CONFERENCE QUESTION AND ANSWER MANAGEMENT

• US 20080120101A1
• Filed: 11/16/2006
• Published: 05/22/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 11/16/2006
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Cisco Technology, Inc. (Cisco Systems, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Cisco Technology, Inc. (Cisco Systems, Inc.)
• Inventors: Johnson, Andrew, Bouchard, Luc Antoine
• Application Number:
  US11/560,563
• Publication Number:
  US 20080120101A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 704/235
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 15/22 Procedures used during a speech recognition process, e.g. man-machine dialogue
• 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: H04M 3/566 relating to a participants right to speak arrangements for multi-party communication with floor control, e.g. for conferences, H04L65/4038, H04L65/4046, H04L65/4053
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/567 Multimedia conference systems
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 7/147 Communication arrangements, e.g. identifying the communication as a video-communication, intermediate storage of the signals selecting H04Q
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 7/15 Conference systems

Abstract

In one embodiment, an apparatus includes an interface and a queue generator. The interface obtains a plurality of submissions associated with a conference call. The submissions include at least one text-based submission and at least one audio-based submission. The queue generator manages a queue that has representations of at least some of the submissions, and is accessible to a speaker associated with the conference call. The representations include a first representation of the text-based submission and a second representation of the audio-based submission.

Claims

1. An apparatus comprising:

an interface, the interface being arranged to obtain a plurality of submissions associated with a conference call, the plurality of submissions comprising at least one text-based submission and at least one audio-based submission; and

a queue generator, the queue generator being arranged to manage a queue, the queue being arranged to comprise representations of the plurality of submissions, the representations comprising a first representation of the at least one text-based submission and a second representation of the at least one audio-based submission, wherein the queue is accessible to a speaker associated with the conference call.

2. The apparatus of claim 1 wherein the representations are textual representations, and the apparatus further comprises a converter, the converter being arranged to convert the at least one audio-based submission into the second representation

3. The apparatus of claim 1 further comprising a prioritizing arrangement, the prioritizing arrangement being capable of creating a prioritized order for the representations, wherein the queue includes the representations in the prioritized order.

4. The apparatus of claim 3 wherein the prioritizing arrangement creates the prioritized order based upon keywords included in the plurality of submissions.

5. The apparatus of claim 3 wherein the prioritizing arrangement comprises a ranking functionality and a filter, the ranking functionality being arranged to determine the prioritized order, the filter being arranged to identify a first submission of the plurality of submissions that is not to have a representation in the queue.

6. The apparatus of claim 1 wherein the plurality of submissions are a plurality of questions, and the interface is further arranged to obtain a plurality of answers that correspond to the plurality of questions from the speaker.

7. The apparatus of claim 5 further comprising a transcript generator, the transcript generator being arranged to generate a transcript that includes the representations of the plurality of questions and representations of the plurality of answers.

8. The apparatus of claim 1 wherein the interface is arranged to obtain the at least one audio-based submission in conjunction with obtaining a floor control request.

9. Logic encoded in one or more tangible media for execution and when executed operable to:

cause a plurality of submissions associated with a conference call to be obtained, wherein the plurality of submissions includes at least one text-based submission and at least one audio-based submission; and

cause a queue to be managed, wherein the queue is accessible to a speaker associated with the conference call and comprises representations of the plurality of submissions, the representations including a first representation of the at least one text-based submission and a second representation of the at least one audio-based submission.

10. The logic of claim 9 wherein the representations are textual representations, the logic further being operable to cause the at least one audio-based submission to be converted into the second representation.

11. The logic of claim 9 further being operable to create a prioritized order for the representations, wherein the logic operable cause the queue to be managed further comprises logic operable to maintain the representations in the prioritized order.

12. A method comprising:

creating a first representation of a first submission associated with a conference call, the first submission having a first format, wherein the first representation has a second format; and

creating a queue, the queue comprising the first representation and a second representation, the queue being accessible to a speaker associated with the conference call, wherein the second representation has the second format and is associated with a second submission having the second format.

13. The method of claim 12 wherein the first format is an audio format and the second format is a text format.

14. The method of claim 13 wherein the conference call is a floor controlled conference call, the method further comprising obtaining the first submission in conjunction with a floor-control request.

15. The method of claim 12 further comprising ranking the first representation and the second representation in an order, wherein creating the queue comprises maintaining the order.

16. The method of claim 15 wherein ranking the first representation and the second representation further comprises ranking a plurality of representations of submissions that includes the first representation and the second representation, the order being determined using keywords appearing in the plurality of representations.

17. The method of claim 15 wherein ranking the first representation and the second representation in the order further comprises:

determining whether a priority criteria is to be used in ranking the first representation and the second representation in the order; and

accounting for the priority criteria in ranking the first representation and the second representation in the order the priority criteria is to be used.

18. The method of claim 15 further comprising determining if the first representation and the second representation represent a question, wherein if the first representation and the second representation represent the question, the first representation and the second representation are grouped together and assigned a common ranking in the order.

19. The method of claim 12 wherein the first submission is a first question, further comprising:

obtaining an answer to the first question; and

creating a transcript, the transcript being arranged to include the first representation and a third representation of the answer.

20. The method of claim 19 wherein the first format is an audio format and the second format is a textual format, the answer being obtained in the first format, the method further comprising creating the third representation, the third representation being of the second format.