Document Analysis, Commenting, and Reporting System

• US 20090138793A1
• Filed: 05/15/2008
• Published: 05/28/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 11/27/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Accenture Global Services Limited (Accenture PLC)
• Original Assignee: Accenture Global Services GmbH (Accenture PLC)
• Inventors: Kass, Alex, Verma, Kunal
• Granted Patent: US 8,266,519 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 715/234
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/36 Creation of semantic tools, e.g. ontology or thesauri
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/93 Document management systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/143 Markup, e.g. Standard Generalized Markup Language [SGML] or Document Type Definition [DTD]
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/253 Grammatical analysis; Style critique
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/284 Lexical analysis, e.g. tokenisation or collocates
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/289 Phrasal analysis, e.g. finite state techniques or chunking
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 8/10 Requirements analysis; Specification techniques

Abstract

A document analysis, commenting, and reporting system provides tools that automate quality assurance analysis tailored to specific document types. As one example, the specific document type may be a requirements specification and the system may tag different parts of requirements, including actors, entities, modes, and a remainder. However, the flexibility of the system permits analysis of any other document type, such as instruction manuals and best practices guides. The system helps avoid confusion over the document when it is delivered because of non-standard terms, ambiguous language, conflicts between document sections, incomplete or inaccurate descriptions, size and complexity of the document, and other issues.

Claims

1. A syntax-based document analysis system comprising:

a memory comprising;

a document type specific syntax definition for syntactically correct document structure, the syntax definition comprising a first structure category component for the document structure;

a document type specific document structure identifier;

an electronic document including a document structure instance;

a first editable electronic spoken language glossary comprising permissible constituents associated with the first structure category component;

executable instructions that define;

a syntax-based document graphing module, the syntax-based document graphing module operative to;

identify the document structure instance in the electronic document using the document type specific document structure identifier;

select a structure category component from the document structure instance consistent with the document type specific syntax definition;

generate an ontology hierarchy defining a hierarchy of document structure instance classes comprising a root class, child classes, class definition relationships between the document structure instance classes, and an hierarchy instance identifier that identifies the selected structure category component; and

,

output a graph that represents the ontology hierarchy; and

,

a processor operative to execute the executable instructions.

2. The syntax-based document analysis system of claim 1, where the first structure category component comprises an agent category component.

3. The syntax-based document analysis system of claim 1, where the document type specific syntax definition further comprises:

a second structure category component for the document structure;

a third structure category component for the document structure; and

a fourth structure category component for the document structure.

4. The syntax-based document analysis system of claim 3, where:

the second structure category component comprises a mode category component;

the third category component comprises an action category component; and

the fourth category component comprises a remainder category component.

5. The syntax-based document analysis system of claim 3, further comprising:

a second electronic spoken language glossary comprising permissible constituents associated with the second structure category component; and

,

a third electronic spoken language glossary comprising permissible constituents associated with the third structure category component.

6. The syntax-based document analysis system of claim 5, further comprising:

a syntax-based document analysis module, the syntax-based document analysis module operative to;

identify the document structure instance in the electronic document using the document type specific document structure identifier;

determine whether the document structure instance includes any of the permissible constituents in the first electronic spoken language glossary consistent with the document type specific syntax definition; and

,

perform a document analysis operation based on whether the document structure instance includes any of the permissible constituents in the first electronic spoken language glossary consistent with the document type specific syntax definition;

7. The syntax-based document analysis system of claim 1, where the first electronic spoken language glossary comprises a constituent hierarchy parameter.

8. A syntax-based document analysis system comprising:

a memory comprising;

a document type specific syntax definition for syntactically correct document structure, the syntax definition comprising a first structure category component for the document structure;

a document type specific document structure identifier;

an electronic document including a document structure instance;

a first electronic spoken language glossary comprising permissible constituents associated with the first structure category component; and

,

a first retrievable analysis message that corresponds to the first category component;

executable instructions that define;

a syntax-based document graphing module, the syntax-based document graphing module operative;

identify the document structure instance in the electronic document using the document type specific document structure identifier;

select a structure category component from the document structure instance consistent with the document type specific syntax definition;

generate an ontology hierarchy defining a hierarchy of document structure instance classes comprising a root class, child classes, class definition relationships between the document structure instance classes, and a hierarchy instance identifier that identifies the selected structure category component and,

output a graph that represents the ontology hierarchy; and

a processor operable to execute the executable instructions

9. The syntax-based analysis system of claim 8, where the first structure category component comprises an agent category component.

