Intelligent web based help system
First Claim
1. A system for providing integrated help information to users of computer programs and network-based services, said system comprising:
- a means for mining available help information resources for relevant help information, extracting properties of the discovered help information, and, organizing and categorizing said discovered help information;
a memory storage means for storing metadata entries associated with the organized and categorized discovered help content;
a means for automatically registering the discovered help content as said metadata entries in said memory storage means;
end-user interface means adapted to receive dynamically specified user help queries submitted by an end-user;
means for composing an context sensitive search query in response to a specified user help query; and
, means for executing the composed context sensitive search query against said memory storage means comprising said metadata entries associated with the help content, and utilizing the associated metadata to access help information comprising contextual help resources identified by the metadata;
wherein said end-user interface means receives the help information identified by the metadata and renders one or more categorized links to enable end-user access to said contextual help resources.
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Abstract
A system, method and computer program product that combines techniques in the fields of search, data mining, collaborative filtering, user ratings and referral mappings into a system for intelligent web-based help for task or transaction oriented web based systems. The system makes use of a service oriented architecture based on metadata and web services to locate, categorize and provide relevant context sensitive help, including found help not available when the web based system or application was first developed. As part of the inventive system, there is additionally provided a system for providing an integrated information taxonomy which combines automatically, semi-automatically, and manually generated taxonomies and applies them to help systems. This aspect of the invention is applicable to the fields of online self-help systems for web sites and software applications as well as to customer, supplier and employee help desks.
315 Citations
50 Claims
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1. A system for providing integrated help information to users of computer programs and network-based services, said system comprising:
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a means for mining available help information resources for relevant help information, extracting properties of the discovered help information, and, organizing and categorizing said discovered help information;
a memory storage means for storing metadata entries associated with the organized and categorized discovered help content;
a means for automatically registering the discovered help content as said metadata entries in said memory storage means;
end-user interface means adapted to receive dynamically specified user help queries submitted by an end-user;
means for composing an context sensitive search query in response to a specified user help query; and
,means for executing the composed context sensitive search query against said memory storage means comprising said metadata entries associated with the help content, and utilizing the associated metadata to access help information comprising contextual help resources identified by the metadata;
wherein said end-user interface means receives the help information identified by the metadata and renders one or more categorized links to enable end-user access to said contextual help resources. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14)
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15. A method for providing integrated help information to users of computer programs and network-based services comprising:
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a) during a help information build time, mining available help information resources for relevant help information, extracting properties of the discovered help information, and, organizing and categorizing said discovered help information;
b) storing metadata entries associated with the organized and categorized discovered help content in a memory storage device;
c) automatically registering the discovered help content as said metadata entries in said memory storage means; and
,d) during a help information run time, receiving dynamically specified user help queries submitted by an end-user;
e) composing a context sensitive search query in response to a specified user help query;
f) executing the composed context sensitive search query against said memory storage means comprising said metadata entries associated with the help content, and, g) utilizing the associated metadata to access help information comprising contextual help resources identified by the metadata, and h) rendering the help information identified by the metadata as one or more categorized links on an end-user interface device, to enable end-user access to said contextual help resources. - View Dependent Claims (16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27)
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28. A system for providing an on-demand, context-sensitive, integrated help information service to end-users of computer programs and services, said system comprising:
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a means for receiving from a sponsor entity specification of performance criteria associated with providing a particular help content service at a requested performance level for said end-users, a means enabling a service provider entity to specify service provision parameters to provide said help content service for end-users according to said requested performance level;
a means for navigating help information sources comprising data in structured formats, semi-structured formats and unstructured formats in compliance with said initial service provision parameters, and organizing and categorizing said discovered help content according to a help information taxonomy;
a memory storage means providing one or more indices of help information residing in multitude of help information sources in one or more networks of computers;
a means for and assigning metadata to said discovered help content and registering said metadata associated with discovered help information resources in said memory storage means;
a means for monitoring and collecting user context information relating to activities of users of the computer programs or services, said collected information including system configuration information of end-user devices;
a means for receiving dynamically specified user help queries submitted by said end-users associated with said sponsor entity;
a means for comparing collected user context information with help information taxonomies and composing an on-demand, context sensitive user query based on said specified user help queries and monitored and collected information;
a means for executing the composed search query against said metadata stored in said memory storage means associated with the help content provided, and utilizing the associated metadata to access help information comprising contextual help resources identified by the metadata, wherein said end-user interface device receives the help information identified by the metadata and renders one or more categorized links to enable end-user access to said contextual help resources. - View Dependent Claims (29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50)
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Specification