OBTAINING, MANAGING AND ARCHIVING CONFERENCE DATA

• US 20140059010A1
• Filed: 08/27/2012
• Published: 02/27/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 08/27/2012
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Ricoh Company Limited
• Original Assignee: Ricoh Company Limited
• Inventors: UCHIDA, Yuki, TANAKA, Shun
• Granted Patent: US 9,680,659 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 707/661
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/1831 Tracking arrangements for later retrieval, e.g. recording contents, participants activities or behavior, network status
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/1089 by adding media; by removing media
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/403 Arrangements for multi-party communication, e.g. for conferences data switching systems for conference H04L12/18; arrangements for connecting several subscribers to a common circuit, i.e. affording conference facilities H04M3/56; television conferencing systems H04N7/15
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/4038 with floor control
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 7/155 involving storage of or access to video conference sessions tracking arrangements for later retrieval of a computer conference content or participants activities H04L12/1831

Abstract

Tools can be provided for conducting a conference/meeting and/or obtaining, managing and archiving conference/meeting data. For example, a meeting participation application and multi-layer presentation data (including a presentation document and an overlay layer) can be provided through a network to a participant. The meeting participation application allows the participant to make annotations which overlay the presentation document, and captures the user input as data in the overlay layer. Thereafter, processing may be performed to extract keywords from the captured annotations, and such extracted keywords can be archived along with meeting materials, documents, information and other content as meeting data in a meeting database.

Claims

1. A conference data management apparatus for managing meeting data, including a presentation document, corresponding to a specific meeting, the conference data management apparatus comprising:

an overlay engine part that associates, in a meeting database, the presentation document and one or more sets of overlay data;

a keyword extraction part that recognizes keywords in the overlay data, and associates the recognized keywords with the specific meeting, in a keyword portion in the meeting database,

wherein the meeting data in the meeting database includes the presentation document, an overlay portion including the one or more sets of overlay data, and the keyword portion.

2. The conference data management apparatus of claim 1, wherein the keyword extraction part recognizes a keyword in a specific overlay data set amongst the sets of overlay data in the overlay portion, by performing an extraction process including:

performing, or causing to be performed, character recognition on the specific overlay data set;

performing, or causing to be performed, graphic processing on the specific overlay data set to extract a graphical mark that is present in the specific overlay data set; and

performing keyword processing by associating a set of recognized characters delimited by the extracted graphical mark.

3. The conference data management apparatus of claim 1, wherein the overlay portion of the meeting database associates (i) the sets of overlay data and (ii) authors of the respective sets of overlay data.

4. The conference data management apparatus of claim 1, further comprising

a participant application part that provides a meeting participation application through a network, wherein the meeting participation application includes:

a registration user interface that allows a participant to register for the specific meeting;

a participant authentication part that authenticates a request received through the network from a participant terminal to participate in the specific meeting; and

a presentation user interface part that in a case that the request from the participant terminal to participate in the specific meeting is authenticated, provides a presentation user interface and multi-layer presentation data to the participant terminal,

wherein the multi-layer presentation data includes the presentation document and an overlay layer, and

wherein the presentation user interface part adds user input received through the presentation user interface, as overlay data to the overlay layer.

5. The conference data management apparatus of claim 1, further comprising:

a participant application part that provides a presentation user interface and multi-layer presentation data through a network to a participant terminal, in response to a request from the participant terminal to participate in the specific meeting,

wherein the multi-layer presentation data includes the presentation document and an overlay layer, and

wherein the participant application part adds user input received through the presentation user interface to the overlay layer.

6. The conference data management apparatus of claim 5, wherein the presentation user interface provided to the participant terminal includes an access control part for the participant to specify whether data in the overlay layer is to be accessible by one or more of a presenter and other participants of the specific meeting.

7. The conference data management apparatus of claim 5, wherein the presentation user interface includes a link adding part for the participant to add an active link pointing to other content, and the presentation user interface adds to the overlay layer the active link pointing to said other content.

8. The conference data management apparatus of claim 5, wherein the presentation user interface includes a link adding part for the participant to add an active link pointing to other content, specified by the participant through the presentation user interface at a particular moment of time, in association with a specified keyword.

