JP2006079342A - Collaboration system and evaluation method - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a system easily and properly selecting a participant and setting a role in a collaboration system. <P>SOLUTION: Registration and reference of information to a database 2 made by the participant are managed by a logging part 3. A participation score calculation part 5 acquires log information from the logging part 3 and calculates a participation score in each the participant or the like of a communication field of a target. A retrieval part 6 extracts an important word from information about the communication field of the target, searches the database 2 with the important word, and specifies a user registering the retrieved information. A participant proposal part 7 exhibits the optimum participant and role in the communication field to a leader, for example, from the participation score calculated by the participation score calculation part 5, and the user specified by the retrieval part 6. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2006,JPO&NCIPI

Description

  The present invention relates to a collaboration system for communication between a plurality of participants having different roles for each communication field.

  A collaboration system has been developed as a system for communicating between users using a computer. For example, Patent Document 1 describes an example.

  In this collaboration system, a communication field is formed for each topic, and a participant having various roles (for example, a leader, a member, an observer, etc.) is set for each communication field. Each participant repeats the discussion by repeatedly writing information on the topic, referring to the written information, and writing further information on the referenced information. It is also possible to set so that users other than those involved in the communication space are allowed to refer to information or write information.

  In such a collaboration system, it is important that the participants actively discuss the topic. To do so, it is necessary to assign an appropriate role and have the participant's awareness and knowledge of the topic. It is. In other words, the role is appropriately assigned as described above, and the flexible exchange of the participants is a factor that affects the quality and results of communication.

  In general, in this type of system, a participant (leader) who has the authority to control the communication field is responsible for tasks such as role assignment and selection of other participants. In order to support the assignment of such roles and the selection of other participants, the collaboration system provides various overhead functions. For example, functions such as “content sort by user name”, “content registration transition graph”, “content download history”, “KnowWho search” and the like that suggest the degree of involvement of each participant are provided.

  However, even if these bird's-eye view functions are provided, it is unclear how to use the information presented by each function and how to make a decision. There was a problem that it took a lot of labor and cost to review the participants. As a result, there are situations in which users inappropriate for the role continue to be set as participants, or more appropriate human resources remain non-participating.

JP 2001-202405 A

  The present invention has been made in view of the above-described circumstances, and an object of the present invention is to provide a system that can easily and appropriately perform selection of participants and setting of roles in a collaboration system.

  The present invention relates to a collaboration system for a plurality of participants having different roles for each communication field to communicate and an evaluation method for evaluating participants in such a collaboration system. Information registered by the participant is stored in the information storage unit, and registration of information by such a participant and reference to stored information are managed by the logging unit. Based on the management data by the logging means, the participation score for each participant is calculated by the participation score calculation means. In addition, based on the calculated participation score, candidate candidates appropriate for each role in a certain communication field are presented.

  Further, an important word in a certain communication field, for example, a word that is frequently present in information stored in the information storage unit regarding the communication field, and an important word is stored in the information storage unit. A search is performed using a search means, and a user who has registered a large amount of searched information is specified. And the candidate of the participant appropriate for each role in a certain communication field is shown from the evaluation of the participant by the participation score calculated as described above including the identified user.

  According to the present invention, since the participation score or evaluation result for each participant, or candidate candidates suitable for each role is presented, when the leader reviews the role or participant, Direct information on other users can be obtained, and roles and participants can be reviewed efficiently. As a result, communication can proceed smoothly, and communication quality and results can be improved. In addition, because it is possible to provide such information in real time, it is possible to adjust roles and participants according to the actual situation in a speedy and dynamic manner in response to changes in activities at the communication venue. effective. Furthermore, since information on users other than the participants can be obtained, the present invention has various effects, such as the inclusion of users who were not expected by the leader as participants.

  FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing an embodiment of a collaboration system of the present invention. In the figure, 1 is a communication interface, 2 is a database, 3 is a logging unit, 4 is an overhead function unit, 5 is a participation score calculation unit, 6 is a search unit, 7 is a participant proposal unit, and 8 is a mail system. In the collaboration system, a plurality of communication areas can be set for each topic, and information such as messages and files can be exchanged in each communication area to achieve communication. Communication areas can also be set hierarchically.

