JP2003288351A - Information presentation system and information presentation method - Google Patents

Abstract

(57) [Summary] [Problem] To identify valuable knowledge from messages transmitted and received by a plurality of users, to grasp the transition of knowledge diffusion and users who have contributed to the knowledge diffusion. A means for extracting the type and strength of a relationship between messages based on a history of operations performed by a plurality of users on each of the plurality of messages and a similarity of contents between the messages. Used to identify messages that have strong relationships with many messages as valuable knowledge.
Further, from the type and number of operations performed on a message related to a certain topic and the number of users, a user who has contributed to the transition of knowledge dissemination and knowledge dissemination is quantitatively evaluated.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to an information presentation system and an information presentation method such as a knowledge management system that supports a plurality of users to share and manage useful knowledge and information.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art In recent years, electronic communication means for exchanging information between a plurality of users using a computer such as a personal computer and a network has become widespread. Communication methods represented by electronic mail, mailing lists, electronic bulletin boards, news groups, etc. have already become indispensable means for daily work and personal interaction.

On the other hand, in organizations such as corporate groups, public bodies, and non-profit organizations, knowledge and information are the same as people, goods, and money.
From the standpoint of being an important foundation of organizational activities, knowledge management methods are being introduced to view knowledge as organizational assets, and to efficiently create, accumulate, and share this knowledge.

In messages such as mails and articles that a plurality of users (hereinafter, referred to as a community) who have an activity with a common purpose and interests exchange on a daily basis using the electronic communication means described above. Contains valuable knowledge. Communication is a simple and flexible way for everyone to use, so the lively discussions that take place on it can lead to knowledge of new ideas, detailed verification by many members, and flexible solutions to urgent problems. Often produced.

Such knowledge is usually mixed in a large number of messages that are not useful. In particular, messages such as e-mails are often distributed and stored in computers such as personal computers of individual users.

[0006] Normally, a user belongs to a plurality of communities and carries out activities according to the purpose of each community. However, there are a plurality of communities with similar goals and interests in an organization, Formation / disappearance and participation / withdrawal of members are performed in a fluid manner. Therefore, it is difficult for individual users and the entire organization to handle information media called messages exchanged by communication means as knowledge.

From the standpoint of knowledge management, it is necessary to grasp the quantity and quality of knowledge distributed in the organization and to identify the knowledge often used by many people, new knowledge, lacking knowledge, etc. is important. Furthermore, it is necessary to identify the person who has contributed to the creation and dissemination of useful knowledge, treat it as an expert in the field of knowledge, and use the degree of contribution as a material for assessment.

However, as described above, the task of identifying only valuable knowledge or the task of identifying contributors of knowledge dissemination from a large number of messages exchanged by a plurality of users every day is difficult and labor-intensive. This kind of work
Traditionally, experts called knowledge managers or individual members in the organization manually performed it, but in the first place, a method to objectively and quantitatively evaluate the value of knowledge and the contribution of members is clearly defined. Often not.

As a known technique for extracting a topic (target topic) from a message such as an electronic mail, there is "electronic information receiving device and electronic information processing method" in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2000-31018. This method is a method for identifying the topic of each message and can be used for the purpose of knowing whether the message sent to the user is of a content of interest to the person.

However, it cannot be used for the purpose of evaluating whether a message is important to a plurality of users in an organization. Further, since the processing based on the relationship between the messages is not performed and only the processing based on the word appearing in each message is performed, it cannot be used for the purpose of grasping the dynamic transition of the topic.

A known technique for extracting the characteristics and contribution of a user's work from a document created by the user or a conversation between the users is the "optimum actor selection support system" disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2000-l13064. This method determines the specialization, role, and degree of contribution of a person based on documents created in a certain task, conversations exchanged, task sharing and requests, etc. It is said that it can be used for purposes.

However, this method cannot be used for the purpose of grasping the influence of persons and their knowledge in the entire organization beyond the business. In most cases, the degree of contribution or suitability of a person in explicit work is naturally obvious, whereas the degree of contribution of a person from activities such as voluntary discussions and communication of information through communication means. Is difficult to measure.

According to the method of the known art, it is possible to judge whether or not the sender plays an important role from the number of transmissions and the content of the electronic mail, but the content itself of the message is actually effective in the organization. It is not used to determine whether or not it is used for the purpose of understanding the importance of the topic covered by the message in the organization and finding other related topics. Can not.

[0014]

Therefore, the present invention is
In view of the above problems, it is an object of the present invention to provide an information presentation system and an information presentation method capable of identifying valuable knowledge from messages exchanged daily by electronic communication means.

Another object of the present invention is to provide an information presenting system and an information presenting method capable of identifying members who have contributed to the creation and dissemination of valuable knowledge.

The present invention also provides an information presentation system and an information presentation method capable of quantitatively measuring the degree of dissemination of knowledge within an organization for each field or topic covered by the knowledge. The purpose is to

[0017]

The information presenting system of the present invention is an information presenting system configured by connecting a plurality of terminal devices and a server device to a network, wherein the server device is operated via the network. A transmission / reception unit for transmitting / receiving message information between a plurality of terminal devices, a first storage unit for storing message information received by the transmission / reception unit, and a transmission / reception source for message information transmitted / received by the transmission / reception unit. Second storage means for storing the type of operation in a certain terminal device as an operation history, between the operation history stored in the second storage means and the message information in the message information stored in the first storage means. Extraction means for extracting the strength of the relationship between each message information based on the similarity of the content of It is configured and the message information with a lot of other message information and strong relationship from the one or more selected presenting means for presenting.

The information presenting method of the present invention is an information presenting method of an information presenting system configured by connecting a plurality of terminal devices and a server device to a network, and between the plurality of terminal devices via the network. The message information stored in the message information stored in the message information stored in the stored message information is stored as the operation history in the terminal device that is the sender / receiver of the stored message information. The strength of the relationship between the message information is extracted based on the similarity of the contents between the message information, and one or more message information having a strong relationship with other extracted message information are selected and presented. It is characterized by having done.

