Establishment and maintenance of collaborative communication associations based on multiple contextual criteria

• US 20060173936A1
• Filed: 02/01/2005
• Published: 08/03/2006
• Est. Priority Date: 02/01/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Castro, Paul C., Misra, Archan
• Granted Patent: US 7,487,158 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/10 Office automation; Time management
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/1822 Conducting the conference, e.g. admission, detection, selection or grouping of participants, correlating users to one or more conference sessions, prioritising transmission
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/185 with management of multicast group membership

Abstract

A method, system, and computer program for dynamically setting up collaborative associations between a group of users, computing resources, and/or communication devices, where the constituents of the collaborative association are chosen based on a variety of contextual criteria. The dynamic collaboration enabler component determines the explicit identities of the parties that should be a part of the collaboration. The group of individual entities involved in the collaboration can change dynamically during the lifetime of the collaboration, based on appropriate changes in the contextual data. Such contextual data refers to both state variables associated with the collaboration software or infrastructure itself, or to the state of entities external to the collaboration. The duration of the collaborative association is specified either explicitly or through a set of context related conditions. The dynamic context enabler can detect when the set of termination conditions is satisfied and then automatically remove the collaborative association.

Claims

1. A method for criteria-based establishment and/or termination of a collaborative session among a group of dynamically varying users, comprising the steps of:

specifying a set of predicates over a variety of contextual attributes of the individuals or computing devices;

determining by query an explicit set of individual or device identifiers whose current context values satisfy said set of predicates on said variety of contextual attributes; and

establishing and maintaining a conferencing or collaborative association among a group of dynamically varying users identified according to said explicit set of individual or device identifiers.

2. The method according to claim 1 wherein said group of dynamically varying users includes a group of two or more individuals and/or computing devices.

3. The method according to claim 1 wherein said step of specifying said set of predicates includes a step of enumerating a set of role attributes for an individual or group of individual devices ir users.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein said step of specifying said set of predicates comprises specifying an explicit set of individual or device identifiers that are required to be part of said conferencing or collaborative association.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein said step of specifying said set of predicates comprises specifying a set of termination predicates over said set of contextual attributes, whereby satisfying the appropriate said set of termination predicates would lead to an automatic termination of the established said conferencing or collaborative association.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein said step of determining said set of explicit individual or device identifiers comprises the steps of:

retrieving raw contextual data from a set of external sources, applications or network elements, by using intermediate context adapters;

associating said raw contextual data as attributes of appropriate entities, such as individuals or devices, that are mentioned in said set of predicates; and

applying said set of predicates to retrieved said contextual data, to determine a set of source, device or individual identifiers whose attributes satisfy said set of predicates.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein said step of determining said set of explicit individual or device identifiers comprises:

issuing a synchronous request to the context retrieval engine for resolving the predicates into an explicit set of individual or device identifiers; and

receiving a response with said explicit set of individual or device identifiers.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein said step of determining said set of explicit individual or device identifiers comprises:

issuing an asynchronous request for resolving said set of predicates into an explicit set of individual or device identifiers;

awaiting a response from a contextual retrieval engine until such time when said dynamic contextual data eventually satisfies the specified predicates; and

receiving a notification with said explicit set of individual or device identifiers.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein the step of establishing and maintaining a conferencing or collaborative association among a set of explicitly identified individuals or devices further comprises:

requesting the establishment of said conferencing or collaborative association;

providing said list of explicit user or device identifiers that need to be constituents of said conferencing or collaborative association, along with additional parameters needed for said conferencing or collaborative association; and

requesting the initiation and set up of said conferencing or collaborative association.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein the step of establishing and maintaining said conferencing or collaborative association among said set of explicitly identified entities comprises modifying intermittently or dynamically said set of individual or device identifiers, or parameters of the collaboration, during the lifetime of said collaborative session, based on changes to said variety of contextual attributes.

11. The method of claim 10, wherein the step of dynamically modifying said set of individual or device identifiers, or the parameters of the collaboration of said conferencing or collaborative association, comprises:

issuing a request to asynchronously send notifications when a set of contextual data-related predicates are satisfied;

receiving said notification at some future time instance from the context evaluation engine;

modifying said set of participating individual or device identifiers, or the parameters, of said collaborative session; and

requesting a collaboration-enabling engine that said conferencing or collaborative association be continually modified based on said modified set of participants or collaboration parameters.

12. The method of claim 11, wherein the step of issuing a request with context-related predicates, comprises having the context-related predicates refer to attributes of either state specific to said collaboration-enabling engine, or state that is external to that of said collaboration-enabling engine, or both.

13. The method of claim 11, wherein the step of receiving said notification, comprises:

continually monitoring for appropriate changes to contextual data retrieved via said contextual adapters; and

evaluating changes in contextual data against said set of contextual data-related predicates to determine when the appropriate notification is to be issued; and

generating an appropriate notification.

14. The method of claim 13, wherein the step of monitoring for changes to contextual data, comprises using adapters to retrieve contextual information from personal information management software, including, but limited to, calendar management applications, instant messaging applications, workflow and activity scheduling applications and location retrieval applications.

15. The method of claim 11, wherein the step of requesting said collaboration-enabling engine to modify the ongoing collaborative association, further comprises:

requesting said collaboration-enabling engine to remove, permanently or temporarily, a set of current participants from the collaboration, or;

requesting said collaboration-enabling engine to add a set of new participants to the collaboration;

or

requesting said collaboration-enabling engine to modify a set of collaboration-related parameters for one or more participants in the collaborative association.

16. A system for criteria based establishment and/or termination of a collaborative session among a group of dynamically varying users, comprising:

means for specifying a set of predicates over a variety of contextual attributes of either or both individuals or computing devices;

means for determining by query an explicit set of individual or device identifiers whose current context values satisfy said set of predicates on said variety of contextual attributes; and

means for establishing and maintaining a conferencing or collaborative association among a group of dynamically varying users identified according to said explicit set of individual or device identifiers.

17. A computer readable medium encoded with a software or firmware program encoding a process for criteria-based establishment and/or termination of a collaborative session among a group of dynamically varying users, comprising the steps of:

specifying a set of predicates over a variety of contextual attributes of the individuals or computing devices;

determining by query an explicit set of individual or device identifiers whose current context values satisfy said set of predicates on said variety of contextual attributes; and

establishing and maintaining a conferencing or collaborative association among a roup of dynamically varying users identified according to said explicit set of individual or device identifiers.