration of said aggregate as a ratio of a sum of said usefulness values for documents recently included in said information aggregate to a sum of said usefulness values for all said documents.

9. The program storage device of claim 8, said method further comprising:

visualizing said acceleration for a plurality of categories.

10. The program storage device of claim 8, said method further comprising:

visualizing said acceleration for a plurality of communities.

11. A program storage device readable by a machine, tangibly embodying a program of instructions executable by a machine to a perform method for evaluating information aggregates, said method comprising:

storing document indicia in a metrics database, said indicia including document attributes, associated persons and assigned usefulness value;

responsive to a user request and said metrics database, aggregating documents having same, unique attributes in an information aggregate;

for calculating aggregate acceleration values as the ratio of said usefulness values of documents recently added to said information aggregate to said usefulness values of all documents in said information aggregate; and

visualizing said acceleration values selectively for a plurality of categories or a plurality of communities at a client display.

12. A computer program product for evaluating information aggregates according to the method comprising:

storing document indicia in a metrics database, said indicia including document attributes, associated persons and assigned usefulness value;

responsive to a user request and said metrics database, aggregating documents having same, unique attributes in an information aggregate;

for calculating aggregate acceleration values as the ratio of said usefulness values of documents recently added to said information aggregate to said usefulness values of all documents in said information aggregate; and

visualizing said acceleration values selectively for a plurality of categories or a plurality of communities at a client display.