Electronic content management and delivery platform

• US 9,542,538 B2
• Filed: 10/04/2012
• Issued: 01/10/2017
• Est. Priority Date: 10/04/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Chegg Incorporated
• Original Assignee: Chegg Incorporated
• Inventors: Le Chevalier, Vincent, Geiger, Charles F., Tworetzky, Brent S., Joshi, Ashit, Eckenberg, Dax, Desai, Rahul Ravindra Mutalik
• Primary Examiner(s): HUYNH, THU V
• Application Number:
  US13/644,731
• Publication Number:
  US 20130124972A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,559 Days
• Field of Search: 715234-235, 715238-239, 715/243, 715/255, 715/273
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/94 Hypermedia Hyperlinking G06F40/134
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9558 Details of hyperlinks; Management of linked annotations
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9566 URL specific, e.g. using aliases, detecting broken or misspelled links
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 21/10 Protecting distributed programs or content, e.g. vending or licensing of copyrighted material protection in video systems or pay television H04N7/16 ; Digital rights management [DRM]
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 21/121 Restricting unauthorised execution of programs
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 21/128 involving web programs, i.e. using technology especially used in internet, generally interacting with a web browser, e.g. hypertext markup language [HTML], applets, java
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/134 Hyperlinking
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/143 Markup, e.g. Standard Generalized Markup Language [SGML] or Document Type Definition [DTD]

Abstract

An education digital reading platform provides aggregation, management, and distribution of digital education content and services. The platform ingests content from a variety of content sources, transforms the content for web-based publication, and distributes the content to connected end-user devices via a network. The transformed content preserves the original page structure of the content document regardless of the original format of the content file. As the user experiences the content, the user'"'"'s web browser regularly communicates with the platform for updating reading content and connected services. User-generated content such as notes are uploaded to the platform so that the user'"'"'s user-generated content can be accessed from any of the user'"'"'s registered devices. Moreover, the platform enables the user-generated content and other user activities to be optionally shared among friends, classmates, campus, or other groups, as part of an education social platform.

Claims

1. A method for distributing educational electronic documents, the method comprising:

generating markup language page elements and document structure metadata that collectively preserve page fidelity of a document having a plurality of correlated pages, the page fidelity preserved across a plurality of targeted web browsers, the markup language page elements corresponding to elements of information on each correlated page of the document and the document structure metadata identifying locations and composition of the elements of information;

packaging the markup language page elements and the document structure metadata into a plurality of assets for delivery, each asset of the plurality of assets including the markup language page elements and the document structure metadata for a portion of the document;

generating for an asset of the plurality of assets, a unique time-based URL referencing the markup language page elements of the asset and establishing a time of expiry of the markup language elements of the asset, the unique time-based URL referencing the markup language elements of the asset prior to the time of expiry and not referencing the markup language elements of the asset after the time of expiry; and

transferring the unique time-based URL of the asset to end-user web applications of authorized users, the end-user web applications executing in the targeted web browsers for using the unique time-based URL to access the markup language page elements and the document structure metadata to reconstruct and display one or more pages of the document with page fidelity to the document.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

rendering each page of the document from the respective markup language page elements; and

comparing, by a correlation engine, each rendered page to a respective page of the document to establish a correlation factor between the rendered page and the page of the document, the correlation factor indicating a quality of the page fidelity.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein packaging the markup language page elements into assets comprises:

encrypting the markup language page elements of each asset into a digital rights management (DRM) layer prior to distributing the markup language page elements, the DRM layer specifying rules for accessing pages of the asset.

4. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

receiving reports from the end-user web applications identifying quality of service issues relating to the reconstruction of the one or more pages of the document.

5. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

ingesting user-generated content related to an educational course from the end-user web applications; and

processing the user-generated content into a self-published document related to the educational course.

6. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

receiving reports of activities of a user related to the document; and

storing the received user activities in relation to the markup language page elements and an account of the user.

