Addition of plan-generation models and expertise by crowd contributors

• US 9,208,472 B2
• Filed: 12/11/2010
• Issued: 12/08/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 12/11/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Inventors: Mital, Vijay, Rubin, Darryl E., Murillo, Oscar E., Estrada, Colleen G.
• Primary Examiner(s): Chaki, Kakali
• Assistant Examiner(s): Gonzales, Vincent
• Application Number:
  US12/965,845
• Publication Number:
  US 20120150787A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,823 Days
• Field of Search: 706/62
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06N 5/02 Knowledge representation; Symbolic representation
• CPC Class Codes: G06N 5/022 Knowledge engineering; Knowledge acquisition
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/101 Collaborative creation, e.g. joint development of products or services

Abstract

The subject disclosure is directed towards a web service that maintains a set of models used to generate plans, such as vacation plans, in which the set of models includes models that are authored by crowd contributors via the service. The models include rules, constraints and/or equations, and may be text based and declarative such that any author can edit an existing model or combination of existing models into a new model. Users can access the models to generate a plan according to user parameters, view a presentation of that plan, and interact to provide new parameters to the model and/or with objects in the plan to modify the plan and view a presentation of the modified plan.

Claims

1. In a computing environment, a system, comprising:

an authoring tool, implemented on at least one processor, configured to allow one or more authors from among crowd contributors to author a model containing one or more of the following;

rules, constraints, and equations, the model configured to;

generate a plan comprising plan objects; and

obtain the plan objects for the plan based on one or more of the following;

the rules, the constraints, and the equations; and

a presentation mechanism configured to produce an interactive presentation of the plan to a first user based upon the plan objects generated by the model;

an interaction mechanism configured to allow one or more changes to the plan objects during the interactive presentation of the plan, wherein interaction with one or more of the plan objects during the interactive presentation prompts the authoring tool to generate a new model; and

a search mechanism configured to locate the new model for a second user;

wherein the authoring tool is further configured to generate a second plan from the new model based upon the new model and input from the second user; and

wherein the presentation mechanism is further configured to produce a second interactive presentation from the second plan for presenting to the second user.

2. The system of claim 1 wherein the presentation mechanism is coupled to a user interface of the authoring tool.

3. The system of claim 1 wherein the authoring tool and presentation mechanism are incorporated into a hosted web service or set of hosted web services.

4. The system of claim 1 wherein the model is based upon an existing model, and wherein the existing model and the model contain only text data.

5. The system of claim 1 wherein the model is based upon an existing model, and wherein the existing model and the model are declarative.

6. The system of claim 1 wherein the model is based upon an existing model, and wherein the authoring tool is configured to allow authoring of the model by one or more authors from among crowd contributors based upon the existing model by one or more of the following:

modifying text from the existing model, and adding to text from the existing model.

7. The system of claim 1 wherein the model is based upon an existing model, and wherein the authoring tool is configured to allow authoring of the model based upon the existing model by combining text from the existing model with text from another existing model.

8. The system of claim 1 wherein the model is coupled to the search mechanism that provides content objects, and wherein the model uses one or more of the following:

the rules, the constraints, and the equations to generate one or more searches for a set of content objects and filter the set of content objects obtained from the one or more searches to generate the plan comprising the plan objects.

9. The system of claim 1 wherein the model is selected by a user and consumed by the user by receiving user input data corresponding to one or more input parameters of the model to generate a plan for the user that includes plan objects selected based at least in part upon the user input data, and wherein the system further comprises:

a user interface by which the first user experiences the plan as an interactive presentation produced by the presentation mechanism, the interactive presentation configured to allow the user to change at least one of the one or more input parameters of the model during the interactive presentation to prompt the model to generate a revised plan.

10. The system of claim 1 wherein the model is selected by the first user and consumed by the first user by receiving user input data corresponding to one or more input parameters of the model to generate a plan for the first user, and wherein the interaction mechanism is configured to allow one or more changes to the user input data by which the model generates the second plan comprising a different set of plan objects, the presentation mechanism configured to generate the second interactive presentation based on the different set of plan objects.

11. The system of claim 1 wherein the presentation mechanism comprises a content synthesizer that processes the plan objects into a linear narrative.

12. The system of claim 1 wherein the presentation includes one or more of the following:

a timeline, a calendar, a schedule, a presentation, a list, a gallery, and a map.

13. In a computing environment, a method performed at least in part on at least one processor, comprising:

maintaining a set of models, each model comprising one or more of the following;

rules, constraints, and equations by which that model generates one or more searches to obtain a set of content objects and filters the set of content objects obtained from the one or more searches to generate a plan comprising plan objects;

providing a first user access to a selected model for authoring a new model therefrom, including one or more of the following;

allowing content of the selected model to be used for editing into the new model, and allowing content of the selected model to be combined with content from one or more other models from the set of models into the new model;

maintaining the new model as a model of the set of models;

locating the new model for a second user;

generating a plan from the new model based upon the new model and user parameter input; and

producing an interactive presentation from the plan for presenting to the second user.

14. The method of claim 13 wherein maintaining the set of models comprises operating a web service or set of web services, and wherein providing access to the selected model comprises interacting with an author via the web service to select and view content of the selected model.

15. The method of claim 13 further comprising:

locating a selected model from the set of models based upon author or user input data.

16. The method of claim 13 further comprising:

authoring another new model from the new model, wherein authoring another new model from the new model includes one or more of the following;

allowing content of the new model to be used for editing into other new model, and allowing content of the new model to be combined with content from one or more other models.

17. The method of claim 13 further comprising:

processing the plan objects into a linear narrative.

18. One or more computer storage memory having computer-executable instructions stored thereon, which when executed by one or more processors, causes the one or more processors to perform operations comprising:

maintaining a set of models including models authored by crowd contributors, each model comprising one or more of the following;

rules, constraints, and equations used by that model to generate one or more searches to obtain a set of content objects associated with that model;

receiving a selected model from a user;

generating a plan from the selected model, the plan comprising plan objects selected from the set of content objects obtained by the selected model according to one or more of the following;

the rules, the constraints, and the equations of the selected model;

producing an interactive presentation from the plan for presenting to the first user;

receiving, from the user, a change directed towards one or more of the plan objects during the interactive presentation;

determining a number of times the change has been made by other users;

upon determining that the number of times the change has been made by other users exceeds a threshold, generating a new model based at least in part upon the changed received during the interactive presentation; and

upon determining that the number of times the change has been made by other users does not exceed a threshold, revising the plan to include the change without generating a new model based on the changed.

19. The one or more computer storage memory of claim 18 having further computer-executable instructions stored thereon that cause the one or more processors to perform operations comprising:

receiving an additional new model created from two or more authors from among crowd contributors via a web service; and

adding the additional new model to the set of models.

20. The one or more computer storage memory of claim 18 having further computer-executable instructions stored thereon that cause the one or more processors to perform operations comprising:

maintaining the new model as a model of the set of models;

locating the new model for a second user;

generating a plan from the new model; and

producing an interactive presentation from the plan for presenting to the second user.