[0019]

BEST MODE FOR CARRYING OUT THE INVENTION An embodiment of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings.

FIG. 1 shows the overall configuration of the information presentation system according to the present invention. This information presentation system is configured by connecting a plurality of user terminals 12 to a server device 10 via a communication network 11.

The server device 10 includes a communication network 11
It is composed of a computer communicably connected to a plurality of user terminals 12 via. The server device 10 includes a message transmission / reception unit 1, a community management unit 2, a message relation extraction unit 3, a community information presentation unit 4, a message search unit 5, and a message topic extraction unit 6.

The message transmitting / receiving unit 1 is a means for a plurality of users to transmit and receive messages. Messages (message information) are transmitted and received in a conventional form such as electronic mail, electronic bulletin board, and chat.

The community management unit 2 is means for managing a plurality of communities (user groups) made up of a plurality of users. The community management unit 2 includes a user information storage unit 21, an operation history storage unit 22, a message storage unit 23, and a community information storage unit 24.

The user information storage unit 21 is means for storing information of a user who is a user of the information presentation system.

The operation history storage unit 22 is a means for storing a history of operations such as message creation, browsing, replying, transferring, and deleting by the user, and is performed by the message transmitting / receiving unit 1 for all users. Remember all operations.

The message storage unit 23 is a means for storing the messages transmitted / received by the message transmission / reception unit 1.

The community information storage unit 24 is means for storing a plurality of pieces of information on the community to which the user belongs.

The message relation extracting unit 3 is a unit for extracting a relation between each of a plurality of messages stored in the message storing unit 23. The extraction process is performed based on the information stored in the user information storage unit 21, the operation history storage unit 22, and the message storage unit 23, which will be described in detail later.

The community information presenting section 4 determines the relationship between the messages extracted by the message relationship extracting section 3 and the importance of the message obtained based on the relationship.
It is a means for presenting to the user the degree of popularization of the topic covered by the message and information of the user who contributed to the popularization.

Although the present embodiment is constituted by the above-mentioned means, it has a constitution comprising a message retrieval section 5 and a message topic extraction section 6 in order to present more useful information to the user.

The message search section 5 is a means for searching the messages stored in the message storage section 23 for a message satisfying the condition specified by the user. This means is mainly used to search for a message related to a topic of interest to the user by a condition such as a keyword, and also a conventional search means capable of searching by a condition such as a message creation date and time and a creator. Is.

The message topic extraction unit 6 is means for extracting a topic common to a plurality of messages. As will be described later in detail, the message topic extraction unit 6 finds a common topic from the contents discussed in a plurality of messages, changes the degree of diffusion in each topic over time (hourly), and It is used to present relationships between topics in a form that the user can understand.

The user terminal 12 uses a personal computer, a mobile phone, a PDA or the like to allow the user to send and receive messages such as electronic mails, electronic bulletin boards and chats via the communication network 11.

The communication network 11 is, for example, LA.
N, Intranet, Internet, etc.

The configuration shown in FIG. 1 is an example in which a community, which is a group of users having the same purpose and interest, provides a place for intellectual activities through message exchange. Messages are exchanged in a community in the form of a conventional mailing list or electronic bulletin board, and access rights such as creation / browsing for messages are managed by the community management unit 2 so as to be given only to members of the community.

On the other hand, the configuration shown in FIG. 2 is the minimum configuration of the embodiment according to the present invention, in which a frame for message exchange called community is not provided.

Unlike the configuration of FIG. 1, the configuration of FIG. 2 is a simple configuration without the community management unit 2 and the community information storage unit 24.

That is, the server device 20 of this configuration includes the message transmitting / receiving unit 1, the message relation extracting unit 3, the information presenting unit 4, the user information storage unit 21, the operation history storage unit 22,
And a message storage unit 23. This configuration comprises a message relation extracting unit 3 which is the most essential means in the present invention. Figure 2 shows how to identify important messages, which will be described later, and the contributors to the dissemination of knowledge.
It can also be performed in the configuration of. In addition, in the present configuration, FIG.
The community information presenting section 4 indicated by is not provided with a frame for message exchange called community, and is therefore simply referred to as the information presenting section 4.

In the following description of the present invention, the flow and effects of the processing will be described mainly based on the more complex and effective configuration of FIG.

FIG. 3 shows an example of user information stored in the user information storage unit 21. As shown in the figure,
The user is identified by the unique user ID 31, and the items of the password 32, the name 33, the mail address 34, and the belonging community 35 are stored and managed for each user. However, as described above, in the embodiment shown in FIG. 2, the item of the belonging community 35 does not exist.

In FIG. 3, for example, the user ID is "u
"1" has a name of "Mamoru Aoki" and an email address of "aoki @ a"
"aa.net", and the belonging community is "c1, c2, ...".

FIG. 4 shows an example of community information stored in the community information storage unit 24. A community is identified by a unique community ID 41, and items of a community name 42, a mailing list address 43, a bulletin board URL 44, and a member 45 are stored and managed for each community.

The mailing list address 43 is an address for members of the community to send messages to all other members. On the other hand, the bulletin board URL 44 is
This is the URL (unique resource location) of the electronic bulletin board for community members to share messages with other members.

The exchange of messages in the community in this embodiment can be performed by using either or both of the mailing list and the electronic bulletin board. When both means are used, the message sent to the mailing list is posted on the electronic bulletin board, and conversely, the message written on the electronic bulletin board is sent to the mailing list as well.

The items of the community member 45 are shown in FIG.
3 is described by the user ID, and conversely, the items of the user's belonging community 35 shown in FIG. 3 are described by the community ID.

In FIG. 4, for example, the community 46
Has a community ID of "c2", a community name of "Mobile Technology Study Group", a mailing list address of "mobile-ml@xxx.net", and a bulletin board URL of "http: // xxx.
net / mobile-bbs ", members are" u1, u2, u3, u1 "
9, u26, u68, ... ”.

