U.S. patent application number 14/796894 was filed with the patent office on 2016-01-21 for system, computer program product and computer-implemented method for sharing academic user profiles and ranking academic users.
The applicant listed for this patent is ResearchGate GmbH. Invention is credited to Horst Fickenscher, Michael Haeusler, Soren Hofmayer, Ijad Madisch, Axel Tolke, Viacheslav Zholudev.
Application Number | 20160019302 14/796894 |
Document ID | / |
Family ID | 49775341 |
Filed Date | 2016-01-21 |
United States Patent
Application |
20160019302 |
Kind Code |
A1 |
Hofmayer; Soren ; et
al. |
January 21, 2016 |
SYSTEM, COMPUTER PROGRAM PRODUCT AND COMPUTER-IMPLEMENTED METHOD
FOR SHARING ACADEMIC USER PROFILES AND RANKING ACADEMIC USERS
Abstract
A system for sharing academic articles and credential
information for a plurality of academic users is described herein.
Embodiments of the system, computer program product and
computer-implemented method perform a process for gathering data
related to the academic user and a process for determining a
reputation ranking for the academic user by executing the steps of:
creating a user profile for the academic user from attribute
information gathered from a user profile prompt, enabling the user
profile from the academic user to be viewed by academic and
non-academic users to provide a rank selection for the user profile
for the academic user according to at least one of research
quality, credentials, research articles, and user activity, and
determining a reputation ranking for the user profile from the rank
selection of the other academic users.
Inventors: |
Hofmayer; Soren;
(Goettingen, DE) ; Zholudev; Viacheslav; (Berlin,
DE) ; Madisch; Ijad; (Berlin, DE) ;
Fickenscher; Horst; (Berlin, DE) ; Haeusler;
Michael; (Berlin, DE) ; Tolke; Axel; (Berlin,
DE) |
|
Applicant: |
Name |
City |
State |
Country |
Type |
ResearchGate GmbH |
Berlin |
|
DE |
|
|
Family ID: |
49775341 |
Appl. No.: |
14/796894 |
Filed: |
July 10, 2015 |
Related U.S. Patent Documents
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Application
Number |
Filing Date |
Patent Number |
|
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13533707 |
Jun 26, 2012 |
9111319 |
|
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14796894 |
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Current U.S.
Class: |
707/749 |
Current CPC
Class: |
G06F 16/955 20190101;
H04L 67/306 20130101; G06F 16/9535 20190101; G06Q 50/01 20130101;
G06F 16/24575 20190101; G06Q 10/105 20130101; G06F 16/24578
20190101; G06F 16/22 20190101 |
International
Class: |
G06F 17/30 20060101
G06F017/30; H04L 29/08 20060101 H04L029/08 |
Claims
1. A method comprising: receiving content from a plurality of users
and storing the content in a database in association with a
plurality of respective user profiles; receiving feedback from at
least some of the users on the content associated with the user
profiles of other users and storing the feedback in the database in
association with the respective user profiles; and using a
processor, computing reputation rankings for the user profiles
based at least in part on the feedback, weighted based on at least
one of the reputation ranking, credentials, publication volume, or
user activity of the respective user from whom the feedback was
received.
2. The method of claim 1, wherein the users are academic users and
the user profiles are academic user profiles.
3. The method of claim 1, wherein the content received from at
least one of the users comprises at least one of a CV of the user,
a publication authored by the user, education or research
information about the user, information about an institution or
organization with which the user is affiliated, or a recommendation
for the user.
4. The method of claim 1, further comprising prompting the user to
upload at least one of a CV of the user, a publication authored by
the user, or a recommendation for the user, at least some of the
content being received in response to the prompting.
5. The method of claim 1, wherein the feedback comprises at least
one of a comment, a like, an up vote, a link to the content, a copy
from the content, a citation to the content, or a follow.
6. The method of claim 1, wherein the feedback comprises rank
selections for the other users' user profiles.
7. The method of claim 1, further comprising providing the user
profiles and associated content for viewing by other users.
8. The method of claim 7, further comprising providing links, in a
graphical user interface displaying the user profiles and
associated content, to comment on, like, up vote, link to, copy
from, cite to, or follow the content.
9. The method of claim 7, further comprising providing at least
some of the feedback for viewing along with the user profiles and
associated content for which the feedback was received.
10. The method of claim 7, further comprising publishing the
computed reputation rankings on the respective user profiles.
11. The method of claim 1, wherein the feedback is weighted at
least by the reputation rankings of the users from whom the
feedback was received.
12. The method of claim 1, wherein the feedback is weighted further
based on whether the respective users from whom the feedback was
received are students.
