Effort based relevance

• US 20070226205A1
• Filed: 03/02/2006
• Published: 09/27/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 03/02/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Oracle International Corporation (Oracle Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Oracle International Corporation (Oracle Corporation)
• Inventors: Lu, Xiaohua, Mor, David, Carrer, Marco, Arun, Gopalan
• Granted Patent: US 7,809,733 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/951 Indexing; Web crawling techniques

Abstract

Systems, methods, media, and other embodiments associated with effort based relevance in discussion forums are described. One example method includes receiving an activity data concerning messages associated with electronic discussion forum topics. The activity data may include a view count (Vw), a book mark count (Bf), a reference count (Rf), and a reply count (Rp). The effort based relevance may be computed from Vw and one or more of, Bf, Rf, and Rp. Topics may be logically ordered using the effort based relevance.

Claims

1. A computer-implemented method, comprising:

receiving an activity data concerning messages associated with members of a set of topics associated with an electronic discussion forum, the activity data including a view count (Vw) and one or more of, a book mark count (Bf), a reference count (Rf), and a reply count (Rp);

computing an effort based relevance measurement for a member of the set of topics based on Vw for the member and one or more of, Bf for the member, Rf for the member, and Rp for the member; and

logically ordering the set of topics with respect to effort based relevance measurements.

2. The method of claim 1, where computing the effort based relevance measurement includes:

computing an X axis component of the effort based relevance measurement based on Vw and Rp;

computing a Y axis component of the effort based relevance measurement based on Vw, Bf, and Rf;

computing an X axis partitioning measure (α

) based on the average of (Rp/Vw) for the set of topics;

computing a Y axis partitioning measure (β

) based on the average of ((Rf+Bf)/Vw) for the set of topics; and

computing the effort based relevance based on one or more of, a Euclidean distance from a first point described by the intersection of an X axis and a Y axis, and a Euclidean distance from a second point described by the intersection of α

and β

.

3. The method of claim 2, the activity data including a rating data (Rd) and where the method includes weighting the effort based relevance measurement using Rd.

4. The method of claim 1, including computing a combined topic relevancy based on the effort based relevance measurement and a keyword based relevance measurement.

5. The method of claim 1, including:

acquiring a user data concerning a user visiting the discussion forum, the user data including information concerning one or more of, a set of viewed topics, a set of viewed messages, and a set of queries provided by the user;

determining a context in which the user is operating; and

providing a recommendation to the user concerning a set of topics, the recommendation being based, at least in part, on the context in which the user is operating and the effort based relevance measurement for members of the set of topics.

6. The method of claim 5, the context being associated with a task the user is performing, the context being one of, following a topic, participating in a topic, referencing an element in a topic, and performing a combination of following a topic, participating in a topic, and referencing an element in a topic.

7. The method of claim 1, including automatically generating a set of frequently asked questions based, at least in part, on the effort based relevance measurement for members of the set of topics.

8. The method of claim 1, including automatically generating a set of frequently asked questions based, at least in part, on effort based relevance for members of the set of topics.

9. The method of claim 1, including computing effort based relevance for a configurable time period.

10. The method of claim 2, including providing a two-dimensional plot of the relative position of members of the set of topics, the position being determined by effort based relevance, the X axis component being (Rp/Vw) and the Y axis component being ((Bf+Rf)/Vw).

11. A method, comprising:

receiving an activity data concerning messages associated with members of a set of topics associated with an electronic discussion forum, the activity data including a view count (Vw) and one or more of, a book mark count (Bf), a reference count (Rf), a reply count (Rp), and a rating data (Rd);

computing effort based relevance for a configurable period of time for members of the set of topics based on Vw and one or more of, Bf, Rf, and Rp;

weighting effort based relevance based on Rd;

logically ordering the set of topics with respect to effort based relevance;

acquiring a user data concerning a user visiting the discussion forum, the user data including one or more of, a set of viewed topics, a set of viewed messages, and a set of queries provided by the user;

