System and method for publishing a person's affinities

• US 7,249,034 B2
• Filed: 01/15/2002
• Issued: 07/24/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 01/14/2002
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Schirmer, Andrew Lewis, Newbold, David LeRoy, Regnante, Cynthia Jeanne
• Primary Examiner(s): Weiss; John G.
• Assistant Examiner(s): CASLER, TRACI
• Application Number:
  US10/044,923
• Publication Number:
  US 20030135379A1
• Time in Patent Office: 2,016 Days
• Field of Search: 705/1, 706/46
• US Class Current: 705/344
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/24575 using context
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/285 Clustering or classification
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/313 Selection or weighting of terms for indexing
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/93 Document management systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06N 5/00 Computing arrangements using knowledge-based models
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/10 Office automation; Time management
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/02 Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0281 Customer communication at a business location, e.g. providing product or service information, consulting
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 50/01 Social networking
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99936 Pattern matching access
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99945 Object-oriented database structure processing

Abstract

A system and method to control the review and publication of affinities. The system and method can be tailored to provide flexibility in the ways that affinity publication is controlled, thereby accommodating different cultural and legal constraints on information access. In one aspect, the system and method allows a person who is the subject of a proposed affinities to review the affinity and then approve or deny publication of the affinity before the affinity is made known to others, thus avoiding inappropriate publication. Advantageously, the system and method enable the person to review the affinity in a context that increases the likelihood that only accurate affinities will be published.

Claims

1. A method for publishing information associated with a user, comprising the steps of:

determining an affinity value for the user with respect to a topical category, wherein the affinity value represents a strength of a relationship between the user and the category;

determining whether the affinity value crosses a predetermined threshold;

in response to the affinity value crossing the threshold, determining whether to publish information related to the relationship between the user and the category, wherein determining whether to publish the information comprises;

determining whether an affinity publication policy associated with the user indicates that the information should not be published without first receiving permission from the user to publish the information;

transmitting to the user a message that requests the user to submit a response that indicates whether or not the user wishes to have the information published if it is determined that the affinity publication policy indicates that the information should not be published without first receiving permission from the user;

determining whether the user submitted a response to the request within a predetermined period of time; and

performing a default publication action if the user does not submit the response before the predetermined period of time expires,

wherein the predetermined period of time is specified by the affinity publication policy associated with the user, and

wherein the predetermined period of time is set by the user in the affinity publication policy.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the default publication action is specified by the affinity publication policy associated with the user.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein the default publication action includes either (i) publishing the information related to the relationship between the user and the category, or (ii) not publishing the information related to the relationship between the user and the category.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein publishing the information comprises updating a profile associated with the user such that the profile indicates that the user has an affinity for the category.

5. The method of claim 3, wherein the default publication action includes publishing the information related to the relationship between the user and the category, and notifying the user that the information was published.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the default publication action includes either (i) publishing the information related to the relationship between the user and the category, or (ii) not publishing the information related to the relationship between the user and the category.

7. The method of claim 3, wherein the default publication action includes not publishing the information related to the relationship between the user and the category, and notifying the user that the information will not be published.

8. The method of claim 6, wherein the default publication action includes publishing the information related to the relationship between the user and the category, and notifying the user that the information was published.

9. The method of claim 6, wherein the default publication action includes not publishing the information related to the relationship between the user and the category, and notifying the user that the information will not be published.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein the predetermined threshold is set by the user.

11. The method of claim 10, wherein the predetermined threshold is specified by the affinity publication policy.

12. The method of claim 11, further comprising the step of determining whether there is a particular affinity publication policy that is associated with the user.

13. The method of claim 1, wherein the predetermined threshold is specified by the affinity publication policy.

14. The method of claim 1, wherein the predetermined threshold is set by an administrator.

15. The method of claim 14, wherein the predetermined threshold is specified by the affinity publication policy.

16. The method of claim 1, wherein determining an affinity value for the user with respect to the category comprises monitoring the user'"'"'s interaction with a set of one or more stored documents.

17. The method of claim 1, wherein determining an affinity value for the user with respect to the category comprises mining electronic mail messages sent to and from the user.

18. The method of claim 1, wherein determining an affinity value for the user with respect to the category comprises receiving a metric value input manually by an administrator.

19. The method of claim 1, wherein determining an affinity value for the user with respect to the category comprises receiving a metric value input manually by the user.

20. The method of claim 16, wherein the set of one or more stored documents are managed by a knowledge management system.

21. The method of claim 20, wherein the knowledge management system determines a master category list, and wherein the category is included in the master category list.

22. The method of claim 21, wherein the predetermined threshold is different for different categories included in the master category list.

