JP2002007277A - Information-collecting system using the internet - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To solve the problem conventionally that may resources need to be accessed to collect information, including know-how by telephone or through a network and information can be obtained from only secondary to tertiary answerers and the problem that information is obtained in a conversational way at an information providing site of the network and cannot be comprehended. SOLUTION: An information requester terminal 1, expert terminals 2,..., 4 which answer requests to provide information, and a host system 5 are connected through the Internet 7, and the host system 5 has an expert DB 57 which holds property information and mail addresses of experts by fields and items, menu information 56 as list information of the fields and items, a DB accessing means 521 which sends the menu information to the terminal 1 and conducts retrieval from the expert DB 57 with a specified field and a specified item, a mail-generating means 522 which sends retrieved expert information to the terminal and generates information provision request mail according to question information, and a means which sends the mail to a corresponding expert terminal in accordance with selection information from the terminal 1.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to an information collection system using a network, and more particularly, to an information collection system which is automatically connected to an expert for information to be collected via the Internet or an intranet and enables conversation by e-mail. About.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art FIG. 7 shows an example of a conventional information collection system. The configuration includes an information requester 91, a respondent (A) 92, and a respondent (B) 93 to the information request, each having telephones 81, 82,... Connected to the telephone network 8. I have. Each has terminals 71, 72,... Connected to the Internet 7.

Further, an information providing site 75 which is an HP (Home Page) of a company or an organization or an information providing site 77 such as an electronic library is connected to the Internet 7.

[0004] In such a situation where communication means and information resources expected to be handled via the communication means exist, the requester 91 collects information including some know-how. Is shown.

[0005] The requester 91 first obtains a clue record 95.
(Phone book, business card collected by requester, workplace to which requester belongs, work duties document of company, etc.) Pick up those who are likely to obtain the information to be collected. Ask the respondent (A) 92 by telephone and request information provision. The answer "Ask Mr. B" is obtained from the respondent (A) 92. The respondent (B) 93 is accessed. Information (data) desired to be obtained from the respondent (B) 93 is obtained (sent).

[0006] If there is a part of the information that the user does not want to obtain, he or she starts over again. In another case, the respondent (B) may further ask "Ask Mr. C".

[0007] The requester 91 sometimes accesses an information providing site. Since the requester 91 has gathered information including some know-how, the user first accesses some information providing sites starting with the information providing site 75, and investigates the obtained information if he / she cannot understand the obtained information well. For the purpose, the user also accesses the electronic library site 77.

[0008]

Conventionally, since the primary respondents do not know the details even if they ask for a survey, they are asked to ask Mr. XX and they often access the secondary respondents. In addition, the secondary respondents may not understand well and may reach the tertiary respondents. A lot of time is wasted and the available information is often very small.

[0009] This is because information including some know-how is not collected so that it can be indexed systematically.
In addition, respondents may send information requests that are not directly related to their duties to secondary or tertiary respondents due to busyness, etc.
That is, there is a lack of motivation to actively answer the requested person.

[0010] In addition, for information including some know-how, even if a search access is made to a DB (DataBase) of an information providing site, it is not an interactive (conversation) method because it is not possible to quickly obtain all the information to be known. It is.

The present invention provides an information collecting system which solves these drawbacks.

[0012]

A first information collecting system according to the present invention comprises a terminal of a requester who wants to obtain information, a terminal of an expert who responds to an information provision request, and an information service field for each item. An information providing system in which a host system that holds expert attribute information and an e-mail address as an expert database is connected to a network, wherein the host system stores the expert database, and field information and item list information held by the database. A means for sending to the requester's terminal and searching the expert database using the specified field and item as a key, and sending the searched expert information to the requester's terminal and providing information based on the question information from the requester's terminal Means for generating request mail and selecting the mail from requester's terminal According distribution characterized by having a means for transmitting to the corresponding experts terminal.

