Electrical computers and digital processing systems: multicomput – Computer conferencing – Demand based messaging
Reexamination Certificate
1999-03-17
2001-03-20
Geckil, Mehmet B. (Department: 2152)
Electrical computers and digital processing systems: multicomput
Computer conferencing
Demand based messaging
C709S245000, C707S793000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06205472
ABSTRACT:
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates generally to the field of knowledge management and, more specifically, to a method and apparatus for querying a user profile over a computer network.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
The new field of “knowledge management” (KM) is receiving increasing recognition as the gains to be realized from the systematic effort to store and export vast knowledge resources held by employees of an organization are being recognized. The sharing of knowledge broadly within an organization offers numerous potential benefits to an organization through the awareness and reuse of existing knowledge, and the avoidance of duplicate efforts.
In order to maximize the exploitation of knowledge resources within an organization, a knowledge management system may be presented with two primary challenges, namely (1) the identification of knowledge resources within the organization and (2) the distribution and accessing of information regarding such knowledge resources within the organization.
The identification, capture, organization and storage of knowledge resources is a particularly taxing problem. Prior art knowledge management systems have typically implemented knowledge repositories that require users manually to input information frequently into pre-defined fields, and in this way manually and in a prompted manner to reveal their personal knowledge base. However, this approach suffers from a number of drawbacks in that the manual entering of such information is time consuming and often incomplete, and therefore places a burden on users who then experience the inconvenience and cost of a corporate knowledge management initiative long before any direct benefit is experienced. Furthermore, users may not be motivated to describe their own knowledge and to contribute documents on an ongoing basis that would subsequently be re-used by others without their awareness or consent. The manual input of such information places a burden on users who then experience the inconvenience and cost of a corporate knowledge management initiative long before any direct benefit is experienced.
It has been the experience of many corporations that knowledge management systems, after some initial success, may fail because either compliance (i.e., the thoroughness and continuity with which each user contributes knowledge) or participation (i.e., the percentage of users actively contributing to the knowledge management system) falls to inadequate levels. Without high compliance and participation, it becomes a practical impossibility to maintain a sufficiently current and complete inventory of the knowledge of all users. Under these circumstances, the knowledge management effort may never offer an attractive relationship of benefits to costs for the organization as a whole, reach a critical mass, and the original benefit of knowledge management falls apart or is marginalized to a small group.
In order to address the problems associated with the manual input of knowledge information, more sophisticated prior art knowledge management initiatives may presume the existence of a centralized staff to work with users to capture knowledge bases. This may however increase the ongoing cost of knowledge management and requires a larger up-front investment before any visible payoff, thus deterring the initial funding of many an otherwise promising knowledge management initiatives. Even if an initial decision is made to proceed with such a sophisticated knowledge management initiative, the cash expenses associated with a large centralized knowledge capture staff may be liable to come under attack, given the difficulty of quantifying knowledge management benefits in dollar terms.
As alluded to above, even once a satisfactory knowledge management information base has been established, the practical utilization thereof to achieve maximum potential benefit may be challenging. Specifically, ensuring that the captured information is readily organized, available, and accessible as appropriate throughout the organization may be problematic.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
According to a first aspect of the present invention, there is provided a method of querying a knowledge profile. The method commences with a first access to a public portion of a knowledge profile for each of a plurality of potential targets, the public portion of each knowledge profile including public knowledge terms indicative of a knowledge base of a potential target. The first access is responsive to a first query received from an originator. A first matching operation is performed between a query term and public knowledge terms within the public portion of each knowledge profile to identify a first set of targets for which a match exists between the query term and at least one public knowledge term. The first set of targets is published to the originator. Responsive to a second query from the originator, the private portion of a knowledge profile for each of the plurality of potential targets is accessed, the private portion of each knowledge profile including private knowledge terms indicative of a knowledge base of a potential target. A second matching operation between the query term and the private knowledge terms within the private portion of each knowledge profile is performed to identify a second set of targets for which a match exists between the query term and at least one private knowledge term. Each target of the second set of targets is then prompted for authorization to be published to the originator.
Other features of the present invention will be apparent from the accompanying drawings and from the detailed description that follows.
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“Applying Evolutionary Algorithms to the Problem of Information Filtering”, A Min Tjoa, Max Höfferer, Günter Ehrentraut and Peter Untersmeyer,Databae and Expert Systems Applications, 1997 Proceedings, Ei
Blakely & Sokoloff, Taylor & Zafman
Geckil Mehmet B.
Tacit Knowledge System, Inc.
Thompson Marc D.
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