10. The syntax-based document analysis system of claim 8, where the document type specific syntax definition further comprises:

a second structure category component for the document structure;

a third structure category component for the document structure; and

a fourth structure category component for the document structure.

11. The syntax-based document analysis system of claim 10, where:

the second structure category component comprises a mode category component;

the third category component comprises an action category component; and

,

the fourth category component comprises a remainder category component.

12. The syntax-based document analysis system of claim 10, further comprising:

a syntax-based document commenting module, the syntax-based document commenting module operable to;

identify the document structure instance in the electronic document using the document type specific document structure identifier;

determine whether the document structure instance includes any of the permissible constituents in the first electronic spoken language glossary consistent with the document type specific syntax definition; and

,

retrieve the analysis message when the syntax-based document commenting module determines that document structure instance does not include any of the permissible constituents in the first electronic spoken language glossary consistent with the document type specific syntax definition; and

,

output the retrieved analysis message.

13. The syntax-based document analysis system of claim 12, where:

the memory further comprises;

a second electronic spoken language glossary comprising permissible constituents associated with the second structure category component; and

a second set of retrievable analysis messages that are associated with the second category component; and

,

the syntax-based commenting module is further operable to;

determine whether the document structure instance includes any of the permissible constituents in the third electronic spoken language glossary consistent with the document type specific syntax definition; and

,

retrieve an analysis message from the second set of analysis messages when the syntax-based document commenting module determines that the document structure instance does not include any of the permissible constituents in the third electronic spoken language glossary consistent with the document type specific syntax definition.

14. The syntax-based document analysis system of claim 12, where:

the memory further comprises;

a third electronic spoken language glossary comprising permissible constituents associated with the third structure category component;

a second set of retrievable analysis messages that are associated with the third category component; and

,

the syntax-based commenting module is further operable to;

determine whether the document structure instance includes any of the permissible constituents in the third electronic spoken language glossary consistent with the document type specific syntax definition; and

,

retrieve an analysis message from the second set of analysis messages when the syntax-based document commenting module determines that the document structure instance does not include any of the permissible constituents in the third electronic spoken language glossary consistent with the document type specific syntax definition.

15. The syntax-based document analysis system of claim 8, where the first electronic spoken language glossary comprises a constituent hierarchy parameter.

16. A product comprising:

a machine readable memory;

an ontology model stored in the memory and defining a hierarchy of document structure instance classes comprising a root class, child classes, and class definition relationships between the document structure instance classes; and

logic stored in the memory comprising;

document structure instance identification logic operable to;

identify a first document structure instance and a second document structure instance in a document;

classification logic operable to;

analyze the first document structure instance against the ontology model to determine a first classification for the first document structure instance among the instance classes;

analyze the second document structure instance against the ontology model to determine a second classification for the second document structure instance among the instance classes;

instance relationship analysis logic operable to;

analyze the class definition relationships to determine whether the first classification affects the second classification and output an analysis result; and

a graphic logic operable to;

select a structure category component from the first document structure instance;

modify the ontology model to include a hierarchy instance identifier that identifies the selected structure category component; and

output a graph that represents the ontology model comprising the selected structure category component identifier.

17. The product of claim 16, where the logic stored in the memory further comprises:

classification logic operable to;

analyze the first document structure instance against the ontology model to determine a first classification for the first document structure instance among the instance classes; and

analyze the second document structure instance against the ontology model to determine a second classification for the second document structure instance among the instance classes; and

instance relationship analysis logic operable to;

analyze the class definition relationships to determine whether the first classification affects the second classification and output an analysis result.

18. The product of claim 17, where:

the class definition relationship comprise an instance class search term facilitating analysis of the first and second document structure instances against the ontology model; and

the classification logic is operable to search for the class search term in the first document structure instance.

19. The product of claim 17, where:

the analysis result comprises a relationship notification message inserted into the document.

20. The product of claim 16, where the class definition relationship comprise:

an ‘

affect'"'"'s relationship between a first instance class among the instance classes and a second instance class among the instance classes.