RESEARCH PROGRESSION SUMMARY

• US 20080313166A1
• Filed: 06/15/2007
• Published: 12/18/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 06/15/2007
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Padovitz, Amir, Yu, Wei
• Application Number:
  US11/763,835
• Publication Number:
  US 20080313166A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 707/5
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/345 Summarisation for human users

Abstract

Systems, methods, and computer-readable media for generating a research progression summary are provided. A research progression summary provides a snapshot of documents (e.g., articles) that have had a significant impact on a particular field of research, or at least a portion thereof, over time. Research progression sorts through all accessible relevant documents, analyzes the importance of each, and summarizes for presentation only those documents determined to be of particular importance with respect to a topic of interest (i.e., the particular field of research or some portion thereof). In this manner, a researcher can readily determine how the thinking with respect to a particular topic has progressed over time. By way of example only, the research progression summary may focus on one or more of historical developments in a particular field, current developments with respect to a topic of interest, or an overall summary of a particular field/topic.

Claims

1. One or more computer-readable media having computer-executable instructions embodied thereon for performing a method of generating a research progression summary for a particular research field, the method comprising:

receiving one or more research criteria;

identifying one or more documents that satisfies the one or more research criteria;

generating the research progression summary utilizing the one or more identified documents; and

storing the generated research progression summary.

2. The one or more computer-readable media of claim 1, wherein the research progression summary includes a plurality of significant documents related to the particular field of research, and wherein a chronology of the plurality of significant documents is apparent.

3. The one or more computer-readable media of claim 2, wherein the research progression summary includes a greater number of documents dated after a predetermined threshold date than before the predetermined threshold date such that the plurality of significant documents represents a current state of the particular research field.

4. The one or more computer-readable media of claim 1, wherein the one or more research criteria are selected from the group consisting of one or more keywords, one or more known documents, one or more a domain hierarchies, and one or more sub-domain hierarchies.

5. The one or more computer-readable media of claim 1, wherein the method further comprises presenting the research progression summary.

6. The one or more computer-readable media of claim 5, wherein each of the one or more documents is represented by a graphical representation, and wherein the graphical representations are presented so that a chronology of the one or more documents is apparent.

7. The one or more computer-readable media of claim 6, wherein at least one of the graphical representations is dynamically linked to the document represented thereby.

8. The one or more computer-readable media of claim 1, further comprising communicating the research progression summary.

9. One or more computer-readable media having computer-executable instructions embodied thereon for performing a method of generating a clustered-ranked-citation link graph, the method comprising:

receiving document information for one or more documents;

generating a citation link graph for the one or more documents;

categorizing the one or more documents into one or more domains;

generating a static rank for each of the one or more documents; and

storing a clustered-ranked-citation link graph.

10. The one or more computer-readable media of claim 9, wherein the method further comprises generating a research progression summary utilizing the clustered-ranked-citation link graph.

11. The one or more computer-readable media of claim 10, wherein the research progression summary includes a plurality of significant documents in a particular field of research, and wherein a chronology of the plurality of significant documents is apparent.

12. The one or more computer-readable media of claim 11, wherein the plurality of significant documents includes a greater number of significant documents dated prior to a predetermined date than dated after the predetermined date such that the plurality of significant documents represents a current state of the particular research field.

13. The one or more computer-readable media of claim 9, wherein at least one of the one or more documents is represented by a graphical representation, and wherein the graphical representations are presented so that a chronology of the one or more documents is apparent.

14. The one or more computer-readable media of claim 13, wherein at least one of the graphical representations is dynamically linked to the document represented thereby.

15. A computerized system for generating a research progression summary relevant to a particular topic, the system comprising:

a receiving module configured for receiving one or more research criteria;

a retrieving module configured for retrieving document information from one or more documents;

a generating module configured to generate a clustered-ranked-citation link graph;

a research progression summary generating module configured to generate a research progression summary; and

at least one storage module configured for storing at least document information from one of the one or more documents and the research progression summary.

16. The computerized system claim of 15, further comprising a communication module configured to communicate the research progression summary.

17. The computerized system of claim of 15, wherein the research progression generating module is configured to customize a progression of research relevant to the particular topic based on weighting research criteria.

18. The computerized system of claim of 17, wherein the weighting research criteria includes at least the date of publication and research field classification.

19. The computerized system of claim 15, further comprising a graphical-representation generating module configured to present the one or more documents represented by the research progression summary as graphical representations, the graphical representations being presented so that a chronology of the one or more documents is apparent.

20. The computerized system of claim 19, further comprising a linking module configured to dynamically link one or more of the graphical representations to the document represented thereby.