Automatically generating assessments of qualification relevance and qualification issuer credibility

• US 8,121,879 B1
• Filed: 02/19/2010
• Issued: 02/21/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 03/31/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Amazon Technologies, Inc. (Amazon.com, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Amazon Technologies, Inc. (Amazon.com, Inc.)
• Inventors: Cohen, Peter D.
• Primary Examiner(s): Jeanty, Romain
• Assistant Examiner(s): Parker, Brandi P
• Application Number:
  US12/708,987
• Time in Patent Office: 732 Days
• Field of Search: 705/7.14
• US Class Current: 705/7.14
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/06 Resources, workflows, human or project management; Enterprise or organisation planning; Enterprise or organisation modelling
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/063112 Skill-based matching of a person or a group to a task
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/08 Auctions

Abstract

A method, system, and computer-readable medium is described for generating assessments of relevance of qualifications and of credibility of qualification issuers, such as in an automatic manner and for use by users in an electronic marketplace that facilitates interactions between task requesters who have tasks that are available to be performed and task performers who are available to perform tasks. Such assessments may in some situations be provided to users in various manners and for various purposes, such as to allow task requester users to identify appropriate qualifications to associate with their tasks and/or to allow task performer users to identify appropriate qualifications to acquire to assist in future performance of tasks. The assessments may be generated in various manners, including based on analyzing usage data related to the use of qualifications by task performers and task requesters and based on feedback provided by human users.

Claims

1. A computing system configured to facilitate performance of tasks, comprising:

one or more processors;

a first module configured to, when executed by at least one of the one or more processors, automatically assess relevance of each of multiple qualifications based at least in part on automatically tracked use of the multiple qualifications by at least one of task requesters who submit tasks and task performers who perform tasks, and to automatically assess credibility of each of multiple qualification issuers based at least in part on the automatically tracked use of the multiple qualifications, the automatic assessing of the relevance of each of the multiple qualifications including measuring an aspect of the qualification with respect to each of one or more predetermined metrics; and

a second module configured to, when executed by at least one of the one or more processors, provide information to one or more users regarding the automatically assessed relevance of one or more of the multiple qualifications and to provide information to one or more users regarding the automatically assessed credibility of one or more of the qualification issuers.

2. The computing system of claim 1 further comprising one or more additional modules configured to facilitate performance of tasks each having one or more associated qualifications by task performers whose issued qualifications match the associated qualifications of the tasks, each of the tasks being submitted for performance by a task requester who associates the one or more qualifications with the task for use in controlling which task performers perform the task.

3. The computing system of claim 2 wherein the one or more additional modules are part of a task fulfillment facilitator system, and wherein the first module is a relevance assessment manager module.

4. The computing system of claim 1 further comprising a user qualification module configured to issue qualifications to task performers that each reflect an ability of a task performer to perform tasks.

5. The computing system of claim 1 wherein, for each of one or more of the multiple qualification issuers, the assessed credibility of the qualification issuer is based at least in part on automatically assessed relevance of one or more qualifications issued by the qualification issuer.

6. The computing system of claim 1 wherein the first and second modules each include software instructions for execution in memory of the computing system.

7. The computing system of claim 1 wherein the first module consists of means for automatically assessing relevance of each of multiple qualifications based at least in part on automatically tracked use of the qualifications by task requesters with submitted tasks and/or by task performers who perform tasks, and for automatically assessing credibility of each of multiple qualification issuers based at least in part on the automatically tracked use of the qualifications, and wherein the second module consists of means for providing information to one or more users regarding the automatically assessed relevance of one or more of the qualifications and for providing information to one or more users regarding the automatically assessed credibility of one or more of the qualification issuers.

8. The computing system of claim 1 wherein the one or more predetermined metrics used for the automatic assessing of the relevance of each of the multiple qualifications include at least one of one or more metrics related to popularity of the qualification for use regarding task performance, of one or more metrics related to performance of tasks with which the qualification is associated, of one or more metrics related to performance of tasks by task performers to whom the qualification is issued, and of one or more metrics related to profitability of performance of tasks related to the qualification.

9. The computing system of claim 1 wherein the one or more predetermined metrics used for the automatic assessing of the relevance of each of the multiple qualifications include multiple metrics, the multiple metrics including one or more metrics related to popularity of the qualification for use regarding task performance, one or more metrics related to performance of tasks with which the qualification is associated, one or more metrics related to performance of tasks by task performers to whom the qualification is issued, and one or more metrics related to profitability of performance of tasks related to the qualification.

10. The computing system of claim 1 wherein the automatic assessing of the relevance of each of the multiple qualifications is based on at least one of a number of times that the qualification has been issued to a task performer and a number of times that the qualification has been associated with a task.

11. The computing system of claim 1 wherein the automatic assessing of the relevance of each of the multiple qualifications is based on at least one of throughput of performed tasks by task performers who have been issued the qualification, time to complete tasks by task performers who have been issued the qualification, a number of tasks completed by task performers who have been issued the qualification, a number of completed tasks that have been associated with the qualification, a rate of acceptance of completed tasks that have been associated with the qualification, and time to complete tasks that have been associated with the qualification.

