Rule based system and method for charging student accounts

• US 8,630,957 B2
• Filed: 04/02/2007
• Issued: 01/14/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 03/31/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Educate Online Technology LLC
• Original Assignee: Educate Online Technology LLC
• Inventors: McAvoy, Glenn, Adams, Brad, Viazanko, Duane, Finnigan, Stu
• Primary Examiner(s): Hu, Kang
• Application Number:
  US11/730,556
• Publication Number:
  US 20080059371A1
• Time in Patent Office: 2,479 Days
• Field of Search: 434/350, 434/322, 434/336, 705/326
• US Class Current: 705/326
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/06311 Scheduling, planning or task assignment for a person or group
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/063112 Skill-based matching of a person or a group to a task
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/06398 Performance of employee with respect to a job function
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/102 Bill distribution or payments
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/14 specially adapted for billing systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/00 Commerce
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 50/20 Education
• CPC Class Codes: G09B 5/08 providing for individual presentation of information to a plurality of student stations
• CPC Class Codes: G09B 7/00 Electrically-operated teaching apparatus or devices working with questions and answers mechanically operated G09B3/00; computing arrangements G06F

Abstract

A system for charging one ore learning session to one or more student accounts comprises an online learning system having one or more nodes that creates one or more online learning sessions. An enrollment node receives student enrollment information, including responsible authority information. A scheduling node schedules the online learning session. A database stores one or more student accounts created based on the received student enrollment information. The same or another databases stores information relating to one or more responsible authority charge criterion for charging the one or more learning sessions to the one or more student accounts. An activity node receives one or more session activity information associated with the one or more learning sessions and an accounting node associates a charge information for a learning session to an student account based the one or more responsible authority charge criterion and one or more session activity information.

Claims

1. A system for charging for an online learning session, the system comprising:

a database; and

a computing device operatively coupled to the database, the computing device being programmed to;

receive student enrollment information including responsible authority information about a responsible authority;

store a student account in the database based on the received student enrollment information;

schedule the online learning session;

receive a predetermined rule agreed to by the responsible authority, the predetermined rule including session activity criterion, the session activity criterion including academic progress criterion;

record session activity information, including academic progress information, associated with the online learning session;

associate charge information for the online learning session with the student account, the charge information being based on the predetermined rule, including the session activity criterion and the academic progress criterion, agreed to by the responsible authority; and

facilitate an administrative override of the predetermined rule, the administrative override configured to allow an administrator to adjust the charge information conditioned upon the session activity information not satisfying the predetermined rule.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the charge information for the learning session is associated with the student account based on a determination of whether one or more session activity information associated with the online learning session satisfy the session activity criterion.

3. The system of claim 1, wherein the responsible authority information comprises information relating to at least one of a parent, a public or private school official, a third party, a governmental authority, a non-governmental authority or a certification authority.

4. The system of claim 1, wherein the session activity information relates to student log in time, student logout time and student test score during the learning session.

5. The system of claim 1, wherein the session activity criterion includes at least one of a student conduct towards the learning session and a length of stay of the student in the learning session.

6. The system of claim 1, wherein the session activity criterion relates to responsible authority contract parameters and the session activity information captured during the online learning session, wherein an accounting node processes the responsible authority contract parameters in conjunction with the session activity information to associate the charge information for the online learning session with the student account.

7. The system of claim 6, wherein the session activity information includes at least one of a schedule event relating to a teacher or a student schedule or a session event that takes place during the online learning session.

8. The system of claim 7, wherein the session activity information relates to at least one of an event relating to a log-in, a log-out, a matching between a teacher and student, a session start, student test score, session length, teacher comment or student assessment.

9. The system of claim 7, wherein the schedule event relates to an event associated with at least one of a session cancellation, a session rescheduling or a session no-show.