[0013] A second information collection system according to the present invention comprises:
The information providing request mail includes the mail address of the requester, and a reply mail is transmitted to the requester from an expert terminal that has received the information providing request mail.

[0014] A third information collection system according to the present invention comprises:
Upon receiving the requester's terminal and the expert's terminal, the field, the item list information and the searched expert information are executed and displayed, and the selection information,
It has browsing means for returning the input question information to the host system, mail sending means, and mail receiving means, so that both processing for requesting information and processing for answering as an expert can be performed. It is characterized by.

[0015] A fourth information collecting system according to the present invention comprises:
A copy of the response mail from the expert terminal to the requester terminal is also transmitted to the host system,
The host system also has management processing means and billing and point data for each user, and when receiving a copy of the reply mail, the management processing means adds a billing value of a requester who is a recipient of the mail. , The point value of the respondent who is the expert of the e-mail is added, the billing value and the point value of each user are periodically adjusted, and the user is charged according to the billing value and the point value which are not offset. Claim,
It is characterized by performing a bounty transfer process.

[0016] A fifth information collecting system according to the present invention comprises:
The management processing means has a transmission recording means of the transmitted information provision request mail, and when a copy of the reply mail is not received within a predetermined period from the mail transmission, the expert promotion mail is sent to the expert. Characterized in that it has means for transmitting to the respondent who is

A sixth information collecting system according to the present invention comprises:
A copy of the response mail from the expert terminal to the requester terminal is also transmitted to the host system,
The host system also has answer information storage processing means, an index file, and an answer information database. When the answer information storage processing means receives a copy of the answer mail, the answer The information is registered in the index file and the corresponding segment indicated by the field information of the mail in the answer information database, and the host system receives the question keyword when receiving the field and item from the requester's terminal. Using these as a key, the index file is searched, and if the corresponding answer information is registered, the answer information is read out from the answer information database and returned to the requester's terminal. Search the expert database for information and send the relevant expert information Expert selection information from the requester terminal, receives the question information, and generates the information request mail, and transmits to the expert of the terminal corresponding to the selection information.

A seventh information collecting system according to the present invention comprises:
The network connecting the terminal of the requester, the terminal of the expert, and the host system is the Internet.

[0019]

Next, a first embodiment of the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the drawings. FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing the overall configuration of the information collection system of the present embodiment. The information collecting system is a requester 16 who wants to know information.
And the respondents (experts) 26,.
Each terminal 1, 2,... 4 and the host system 5 are connected to the Internet 7.

Each terminal uses a personal computer or the like and has similar means. For example, the terminal 1 includes input means 12 such as a keyboard and a mouse; output means 11 such as a display; web browsing means 13;
4. It has a mail sending means 15.

In addition to the Internet communication network, the Internet 7 has a mailbox (catalog) for temporarily storing mail information addressed to each terminal, a mail server for mediating mail communication of each terminal, and a DNS (Domain Name).
System) server.

As the host system 5, a server or a small-to-medium-sized computer is used.
, Expert information processing means 52, and D
An expert DB 57, user information 55, menu information 56, and a question / registration mail template 58 are stored as B (Data Base) files.

The expert DB 57 stores, for each field, those who have expertise and know-how in each field and item.
This is a DB in which attribute information and mail addresses are registered. The user information 55 includes a user I for approving and identifying the user.
D, a file in which a password is recorded.

The menu information 56 is a program file associated with search menu screen information for the requester and buttons on the screen. The question / registration mail template 58 is based on the input information and selection information of the requester 16,
The template used when generating the mail to be sent to the respondents (experts) 26,.
This is a template for e-mail sent to the user.

The expert information processing means 52 includes: a DB access means 521 having a function of searching the expert DB 57 and registering data;
There is mail generation means 522 for generating a mail to be sent to the respondent (expert) 26 according to the selection information.