As for the community 47, the community ID is "c4", the community name is "Palm Friends'Association", and the mailing list address is "palm-ml@xxx.ne."
t ”, there is no bulletin board URL, and members are“ u2, u3, u
13, u26, ... ”.

FIG. 5 shows an example of the operation history stored in the operation history storage unit 22. As shown in the figure, the items of the operation date / time 51, the user ID 52 who performed the operation, the operation type 53, the message ID (in the case of an operation for an existing message) 54, and the message ID (in the case of creating a new message) 55. Are sequentially stored.

For example, the operation 56 is the date and time "2002/2.
The history is that the user “ul” “created” a new message “m1” at / 8 10:24:17 ”.

In addition, the operation 57 is the date and time "2002/2 /
It is a history that the user “u2” browsed this message “m1” at 10:25:34 ”.

Further, the operation 58 is performed by the date and time "2002/2.
The history is that the user “u2” replied the message “m2” to the message “m1” at / 8 10:29:24 ”.

In this way, the operation history of the user is
It is stored in the operation history storage unit 22.

As the type of operation for the message,
In the case of the present embodiment, there are five standard types of "create", "view", "reply", "forward", and "delete", but the present invention is not limited to these five types and will be described later. Thus, the intention of the operation can be extracted.

FIG. 6 shows an example of community list information presented to the user by the community information presentation unit 4. In the case of the configuration shown in FIG. 1, after performing user authentication, the community information presenting unit 4 presents the user with a list of communities in which the user participates and non-participating communities.

In the case of participating communities, each community name 61 and important message 62 within the community are presented.

In the case of the non-participating community 63,
Key topics 64 within the community are presented. Here, the important message is not presented to the non-participating community when the access right to the message itself is not given to the non-participating user.

Although the important message is not presented in this embodiment, the important message itself may be presented to non-participating users.

For example, when operating on an intranet in a company, it is preferable to set the access right strictly, and when targeting any user on the intranet, all users can be set without setting the access right. May be given the authority to view messages.

The process of automatically identifying the important message and the important topic in the community is a characteristic process of the present invention, and the details thereof will be described later. You'll be able to learn about messages and topics, view them instantly, and learn about and participate in non-participating communities where you are discussing topics of interest to you.

FIG. 7 shows an example of mail list information presented from the community information presentation unit 4 to the user terminal 12. In the configuration shown in FIG. 2, although the forum for discussion is not explicitly provided, a communication means such as electronic mail is used to exchange useful information between users who share the same purpose or interest. Messages are exchanged.

In the example shown in FIG. 7, with respect to each message transmitted to a certain user terminal 12, its importance 71
Is presented. With such a presentation, the user can easily distinguish the important one from the many messages transmitted every day. The process of identifying the important message is realized by the same process as that of the embodiment shown in FIG. 1, and its details will be described later.

FIG. 8 shows an example of messages stored in the message storage unit 23.

The message 81 shown in FIG. 8A is a new message created by the user "Aoki". Figure 5
In the operation history shown in, the operation that created this message corresponds to operation 56.

Further, the message 82 shown in FIG.
And the message 83 shown in (c) of FIG.
It is a reply message to 1.

Furthermore, the message 8 shown in FIG.
Reference numeral 4 is a reply message to the message 83.

In the example of FIGS. 8A to 8D, a part of the messages exchanged by the members whose community name is “Mobile Technology Study Group” (operation 46 in FIG. 4) using the mailing list of the community. Is shown.

On the other hand, FIG. 9 shows an example of exchanging messages using the electronic bulletin board. here,
The example of the message exchanged on the electronic bulletin board in the community name "Internet home appliance planning team" (operation 47 shown in FIG. 4) is shown.

The electronic bulletin board 91 shown in FIG. 9A is a screen for browsing messages. Message 9
Reference numerals 2, 93, and 94 respectively indicate the title portion of the message. The message 93 is a reply message to the message 92. Also, the message 95 is the message 9
It is the text of 4.

The members of the community browse the message using such a screen, and create a new message or a reply message as needed.

The electronic bulletin board 96 shown in FIG. 9B shows a screen for creating a reply message to the message 94. The message 97 is the title of the reply message to be created, and the message 98 is its body. In this example, the user “Ito” who has viewed the message 81 shown in FIG. 8A creates a message for transferring the message.

8A to 8D and FIG. 9A,
It is the first object of the present invention to identify an important message from the messages shown in (b).
First, the relationship between the messages is extracted.

Next, the process of extracting the relationship between messages by the message relationship extracting unit 3 in such a configuration will be described with reference to the flowchart of FIG. The message relation extraction unit 3 quantitatively calculates the relation between two messages by the term of the degree of dependency between the messages and the term of the degree of similarity of the text in the message content.

The message relation extraction unit 3 determines the authors of mi as ui and m for arbitrary two messages mi and mj.
When the author of j is uj (step 101), first,
It is confirmed whether or not mj is a reply message of mi (step 102).

When mj is a reply message of mi, the dependency Sdep (mi, mj) of mj on mi is set to a constant Srep (step 103).

If mj is not the reply message of mi in step 102, it is confirmed whether or not mj is a transfer message of mi (step 104).

When mj is the transfer message of mi, the dependency Sdep (mi, mj) of mj on mi is set to a constant Sfwd (step 105).

Here, the degree of similarity between the texts of the contents of the messages mi and mj is obtained, and this is calculated as Text (mi, m
j) (step 108) and the process proceeds to step 1011. The text similarity is obtained by a conventional method based on the similarity of word vectors included in the text.

If mj is not the transfer message of mi in step 104, the user uj sends the message m.
After browsing i, whether or not the message mj is created within the time t (0 ≦ t ≦ Tt) is checked using the operation history stored in the operation history storage unit 22 (step 10
6).