13. The method of claim 12, further comprising computing
teaching-quality ratings for at least some of the user profiles
based on at least some of the feedback from users that are
students.
14. The method of claim 1, wherein computing reputation rankings
for the user profiles comprises combining an interactive score and
a traffic score.
15. The method of claim 14, wherein the reputation rankings are
computed based in part on a number of views or downloads.
16. A system comprising: a processor implementing a plurality of
program modules comprising: a profile module to gather content from
a plurality of users and, based thereon, create respective user
profiles for viewing by other users, a user comment module to
receive user feedback on at least some of the user profiles, and a
profile rank module to compute reputation rankings for the user
profiles based at least in part on the feedback, weighted based on
at least one of the reputation ranking, credentials, publication
volume, or user activity of the respective user from whom the
feedback was received.
17. The system of claim 16, further comprising: a database storing
the gathered content and the feedback received thereon in
association with the respective user profiles.
18. The system of claim 16, wherein the content received from at
least one of the users comprises at least one of a CV of the user,
a publication authored by the user, education or research
information about the user, information about an institution or
organization with which the user is affiliated, or a recommendation
for the user.
19. The system of claim 16, wherein the feedback comprises at least
one of a comment, a like, an up vote, a link to the content, a copy
from the content, a citation to the content, a follow, or a rank
selection for the other user's user profile.
20. The system of claim 16, wherein the feedback is weighted at
least by the reputation rankings of the users from whom the
feedback was received.
Description
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
[0001] The following invention relates generally to a system for
sharing user profiles, and more specifically to a system for
searching and sharing user profiles for a plurality of users, such
as academic users, e.g., professors, researchers, research
clinicians, scientists, etc, and ranking the users for contribution
quality and reputation.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
[0002] Currently, there are several social networking sites that
allow users to post profiles and content to an online forum, e.g.,
art work, writing, clippings, photos, etc. However, most of these
websites are available for the general public to join, making it
difficult to locate relevant user profiles and information, screen
service providers and others from the network, and control quality
of the postings. Some sites have sought to alleviate the screening
and location issues by establishing groups within the social
networking site and restricting access for complaints about users
that contact people outside their group without prior contact.
These methods generally fail in an academic context, however,
because a general user may join a group to search for researchers
to pose a question to, e.g., an academic researching a new cancer
drug, making the site burdensome to researchers in the field. Some
sites also attempt to restrict profile searching to people who have
similar educational backgrounds, professional backgrounds etc., but
such searches may not locate academics in similar research fields
from different institutions.
[0003] Conventional social networking sites also have issues when
it comes to evaluating the quality of profiles and user content.
Some sites attempt to alleviate the quality issue by allowing site
users to provide positive or negative feedback regarding a
particular user, e.g., to "like", to up vote, or to post comments
related to the content or user. Unfortunately, this method of user
evaluation has serious drawbacks for academic content. For example,
there is no way to measure the quality of the user feedback for a
particular user, so if content is highly technical or has a limited
audience, the feedback may not be an accurate indicator of content
quality, or worse, it may be offensive.
[0004] A need exists for a method and system that solves the issues
identified above.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
[0005] One embodiment of the invention is a system for sharing
academic user profiles, research articles and credential
information for a plurality of academic users. The system comprises
a computer having a tangible, non-transitory computer memory, with
the non-transitory memory having stored thereon a plurality of
computer instructions to perform a process for gathering data
related to an academic user and a process for determining a
reputation ranking for the academic user. The computer instructions
in such an exemplary embodiment execute the steps of creating a
user profile for the academic user from attribute information
gathered from a user profile prompt displayed on a user computer
associated with the academic user, enabling the user profile from
the academic user to be viewed by other academic users and a
plurality of non-academic users and selected for ranking by other
academic users on other user computers associated with the other
academic users, enabling the other academic users to provide a rank
selection for the user profile for the academic user according to
at least one of research quality, credentials, research articles,
and user activity, and determining a reputation ranking for the
user profile from the rank selections.
[0006] Another embodiment of the invention is a computer program
product comprised of a series of instructions executable on a
computer for performing a process for gathering data related to the
academic user and a process for determining a reputation ranking
from the academic user. In some embodiments, the computer program
product executes the steps of: creating a user profile for the
academic user from attribute information gathered from a user
profile prompt displayed on a computer display associated with the
academic user, enabling the user profile from the academic user to
be viewed and selected by other academic users, enabling the other
academic user to provide a rank selection for the user profile for
the academic user according to at least one of reputation ranking,
academic credentials, publication volume, and user activity, and
determining a reputation ranking for the user profile from the rank
selection of the rank selection.
