System and method for data collection interface creation and data collection administration

• US 20070168578A1
• Filed: 10/27/2005
• Published: 07/19/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 10/27/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Balchandran, Rajesh, Skuratovsky, Ilya
• Granted Patent: US 9,104,287 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 710/18
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9577 Optimising the visualization of content, e.g. distillation of HTML documents
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/048 Interaction techniques based on graphical user interfaces [GUI]
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/183 Tabulation, i.e. one-dimensional positioning
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/02 Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising

Abstract

A method for collecting data for statistical modeling purposes can include the step of selecting at least one user interface type from a plurality of previously defined user interface types. Parameters of the selected interface type can be defined for a particular data collection instance. Target participant data can be inputted. A data collection interface based upon the selected interface type and defined parameters can be deployed. Messages can be automatically conveyed to data providers selected in accordance with the target participant data. The data providers can be permitted to access the deployed data collection interface. Data provided by the data providers can be automatically stored and used for statistical modeling purposes related to the data collection instance.

Claims

1. A data collection method comprising:

selecting at least one user interface type from a plurality of previously defined user interface types;

defining parameters of the selected interface type for a particular data collection instance;

inputting target participant data;

deploying a data collection interface based upon the selected interface type and defined parameters;

automatically conveying messages to data providers selected based upon the target participant data;

permitting said data providers to access the deployed data collection interface;

automatically storing data provided by the data providers; and

using the stored data for statistical modeling purposes related to the data collection instance.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein said previously defined user interface types include at least one interface type selected from a group consisting of a basic Web interface type, a Web interface type with an embedded Web page, a Web interface type with an uniform resource locator (URL) input field, a speech user interface type, and a multi-modal interface type.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein said parameters define at least one of a number of required inputs for the data collection interface, an error correction scheme, an ability for data providers to navigate between different data collection scenarios, a storage location for said data provided by the data providers, and reward distribution criteria.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein said data collection interface is a GUI interface, and wherein said deploying step deploys the data collection interface within a Web server.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein said data collection interface includes a voice interface, and wherein said deploying step deploys the data collection interface within an Interactive Voice Response (IVR) system.

6. A method for data collection interface creation and data collection administration comprising:

within an interface creation application, providing a plurality of interface customizations specific to a data collection instance, wherein said customizations comprise a plurality of scenarios defined by at least one scenario form, each scenario form including at least one input field related to an associated one of the scenarios;

automatically generating an interface based upon said customizations;

deploying said interface within a server to which data providers have access;

the server receiving input from said data providers, where said received input includes data provider supplied responses to said at least one input field for at least a portion of said scenarios;

automatically processing said received input; and

providing access to the processed input to a data collection administrator.

7. The method of claim 6, wherein said interface creation application comprises a plurality of designer selectable data collection interface types, said method further comprising:

receiving a selection of one of said data collection interface types, wherein available ones of said customizations depend upon said selected data collection interface type.

8. The method of claim 7, wherein said data collection interface types comprise at least one type selected from a group consisting of a regular web interface type, a regular Web interface type, a Web interface type with an embedded Web page, a Web interface type with an uniform resource locator (URL) input field, a speech user interface type, and a multi-modal interface type.

9. The method of claim 7, wherein said interface creation application comprises a capability for a designer to create a new data collection interface type.

10. The method of claim 6, wherein each of said scenario forms comprise fields to be filled with content by a scenario creation author for each scenario, said content comprising at least one of text, at least one Web link, at least one media element, at least one embedded electronic document, at least one attached electronic document, at least one sample response for a scenario, a reference to text, a reference to at least one Web link, a reference to at least one media element, a reference to at least one embedded electronic document, a reference to at least one attached electronic document, and a reference to at least one sample response for a scenario.

11. The method of claim 6, wherein said customizations comprise a designer customizable algorithm that is used to identify subsets of scenarios and sequence those scenarios for the data collection instance.

12. The method of claim 6, wherein said customizations comprise a mechanism for specifying data providers and comprise a configurable notification mechanism, said notification mechanism including an e-mail mechanism and a phone mechanism, said method further comprising:

automatically notifying said data providers of events relating to the data collection instance in accordance with designer established settings of the configurable notification mechanism.

13. The method of claim 6, wherein said customizations comprise a plurality of targets, each target being a class, said method further comprising:

within said interface creation application, associating at least one target for each of said scenarios, wherein responses to scenarios are pre-classified in accordance with the associated targets, wherein said processing step further automatically analyzes said received input on a target by target basis, and wherein said processing step further develops statistical models using said association between received input and targets.

14. An interface creation system for creating interfaces customized for data collection instances, said system comprising:

an interface design server configured to automatically generate data collection interfaces for data collection instances based upon designer provided parameters;

a deployment server for serving data collection interfaces generated by the interface design server to a plurality of remotely located data providers over a network connection; and

a data store in which data provided by the data providers is automatically stored by the deployment server, wherein said stored data is automatically analyzed, and wherein said analyzed data is provided to a data collection agent.

15. The system of claim 14, wherein the data collection interfaces include a plurality of scenarios, each scenario having a scenario description and a plurality of scenario response fields, wherein said data stored in the data store includes input that data providers provided for scenario response fields, wherein said data in said data store is organized and indexed by data collection interface and scenario, and wherein said data store is configured to be integrated with suitable tools for at least one of data processing and modeling.

16. The system of claim 14, wherein the deployment server is provided with target participant data, wherein the deployment server automatically conveys messages to said plurality of remotely located data providers based upon the target participant data.

17. The method of claim 14, wherein each of the deployed data collection interfaces comprises a mechanism for identifying at least one of input errors and input inconsistencies and a mechanism selected from a group of mechanisms consisting of a notification mechanism configured to notify data providers of identified ones of the at least one of input errors and input inconsistencies, a mechanism for automatically correcting identified ones of the input errors, and a mechanism for automatically normalizing identified ones of the input inconsistencies.

18. The system of claim 14, wherein said parameters are entered into fields of an interface design application, and wherein said parameters include look and feel parameters, runtime behavior parameters, and logistics parameters.

19. The system of claim 14, further comprising:

a plurality of interface types, each used by the interface design server to automatically generate the data collection interfaces, wherein each of said interface types is integrated with a type specific backend component, wherein said interfaces types include at least one interface type selected from a group consisting of a basic Web interface type, a Web interface type with an embedded Web page, a Web interface type with an uniform resource locator (URL) input field, a speech user interface type, and a multi-modal interface type.

20. The system of claim 14, wherein said interface design server comprises an interface creation application, said interface creation application including a graphical user interface (GUI) configured to permit a designer to specify scenario content and to specify parameters for coordinating a data collection instance from interface creation to interface deployment, to data gathering based upon a deployed interface, to data analysis.