Here, Tt is a threshold value, and when the message mj is created after a lapse of more than the time t, or when the user uj is not browsing the message mi in the first place, mi and mj are combined. It is assumed that there is no relationship between them, and the degree of association between mi and mj is set to R (mi, mj) = 0 (step 1012).

In step 106, the time t (0≤t
If ≦ Tt) is satisfied, the dependency Sdep (mi, mj) of the message mj on the message mi is set as a monotonically decreasing function Sref (t) at time t (step 107). That is, if the user uj creates the message mj within a long time after browsing the message mi,
The relationship between i and mj is considered to be large. This step does not require an explicit relationship such as replying or forwarding,
It is an implied relationship in which one message is used as a reference or is cited and another message is created.

Subsequently, the degree of similarity between the texts of the contents of the messages mi and mj is obtained, and this is calculated as Text (mi, m
j) (step 109).

Here, the calculated Text (mi, mj)
And the threshold value St are compared (step 1010), and
If t (mi, mj) is smaller than the threshold value St, mi and m
It is assumed that j has no relation, and the degree of association between mi and mj is R (m
i, mj) = 0 is set (step 1012). That is, it is considered that the implicit relationship estimated in steps 106 and 107 cannot be supported by the content text.

In step 1010, Text (mi,
If mj) is equal to or greater than the threshold value St, the process proceeds to step 1011.

In step 1011 step 10
8 or the dependency Sdep (mi, mj) based on the operation history between the messages obtained by the processing up to step 1010
And content text similarity Text (mi, mj)
The value R obtained by multiplying and by the constants C1 and C2, respectively.
(Mi, mj) = C1 × Sdep (mi, mj) + C2
Let × Text (mi, mj) be the degree of association between mi and mj.

It is considered that the larger the value of R (mi, mj), the stronger the relationship between mi and mj.

Note that R (mi, mj) has directionality, and R (mi, mj) ≠ R (mj, mi). This is because Sdep (mi, mj) ≠ Sdep (mj, mi).

Next, the process of identifying an important message by the message relation extracting unit 3 based on the strength of the relation between individual messages obtained by the above process will be described with reference to the flowchart of FIG.

The message relation extracting unit 3 sends the message m
When obtaining the importance of i, firstly, based on the operation history, m
Number of viewed times Fref (mi) of i and number of deletions Fdel
(Mi) is calculated (step 111).

Here, the number of deletions is the number of times a message sent to a plurality of members by means of a mailing list is deleted by each recipient.
It can be regarded as a useful message as the number of viewed times is large, and conversely, as it is a useless message as the deletion frequency is large.

Using the values of the number of times of browsing Fref (mi) and the number of deletions Fdel (mi) and the degree of association R (i, j) between mi and the other message mj obtained in FIG. 10, m
The initial (i.e., zeroth) importance of i is determined (step 112). It can be calculated by the following formula.

I (mi, 0) = C3 × Fref (mi)
−C4 × Fdel (mi) + C5 × ΣR (mi, mj) Here, Σ means to take the sum of R (mi, mj) for all messages mj related to the message mi. C3, C4, and C5 are positive constants. The more frequently it is viewed and the less it is deleted, the more important the message is. Also, the more frequently a related message, typically a reply or transfer, or an operation such as implicit reference or citation, is performed, it is regarded as an important message.

In the above expression, the message m in which the degree of association with the message mj which is directly related to the message mi is added
The degree of importance of i is obtained, and based on this, the degree of importance of the nth order is recursively obtained by the following equation (steps 113 and 114).

I (mi, n) = I (mi, n-1) + C
6 × ΣI (mj, n−1) Here, C6 is a constant, and Σ means that the sum of all messages mj related to the message mi is taken, as described above. This n-th order importance is not only the importance of the message directly related to the message mi, but also
It is nothing but the importance that takes into account the importance of the related message after n stages. Therefore, the constant C6
Is set to a value greater than “0” and less than “1”,
The larger n is, the smaller the influence on the importance is.

By the processing of steps 111 to 114 in FIG. 11, the important message is automatically and properly specified, and the important message shown in FIGS. 6 and 7 is sent to the user terminal 12 via the community information presenting section 4. Can be presented to.

Further, it is possible to grasp how much messages related to a certain topic are exchanged by using the processing for obtaining the strength of the relationship between messages described in FIG.

For example, if the user of the user terminal 12 is "BL
When it is desired to grasp the degree of popularization of the technical topic “ueTooth (TM)”, the user terminal 12 sends “B” to the community information presentation unit 4 via the communication network 11.
"lueTooth (TM)" information is requested.

The community information presenting section 4 first uses the message searching section 5 to display "BlueTooth (T
M) ”is used as a search condition to search for a message containing this word. Then, the community information presentation unit 4
Obtains a set of messages having a degree of association with a message as a search result and having a certain threshold value or more, and provides the user terminal 12 with information on the temporal transition of the number of these messages to the communication network 11
To send and present via.

In FIG. 12, in response to a request from the user terminal 12, "BlueTooth (T
M) ”information is presented.

The black circle 131 in FIG. 12 indicates "BlueTo.
“Oth (TM)” is included in the message (that is, the message directly searched by the message search unit 5), and the white circle 132 indicates “BlueTooth”.
(TM) ”refers to messages that do not include the word but are relevant to this topic.

The contents of the message may be presented to the user in response to the user designating each circle with a pointing device such as a mouse. For example, as shown at 133 in FIG. 12, “Blue
Do you know eTooth (2/8 Aoki)? ”is displayed.

The time axis may be displayed vertically (every hour) and the number of messages may be displayed horizontally.

According to the present invention, the relation between messages can be used to present not only the message satisfying the search condition but also the related message, so that the variation of the term of the topic is more accurate. It is possible to ascertain the degree of popularization of topics corresponding to.

FIG. 13 shows an example in which the degree of topic spread is presented to the user terminal 12 for each community. In FIG. 13, communities such as “mobile technology study group”, “Internet home appliance planning team”, and “Palm friend's group” are presented.