[0007] Another embodiment of the invention is a
computer-implemented method comprised of a series of instructions
that cause a computer to perform a process for gathering data
related to a plurality of academic users and a process for
determining a reputation ranking for an academic user. In some
embodiments, the method includes the steps of: creating a user
profile for the academic user from attribute information gathered
from a user profile prompt displayed on a user computer associated
with the academic user, enabling the user profile from the academic
user to be viewed by other academic users and a plurality of
non-academic users and selected for ranking by other academic users
on other user computers associated with the other academic users,
enabling the other academic users to provide a rank selection for
the user profile for the academic user according to at least one of
research quality, credentials, research articles, and user
activity, and determining a reputation ranking for the user profile
from the rank selections.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS
[0008] So that the features and advantages of the invention may be
understood in more detail, a more particular description of the
invention briefly summarized above may be had by reference to the
appended drawings, which form a part of this specification. It is
to be noted, however, that the drawings illustrate only various
embodiments of the invention and are therefore not to be considered
limiting of the invention's scope as it may include other effective
embodiments as well.
[0009] FIG. 1 is a network diagram of an academic user profile
system including user computers, a communications network and
aggregator computer according to an embodiment of the
invention;
[0010] FIG. 2 is an electronic block diagram of an aggregator
computer for providing access to the academic user profiles of
academic users of the system according to an embodiment of the
invention;
[0011] FIG. 3 is a software block diagram of an aggregator computer
for providing access to the academic user profiles of academic
users, the aggregator computer having a program product in memory
thereon including several operation modules according to an
embodiment of the invention;
[0012] FIG. 4A is a software flow diagram for assigning a
reputation ranking to a plurality of user profiles associated with
academic users according to an embodiment of the invention;
[0013] FIG. 4B is a software flow diagram for obtaining user
profile information from an academic user according to an
embodiment of the invention;
[0014] FIG. 4C is a software flow diagram for enabling
communication between system users based upon whether or not the
system is an academic user or non-academic user, which can be
implemented as a loop in some embodiments of the invention;
[0015] FIG. 5 is a system database diagram for data stored in the
memory of an aggregator computer according to an embodiment of the
invention;
[0016] FIG. 6A is a graphical user interface ("GUI") displaying an
academic user profile according to an embodiment of the present
invention;
[0017] FIG. 6B is a GUI displaying a reputation score according to
an embodiment of the invention;
[0018] FIG. 6C is a GUI displaying a question and a series of user
comments according to an embodiment of the invention;
[0019] FIG. 6D is a GUI displaying a research article abstract
according to an embodiment of the invention.
DETAILED DESCRIPTION
[0020] To address the need set forth above, according to one
aspect, the invention includes a communications network interface,
e.g., a web server and firewall, for interacting with a plurality
of academic and non academic users, a database for storing academic
user profile data, and an aggregator computer for implementing the
functionality of some embodiments of the instant invention. As used
herein, the term "academic user" refers to users that engage in
academic and/or research activities at, e.g., universities,
colleges, research institutions, companies, etc., and the term
"academic user profile" refers to the profiles of such persons. The
term "non-academic user", as used herein, refers to users that are
not "academic users" as described above.
[0021] More specifically, as can be seen in FIG. 1, the academic
user profile shared network site 100 of the instant invention
includes user computers 102 associated with users 101, a
communications network 104, and an aggregator computer 106
connected to database 108. As one skilled in the art will
appreciate, user computers 101 can be any type of computing device,
e.g. a desktop, laptop, PDA, smartphone, computer tablet, networked
computer display, as well as any other electronic device capable of
connecting to the communications network 104 and receiving data
from same to enable system interaction with user 101. As one
skilled in the art will also appreciate, users 101 may include
academic and non-academic users, though in some embodiments
non-academic users may have limited access to the system, e.g.,
non-academic users may only be able to search academic user
profiles or may have limited commenting and posting options.
[0022] As previously mentioned, the user computers 102 are
connected to the aggregator computer 106 via communications network
104, which may be a single communications network or comprised of
several different communications networks. As such, communications
network 104 can be a public or private network, which can be e.g.,
any combination of the internet and intranet systems, that allow a
plurality of system users to access the academic profile data. For
example, communications network 104 can connect all of the system
components using the internet, a local area network ("LAN"), e.g.,
ethernet or WI-FI, or wide area network ("WAN"), e.g., LAN to LAN
via internet tunneling, or a combination thereof, and using
electrical cable e.g., HomePNA or power line communication, optical
fiber, and radio waves, e.g., wireless LAN, to transmit data. As
one skilled in the art will appreciate, in some embodiments, user
computers 102 may be networked together using a LAN for a
university, home, apartment building, etc., but may be connected to
the aggregator computer 104 via an internet tunneling to implement
a WAN. In other instances, all of the user computers 102 and the
aggregator computer 106 may connect using the internet. Still in
other implementations, a user may connect to the aggregator using,
e.g., wireless LAN and the internet. Moreover, the term
"communications network" is not limited to a single communications
network system, but may also refer to separate, individual
communications networks used to connect the user computers 102 to
aggregator computer 106. Accordingly, though each of the user
computers 102 and aggregator computer 106 are depicted as connected
to a single communications network, such as the internet, an
implementation of the communications network 104 using a
combination of communications networks is within the scope of the
invention.