determining a context in which the user is operating, the context being associated with a task the user is performing, the context being one of, following a topic, participating in a topic, referencing an element in a topic, and performing a combination of following a topic, participating in a topic, and referencing an element in a topic;

providing a recommendation to the user concerning a set of topics, the recommendation being based, at least in part, on the context in which the user is operating and effort based relevance for members of the set of topics; and

automatically generating a set of frequently asked questions based, at least in part, on effort based relevance for members of the set of topics;

where computing effort based relevance includes;

computing an X axis component of an effort based relevance measurement based on Vw and Rp;

computing a Y axis component of the effort based relevance measurement based on Vw, Bf, and Rf;

computing an X axis partitioning measure (α

) based on the average of (Rp/Vw) for the set of topics;

computing a Y axis partitioning measure (β

) based on the average of ((Rf+Bf)/Vw) for set of topics; and

computing the effort based relevance based on one or more of, a Euclidean distance from a first point described by the intersection of an X axis and a Y axis, and a Euclidean distance from a second point described by the intersection of α and

β

.

12. A computer-readable medium storing processor executable instructions operable to perform a method, the method comprising:

receiving an activity data concerning messages associated with members of a set of topics associated with an electronic discussion forum, the activity data including a view count (Vw) and one or more of, a book mark count (Bf), a reference count (Rf), and a reply count (Rp);

computing an effort based relevance measurement for a member of the set of topics based on Vw and one or more of, Bf, Rf, and Rp; and

logically ordering the set of topics with respect to effort based relevance.

13. A computing system, comprising:

an action logic configured to track actions taken by users on a message associated with a topic in an electronic discussion forum; and

an action relevance logic configured to determine an action based relevance for a topic based, at least in part, on the actions taken by users.

14. The system of claim 13, the action logic being configured to compute a value count_view that stores the number of times the message was viewed, and to compute one or more of, a value count_respond that stores the number of responses to the message, a value count_internal that stores the number of times an internal link was created to the message, and a value count_external that stores the number of times an external link was created to the message;

the action relevance logic being configured to determine the action based relevance based on count_view and one or more of count_respond, count_internal, and count_external.

15. The system of claim 14, the action based relevance comprising a numeric value based on a vector connecting an origin to a point, the vector having an X component and a Y component, the X component being based on a ratio of count_view to count_respond, the Y component being based on a ratio of count_view to count_internal and count_external.

16. The system of claim 15, comprising:

a context logic configured to acquire a user data concerning a user visiting the discussion forum, the user data including information concerning one or more of, a set of viewed topics, a set of viewed messages, and a set of queries provided by the user;

the context logic also being configured to determine a context in which the user is operating; and

a recommendation logic configured to provide a recommendation data to the user, the recommendation data comprising a set of topics, the recommendation data being based, at least in part, on the context in which the user is operating and the action based relevance.

17. The system of claim 16, including a timeframe logic configured to control the action relevance logic to determine the action based relevance for a topic for a configurable time period.

18. The system of claim 17, including a presentation logic configured to display a two dimensional graphical representation of relationships between topics, the relationships being based on action based relevance.

19. The system of claim 13, comprising:

a keyword relevance logic configured to determine a keyword based relevance for a topic; and

a combined relevance logic configured to determine an overall relevance for a topic based on both keyword based relevance and action based relevance.

20. A system, comprising:

means for tracking user actions taken on topics in a discussion forum;

means for determining effort based relevance for the topics based on the user actions; and

means for recommending topics to a user based on effort based relevance.

21. A set of application programming interfaces embodied on a computer-readable medium for execution by a computer component in conjunction with computing an effort based relevance for a topic in a discussion forum, comprising:

a first interface for communicating a view count data;

a second interface for communicating a response count data;

a third interface for communicating a reference count data; and

a fourth interface for communicating the effort based relevance computed from the view count data, the response count data, and the reference count data.