By presenting the number of messages for each community in this manner, the user can easily understand which community has taken interest in the topic from what time.

Also, it is possible to easily identify the person who first introduced the topic in the community, the community who was first interested in the topic in the entire organization, and the community that was most interested.

FIG. 14 shows an example in which the temporal transition of the number of users who have operated a message is presented on the user terminal 12.

The shaded bar graph 151 indicates "Blue
The number of users who operated a message including the word "Tooth (TM)" is shown, and the bar graph 152 shown in white shows the number of users who operated this message, including related messages. .

By indicating the number of users instead of the number of messages or the number of operations, it is possible to accurately know how many users the topic has spread to. That is,
It is possible to distinguish between the case where the same user performs a large number of operations and the case where a large number of users perform a small number of operations.

FIG. 15 shows an example in which the temporal transition of the number of communities in which an operation is performed is presented on the user terminal 12.

Also in this case, it is possible to distinguish whether the topic is a topic that is interested in a certain small number of communities in the organization or a topic that is widespread in a large number of communities. be able to.

FIG. 16 shows an example in which the temporal transition of the number of operations for each type of operation is presented on the user terminal 12. The meanings of the shaded and white bar graphs are as shown in FIG. 14 and FIG.
The same as 5.

For example, a topic that is frequently viewed by many users and has few operations such as message creation, reply, and transfer and a topic that many message creation, reply, and transfer have characteristics of topics. different.

The former can be regarded as a typical topic for clerical matters and the latter can be regarded as an intellectual activity involving active discussion. With the presentation shown in FIG.
It is possible to understand the difference in the nature of such topics. Further, it can be determined that the message is less valuable as the number of times of deletion is larger.

In FIG. 16 described above, the types of operation for a message are set to five basic and relatively simple types of creation, browsing, reply, transfer, and deletion, and the trends are presented. It is also possible to estimate the intention of the operation and present the time transition thereof.

For that purpose, the message relation extracting section 3 performs a process based on the history of the above five types of operations and the text of the message content. For example, it is estimated that a message in which a text including a question mark or a question word is described has a question intent, and a reply message to the message has a high possibility of an answer.

It can be presumed that a message that is a new message and does not include a question mark or an interrogative is intended to be introduced, and that a reply message that cites a part of the message and denies it is a correction.

It is also possible to presume that a reply message, which does not include a question mark, an interrogative, or a negative sentence, but includes reference information (eg, URL) for new information or a new term, is intended to be augmented. .

Furthermore, the intention of evaluating whether a message is considered useless or useful can also be drawn from the operation of browsing the message and immediately deleting it, or conversely, reading it repeatedly without deleting it.

FIG. 17 shows the temporal transition of the number of messages according to the intent of the operation estimated in this way as the user terminal 1
2 shows an example presented in FIG.

By presenting the number of messages for each intention of operation, more detailed grasp can be performed. That is,
Whether there is active discussion on a topic, and interactive activities between users, such as questions, answers, corrections, and augmentations, let us know if our knowledge about the topic is preferably refined.

FIG. 18 shows an example in which the number of messages of the user is presented according to the intention of the operation. According to this, it is possible to easily understand what kind of activity the user is doing about a certain topic and how he / she is contributing to the community.

For example, the user “Aoki” 191 often introduces new knowledge, and in comparison with this, “Ito” 1
It can be seen that 92 often answers the questions of other users to correct or augment the knowledge.

Similar to FIGS. 14 and 15 described above, the shaded bar graphs indicate the topic of interest (for example, “BlueT
(ooth (TM) ") itself, and the white bar graph shows the number of messages that have no direct description of the topic but are of some relevance.

For example, the user “Aoki” 191 is not limited to those directly related to the topic, but widely introduces new information in this field (for example, wireless technology). On the other hand, it can be seen that the user “Ito” 192 pays particular attention to the topic and contributes to the activity of making the knowledge detailed and accurate.

On the other hand, the user “Yamada” 193 is “Ito”.
Although there is little contribution in terms of refinement of knowledge like
By actively asking and asking other members to find out, they know that they are absorbing their knowledge of this topic.

It can be seen that user "Sato" 194 has made little contribution to this topic.

As described above, according to the present invention, the degree of contribution of members in the community can be quantitatively evaluated. The degree of contribution of a user depends on what kind of topic the user specializes in, but by presenting the total number of messages regarding a plurality of topics in the format shown in FIG. It is possible to grasp the degree of contribution.

Furthermore, by presenting the number of messages for each community, not for each user, it is possible to grasp the degree of contribution of the community to the entire organization.

Next, the topics that the members of the community pay attention to and discuss are related to other topics,
Often changes dynamically over time. If the user can be presented with the time transition of a plurality of topics related to each other, the user can know a remarkable new topic related to the topic of interest. It is also possible to grasp the overall trend of the field to which the topic group belongs.

Therefore, in the present invention, first, a common topic is automatically extracted from a plurality of mutually related messages, and the temporal transition of the plurality of mutually related topics is quantitatively determined by the number of messages and the number of users. Based on the appropriate value.

Next, the process of automatically extracting a common topic from a plurality of messages by the message topic extraction unit 6 will be described with reference to the flowchart of FIG.

First, the message topic extraction unit 6 sets a certain message set M as a topic extraction target (step 121). The message set M is the following step 1
Since the elements are automatically added in the processes of 22 to 124, it is not necessary for the user to give all the elements from the user terminal 12 from the beginning. As an effective method, let M be a message set in which the important message identified in the processing of FIG. 11 is the only element (that is, seed).

Next, for the message mj that is not an element of M, the degree of association R (mi, mj) or R (mj, mi) between the messages found in the processing of FIG.
A message m of M elements that exceeds a certain threshold Rt
It is checked whether i exists (step 122).

If such a message mi exists,
Message mj is newly added to M (step 12)
3). That is, the message mj is the message set M
It is strongly related to the message inside, and it is highly likely that the topic is common.