7. A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium storing executable computer program instructions for distributing educational electronic documents, the computer program instructions comprising instructions for:

generating markup language page elements and document structure metadata that collectively preserve page fidelity of a document having a plurality of correlated pages, the page fidelity preserved across a plurality of targeted web browsers, the markup language page elements corresponding to elements of information on each correlated page of the document and the document structure metadata identifying locations and composition of the elements of information;

packaging the markup language page elements and the document structure metadata into a plurality of assets for delivery, asset of the plurality of assets including the markup language page elements and the document structure metadata for a portion of the document;

generating for an asset of the plurality of assets, a unique time-based URL referencing the markup language page elements of the asset and establishing a time of expiry of the markup language elements of the asset, the unique time-based URL referencing the markup language elements of the asset prior to the time of expiry and not referencing the markup language elements of the asset after the time of expiry; and

transferring the unique time-based URL of the asset to end-user web applications of authorized users, the end-user web applications executing in the targeted web browsers for using the unique time-based URL to access the markup language page elements and the document structure metadata to reconstruct and display one or more pages of the document with page fidelity to the document.

8. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 7, the computer program instructions further comprising instructions for:

rendering each page of the document from the respective markup language page elements; and

comparing, by a correlation engine, each rendered page to a respective page of the document to establish a correlation factor between the rendered page and the page of the document, the correlation factor indicating a quality of the page fidelity.

9. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 7, wherein the computer program instructions for packaging the markup language page elements into assets comprises:

encrypting the markup language page elements of each asset into a digital rights management (DRM) layer prior to distributing the markup language page elements, the DRM layer specifying rules for accessing pages of the asset.

10. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 7, the computer program instructions further comprising instructions for:

receiving reports from the end-user web applications identifying quality of service issues relating to the reconstruction of the one or more pages of the document.

11. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 7, the computer program instructions further comprising instructions for:

ingesting user-generated content related to an educational course from the end-user web applications; and

processing the user-generated content into a self-published document related to the educational course.

12. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 7, the computer program instructions further comprising instructions for:

receiving reports of activities of a user related to the document; and

storing the received user activities in relation to the markup language page elements and an account of the user.

13. An educational electronic document delivery platform, comprising:

a processor for executing computer program code; and

a non-transitory computer readable storage medium storing executable computer program code for;

a publishing system configured to;

generate markup language page elements and document structure metadata that collectively preserve page fidelity of a document having a plurality of correlated pages, the page fidelity preserved across a plurality of targeted web browsers, the markup language page elements corresponding to elements of information on each correlated page of the document and the document structure metadata identifying locations and composition of the elements of information, and

package the markup language page elements and the document structure metadata into a plurality of assets for delivery, each asset of the plurality of assets including the markup language page elements and the document structure metadata for a portion of the document; and

a distribution system configured to

generate for an asset of the plurality of assets, a unique time-based URL referencing the markup language page elements of the asset and establishing a time of expiry of the markup language elements of the asset, the unique time-based URL referencing the markup language elements of the asset prior to the time of expiry and not referencing the markup language elements of the asset after the time of expiry; and

transfer the unique time-based URL of the asset to end-user web applications of authorized users, the end-user web applications executing in the targeted web browsers for using the unique time-based URL to access the markup language page elements and the document structure metadata to reconstruct and display one or more pages of the document with page fidelity to the document.

14. The platform of claim 13, wherein the publishing system comprises a correlation engine configured to:

render each page of the document from the respective markup language page elements; and

compare each rendered page to a respective page of the document to establish a correlation factor between the rendered page and the page of the document, the correlation factor indicating a quality of the page fidelity.

15. The platform of claim 13, wherein the publishing system packages the markup language page elements into assets by encrypting the markup language page elements of each asset into a digital rights management (DRM) layer prior to distributing the markup language page elements, the DRM layer specifying rules for accessing pages of the asset.

16. The platform of claim 13, wherein the distribution system comprises a delivery reporting module configured to:

receive reports from the end-user web applications identifying quality of service issues relating to the reconstruction of the one or more pages of the document.

17. The platform of claim 13, wherein the distribution system comprises an end-user reporting module configured to:

ingest user-generated content related to an educational course from the end-user web applications; and

process the user-generated content into a self-published document related to the educational course.