[0023] As one skilled in the art will appreciate, the
communications network interfaces with aggregator computer 106,
preferably via a firewall (not shown) and web server (not shown) to
provide a secure access point for users 101 and to prevent users
101 from accessing the various protected databases in the system.
In some embodiments, the firewall may be a network layer firewall
i.e., packet filters, application level firewalls, or proxy
servers. In other words, in some embodiments, a packet filter
firewall can be used to block traffic from particular source IP
addresses, source ports, destination IP addresses or ports, or
destination service like www or FTP, though a packet filter in this
instance would most likely block certain source IP addresses. In
other embodiments, an application layer firewall may be used to
intercept all packets traveling to or from the system, and may be
used to prevent certain users, i.e., users restricted or blocked
from system access, from accessing the system. Still, in other
embodiments, a proxy server may act as a firewall by responding to
some input packets and blocking other packets.
[0024] Returning to the figures, database 108 communicates with and
uploads data to the user computers via the aggregator computer 106
and communications network 104. As such, database 108 may be, for
example, one or more computers, file servers or database servers
implemented as network attached storage (NAS), storage area
networks (SAN), or direct access storage (DAS), or any combination
thereof or of other systems, comprising, e.g., multiple hard disk
drives. In some embodiments, the file servers or database servers
defining the database 108 may also allow various user computers 102
to directly access, and display data stored thereon. Moreover, each
of these file servers or database servers may allow users to upload
data to the database. For example, an academic user may upload a
photograph, a Curriculum Vitae ("CV"), academic article, and/or raw
or processed research data, post blog entries, ask questions, post
research updates, etc, to be stored in, e.g., separate file servers
or the same file server, in a plurality of databases, tables, or
fields in separate portions of the file server memory. Accordingly,
as is known in the art, the computer implementing database 108 may
have stored thereon database management system, e.g., a set of
software programs that controls the organization, storage,
management, and retrieval of data in the databases. As one skilled
in the art will appreciate, in some embodiments, database 108 may
be stored in the aggregator computer memory (to be discussed
below). As one skilled in the art will also appreciate, though
database 108 is depicted connected to, or as a part of, the
aggregator computer 106, not the communications network 104, the
database 108 may be, e.g., remote storage or connected to the
aggregator computer 106 via a privately networked system.
[0025] An aggregator computer 106 will now be described with
reference to FIG. 2. As one skilled in the art will appreciate,
aggregator computer 106 can be any type of computer, e.g., an
application server, or a plurality of computers, comprising a
memory 206, a program product 208, a processor 204 and an
input/output device ("I/O device") 202. I/O device 202 connects the
aggregator computer 106 to a signal from the communications network
104, and can be any I/O device including, but not limited to a
network card/controller connected by a PCI bus to the motherboard,
or hardware built into the motherboard to connect the aggregator
computer 106 to various file servers or database servers
implementing database 108.
[0026] As can be seen, the I/O device 202 is connected to the
processor 204. Processor 204 is the "brains" of the aggregator
computer 106, and as such executes program product 208 and works in
conjunction with the I/O device 202 to direct data to memory 206
and to send data from memory 206 to the various file servers and
communications network. Processor 204 can be, e.g., any
commercially available processor, or plurality of processors,
adapted for use in an aggregator computer 106, e.g., Intel.RTM.
Xeon.RTM. multicore processors, Intel.RTM. micro-architecture
Nehalem, AMD Opteron.TM. multicore processors, etc. As one skilled
in the art will appreciate, processor 204 may also include
components that allow the aggregator computer 106 to be connected
to a display [not shown] and keyboard that would allow, for
example, an administrative user direct access to the processor 204
and memory 206.