The processing of steps 122 and 123 is repeated until there are no more messages to be newly added to the message set M (step 124). As a result, the message set M becomes a set of messages that are strongly related to each other.

When there are no more messages to be newly added to M in step 124, a word statistically significantly included in the messages of the message set M is selected as a word expressing the topic of "M". This process is realized by a conventional statistical method, for example, an x-square test.

By the above processing, one set of messages related to the common topic is obtained. It is possible to check whether or not there is a relationship between a plurality of topics by creating a plurality of such sets and checking whether or not messages of each other overlap. That is, topics having duplicate messages can be considered to be related to each other.

FIG. 20 shows an example in which the time transition of the number of messages belonging to each topic related to each other is presented to the user terminal 12 by the above-mentioned processing.

[0139] For example, "BlueTooth (TM)"
It can be seen that the topic “Wireless LAN” 202, which is a relatively new topic on the technology of wireless communication 201, has been of widespread interest over a long period of time.

Further, the user is the "home server" 203
It is possible to know the existence of the topic of the product to which the "BlueTooth (TM)" technology is applied and the topic as a component of the "home server" of the "DVD-RAM" 204, and to grasp the trend of its spread. .

As described above, according to the present invention, valuable knowledge can be specified from the messages exchanged on a daily basis using the communication means. The value of a message is accurately and quantitatively evaluated by the type and number of explicit and implicit operations performed on the message. By accurately presenting the valuable message thus obtained to the user,
Knowledge created and refined by multiple communities within an organization can be disseminated across community boundaries.

Further, the members who have contributed to the creation and dissemination of valuable knowledge can be specified by the type and the number of operations on the message. Considering even the intention of operating the message, it is possible to quantitatively evaluate the contribution of members not only in the creation of knowledge but also in the process of sophistication and dissemination. It can be done easily.

Furthermore, it is possible to quantitatively measure the degree of dissemination of knowledge within the organization for each topic subject to the knowledge, and to present the user with an overview of the relationship between a plurality of topics and the temporal transition. . As a result, it is possible to confirm whether the knowledge has been disseminated without excess or deficiency, and it becomes easy to know a new noteworthy topic.

In the information presenting system of the present invention, information may be presented to the user terminal 12 in response to a search request from the user terminal 12, and the community information presenting section 4 periodically presents the information to each user terminal 12. Information may be presented.

As described above, according to the embodiments of the present invention, valuable knowledge can be specified from the messages exchanged daily by electronic communication means.

Also, the members who have contributed to the creation and spread of valuable knowledge can be specified.

Furthermore, the degree of diffusion of knowledge within the organization can be quantitatively measured for each field or topic covered by the knowledge.

The invention of the present application is not limited to the above-described embodiment, and can be variously modified at the stage of implementation without departing from the spirit of the invention. In addition, the respective embodiments may be combined as appropriate as much as possible, in which case the combined effects can be obtained. Further, the embodiments include inventions at various stages, and various inventions can be extracted by appropriately combining a plurality of disclosed constituent elements. For example, even if some constituent elements are deleted from all the constituent elements shown in the embodiment, the problem described in the section of the problem to be solved by the invention can be solved, and the effect described in the section of the effect of the invention can be solved. If you get
A configuration in which this component is deleted can be extracted as an invention.

[0149]

As described above in detail, according to the present invention,
It is possible to identify valuable knowledge from messages that are exchanged on a daily basis by electronic communication means, and to identify members who have contributed to the creation and dissemination of valuable knowledge. It is possible to provide an information presentation system and an information presentation method capable of quantitatively measuring the degree of dissemination of knowledge for each field or topic covered by the knowledge.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing an overall configuration of an information presentation system according to the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing another configuration of the information presentation system according to the present invention.

FIG. 3 is a diagram showing an example of user information stored and managed in a user information storage unit.

FIG. 4 is a diagram showing an example of community information stored and managed in a community information storage unit.

FIG. 5 is a diagram showing a history of operations on messages stored and managed in an operation history storage unit.

FIG. 6 is a diagram showing an example of presenting a list of communities, their important messages, and important topics.

FIG. 7 is a diagram showing an example of presenting a list of messages and their importance.

FIG. 8 is a diagram showing an example of a message by e-mail.

FIG. 9 is a diagram showing an example of a message on an electronic bulletin board.

FIG. 10 is a flowchart illustrating a process of extracting a relationship between messages.

FIG. 11 is a flowchart for explaining processing for identifying an important message.

FIG. 12 is a diagram showing an example in which a temporal transition of the number of messages related to a topic is displayed.

FIG. 13 is a diagram showing an example in which a temporal transition of the number of messages related to a topic is displayed for each community.

FIG. 14 is a diagram showing an example of displaying a temporal transition of the number of users who have operated a message.

FIG. 15 is a diagram showing an example in which a temporal transition of the number of communities in which an operation is performed is displayed.

FIG. 16 is a diagram showing an example in which temporal changes in the number of operations are displayed for each type of operation.

FIG. 17 is a diagram showing an example in which a temporal transition of the number of messages is displayed for each intention.

FIG. 18 is a diagram showing an example of displaying the number of messages for each user and each intention.

FIG. 19 is a flowchart for explaining a process of extracting a group of related messages and a topic thereof from a plurality of messages.

FIG. 20 is a diagram showing an example in which a temporal transition of the number of messages is displayed for each of a plurality of topics related to each other.