  For each communication place, it is possible to register a user who is a participant and assign a role to each participant. For example, a leader, a member, an observer, or the like can be set as the role. Of course, other roles may be set. The access right to the communication center, the presence / absence of notification at the time of registration of information, and the notification method can be set for each role.

  A participant whose role is set as a role can replace the participant or change the role at an arbitrary timing. In order to support the participant and role changing work by the leader at this time, the bird's-eye view function provided by the bird's-eye view function unit 4 and the participant provided by the participation score calculation unit 5, the search unit 6, and the participant proposal unit 7 in the present invention And the role candidate presentation function can be used.

  In order to realize such a function, in the embodiment of the collaboration system of the present invention, as shown in FIG. 1, the communication interface 1, the database 2, the logging unit 3, the overhead function unit 4, the participation score calculation unit 5, It includes a search unit 6, a participant proposal unit 7, a mail system 8, and the like.

  The communication interface 1 performs control for realizing main functions (functions other than the functions provided by the overhead view function unit 4, the participation score calculation unit 5, the search unit 6, and the participant proposal unit 7) as a collaboration system. For example, the setting of each communication field and the setting of the participant and the role are received, and registration and reference of information from the participant or other users are controlled according to the setting.

  The database 2 stores various setting information regarding participants and roles set for each communication field, and also stores various information such as messages and files registered by the participants in each communication field.

  The logging unit 3 manages access when a participant registers information in the database 2 or refers to information stored in the database 2, and leaves a log. Log information may be stored in the database 2 in addition to being stored internally. Further, the logging unit 3 may perform various processes for the log.

  The bird's-eye view function unit 4 provides various bird's-eye view functions that have been conventionally provided when the leader changes a participant or a role. For example, a participant status display indicating whether or not the participant has started to participate in the communication field, a sort function for sorting information for each user who has registered information in the database 2, and information registration Various functions such as a registration transition graph function that presents a graph in time series and an information reference history presentation function are provided. The presentation of information by these functions is performed through the communication interface 1 or the mail system 8.

  The participation score calculation unit 5 calculates a participation score for each participant based on log information that is management data by the logging unit 3. The participation score can be calculated from, for example, the number of registered information in a certain period, the number of references of information registered in the communication field, the reference ratio, and the like in a certain communication place. The number of registrations means that he / she actively speaks to the communication venue, and the number of references and the reference rate indicate the high interest in the topic of the communication venue and the aggressiveness of involvement in the communication venue. Conceivable. Thus, the reference number and reference ratio of the information registered in the communication field indicate the degree of involvement in the communication field, and the participation score is a numerical value.

  The search unit 6 performs a so-called KnowWho search, searches for information stored in the database 2 for important words in a certain communication field, and identifies a user who has registered a large amount of searched information. Here, as important words used at this time, words with high frequency existing in the information stored in the database 2 regarding the communication place can be automatically extracted and used.

  The participant proposal unit 7 evaluates the participants based on the participation score calculated by the participation score calculation unit 5, and further includes the users searched by the search unit 6 for each role in a certain communication field. Appropriate participant candidates are presented to the participant (reader) through the communication interface 1 or the mail system 8. The method for evaluating the participants is arbitrary. For example, the participation score may be used as it is, or the elongation rate may be calculated and evaluated from the participation score calculated at a predetermined interval. In addition, it is preferable that the boundary value for each role for presenting each role candidate, the number of participants in each role, and the like can be set for each communication field. Furthermore, it is possible to set an adaptive exclusion rule such as fixing the role regardless of the participation score. Further, when the search unit 6 presents users other than those involved in the communication field, for example, the user's activity result information (such as content and links to the communication field) may be provided as supplementary information.

  The mail system 8 transmits and receives general electronic mail. Here, the mail system 8 is used when notifying a participant (leader) of a participant candidate proposal by the participant proposal unit 7 by electronic mail.

  In the example shown in FIG. 1, the participation score calculated by the participation score calculation unit 5 and the user information searched by the search unit 6 are used by the participant proposal unit 7. It is also possible to directly present the calculated participation score or to present the user information retrieved by the retrieval unit 6 as it is.