[0027] Memory 206 may store the algorithms forming the computer
instructions of the instant invention and data, and such memory 206
may consist of both non-volatile memory, e.g., hard disks, flash
memory, optical disks, and the like, and volatile memory, e.g.,
SRAM, DRAM, SDRAM, etc., as required by embodiments of the instant
invention. As one skilled in the art will appreciate, though memory
206 is depicted on, e.g., the motherboard, of the aggregator
computer 106, memory 206 may also be a separate component or
device, e.g., FLASH memory or other storage, connected to the
aggregator computer 106.
[0028] As shown in FIGS. 2 and 3, an embodiment for computer
instructions implementing some of the functionality of the instant
invention is stored in memory 206, e.g., as a plurality of
programming modules. One module, the profile module 302, in some
embodiments consists of computer instructions for gathering data
from an academic user, including, e.g., researchers, scientists,
academics, etc., regardless of whether the academic user is
employed by an academic or research institution, to create a user
profile for viewing by other system users. The user profile module
may obtain from the academic user information such as the academic
user's name, address, area of research, academic or research
institution in which the user is working, CV, photo, academic
articles, etc. The profile module then uses the data to format and
create a user profile for the academic user. While in some
embodiments, all academic users may have a standard profile format,
e.g., color, picture location, CV location, etc., in other
embodiments, the user profile module may also allow the academic
user to personalize his/her user profile by adding color, changing
font and text size, moving locations for pictures, CV, articles,
blog posts, etc. As one skilled in the art will appreciate, though
some searching and comment functionality may be enabled by the
computer instructions for all system users, in a preferred
embodiment the academic user profile module is only used by
academic users, i.e., only academic user profiles are stored in the
database and available for user viewing.
[0029] Another module, the user comment module 304, consists of a
computer process to enable a plurality of academic users and
non-academic users to comment on academic user profiles. For
example, an academic user may be able to comment on other academic
user profiles, peer papers, research activity, reputation ranking,
profile or blog posts, or respond to comments posted on the
academic user's profile. In some embodiments, all users, including
non-academic users, may be able to comment on, e.g., academic user
profiles, research activity, academic article, blog posts,
reputation rankings, etc. In other embodiments, non-academic users
may be restricted from commenting on the above. Still in other
embodiments, academic users that are classified as students may
have a separate space in the user comment module to advise other
students on the quality of an academic user as a professor,
advisor, etc. The user comment module 304 may also include links to
"like", up vote, link to postings on an academic user's profile or
to an academic user profile, and follow an academic user profile.
In some embodiments, the user comment module may also allow a user
to reference postings, e.g., by providing a cut and paste function
and/or a citing function to the article posted on an academic
user's profile.
[0030] Returning to FIG. 3, the profile rank module 306 includes
processes to rank academic user profiles so that each profile
includes a reputation rating. In some embodiments, ranking academic
user profiles is restricted to academic users, who rank the
academic user profiles according to e.g., the academic user's CV,
reputation, blog activity, comment activity, research quality,
professional experience with the academic user, and the quality of
the academic user's academic publications. In some embodiments, the
ranking of an academic user by another academic user is weighted
according to the ranking academic user's reputation rating. Still
in other embodiments, a reputation ranking may be more or less
influenced by student academic user rankings, e.g., students'
rankings are given a heavier weight than non-student rankings. In
this way, the reputation rating on academic user profiles can more
accurately reflect the reliability of an academic user's content,
the quality of an academic user's teaching, and/or the quality of
the academic user's research.
[0031] An exemplary embodiment of the computer program flow for
processes implementing the profile module 302, user comment module
304 and profile rank module 306 will now be discussed with
reference to FIGS. 4A-4C. As one skilled in the art will
appreciate, through the flow diagrams are shown as implemented in a
serial configuration, such flow is for simplicity only and should
be understood to include various loops and process that may be run
concurrently and/or used to implement each of the instructions, or
a plurality of the instruction, therein. To implement the profile
rank module 306, in step 402, the process "starts" or is called by
the computer program/instructions. In step 404, a rank selection
provided by an academic user is assigned a ranking weight based
upon at least one of the academic user's reputation ranking,
academic credentials, publication volume, and user activity. In the
next step, 406, the reputation selection of the academic user is
multiplied by the ranking weight to create a weighted reputation
selection. In step 408, the weighted reputation selection is
averaged with the user's reputation ranking to create a new
reputation ranking. In step 408, the new reputation ranking is
published on the user profile. And, in step 412, the process
ends.
