System and method for processing multi-modal communication within a workgroup

• US 8,589,778 B2
• Filed: 12/27/2007
• Issued: 11/19/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 12/27/2006
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Boyle, Peter Currie, Zhang, Yu
• Primary Examiner(s): Hong, Stephen
• Assistant Examiner(s): LUDWIG, MATTHEW J
• Application Number:
  US11/965,114
• Publication Number:
  US 20080189633A1
• Time in Patent Office: 2,154 Days
• Field of Search: 715/201, 715/205, 715/229, 715/249, 715/204, 715/206, 715/208, 715/259
• US Class Current: 715/201
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/10 Office automation; Time management
• CPC Class Codes: Y02A 90/10 Information and communication technologies [ICT] supporting adaptation to climate change, e.g. for weather forecasting or climate simulation

Abstract

There is disclosed a system and method for processing multi-modal collaboration. In an embodiment communication received from multiple modes are converted into a common format. Using various conversion modules, the communication may be converted into a common electronic text format (e.g. ASCII text) that contains keywords. Once the communication is converted into a common format, the information contained in the communication may be analyzed and consolidated into related areas or topics. The consolidated information may then be searched for common references in order to augment the information context.

Claims

1. A method of processing multi-modal communications, comprising the steps of:

intercepting each incoming message of a plurality of messages, wherein said plurality of messages are characterized by at least two different modes, one of said modes being a non-text mode;

converting each intercepted message into a single text format shared by each message;

parsing each message in the shared text format into a list of keywords;

analyzing the list of keyword for each message to generate a respective vector of at least one keyword for each message, wherein said vector is based on a path distance in a semantic hierarchical tree of a dictionary;

calculating a similarity distance between the messages based on their respective vectors of keywords; and

clustering the messages into a plurality of message clusters based upon the calculated similarity distances.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising the steps of:

searching for common references in the messages of a given message cluster;

obtaining contextual content related in subject matter to the common references; and

linking the related contextual content of the common references to the common references.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein the linking step comprises hyperlinking the related contextual content.

4. The method of claim 2, further comprising the step of displaying the plurality of message clusters as a list of context threads.

5. A computer-based system for processing multi-modal communications, comprising:

a central processing unit;

a real time message monitor component for intercepting each incoming message of a plurality of messages, wherein said plurality of messages are characterized by at least two different modes, one of said modes being a non-text mode;

a conversion module for converting each intercepted message into a single shared text format shared by each message;

a natural language parsing engine comprising a processor and configured to parse each message in the shared text format into a list of keywords;

a digital hierarchical dictionary for calculating a similarity distance between the list of keywords for each message; and

a member similarity based clustering algorithm module for clustering the messages into context threads based upon the calculated similarity distances.

6. The system of claim 5, further comprising a context augmenting module configured to search the messages for common references, and to augment the context of the common references by linking related content.

7. The system of claim 6, wherein the context augmenting module is further configured to hyperlink the related content.

8. The system of claim 5, further comprising a GUI component configured to show the clustered messages as a list of context threads.

9. A non-transitory data processor readable medium storing data processor code that, when loaded into a data processing device, adapts the device to perform a method of processing multi-modal communications, the data processor readable medium comprising:

code for intercepting a plurality of incoming text based messages;

code for converting each incoming text based message into a single text format shared by each of said plurality of incoming text based messages;

code for intercepting a plurality of incoming audio based messages;

code for converting each incoming audio based message into said single text format;

code for parsing each of the converted plurality of incoming text based messages and each of the converted incoming audio based messages into a list of keywords;

code for analyzing the list of keywords for each message to generate a respective vector of at least one keyword for each message, wherein said vector is based on a path distance in a semantic hierarchical tree of a dictionary;

code for calculating a similarity distance between the messages based on their respective vectors of keywords; and

code for clustering into topical message clusters based upon the calculated similarity distances.

10. The data processor readable medium of claim 9, further comprising:

code for searching for common references in the messages of a topical message cluster;

code for obtaining contextual content related in subject matter to the common references; and

code for linking the related contextual content to the common references.

11. The data processor readable medium of claim 10, further comprising code for hyperlinking the related content.

12. The data processor readable medium of claim 9, further comprising code for displaying the clustered messages as a list of context threads.

13. The medium of claim 9 further comprising:

code for intercepting a plurality of incoming audiovisual based messages; and

code for converting an audio portion of each incoming audiovisual based message into said single text format.

14. The medium of claim 9 further comprising:

code for intercepting a plurality of incoming image based messages; and

code for converting each image based message into said single text format.