Method and system for summarizing topics of documents browsed by a user

• US 6,356,898 B2
• Filed: 11/13/1998
• Issued: 03/12/2002
• Est. Priority Date: 08/31/1998
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Barrett, Robert C., Maglio, Paul P., Cohen, Andrew L., Sheldon, Mark A.
• Primary Examiner(s): Lintz, Paul R.
• Assistant Examiner(s): Colbert, Ella
• Application Number:
  US09/191,587
• Publication Number:
  US 20010044795A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,215 Days
• Field of Search: 707/2, 707/5, 707/6, 707/10, 707/513, 707/500, 707/1, 707/531, 395/600, 395/615, 395/774
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/335 Filtering based on additional data, e.g. user or group profiles filtering in web context G06F16/9535, G06F16/9536
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9535 Search customisation based on user profiles and personalisation
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99932 Access augmentation or optimizing
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99935 Query augmenting and refining, e.g. inexact access
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99936 Pattern matching access

Abstract

The invention disclosed herein relates to cooperative computing environments and information retrieval and management methods and systems. More particularly, the present invention relates to methods and systems for capturing and generating useful information about a user'"'"'s access and use of data on a computer system, such as in the form of documents stored on remote servers, and making such useful information available to others. Documents on the computer system are accessible through a plurality of different methods, such as by specifying an identifier or locator for the document, activating a hyperlink in another document which points to the document, or navigating to the document through navigational commands in an application program such as a browser. The method involves capturing information regarding each of the accessed documents in the set, the information including the method used to access the document, dividing the set of documents into subsets of documents based at least in part on the methods used to access the documents, labeling each subset of documents with a topic, and making the labels and documents accessed available to other users who wish to browse the same documents.

Claims

1. A method for producing a summary of topics for a set of documents accessed by a user on a computer system, the documents being accessible on the computer system through a plurality of different methods, the method comprising:

capturing information regarding each of the accessed documents in the set, the information including the method used to access the document;

dividing the set of documents into a plurality of subsets of documents based at least in part on the methods used to access the documents; and

labeling each subset of documents with a topic.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein each of the documents is associated with an identifier, and wherein the step of capturing information includes capturing the identifier of each document in the set.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein the step of capturing information comprises monitoring the user'"'"'s access of the documents and storing for each document the identifier associated therewith and the method used to access the document.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the step of capturing information about the documents in the set comprises capturing a sequence in which the documents are accessed by the user.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein the step of dividing the set of documents into subsets comprises dividing the sequence of documents into subsequences of consecutive documents accessed by the user.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein each of the documents is associated with an identifier, and the methods include two or more from the group consisting of input of a document identifier, selecting a stored bookmark for the document identifier, activating a link to a target document contained in a source document, and navigating to a document previously accessed in the sequence.

7. The method of claim 6, wherein the step of dividing the set of documents comprises starting a new subsequence of documents with any document in the sequence accessed through a predetermined one or more of the plurality of methods.

8. The method of claim 7, wherein the step of starting a new sequence comprises starting the new sequence with any document accessed through input of the document'"'"'s identifier.

9. The method of claim 7, wherein the step of starting a new sequence comprises starting the new sequence with any document accessed through selection of a stored bookmark for the document'"'"'s identifier.

10. The method of claim 7, the step of dividing the set of documents into subsets comprises grouping into a subset consecutive documents which were accessed through activation of links contained in the consecutive documents.

11. The method of claim 1, wherein the documents contain content and wherein the step of dividing the set of documents into subsets comprises dividing the set of document based at least in part on the content of the documents in the set.

12. The method of claim 11, wherein the step of dividing the set of documents comprises clustering the documents based at least in part on the content of the documents.

13. The method of claim 12, wherein the step of dividing the set of documents into subsets comprises dividing the set of documents into first subsets based on the methods through which the documents were accessed and clustering the documents in each first subset into second subsets based on the content of the documents in each first subset.

14. The method of claim 12, wherein the step of dividing the set of documents into subsets comprises clustering the documents based on the content of the documents and the methods used to access the documents.

15. The method of claim 14, wherein the step of clustering comprises identifying tokens in each of the documents and establishing a vector for each document comprising a combination of the tokens in the document and a feature representing the method used to access the document.

16. A software program stored on a computer readable medium which, when executed, causes a computer to perform a method for producing a summary of topics for a set of documents accessed by a user on a computer system, the documents being accessible on the computer system through a plurality of different methods, the method comprising:

capturing information regarding each of the accessed documents in the set, the information including the method used to access the document;

dividing the set of documents into a plurality of'"'"'subsets of documents based at least in part on the methods used to access the documents; and

labeling each subset of documents with a topic.

17. The software program of claim 16, wherein each of the documents is associated with an identifier, and wherein the step performed by the computer of capturing information includes capturing the identifier of each document in the set.

18. The software program of claim 17, wherein the step performed by the computer of capturing information comprises monitoring the user'"'"'s access of the documents and storing for each document the identifier associated therewith and the method used to access the document.

19. The software program of claim 16, wherein the step performed by the computer of capturing information about the documents in the set comprises capturing a sequence in which the documents are accessed by the use.

20. The software program of claim 19, wherein the step performed by the computer of dividing the set of documents into subsets comprises dividing the sequence of documents into subsequences of consectitive documents accessed by the user.

21. The software program of claim 20, wherein each of the documents is associated with an identifier, and the methods include two or more from the group consisting of input of a document identifier, selecting a stored bookmark for the document identifier, activating a link to a target document contained in a source document, and navigating to a document previously accessed in the sequence.

22. The software program of claim 21, wherein the step performed by the computer of dividing the set of documents comprises starting a new subsequence of documents with any document in the sequence accessed through a predetermined one or more of the plurality of methods.

23. The software program of claim 22, wherein the step performed by the computer of starting a new sequence comprises starting the new sequence with any document accessed through input of the document'"'"'s identifier.

24. The software program of claim 22, wherein the step performed by the computer of starting a new sequence comprises starting the new sequence with any document accessed through selection of a stored bookmark for the document'"'"'s identifier.

25. The software program of claim 22, wherein the step performed by the computer of dividing the set of documents into subsets comprises grouping into a subset consecutive documents which were accessed through activation of links contained in the consecutive documents.

26. The software program of claim 16, wherein the documents contain content and wherein the step performed by the computer of dividing the set of documents into subsets comprises dividing the set of document based at least in part on the content of the documents in the set.

27. The software program of claim 26, wherein the step performed by the computer of dividing the set of documents comprises clustering the documents based at least in part on the content of the documents.

28. The software program of claim 27, wherein the step performed by the computer of dividing the set of documents into subsets comprises dividing the set of documents into first subsets based on the methods through which the documents were accessed and clustering the documents in each first subset into second subsets based on the content of the documents in each first subset.

29. The software program of claim 27, wherein the step performed by the computer of dividing the set of documents into subsets comprises clustering the documents based on the content of the documents and the methods used to access the documents.

30. The software program of claim 29, wherein the step performed by the computer of clustering comprises identifying tokens in each of the documents and establishing a vector for each document comprising a combination of the tokens in the document and a feature representing the method used to access the document.