Methods and apparatuses for reporting based on attention of a user during a collaboration session

• US 7,945,619 B1
• Filed: 06/29/2005
• Issued: 05/17/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 09/20/2004
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Cisco Technology, Inc. (Cisco Systems, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Cisco Technology, Inc. (Cisco Systems, Inc.)
• Inventors: Kumar, Manish, Chawla, Jitendra, Wong, Edward, Knight, David
• Primary Examiner(s): Boutah; Alina N
• Assistant Examiner(s): COONEY, ADAM A
• Application Number:
  US11/172,184
• Time in Patent Office: 2,148 Days
• Field of Search: 709/205, 709/224, 709/204
• US Class Current: 709/204
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/10 Office automation; Time management
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/4015 where at least one of the additional parallel sessions is real time or time sensitive, e.g. white board sharing, collaboration or spawning of a subconference
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/535 Tracking the activity of the user network monitoring arrangements H04L43/00; recording of computer activity G06F11/34
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/54 Presence management, e.g. monitoring or registration for receipt of user log-on information, or the connection status of the users

Abstract

In one embodiment, the methods and apparatuses view content that corresponds with a particular time period during a collaboration session; identify a plurality of attendee devices participating in the collaboration session at the particular time period; determine an attention status of each attendee device at the particular time period; and display the attention status of the plurality of attendee devices at the particular time period.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

displaying content that corresponds with a plurality of times during a collaboration session;

identifying a plurality of attendee devices participating in the collaboration session at the plurality of times;

determining an attention status of each attendee device to the content of the collaboration session at each of the plurality of times by monitoring at least one of a size of the content of the collaboration session on the display of the attendee device at each of the plurality of times, or a location of the content of the collaboration session on the display of the attendee device, at each of the plurality of times, wherein the at least one of a size of the content of the collaboration session on the display of the attendee device at each of the plurality of times, or a location of the content of the collaboration session on the display of the attendee device at each of the plurality of times, are used as an indication of attention to the content;

recording the collaborative session;

correlating the attention status of each attendee device at each of the plurality of times with content that was displayed during the collaboration session at each of the plurality of times; and

displaying, on a participant device, the attention status of the plurality of attendee devices at each of the plurality of times together with content from the recorded collaborative session that was displayed at each of the plurality of times.

2. The method according to claim 1 wherein the attention status is one of an active status and an inactive status.

3. The method according to claim 1 wherein the content and the attention status are displayed simultaneously.

4. The method according to claim 1 further comprising detecting an attribute for each of the attendee devices during the collaboration session, the attribute indicating attention of a user of the attendee device to the content, and wherein the attribute is utilized to determine the attention status.

5. The method according to claim 4 further comprising scoring the attribute to determine the attention status of each of the plurality of attendee devices.

6. The method according to claim 4 further comprising storing the attention status and the attribute for each of the plurality of attendee devices within a record associated with each attendee device.

7. The method according to claim 1 wherein the displaying the attention status further comprises displaying to a presenter device an aggregate representation of the attention status of the plurality of attendee devices.

8. The method according to claim 1 further comprising updating the content after a particular time of the plurality of times.

9. The method according to claim 1 further comprising updating the attention status of the plurality of attendee devices after a particular time of the plurality of times.

10. The method according to claim 1 wherein the displaying the attention status further comprises displaying to a presenter device the attention status of each of the plurality of attendee devices individually.

11. A system, comprising:

a processor; and

a memory storing instructions for execution on a processor, the instructions including instructions for,

a content detection module configured to detect content utilized by an attendee device at a plurality of times during a collaboration session,

a scoring module configured to generate an attention status associated with the attendee device with respect to the content of the collaboration session, by monitoring an attribute for the attendee device at each of the plurality of times during the collaboration session, wherein the attribute at each of the plurality of times is at least one of a size of the content of the collaboration session on the display of the attendee device that indicates attention to the content of the collaboration session, or a location of the content of the collaboration session on the display of the attendee device that indicates attention to the content of the collaboration session,

a storage module configured to store the attention status and the content utilized by the attendee device at each of the plurality of times,

a record module configured to correlate the attention status of the attendee device at each of the plurality of times with content utilized by the attendee device at each of the plurality of times; and

an interface module configured to display the stored content and the attention status corresponding to the attendee device at each of the plurality of times.

12. The system according to claim 11 wherein the scoring module determines whether the attendee device is in one of an active state and an inactive state.

13. The system according to claim 12 wherein the interface module notifies the presenter device when the attendee device is in the inactive state.

14. The system according to claim 12 wherein the interface module notifies the attendee device when the attendee device is in the inactive state.

15. A non-transitory computer readable medium having computer-executable instructions for performing a method comprising:

displaying content that corresponds to a plurality of times during a collaboration session;

identifying an attendee device participating in the collaboration session at the plurality of times;

determining an attention status for the attendee device to the content of the collaboration session at each of the plurality of times by monitoring at least one of a size of the content of the collaboration session on the display of the attendee device at each of the plurality of times, a location of the content of the collaboration session on the display of the attendee device at each of the plurality of times, or a priority order of the content of the collaboration session on a display of the attendee device relative to other content being displayed on the display of the attendee device at each of the plurality of times, wherein the at least one of a size of the content of the collaboration session on the display of the attendee device at each of the plurality of times, a location of the content of the collaboration session on the display of the attendee device at each of the plurality of times, or a priority order of the content of the collaboration session on a display of the attendee device relative to other content being displayed on the display of the attendee device at each of the plurality of times, are used as an indication of attention to the content;

recording the collaborative session;

correlating the attention status of the attendee device at each of the plurality of times with content that was displayed during the collaboration session at each of the plurality of times; and

displaying the attention status and the content from the recorded collaborative session corresponding to each of the plurality of times to a presenter device.

16. The computer readable medium according to claim 15 further comprising instructions for detecting an attribute for the attendee device during the collaboration session, the attribute indicating attention of a user of the attendee device to the content, and wherein the attribute is utilized to determine the attention status.

17. The computer readable medium according to claim 16 further comprising instructions for storing the attention status and the attribute for the attendee device within a record associated with the attendee device.

18. A method comprising:

displaying content at a plurality of different times during a collaboration session;

identifying a plurality of attendee devices participating in the collaboration session at the plurality of different times;

determining an attention status of each attendee device to the content of the collaboration session at each of the plurality of times by monitoring at least one of

a size of the content of the collaboration session on the display of the attendee device, or

a location of the content of the collaboration session on the display of the attendee device,

at each of the plurality of times during the collaboration session, wherein the at least one of the size of the content of the collaboration session on the display of the attendee device, or the location of the content of the collaboration session on the display of the attendee device, at each of the plurality of times during the collaboration session, are used as an indication of attention to the content;

correlating the attention status of each attendee device at each of the plurality of different times with content displayed during the collaboration session at each of the plurality of different times; and

displaying simultaneously, on a participant device, an indication of the attention status of the plurality of attendee devices at one or more of the plurality of different times and the content being displayed in the collaboration session at the one or more of the plurality of times.