12. The computing system of claim 1 wherein the automatic assessing of the relevance of each of the multiple qualifications includes at least one of determining other qualifications with which the qualification may be used together as a group, of determining other qualifications that are alternatives to the qualification, of determining one or more types of task requesters who use the qualification, and of determining one or more types of task performers who use the qualification.

13. The computing system of claim 1 wherein the providing of the information regarding the automatically assessed relevance of the one or more qualifications includes providing the information to one or more users for use related to performance of additional tasks, the one or more users each being a task requester user who submits at least one of the additional tasks for performance, and the information regarding the automatically assessed relevance of the one or more qualifications being provided to enable the one or more task requester users to identify qualifications to be used with the additional tasks in order to control which task performers are allowed to perform the additional tasks.

14. The computing system of claim 1 wherein the providing of the information regarding the automatically assessed relevance of the one or more qualifications includes providing the information to one or more users for use related to performance of additional tasks, the one or more users each being a task performer user, and the information regarding the automatically assessed relevance of the one or more qualifications being provided to enable the one or more task performer users to identify qualifications to be obtained by the task performer users for use in performing the additional tasks.

15. The computing system of claim 1 wherein the multiple qualifications are each of one of multiple distinct types of qualifications, and wherein the automatic assessing of the relevance of the multiple qualifications includes assessing relevance of multiple of the qualification types.

16. The computing system of claim 1 wherein at least some of the multiple qualification issuers are third-party entities who provide qualifications for a fee to at least one of task requesters for use in controlling which task performers perform tasks and of task performers for use in reflecting abilities to perform tasks.

17. The computing system of claim 1 wherein the automatic assessing of the credibility of each of at least one of the multiple qualification issuers includes measuring one or more aspects of the qualification issuer based at least in part on feedback from human users regarding the qualification issuer.

18. A computer-implemented method for facilitating performance of tasks, comprising:

automatically assessing relevance of each of multiple qualifications based at least in part on automatically tracking at least one of use of the multiple qualifications by task requesters who submit tasks with those submitted tasks and of use of the multiple qualifications by task performers who perform tasks submitted by the task requesters, the automatic assessing of the relevance being performed by one or more configured computing systems and including measuring an aspect of each of the multiple qualifications with respect to each of one or more predetermined metrics;

automatically assessing credibility of each of one or more qualification issuers based at least in part on the automatically tracked use of the multiple qualifications, the automatic assessing of the credibility being performed by the one or more configured computing systems;

providing information to one or more users regarding the automatically assessed relevance of one or more of the multiple qualifications; and

providing information to one or more users regarding the automatically assessed credibility of one or more of the qualification issuers.

19. The method of claim 18 further comprising facilitating performance of the submitted tasks by the task performers, each of the submitted tasks being associated with one or more of the multiple qualifications by one of the task requesters who submitted the task in order to control which task performers perform the task, and each of the submitted tasks being performed by at least one of the task performers who has issued qualifications that match the associated qualifications of the submitted task.

20. The method of claim 19 wherein the one or more configured computing systems are part of a task fulfillment facilitator system, and wherein the method further comprises facilitating issuance of one or more qualifications to each of one or more of the task performers, each qualification that is issued to a task performer reflecting an ability of the task performer to perform tasks with which the qualification is associated.

21. The method of claim 20 wherein, for each of at least one of the one or more qualification issuers, the qualification issuer issues one or more of the multiple qualifications to one or more of the task performers, and the assessed credibility of the qualification issuer is based at least in part on the automatically assessed relevance of the one or more qualifications issued by the qualification issuer.

22. A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium whose contents include instructions that when executed configure a computing system to facilitate performance of tasks, by performing a method comprising:

automatically assessing relevance of each of multiple qualifications based at least in part on use of the multiple qualifications by task requesters who submit tasks with those submitted tasks and use of the multiple qualifications by task performers who perform tasks submitted by the task requesters, the automatic assessing of the relevance being performed by the configured computing system and including measuring an aspect of each of the multiple qualifications with respect to each of one or more predetermined metrics;

automatically assessing credibility of each of one or more qualification issuers based at least in part on the use of the multiple qualifications by at least one of the task requesters and the task performers, the automatic assessing of the credibility being performed by the configured computing system;

providing information to one or more users regarding the automatically assessed relevance of one or more of the multiple qualifications; and

providing information to one or more users regarding the automatically assessed credibility of one or more of the qualification issuers.

23. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 22 wherein the method further comprises facilitating performance of the submitted tasks by the task performers, each of the submitted tasks being associated with one or more of the multiple qualifications by one of the task requesters who submitted the task in order to control which task performers perform the task, and each of the submitted tasks being performed by at least one of the task performers who has issued qualifications that match the associated qualifications of the submitted task.

24. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 22 wherein the configured computing system is part of a task fulfillment facilitator system, and wherein the method further comprises issuing one or more qualifications to each of one or more of the task performers, each qualification that is issued to a task performer reflecting an ability of the task performer to perform tasks with which the qualification is associated.

25. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 22 wherein, for each of at least one of the one or more qualification issuers, the qualification issuer issues one or more of the multiple qualifications to one or more of the task performers, and the assessed credibility of the qualification issuer is based at least in part on the automatically assessed relevance of the one or more qualifications issued by the qualification issuer.

26. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 22 wherein the computer-readable medium is a memory of the computing system.