[0032] Various formula may be used by the profile rank module 306
to perform the steps above. For example, the reputation rating for
an academic user may be a combination of an interactive score and
traffic score, where for the interactive score: [0033] N is a
number of users [0034] T is a set of claimed types [0035]
C.sub.t,j,i is a value of claim type t between user i and user j
[0036] w.sub.t is a weight of the claim type t, where
.SIGMA..sub.t.epsilon.Tw.sub.t=1 [0037] c=0.1-a dumping factor
[0038] S=5 is a smoothing factor [0039] Matrix:
[0039] a i , j = { t .di-elect cons. T w t .times. C i , j , t ( 1
< t ' < N w t .times. C i ' , j , t ) + S if t .di-elect
cons. T w t .times. C i , j , t .noteq. 0 0 otherwise ##EQU00001##
[0040] then interactive score is calculated as follows:
[0040] score INT t = c N + ( 1 - c ) .times. ( 1 < j < N a i
, j .times. score INT j ) ##EQU00002##
And, the traffic score is:
score TRAF t = t .di-elect cons. T ' w i ' .times. log d s ( i , t
+ 1 ) t .di-elect cons. T ' , 1 < t ' < N w t ' .times. log d
t ( i ' , t + 1 ) ##EQU00003##
[0041] where [0042] N is a number of users [0043] T' is a set of
traffic contribution types (e.g. publication views) [0044] w.sub.t'
is a weight of the traffic type t, where
.SIGMA..sub.t.epsilon.T'w.sub.t'=1 [0045] d.sub.t is a damping of
the traffic type t [0046] T.sub.t,i is a number of
views/downloads/etc. of the type t for user i. Putting together the
equations yields the reputation rating, as a combination of a
traffic boost, and interactive score below:
[0046] b TRAF t = min ( 2 , 10 3 .times. score TRAF i 4 )
##EQU00004##
[0047] Real Score:
score REAL t = max ( 0 , score INT i - c N ) * b TRAP i
##EQU00005##
[0048] Display Score:
score.sub.DISPLAY.sup.t=10 {square root over
(score.sub.REAL.sup.t)}
[0049] As one skilled in the art will appreciate, other steps may
be added to those described above to implement other features of
the profile rank module, e.g., an instruction to determine whether
an academic user is a student user and assigning a ranking weight
accordingly or providing a second ranking for teaching quality.
Accordingly, though not all such instructions are described herein,
all variations in implementation should be considered within the
scope of the invention.
[0050] An exemplary embodiment of the computer program flow for
processes implementing the user profile module 302 is described
with reference to FIG. 4B. In step 416, the process "starts" or is
called by the computer program. In step 416, a user profile prompt
is provided to, e.g., an academic user, which includes a user name
field, CV upload option, education information field, research
information field, academic institution or research organization
field, photo upload option, academic recommendation upload option,
and/or academic paper upload option. As one skilled in the art will
appreciate, the preceding list of user profile options is
exemplary, in some embodiments, the user profile module may also
include options to set the user's password and login id, email
preferences, contacts, search history log, etc. In some
embodiments, the user profile may also include the option to
restrict certain areas of the profile to individuals or groups,
e.g., to make a research article viewable to the research team or
peer review group prior to publication. In other embodiments, the
instructions may include determining whether or not the user is an
academic user or non-academic user, and providing user profile
prompts accordingly. For example, an academic user may be provided
a profile prompt that allows the academic user to create an
academic profile that can be searched by other users, but the
non-academic user is restricted to the creation of only a login id
and password. Once the user profile is obtained from the user, the
data may be downloaded into the database, e.g., a database for
profiles that are pending verification in step 418. In such
embodiments, the user profile may be verified, e.g., to determine
whether the user is found in the directory of academic or research
users, confirmed by a colleague, etc. In other embodiments,
academic users may only be able to create profiles if they have
been recommended to the system, which would make the verification
process unnecessary, and in some other embodiments, a combination
of user recommendation and verification may be used as quality
control for the academic profile. If verification is part of the
download process, in some embodiments, the user may be able to
supply limited information until the user is verified as an
academic user, e.g., the user may not have the option to upload
papers, research, photos, links, etc, to reduce the amount of data
held in the pending database. As one skilled in the art will
appreciate, once the user profile is verified, the data from the
profile is stored in appropriate databases, tables, etc., e.g., a
separate database or table for photos, research papers, academic
institution information, user comments and blog posts, research,
etc, to be discussed further below. And, in step 420, the data for
various tables is used to assemble the user profile page, which may
also be stored in a separate database or table. As can be seen, the
process ends in step 422. As one skilled in the art will
appreciate, other computer program steps may be added to those
described above to implement other features, e.g., separate prompts
for user login id and password creation and user profile
information. Accordingly, though not all such instructions are
described herein, all variations in implementation should be
considered within the scope of the invention.