  The operation of the above-described collaboration system according to an embodiment will be described using a specific example. FIG. 2 is an explanatory diagram of an example of an initial setting screen when receiving a proposal from a participant. Prior to receiving presentations about candidate participants, a simple initial setup is made to the system. For example, in the initial setting screen such as “participant recommendation setting” shown in FIG. 2, a participant candidate suitable for each role is calculated by the participant score calculation unit 5 as the selection of the participant proposal method. It is possible to specify whether to use the participation score, to use the search result by the search unit 6, or to both. FIG. 2 shows an example in which designation using an engagement score is performed.

  Further, on the initial setting screen shown in FIG. 2, it is possible to specify whether the participant's proposal is to be executed immediately or periodically. In the case of execution immediately, the participant is presented through the communication interface 1. In addition, when performing periodically, here, it is performed once a month on a designated day, and the day can be designated. In this case, the participants are presented through the mail system 8 by e-mail. Of course, the interval for presenting the participants is not limited to once a month, and any interval such as daily or once a week may be set. In addition, even when the regular participant presentation is instructed, the execution can be specified immediately and the participant can be presented at an irregular time point.

  In addition to this, as described later, for example, a calculation method of the participation score, a condition when suggesting a change of a participant or a role based on the participation score, a user condition to be presented when a user search is performed, Various settings are made if the setting by the participants is possible.

  FIG. 3 is a flowchart showing an example of a participation score calculation by the participation score calculation unit and a process of proposing a participant based on the calculated participation score. For example, when the designation using the participation score is made and the execution of the proposal process is started, the participant proposal unit 7 requests the participation score calculation unit 5 to calculate the participation score. In S11, the participation score calculation unit 5 refers to log information in which information is registered in the database 2 and information registered in the database 2 for each participant in the target communication field or a user other than the participant, respectively. The obtained log information is acquired from the logging unit 3. In S12, the participation score is calculated based on the acquired log information. The calculated participation score is passed to the participant proposal unit 7.

  In S <b> 13, the participant proposing unit 7 evaluates each participant and other users based on the participation score for each participant passed from the participation score calculating unit 5. In S14, according to the evaluation result, a proposal regarding the optimum participant and role is created and presented to the participant (for example, a leader).

FIG. 4 is an explanatory diagram of a specific example of the participation score calculation by the participation score calculation unit and a participant's proposal based on the calculated participation score, and FIG. 5 is an explanatory diagram of a specific example of the proposal content. In this communication field, five participants A, B, C, D, and E are selected, the roles of participant A are leaders, the roles of participants B and C are members, and the roles of participants D and E are respectively selected. It is an observer. Note that the user F is a user other than the participant. The participation score P calculated by the participation score calculation unit 5 is, as an example, P = “number of registrations” × 0.05 + “reference rate (%)” × 0.005
It is assumed that it is calculated by “Registered number” is the number of registered information, and “reference rate” is the ratio of the number of referenced information to the total number of information to be referenced. The number of registrations is set to 10 when the number is 11 or more. The reference rate is 0 to 100%. Therefore, the participation score P takes a value between 0 and 1. It should be noted that the number of registrations and reference numbers of participants and other users can be obtained from the logging unit 3. If the number of pieces of information to be referred to is 0 and the reference rate cannot be calculated, the past record (for example, the previous month) is used, or 0.25 is given uniformly.

  The status column indicates whether or not a participant other than the leader is in a state of being involved in the communication field, and takes a status such as “before start”, “running”, and “stop”. When this state is other than “running”, the participation score P is reduced by 0.1. If the participation score P is negative in this calculation, the participation score is set to zero.

  Here, the participation score calculation unit 5 calculates the participation score every month, and the participant proposal unit 7 refers to the participation score for three months and proposes a participant change. As a condition of the proposal by the participant proposal section 7, “Leader” and “Member” whose participation scores were below 0.50 for two consecutive months are demoted to “Member” and “Observer”, respectively. Propose. In addition, the “observer” whose participation score has exceeded 0.50 for three consecutive months and the non-participant user propose promotion to “member” and “observer”, respectively.

  First, a specific example of calculating the participation score will be described. In the example shown in FIG. 4, the participant A who is a “leader” has registered 20 information in April and refers to 70% of the information to be referred to. Since the number of registered cases is 11 or more, the above formula is applied as 10 cases, and the participation score P = 10 × 0.05 + 70 × 0.005 = 0.85. For other months of the participant A, other participants, and users, the participation score P can be calculated in the same manner from the number of registered information and information reference rate for each month.