23. A system for publishing, comprising:

affinity discovery module that function to discover one or more affinities of the user,

wherein the discovering an affinity includes (i) determining an affinity value for the user with respect to a topical category, the affinity value representing a strength of a relationship between the user and the category, and (ii) determining whether the affinity value crosses a predetermined threshold;

an affinity publication policy associated with the user, and

affinity publishing module that manages the publication of the discovered affinities,

wherein managing the publication of a discovered affinity includes (i) transmitting to the user a message that requests the user to submit a response that indicates whether or not the user wishes to have the affinity published, (ii) determining whether the user submitted a response to the request within a predetermined period of time, and (iii) performing a default publication action if the user does not submit the response before the predetermined period of time expires,

wherein the predetermined period of time is specified by the affinity publication policy associated with the user, and the predetermined period of time is set by the user in the affinity publication policy.

24. The system of claim 23, further comprising a storage system that stores the affinity publication policy associated with the user.

25. The system of claim 24, wherein the storage system stores a user profile associated with the user.

26. The system of claim 25, wherein the affinity publishing module publishes the affinities of the user by updating the user profile.

27. The system of claim 23, wherein the default publication action is specified by the affinity publication policy.

28. The system of claim 27, wherein the default publication action includes either (i) publishing the affinity, or (ii) not publishing the affinity.

29. The system of claim 28, wherein the default publication action includes either (i) publishing the affinity and notifying the user that the affinity was published, or (ii) not publishing the affinity and notifying the user that the affinity will not be published.

30. The system of claim 23, wherein the default publication action includes either (i) publishing the affinity, or (ii) not publishing the affinity.

31. The system of claim 30, wherein the default publication action includes either (i) publishing the affinity and notifying the user that the affinity was published, or (ii) not publishing the affinity and notifying the user that the affinity will not be published.

32. The system of claim 23, wherein the predetermined threshold is set by the user.

33. A computer program product for publishing information associated with a user, the computer program product being embodied in a computer readable medium and comprising computer instructions for:

determining an affinity value for the user with respect to a topical category, wherein the affinity value represents a strength of a relationship between the user and the category;

determining whether the affinity value crosses a predetermined threshold;

in response to the affinity value crossing the threshold, determining whether to publish information related to the relationship between the user and the category, wherein determining whether to publish the information comprises;

determining whether an affinity publication policy associated with the user indicates that the information should not be published without first receiving permission from the user to publish the information;

transmitting to the user a message that requests the user to submit a response that indicates whether or not the user wishes to have the information published if it is determined that the affinity publication policy indicates that the information should not be published without first receiving permission from the user;

determining whether the user submitted a response to the request within a predetermined period of time; and

performing a default publication action it the user does not submit the response before the predetermined period of time expires,

wherein the predetermined period of time is specified by the affinity publication policy associated with the user, and

wherein the predetermined period of time is set by the user in the affinity publication policy.

34. The computer program product of claim 33, wherein the default publication action is specified by the affinity publication policy.

35. The computer program product of claim 34, wherein the default publication action includes either (i) publishing the information related to the relationship between the user and the category, or (ii) not publishing the information related to the relationship between the user and the category.

36. The computer program product of claim 35, wherein the default publication action includes either (i) publishing the information related to the relationship between the user and the category, or (ii) not publishing the information related to the relationship between the user and the category.

37. The computer program product of claim 36, wherein the default publication action includes either (i) publishing the information related to the relationship between the user and the category and notifying the user that the information was published, or (ii) not publishing the information related to the relationship between the user and the category and notifying the user that the information will not be published.

38. The computer program product of claim 36, wherein the publishing the information comprises updating a profile associated with the user to indicate that the user has an affinity for the category.

39. The computer program product of claim 33, wherein the predetermined threshold is set by the user.

40. The computer program product of claim 39, wherein the predetermined threshold is specified by the affinity publication policy.

41. The computer program product of claim 33, wherein the predetermined threshold is specified by the affinity publication policy.

42. The computer program product of claim 33, wherein the predetermined threshold is set by an administrator.

43. The computer program product of claim 42, wherein the predetermined threshold is specified by the affinity publication policy.

44. The computer program product of claim 33, wherein determining an affinity value for the user with respect to the category comprises mining electronic mail messages sent to and from the user.

45. The computer program product of claim 33, wherein determining an affinity value for the user with respect to the category comprises monitoring the user'"'"'s interaction with a set of one or more stored documents.

46. The computer program product of claim 33, wherein determining an affinity value for the user with respect to the category comprises receiving a metric value input manually by an administrator.

47. The computer program product of claim 33, wherein determining an affinity value for the user with respect to the category comprises receiving a metric value input manually by the user.

48. The computer program product of claim 45, wherein the set of one or more stored documents are managed by a knowledge management system.

49. The computer program product of claim 48, wherein the knowledge management system determines a master category list, and wherein the category is included in the master category list.