[0051] Returning to the figures, the computer program flow for
processes comprising the user communications module 304 will be
described with reference to FIG. 4C. In step 424, the process
starts by enabling communications links on the user profile page,
e.g., options to "like" an academic profile, to "one up" an
academic profile, to copy an academic profile, to follow an
academic profile, to follow a research field, to comment on the
user profile, and/or in some embodiments for the "owner" of the
academic profile to post blog entries or respond to other user
comments. Once a comment is received, the particular type of
comment is stored in the database in step 428. For example, the
likes, links, followers, and comments may be stored in the same
database in different tables, columns or fields, or may be stored
in different databases depending upon the type of content, content
size, etc. Academic users are also given the option on the user
profile page to comment on articles and link to email addresses for
academic users, in step 430. Though shown in series with the
previous steps, one skilled in the art will appreciate that the
email communication and research article comment options in step
430 may be a parallel process to those above, or for academic
users, included as part of the initial profile view page in step
426, i.e., those options are available when a user is identified as
an academic user at log in. In step 432, any comments added to a
research article are stored in the database. In some embodiments,
where the group of users that can see an article or portion of the
profile are restricted, the database may stored such comments in
separate tables or fields, or in the same table as comments for
unrestricted portions with an identifier indicating that the
comment is for restricted viewing. In step 434, unrestricted
comments are posted on the academic user profile or research paper
pages for the academic user, e.g., a comment may be posted with the
poster's picture and username. In some embodiments, step 434 may
also include instructions to post a copy of the comments provided
to academic user profiles on the poster's academic user profile. As
one skilled in the art will appreciate, because non-academic users
cannot upload photos in some embodiments, even in unrestricted
portions of the shared networking site, academic users and
non-academic users can be readily distinguished. In step 436, the
processes end. As one skilled in the art will appreciate, other
computer program steps may be added to those described above to
implement other features, e.g., the commenting module may allow the
user to link to accounts associated with Twitter.RTM.,
Linkedin.RTM. or Facebook.RTM., or allow a user various methods of
voting or approving an academic profile or research paper, etc,
other than the ones described above. Accordingly, though not all
such instructions are described herein, all variations in
implementation should be considered within the scope of the
invention.
[0052] Turning to FIG. 5, an exemplary database 500, is organized
into several tables for each of the steps described in FIGS. 4A-4C,
including, for example, a security table 502, a user information
table 504, a profile table 506, a research table 508, an academic
institution table 510, a CV or resume table 512, a photo table 514,
a academic research paper table 516, a comment table 518, and a
pending table 520. In an exemplary embodiment, security table 502
may include, e.g., a user identifier ("user ID") as the primary
key, and a password and user type stored as separate rows in the
table. For the user information table 504, the primary key is the
user ID and the rows may be defined, e.g., as the user name,
physical address, email address, university or research institution
affiliate, and educational level of the student member, e.g., MD,
PhD, MS, MA, BS, student, etc, educational background
(undergraduate, graduate, post doctoral, etc.). For the profile
table 506, the primary key is the user ID, and the rows are defined
by the reputation rank of the user profile and the rating weight,
i.e., the number used to determine the weight to assign to an
academic user's ranking of other academic users. In research table
508, the primary key may be defined by the user ID, with the rows
identifying the subject, title, publication date, and
author/author(s) associated with the research article. As one
skilled in the art will appreciate, the research table. 508 stores
bibliographic information regarding the research article, while
table 516 (discussed below) may be used to store the research
article.
[0053] Returning to FIG. 5, academic institution table 510 may be
used to store information regarding the academic users current
school or employer, and may include the user ID as a primary key
and the institution name, address, position, tenure, date employed
or entered the institution, etc. As one skilled in the art will
appreciate, though not depicted in the figures, either the academic
institution table 510, or a table similar to academic institution
table 510, may be used to store information regarding the
educational institutions the academic user attended. In resume/CV
table 512, the academic user's CV is stored, and as such the table
includes the user ID as a primary key and the CV is included as
rows in the table. Similarly, photo table 514 and academic table
516 are organized using the user ID as a primary key, and the
storing photos or articles in the rows of the respective tables. In
comment table 518, the primary key is also the user ID, but the
rows include all types of comments, e.g., paper comments, profile
comments, likes, links, blog posts, etc. Finally, in pending column
520, all pending profiles are loaded for approval and/or
verification, and as such include the user ID as the primary key
and the profile prompt as the row, e.g., the data entered to
determine whether a user can create an academic profile or not.
[0054] As one skilled in the art will appreciate, each of the
relational tables may be used to construct GUIs as described for
the program product above that allow a user to interact with the
computer program of the instant invention, and exemplary GUIs and
their functions will be described with reference to FIGS.
6A-6D.