  With reference to the participation score for three months calculated in this way, it is determined whether or not there is a participant or other user who meets the proposed conditions. For the participant A who is the “leader” and the participant B who is the “member”, since the participation score is 0.50 or more in all three months, the condition for demotion is not satisfied. Therefore, no demotion proposal is made. Participant C who is a “member” has an engagement score of less than 0.50 for two months in May and June, and satisfies the above-mentioned condition of demotion. Therefore, it is proposed that the participant C be demoted to “observer”.

  Participant D who is an “observer” has an engagement score of 0.50 or less for all three months, and does not satisfy the conditions for promotion. However, the participant E who is an “observer” has an engagement score exceeding 0.50 in all three months. Therefore, the participant E is proposed to be promoted to “member”. In addition, the user F who is a user other than the participant is registered and referred to information even though he is not a participant in the communication field, and is considered highly interested in the topic of the communication field. . The participation score has also exceeded 0.50 for 3 consecutive months, satisfying the conditions for promotion. Therefore, the user F is proposed to be promoted to “observer”.

  In this way, the participation score for each participant is evaluated, and when the proposed content is determined, the proposed content is presented to the requester (generally “leader”). For example, in the case of evaluation contents as shown in FIG. 4, a proposal as shown in FIG. 5 is made. Note that the address indicated by underlining the lowest level of the proposal shown in FIG. 5 is for referring to the evaluation result shown in FIG.

  In this way, the leader can receive proposals of participants and roles by direct expression compared to conventional overhead functions, etc., so it is easy to assign appropriate roles to participants and select appropriate participants. Can improve communication quality and achieve great results. In this case, a proposal is made to the leader, and the leader changes the actual role and participants. However, the present invention is not limited to this, and a function for automatically changing a role or a participant based on the proposal content may be installed, and such automatic change may be performed by setting.

  The above-described calculation method of the participation score, promotion, and demotion condition setting are examples, and can be arbitrarily set in advance. The index used when calculating the participation score is not limited to the number of registrations and the reference rate, and the participation score may be calculated using another index. In addition, the conditions for promotion and demotion may be those using only one month's participation score, or may be conditions that take into account a longer-term trend, and promotion and demotion are also proposed for promotion and demotion in two stages. Various proposals can be made by setting conditions.

  FIG. 6 is a flowchart illustrating an example of a user search process by the search unit. For example, when the automatic search is specified and the execution of the proposal process is started, the participant proposal unit 7 requests the search unit 6 to search for a user who has a discussion related to the topic of the communication field. . In S21, the search unit 6 extracts words from the information registered in the database 2 from information registered as information on the communication field, and creates an index based on the frequency of use. Using this index, the keyword for the search is determined. In S22, using the determined keyword, the information including the keyword is searched, and the user who registered the searched information is specified. Further, for each identified user, the registered number of searched information is counted and transmitted to the participant proposing unit 7. In S23, if there is an optimum user as a participant in the communication area based on the identified user and the number of registered information in S23, the participant proposing unit 7 sets the user as a participant to the leader. Present.

  FIG. 7 is an explanatory diagram of a specific example of a user search by the search unit. As described above, the search unit 6 performs a so-called KnowWho search. In general, a certain user inputs a keyword and searches for a user who has knowledge about the keyword. Here, the keyword extraction when performing the search is also automated and the search is performed.

  First, a word is extracted from the information registered in the communication area, and an index is created. FIG. 7A shows an example of the created index. For each word, the appearance frequency of the word is counted and arranged in descending order of appearance frequency. In addition, in the descending order of appearance frequency, a value obtained by accumulating each frequency and a ratio of the accumulated value to the whole are also shown.

  Of the index created in this way, a search is performed using the upper word as a keyword. The example shown in FIG. 7B shows an example in which “Manual” in the first rank is used as a keyword. The search unit 6 searches the information including the keyword from all the information in the database 2 and specifies the user who registered the searched information. The retrieved information is counted for each identified user. In the example shown in FIG. 7B, the count value is shown in the information number column. In the example shown in FIG. 7B, the number of communication places where each user is involved is also shown.