[Explanation of symbols]

1 ... Message sending / receiving unit (sending / receiving means) 2… Community Management Department 3 ... Message relation extraction unit (extraction means, estimation means) 4 ... Community information presentation unit (presentation means) 5 ... Message search unit (search means) 6 ... Message topic extraction unit (second extraction means) 10 ... Server device 11 ... Communication network 12 ... User terminal (terminal device) 21 ... User information storage unit (storage means) 22 ... Operation history storage unit (storage means) 23 ... Message storage unit (storage means) 24 ... Community information storage unit (storage means)

Claims (24)

[Claims] 1. An information presentation system comprising a plurality of terminal devices and a server device connected to a network, wherein the server device transmits / receives message information between the plurality of terminal devices via the network. And a first storage unit for storing message information received by the transmitting and receiving unit, and an operation history indicating the type of operation in the terminal device that is the source of the message information transmitted and received by the transmitting and receiving unit. Each message information is stored based on the second storage means for storing, the operation history stored in the second storage means, and the similarity of the contents between the message information in the message information stored in the first storage means. It has many strong relationships with the extraction means that extracts the strength of the relationship between them and the other message information extracted by this extraction means. An information presenting system comprising: a presenting unit that presents one or more message information by selecting. 2. The information presenting system according to claim 1, wherein the message information transmitted / received by the transmitting / receiving means is transmitted / received in a form such as an electronic mail, an electronic bulletin board, or a chat. 3. The information presenting system according to claim 1, wherein the type of operation stored in the second storage means is creation, browsing, replying, transfer, deletion, etc. of message information. 4. An information presentation system configured by connecting a plurality of terminal devices and a server device to a network, wherein the server device transmits and receives message information between the plurality of terminal devices via the network. And a storage unit for storing message information received by the transmission / reception unit, and a message information stored in the storage unit based on the search condition when a search request is made from the terminal device. Search means for searching, extraction means for extracting the degree of association between message information in the message information stored in the storage means, the number of message information as a search result of the search means, and a predetermined number extracted by the extraction means. Presentation means for presenting aggregate information with the number of pieces of message information having a degree of association greater than or equal to a given threshold, and Information presentation system, wherein the door. 5. The presenting means is capable of discriminating between the number of message information as a search result and the number of message information having a degree of association equal to or higher than a predetermined threshold, and presenting the number of message information every hour. The information presentation system according to claim 4, which is characterized in that. 6. An information presentation system configured by connecting a plurality of terminal devices and a server device to a network, wherein the server device allows each user of the plurality of terminal devices to obtain a purpose or interest through the network. Similarly, first storage means for storing information of a plurality of user groups for transmitting / receiving message information, transmission / reception means for transmitting / receiving message information between the plurality of terminal devices via the network, Second storage means for storing message information received by the transmitting / receiving means, search means for searching message information stored in the second storage means under predetermined search conditions, and the second storage means. Extraction means for extracting the degree of association between the message information in the stored message information, and a message as a search result of the search means. Presenting means for presenting, for each user group stored in the first storing means, aggregate information of the number of message information pieces and the number of message information pieces extracted by the extracting means and having a degree of association equal to or greater than a predetermined threshold value. An information presentation system comprising: 7. The presenting means is capable of discriminating the number of message information as a search result and the number of message information having a degree of association equal to or more than a predetermined threshold value, and the number of message information for each user group per hour. The information presenting system according to claim 6, which presents. 8. The presenting means is predetermined based on a plurality of user group information stored in the first storing means, message information as a search result of the searching means, and extracted by the extracting means. 7. The information presenting system according to claim 6, wherein the number of users who are the senders and receivers of the message information is presented for each hour based on the message information having a degree of association greater than or equal to the threshold value. 9. The presenting means is predetermined based on a plurality of user group information stored in the first storing means, message information as a search result of the searching means, and extracted by the extracting means. 7. The information presenting system according to claim 6, wherein the number of user groups of senders / receivers of the message information is presented for each hour based on the message information having a degree of association equal to or more than the threshold value. 10. An information presentation system configured by connecting a plurality of terminal devices and a server device to a network, wherein the server device transmits and receives message information between the plurality of terminal devices via the network. And a first storage unit for storing message information received by the transmitting and receiving unit, and an operation history indicating the type of operation in the terminal device that is the source of the message information transmitted and received by the transmitting and receiving unit. Between the second storage means for storing, the search means for searching the message information stored in the first storage means under a predetermined search condition, and the message information in the message information stored in the first storage means Means for extracting the relevance of the message information number, and the extraction means The present invention further comprises: a presentation unit that presents, for each operation type stored in the second storage unit, set information including the number of extracted message information items having a degree of association greater than or equal to a predetermined threshold value. A characteristic information presentation system. 11. The presenting means makes it possible to distinguish between the number of message information as a search result and the number of message information having a degree of association of a predetermined threshold value or more, and the number of message information for each type of operation is set for each hour. The information presentation system according to claim 10, characterized in that 12. An information presentation system configured by connecting a plurality of terminal devices and a server device to a network, wherein the server device transmits and receives message information between the plurality of terminal devices via the network. And a first storage means for storing message information received by the transmitting / receiving means, and a type of operation in the terminal device as a sender / receiver of the message information sent / received by the sending / receiving means as an operation history. A second storage unit that stores the message information, a search unit that searches the message information stored in the first storage unit under a predetermined search condition, and a degree of association between the message information stored in the first storage unit. Extracting means for extracting the message information as the search result of the searching means and the predetermined information extracted by the extracting means. The intent of the message information is estimated from the content of the message information and the type of operation of the message information stored in the second storage unit for each message information having the degree of association equal to or more than the threshold value. For each intent of the estimation means and the message information estimated by this estimation means,
An information presenting system comprising: a presenting unit that presents aggregate information of the number of message information as the search result and the number of extracted message information having a degree of association equal to or more than a predetermined threshold. 13. The presenting means is capable of discriminating between the number of message information as a search result and the number of message information having a degree of association equal to or higher than a predetermined threshold, and the message information number is time-based for each intention of the message information. The information presentation system according to claim 12, wherein the information presentation system is presented for each item. 14. The intent of the message information estimated by the estimating means is a question, answer, introduction, correction, augmentation, confirmation,
13. A summary, an example, an evaluation, etc.
