Community search scopes for enterprises applications

• US 20060248050A1
• Filed: 04/28/2005
• Published: 11/02/2006
• Est. Priority Date: 04/28/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Wolpert, Craig Richard, Masselle, Eric Leonard, Dai, Hong, Brooks, David Andrew
• Granted Patent: US 8,140,574 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/954 Navigation, e.g. using categorised browsing
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/958 Organisation or management of web site content, e.g. publishing, maintaining pages or automatic linking

Abstract

Described are a method and apparatus for searching for user relevant information in content repositories using community search scopes. According to the method, a user is presented with a selection of search scopes in which the user is a member. The user selects one of the search scopes according to the desired information and provides a search request that can include, for example, keywords, phrases and data attributes. Searching is performed in each content repository assigned to the search scope if the user is a member of the content repository. Relevant information found in the search content repositories is presented to the user.

Claims

1. A method for a user to perform a search for information in at least one content repository, the method comprising:

selecting one of a plurality of search scopes, each search scope having at least one content repository, the user being a member of a community defined for each search scope;

providing a search request for information relevant to the user;

for each of the content repositories in the selected search scope, searching the content repository for the requested information if the user is a member of the content repository; and

presenting information found in each of the searched content repositories to the user.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein at least one of the content repositories is a public repository.

3. The method of claim 1 wherein presenting information comprises presenting a link to the requested information.

4. The method of claim 1 further comprising presenting the search scopes to the user prior to the selecting of one of the search scopes.

5. A method for creating a community search scope, the method comprising:

associating at least one content repository with a search scope, each content repository having a community of users having access to the content repository; and

defining a community of users for the search scope.

6. The method of claim 5 further comprising presenting the search scope to a user if the user has requested a visible display of the search scope.

7. The method of claim 5 further comprising deleting at least one content repository associated with the search scope.

8. The method of claim 5 further comprising associating at least one additional content repository with the search scope.

9. The method of claim 5 further comprising designating at least one member of the community of users as a manager of the search scope.

10. The method of claim 5 further comprising deleting management privileges previously assigned to a member of the community of users for the search scope.

11. The method of claim 5 further comprising adding at least one member to the community of users for the search scope.

12. The method of claim 5 further comprising removing at least one member from the community of users for the search scope.

13. An apparatus for performing a search of at least one content repository for information relevant to a user, comprising:

means for presenting a graphical user interface to the user, the graphical user interface including a plurality of search scopes each having at least one content repository and each having the user as a member of a community assigned to the search scope, each of the content repositories having a membership;

means for selecting one of the search scopes in the user interface;

means for entering a search request for information relevant to the user;

for each of the content repositories for which the user is a member, means for searching the content repository for the requested information; and

means for presenting the information relevant to the user found in the searched content repositories to the user.

14. The apparatus of claim 13 wherein the means for presenting information found in the searched content repositories comprises means for displaying a link to the requested information.

15. The apparatus of claim 13 wherein the means for presenting a graphical interface to the user further comprises means for determining whether the user has requested that the search scopes are to be made visible to the user.

16. A computer program product for performing a search for information in at least one content repository, the computer program product comprising a computer useable medium having embodied therein program code comprising:

program code for selecting one of a plurality of displayed search scopes, each search scope having at least one content repository, the user being a member of a community defined for each search scope;

program code for generating a search request for information relevant to the user;

program code for searching each of the at least one content repositories in the selected search for the requested information if the user is a member of the respective content repository; and

program code for presenting the information relevant to the user found in each of the at least one searched content repositories to the user.

17. The computer program product of claim 16 further comprising program code for displaying the search scopes to the user.

18. The computer program product of claim 17 wherein the program code for displaying the search scopes to the user comprises program code for determining whether the user has requested that each search scope be made visible to the user.

19. The computer program product of claim 16 wherein the computer program code for presenting information comprises computer program code for presenting a link to the requested information to the user.

20. The computer program product of claim 16 further comprising program code for deleting one of the at least one repositories associated with the search scope.

21. The computer program product of claim 16 further comprising program code to associate an additional content repository with one of the at least one search scopes.