[0055] FIG. 6A is a graphical user interface ("GUI") displaying an
academic user profile according to an embodiment of the present
invention. In this embodiment, the academic user profile GUI 600
includes a RG score tab 602, which stores the academic users
reputation score; the published article summary and link 604, which
stores, e.g., the article abstract and link to full article for
viewing; questions posed to the academic user and the associated
answers 606, which can be expanded to view multiple comment
entries; an activity summary 608, which includes the number of full
text articles available, the amount of published data, and
questions posed to and answered by the academic users, a link to
follow the academic profile 610, which includes the number of
followers an academic user has and the number of users following
the academic user; an email tab 612, which enables the academic
user to email other system users; a home tab 614, which allows an
academic user to return to the system homepage or, e.g., the
academic users own profile; a settings tab 616, which allows the
user to change system preferences, e.g., color, photos, username,
password, etc; a search prompt 618, which enables a user to search
for academic users; an info tab 620, which includes biographic
information about the academic profile, e.g., name, address,
research field, research institution, undergraduate, graduate and
PhD. institutions, etc.; a profile picture, name and institution
622; and a short biographic summary 624 about the academic user and
academic user profile. In some embodiments, the academic user's
photo, name and institution 622, reputation score tab 602,
followers tab 610, email tab 612, home tab 614, settings tab 616
and search prompt 618 can be maintained in one or more profile
ribbons 601 at the top of the GUI to be replicated through other
GUIs in the system.
[0056] FIG. 6B is a reputation score GUI 603 displaying a
reputation score according to an embodiment of the invention. As
can be seen, in some embodiments, the reputation score tab 602
expands into the reputation score GUI 603. The reputation score GUI
603 includes a reputation score 625, which may also include an
explanation for the reputation score; a percentile rank 626 for the
academic user, e.g., the percentage of reputation ratings that the
academic profile user's rating exceeds, and a graphic showing the
academic user's reputation score over time 628. As one skilled in
the art will appreciate, the profile ribbon 601 can be maintained
over the reputation score GUI 603.
[0057] FIG. 6C is a question GUI 607 that includes a question and a
series of user comments according to an embodiment of the
invention. In the question GUI 607, for example, the question 606
can be posted by a user and answered by other academic users, and
in some embodiments other non-academic users. As such the question
GUI 607 can include the question 606, followed by user answers 630.
In addition, the users answering the question 606 may be posted in
a contributors list 632, which may include the academic user's
name, photo, university or institution, and an invitation to follow
the particular contributor. The question GUI 607 may also include a
link to follow the particular post 634 and a prompt to post a
comment to an answer or question 636. As can be seen, the profile
ribbon 601 only partly appears on the question GUI 607 so that more
comments can appear on the page, but as one skilled in the art will
appreciate a full profile ribbon 601 may also appear.
[0058] FIG. 6D is a research article GUI 649 displaying a research
article abstract according to an embodiment of the invention. As
can be seen, the profile ribbon 601 appears at the top of the GUI,
the article name and bibliographic information 650 appears below
the ribbon; and the abstract 604 from the user profile page may
also appear. As one skilled in the art will appreciate, abstract
604 may be abbreviated on the academic user profile GUI 600, but
appear in full length form on the research article GUI 649. The
research article GUI 649 can also include: a full-text link 640,
which links, e.g., to the website for the article publisher; a
bookmark option for the publication 644, a resources list 642,
which may include a list of the publications in which the article
appears; an author list 646, which links to the academic profiles
for authors of the article; a comments section 648, which allows a
user to post comments to the article; and website links 652 to
e.g., Facebook.RTM. or Twitter.RTM..
[0059] As one skilled in the art will further appreciate, the
display pages of FIGS. 6A-6D are exemplary of the GUIs that may be
initiated by the computer program of the instant invention to
perform the inventive functions herein. Other GUIs may be created
that will help with efficiency of data entry, add additional
features, or further organize and maintain academic user profiles
and research data, and accordingly not all embodiments of such GUIs
have been described herein, but will be apparent to one of skill in
the art. Accordingly, various GUIs may be used instead of or in
addition to the GUIs described herein, and the GUIs are in no way
to be considered limiting to the specification and claims, but are
used for a descriptive sense only.
[0060] Moreover, in the drawings and specification, there have been
disclosed a typical preferred embodiment of the invention, and
although specific terms are employed, the terms are used in a
descriptive sense only and not for purposes of limitation. The
invention has been described in considerable detail with specific
reference to these illustrated embodiments. It will be apparent,
however, that various modifications and changes can be made within
the spirit and scope of the invention as described in the foregoing
specification, and such modifications and changes are to be
considered equivalents and part of this disclosure.
* * * * *