9. The conference data management apparatus of claim 8, further comprising:

a content capture database that archives specified content obtained from a content source through the network; and

a content capture part that retrieves, and archives in said content capture database, said other content specified through the active link, when the participant specifies the other content at the particular moment of time through the presentation user interface.

10. The conference data management apparatus of claim 9, wherein said other content archived in said content capture database is the other content obtained by the content capture part at the particular moment of time.

11. A conference application providing apparatus that provides a meeting participation application through a network, said conference application providing apparatus comprising:

a user interface providing part that provides a presentation user interface and multi-layer presentation data to a participant terminal, in response to a request received through the network from the participant terminal to participate in a specific meeting, the multi-layer presentation data including a presentation document and an overlay layer;

an overlay engine part that associates, in a meeting database, the presentation document and one or more sets of overlay data; and

a keyword extraction part that recognizes keywords in the overlay data, and associates the recognized keywords with the specific meeting, in a keyword portion in the meeting database,

wherein meeting data in the meeting database includes the presentation document, an overlay portion including the one or more sets of overlay data, and the keyword portion, and

wherein the overlay engine part adds user input received through the presentation user interface, to the overlay layer.

12. The conference application providing apparatus of claim 11, wherein the user input includes one or more of (i) writing via a touch-sensitive display of the participant terminal, (ii) writing via user operation of a pointer device to manipulate a pointer device, (iii) textual entry by user operation of a keyboard or graphical keyboard of the participant terminal, and (iv) oral input through a microphone of the participant terminal.

13. The conference application providing apparatus of claim 11, wherein the presentation user interface provided to the participant terminal includes an access control part for a participant operating the participant terminal to specify whether the overlay data is to be accessible by one or more other participants of the specific meeting.

14. The conference application providing apparatus of claim 11, wherein the presentation user interface includes a link adding part for a participant operating the participant terminal to add an active link to other content, specified by the participant through the presentation user interface at a particular moment of time, in association with a specified keyword.

15. A non-transitory computer readable medium tangibly embodying a program of instructions executable by a computer to provide a meeting participation application, the program comprising:

a user interface providing part that provides a presentation user interface and multi-layer presentation data to a participant terminal, in response to a request received through a network from the participant terminal to participate in a specific meeting, the multi-layer presentation data including a presentation document and an overlay layer;

an overlay engine part that associates, in a meeting database, the presentation document and one or more sets of overlay data; and

a keyword extraction part that recognizes keywords in the overlay data, and associates the recognized keywords with the specific meeting, in a keyword portion in the meeting database,

wherein meeting data in the meeting database includes the presentation document, an overlay portion including the one or more sets of overlay data, and the keyword portion, and

wherein the overlay engine part adds user input received through the presentation user interface, to the overlay layer.

16. A system for managing and archiving meeting data corresponding to a specific meeting including a plurality of participants, the plurality of participants including a presenter associated with a presentation document corresponding to the specific meeting, the system comprising:

a meeting database that captures the meeting data for the specific meeting; and

a data archiving part that archives in the meeting data captured in the meeting database, the presentation document, an overlay portion including sets of overlay data capturing annotations of the respective participants of the specific meeting, a keyword portion including keywords extracted from the overlay data, and other content,

the data archiving part retrieving, and archiving in said meeting database, specified content obtained from a content source through a network, when the specified content specified by a corresponding participant amongst the plurality of participants at a particular moment of time is added to the overlay data capturing the annotations of said participant.

17. The system of claim 16, wherein said other content archived in said meeting database includes the specified content obtained by the data archiving part at the particular moment of time when the specified content is specified by the participant.

18. The system of claim 16, wherein the overlay data capturing the annotations of said participant includes an active link to the specified content archived in said meeting database.

19. The system of claim 16, wherein the overlay data capturing the annotations of said participant includes an active link pointing to the content source of the specified content.

20. The system of claim 16, wherein the meeting data archived in the meeting database for the specific meeting includes an active link pointing to a source document for the archived presentation document.

21. The system of claim 16, wherein the data archiving part causes the presentation document, the overlay portion and the keyword portion to be registered along with meeting minutes of the specific meeting, as the meeting data for the specific meeting in the meeting database.