  As described above, because words that are frequently used in the communication field are used as keywords, users with many counts have discussions similar to the topic in the communication field, and are interested in the topic. There is a high possibility. Therefore, a user who has a large count and is not a participant in the communication field is presented as a new participant candidate from the participant proposing unit 7. This makes it possible to find a user who is not involved in the communication field and who has a similar discussion in another communication field, and has the user participate in the discussion in the communication field. In this way, it is possible to find a user who is most suitable for discussion in the communication area and promote high-quality communication.

  As the search keyword, the first ranked word as in the above example may be used, or the cumulative value or cumulative ratio in the index shown in FIG. 7A may be used. For example, one or more words having a cumulative value greater than or equal to a predetermined value can be used as keywords, or one or more words having a cumulative ratio greater than or equal to a predetermined value can be used as keywords. When using a plurality of words as keywords, a logical sum or logical product of the words may be used as a search condition. Of course, a combination of these may be used as a search condition, or a word may be selected based on various indices in addition to the appearance frequency, cumulative value, and cumulative ratio.

  Furthermore, when presenting searched users, for example, only users whose count value is a certain value or more may be presented, or users to be presented together with other indicators may be determined. Presentation of the searched user can be performed together with presentation of the participant and role change by the above-described participation score. As a result, not only users who are actively involved in a certain communication field, but also users who are not involved in the communication field but are involved in the discussion of the communication field are considered to be the optimum users as participants. Can be presented.

It is a block diagram which shows one Embodiment of the collaboration system of this invention. It is explanatory drawing of an example of the initial setting screen at the time of receiving a participant's proposal. It is a flowchart which shows an example of the process of the calculation of the participation score by a participation score calculation part, and the proposal of the participant based on the calculated participation score. It is explanatory drawing of the specific example of the calculation of the participation score by a participation score calculation part, and the proposal of the participant based on the calculated participation score. It is explanatory drawing of the specific example of the proposal content. It is a flowchart which shows an example of the search process of the user by a search part. It is explanatory drawing of the specific example of a user's search by a search part.

Explanation of symbols

  DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 ... Communication interface, 2 ... Database, 3 ... Logging part, 4 ... Overhead function part, 5 ... Participation score calculation part, 6 ... Search part, 7 ... Participant proposal part, 8 ... Mail system.

Claims (9)

  In a collaboration system for communication among a plurality of participants having different roles for each communication field, information storage means for storing information registered by the participant, and registration of information to the information storage means by the participant Or logging means for managing the reference of information stored in the information storage means, and involvement score calculation means for calculating an engagement score for each participant based on management data by the logging means. A unique collaboration system.   Furthermore, it has a search means which searches the information memorize | stored in the said information storage means about the important word in a certain communication field, and specifies the user who registered many searched information. The collaboration system described.   The collaboration system according to claim 2, wherein the search unit performs a search by using, as the important word, a word that is frequently present in the information stored in the information storage unit with respect to the communication field.   Further, the present invention has a participant suggesting means for evaluating the participant based on the participation score calculated by the participation score calculating means and presenting candidate candidates suitable for each role in a certain communication field. The collaboration system according to claim 1.   Further, the participant is evaluated based on the participation score calculated by the participation score calculation means, and includes the user searched by the search means together with the evaluation result, and suitable for each role in a certain communication place. 4. The collaboration system according to claim 2, further comprising participant suggesting means for presenting candidate candidates.   An evaluation method for evaluating a participant in a collaboration system for communication between a plurality of participants having different roles for each communication field, wherein information registered by the participant is stored in an information storage unit The registration of the information to the information storage means by the participant and the reference of the information stored in the information storage means are managed by the logging means, and the participant is based on the management data by the logging means. An evaluation method characterized in that the participant is evaluated by calculating a participation score for each of the participation scores by a participation score calculation means.   The evaluation method according to claim 6, further comprising presenting candidate candidates appropriate for each role in a certain communication field based on the calculated participation score.   Further, for important words in a certain communication place, information stored in the information storage unit is searched by a search unit, a user who has registered a large amount of searched information is specified, and the participation score including the user is determined. 7. The evaluation method according to claim 6, wherein candidates of participants who are appropriate for each role in a certain communication field are presented from the evaluation of the participants according to the above.   The evaluation method according to claim 8, wherein a word having a high frequency existing in information stored in the information storage unit with respect to the communication field is used as the important word.

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