Method and apparatus for constructing and maintaining a user knowledge profile

• US 20070112845A1
• Filed: 01/04/2007
• Published: 05/17/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 09/18/1998
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Oracle International Corporation (Oracle Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Tacit Software, Inc. (Oracle Corporation)
• Inventors: Wang, Eric, Gilmour, David
• Granted Patent: US 7,801,917 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/30 of unstructured textual data document management systems G06F16/93
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9535 Search customisation based on user profiles and personalisation
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 21/31 User authentication
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 21/6245 Protecting personal data, e.g. for financial or medical purposes
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/06393 Score-carding, benchmarking or key performance indicator [KPI] analysis
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/10 Office automation; Time management
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0201 Market modelling; Market analysis; Collecting market data
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 40/04 Trading; Exchange, e.g. stocks, commodities, derivatives or currency exchange
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/10 for controlling access to devices or network resources
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/102 Entity profiles
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/306 User profiles
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99935 Query augmenting and refining, e.g. inexact access
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99936 Pattern matching access
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99939 Privileged access

Abstract

A method of constructing an entity profile having private and public portions commences with the assignment of a confidence level to content within an electronic document. The electronic document may be associated with a first entity. The content may be descriptive of the first entity. If the confidence level assigned to the content is less than a predetermined threshold, the content is automatically rejected for inclusion within the entity profile. If the confidence level assigned to the content exceeds the predetermined threshold, the content is included within the private portion of the entity profile. Thereafter, the content can be automatically presented to the first entity for authorization, by the first entity, for inclusion of the content within the public portion of the profile. The public portion of the entity profile may be freely accessible by other entities, whereas the private portion may have access restrictions.

Claims

1. A method of constructing a profile of an entity, the method comprising:

automatically identifying content, within a collection of information associated with the entity, as being potentially descriptive of an information focus of the entity;

in response to said automatically identifying the content as being potentially descriptive of an information focus of the entity, enabling the entity to provide an authorization, the authorization indicating whether the identified content is to be included in at least a particular portion of a profile associated with the entity; and

including the identified content within said at least a particular portion of the profile only if the entity provides the authorization.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein the enabling the entity to provide an authorization comprises indicating the identified content to the entity for authorization.

3. The method of claim 1 wherein the entity is a person.

4. The method of claim 1 wherein the entity is a group of people.

5. The method of claim 1 wherein the profile comprises a first portion and a second portion.

6. The method of claim 5 wherein the first portion and the second portion have different access restrictions with respect to another entity.

7. The method of claim 5 wherein the first portion is a private portion of the profile and the second portion is a public portion of the profile.

8. The method of claim 7 wherein said including the identified content within said at least a particular portion of the profile only if the entity provides the authorization comprises including the identified content within the public portion of the profile only if the entity provides the authorization.

9. The method of claim 1 wherein identifying the content comprises assigning a figure of merit to the content.

10. The method of claim 9 wherein the assigning the figure of merit to the content comprises identifying parts of speech comprising the content.

11. The method of claim 9 wherein the assigning the figure of merit to the content comprises counting a number of words within the content.

12. The method of claim 9 wherein the assigning the figure of merit to the content comprises determining a frequency with which the content occurs in the collection of information associated with the entity.

13. A data processing system comprising:

confidence logic to automatically identify content within a collection of information associated with an entity as being potentially descriptive of an information focus of the entity;

a profiler to prompt automatically the entity to provide an authorization regarding the identified content in response to the content being automatically identified as potentially descriptive of an information focus of the entity, the authorization indicating whether the identified content is to be included in at least a particular portion of a profile of the entity;

the profiler further to include the content within said at least a particular portion of the profile only if the entity provides the authorization.

14. The data processing system of claim 13 wherein the profiler further configured to indicate the content to the entity for authorization.

15. The data processing system of claim 13 wherein the entity is a person.

16. The data processing system of claim 13 wherein the entity is a group of people.

17. The data processing system of claim 13 wherein the profile comprises a first portion and a second portion.

18. The data processing system of claim 17 wherein the first portion and the second portion have different access restrictions with respect to another entity.

19. The data processing system of claim 17 wherein the first portion is a private portion of the profile and the second portion is a public portion of the profile.

20. The data processing system of claim 17 wherein the profiler includes the identified content within the public portion of the profile only if the entity provides the authorization.

21. The data processing system of claim 13 wherein identifying the content comprises assigning a figure of merit to the content.

22. A machine-readable program storage medium, storing instructions which, when executed by a machine, cause the machine to perform a process that comprises:

automatically identifying content, within a collection of information associated with an entity, as being potentially descriptive of an information focus of the entity;

in response to automatically identifying the content as being potentially descriptive of an information focus of the entity, enabling the entity to provide an authorization indicating whether the identified content is to be included in a public portion of a profile of the entity; and

including the identified content within the public portion of the profile only if the entity provides the authorization, wherein the profile includes the public portion and a private portion.

23. The machine-readable program storage medium of claim 22 wherein the enabling the entity to provide an authorization comprises indicating the identified content to the entity for authorization.

24. The machine-readable program storage medium of claim 22 wherein the entity is a person.

25. The machine-readable program storage medium of claim 22 wherein the entity is a group of people.

26. The machine-readable program storage medium of claim 22 wherein identifying the content comprises assigning a figure of merit to the content.

27. The method of claim 26 wherein the assigning the figure of merit to the content comprises identifying parts of speech comprising the content.

28. The machine-readable program storage medium of claim 26 wherein the assigning the figure of merit to the content comprises counting a number of words within the content.

29. The machine-readable program storage medium of claim 26 wherein the assigning the figure of merit to the content comprises determining a frequency with which the content occurs in the collection of information associated with the entity.

30. A system comprising:

means for automatically identifying content, within a collection of information associated with an entity, as being potentially descriptive of an information focus of the entity;

means for enabling the entity to provide an authorization in response to said automatically identifying the content as being potentially descriptive of an information focus of the entity, the authorization indicating whether the identified content is to be included in at least a particular portion of a profile associated with the entity; and

means for including the identified content within said at least a particular portion of the profile only if the entity provides the authorization.