Information presentation system described. 15. An information presentation system configured by connecting a plurality of terminal devices and a server device to a network, wherein the server device stores first user information for each of the terminal devices, and Transmitting / receiving means for transmitting / receiving message information between the plurality of terminal devices via a network, second storage means for storing message information received by the transmitting / receiving means, and messages transmitted / received by the transmitting / receiving means Third storage means for storing, as an operation history, the type of operation in the terminal device that is the sender / receiver of information, and search means for searching the message information stored in the second storage means under predetermined search conditions. Extracting means for extracting the degree of association between the message information in the message information stored in the second storage means; The message information as a search result of the means and the message information extracted by the extracting means and having a degree of association equal to or more than a predetermined threshold value are stored in the third storage means and the contents of the message information for each message information. Estimating means for estimating the intention of the message information from the type of the operation of the message information being performed, the number of message information as the search result for each intention of the message information estimated by the estimating means, and the extracted A presenting unit that presents, for each user, set information including the number of message information items having a degree of association equal to or greater than a predetermined threshold, using the user information stored in the first storage unit. A characteristic information presentation system. 16. The presenting means makes it possible to identify the number of pieces of message information as a search result for each intention of the message information and the number of pieces of message information having a degree of association equal to or more than a predetermined threshold, and to make a message for each user. The information presenting system according to claim 15, wherein the number of information is presented every hour. 17. An information presentation system configured by connecting a plurality of terminal devices and a server device to a network, wherein the server device transmits and receives message information between the plurality of terminal devices via the network. Transmitting / receiving means for performing the above, storage means for storing the message information received by the transmitting / receiving means, first extracting means for extracting the mutual relation of the message information stored in the storing means, and this first extracting means Second extraction means for extracting a plurality of common topics from a plurality of message information items related to each other extracted in step A, and each topic extracted by the second extraction means is extracted by the first extraction means. An information presenting system comprising: a presenting unit that presents the number of message information items associated with each other every hour. 18. An information presenting method for an information presenting system configured by connecting a plurality of terminal devices and a server device to a network, the method presenting message information between the plurality of terminal devices via the network. The type of operation in the terminal device that is the sender / receiver of the stored message information is stored as an operation history, and the similarity of the content between the stored operation history and the message information in the stored message information. The strength of the relationship between the message information items is extracted based on and, and one or more message information items having a strong relationship with other extracted message information items are selected and presented. Information presentation method. 19. An information presenting method for an information presenting system configured by connecting a plurality of terminal devices and a server device to a network, the method presenting message information between the plurality of terminal devices via the network. When the retrieval request is stored from the terminal device, the stored message information is retrieved based on the retrieval condition, the degree of association between the message information in the stored message information is extracted, and the retrieval is performed. A method for presenting information, characterized in that set information of the number of resulting message information and the number of extracted message information having a degree of association equal to or more than a predetermined threshold value is presented. 20. An information presenting method for an information presenting system configured by connecting a plurality of terminal devices and a server device to a network, wherein each user of the plurality of terminal devices makes a purpose or interest via the network. Similarly, information of a plurality of user groups for exchanging message information is stored, message information performed between the plurality of terminal devices via the network is stored, and the stored message information is stored in a predetermined manner. By searching with the search condition and extracting the degree of association between the message information in the stored message information, the number of message information as the search result and the number of message information having the degree of association above the predetermined threshold extracted above The set information of and is presented for each user group by using the plurality of stored user group information. Information presentation method, characterized in that. 21. An information presenting method for an information presenting system configured by connecting a plurality of terminal devices and a server device to a network, wherein message information of the message information is sent between the plurality of terminal devices via the network. The message information is transmitted and received, the message information is stored, the type of operation in the terminal device that is the sender / receiver of the stored message information is stored as an operation history, and the stored message information is searched under predetermined search conditions. Then, the degree of association between the message information in the stored message information is extracted, and the set information of the number of message information as the search result and the number of message information having the degree of association that is equal to or more than the extracted predetermined threshold value is extracted. Is presented for each type of operation using the stored operation history. How to Display. 22. An information presenting method of an information presenting system configured by connecting a plurality of terminal devices and a server device to a network, wherein message information of the message information is sent between the plurality of terminal devices via the network. The message information is transmitted and received to store the message information, the type of operation in the terminal device that is the sender and the receiver of the stored message information is stored as an operation history, and the stored message information is searched under predetermined search conditions. Then, the degree of relevance between the stored message information is extracted, and the message information as the search result and the message information having the degree of relevance that is equal to or higher than the predetermined threshold value that has been extracted are the relevant message for each message information. Intent of the message information from the content of the information and the type of operation of the message information stored above Estimate, and for each intent of this estimated message information, present the set information of the number of message information as the search result and the number of extracted message information having a degree of association equal to or more than a predetermined threshold value. An information presenting method characterized by the above. 23. An information presentation method of an information presentation system configured by connecting a plurality of terminal devices and a server device to a network, wherein user information for each terminal device is stored, and the user information is stored via the network. Message information transmitted and received between a plurality of terminal devices is stored, the message information is stored, and the type of operation in the terminal device that is the sender / receiver of the stored message information is stored as an operation history. Existing message information under a predetermined search condition, and the degree of association between the message information in the stored message information is extracted, and the message information as the search result is associated with the extracted predetermined threshold value or more. The message information having a degree is stored for each message information and the contents of the message information stored above. The intention of the message information is estimated from the type of operation of the message information, and the number of message information as the search result for each estimated intention of the message information and the degree of association above the extracted predetermined threshold value A method for presenting information, characterized in that set information including the number of message information items having the above is presented for each user using the stored user information. 24. An information presenting method for an information presenting system configured by connecting a plurality of terminal devices and a server device to a network, wherein message information of message information is sent between the plurality of terminal devices via the network. The message information is transmitted and received to store the message information, the stored mutual relations of the message information are extracted, a plurality of common topics are extracted from the extracted plurality of related message information, and each extracted topic is extracted. In addition, the information presenting method is characterized in that the number of extracted message information items related to each other is presented for each time.