Next, the operation of this embodiment will be described with reference to the drawings. The requester 16 first activates the web browsing unit 13 using the input unit 12, and then registers the URL (Uniform Reform) of the host system 5 registered therein.
source Locator) and accesses the host system 5.

Upon receiving this access request via the web / mail communication means 51, the expert information processing means 52 of the host system 5 displays the user approval screen and the attached program file from the menu information 56 on the web browsing means 13 To return.

The web browsing means 13 displays this on the output means 11 after decoding. When the requester 16 inputs a user ID and password registered in advance in predetermined frames on the screen, the request is returned to the host system 5 and the expert information processing means 52
Checks whether the transmitted user ID and password are registered in the user information 55.

If registered, the search menu screen information and the attached program file information are transmitted from the menu information 56 to the web browsing means 13. This menu screen information is displayed, and the requester 16 selects one of the displayed field and item name.

According to the accompanying program, the selected field and item name are returned, and the expert information processing means 52 is returned.
Passes the field and the item name to the DB access unit 521 and instructs a search. The DB access unit 521 searches the expert DB 57 by the field and the item name, and returns attribute information and a mail address of the corresponding expert (expert). The expert information processing means 52 transmits the attribute information of all the relevant experts to the web browsing means 13.

Here, the attribute information is a title related to information provision, acquisition qualification information, a name, a name of a workplace to which the information belongs, and the like. For example, if you have an electrician qualification, the information includes "Acquisition of an electrician" and the OA
If the user has the equipment know-how, the information includes “OA equipment know-how—technical department”.

When the requester 16 selects a plurality of displayed expert information and further inputs a question in a predetermined frame on the screen, the information is returned. The expert information processing means 52 temporarily stores the expert attribute information and the e-mail address read out earlier, and passes the received information and the corresponding e-mail address of the expert to the e-mail generation means 522.

The mail generating means 522 adds the destination mail address, the question items, and the mail address of the requester 16 to the question mail template read from the question / registered mail template 58, and
And the processing means 52 is connected to the web mail communication means 5
The information providing request mail is transmitted to the respondents 26,. This process is performed for all the selected experts.

When the mail receiving means 24 of the terminal 2 receives the information provision request mail, it is displayed on the output means 21.
When the respondent 26 operates the “answer creation” button, this mail information is copied to the mail transmitting unit 25,
The rearrangement of the address information in the mail header is automatically performed.

That is, the previous destination address is transferred to the sender address portion, and the mail address of the requester 16 added at the end of the header, for example, is transferred to the destination address portion.

The respondent 26 fills in the answer information,
When the "send reply" button is operated, the mail is sent to the mailbox corresponding to the terminal 1, and the mail receiving means 14 reads it. Similarly, a reply mail from the terminal 4 by the respondent 46 is also read.

In this way, the requester 16 can collect the information to be collected from many experts at once by a simple operation.

If there is any information that the user wants to know in more detail or unknown information in the received response information, the requester 16 makes an inquiry or requests by replying this mail, and also receives the second and subsequent response information.

Next, a specific example of information collection will be described with reference to the drawings. Referring to FIG. 1, since the requester 16 does not know what to do when taking an examination for an electrician, the requester 16 accesses the host system 5 from the terminal 1.
The requester 16 inputs a user ID and a password on the user approval screen, and is approved by the expert information processing means 52.

Next, a menu screen shown in FIG. 2 is displayed. The requester 16 selects the item “electrical engineer” in the field of “various qualifications acquired” (clicks the corresponding selection button). The field name and the item name are sent to the expert information processing means 52, and the corresponding information is obtained as a search result from the expert DB 57 by the DB access means 521, and sent to the web browsing means 13 as response data.

Referring to FIG. 3, in the record where the field of the key information—the item name is “various qualification acquirer—electrician” in the expert DB 57, the illustrated attribute information and the mail address are registered. , The attribute information is sent to the web browsing means 13. The web browsing means 13 displays this information as “Taro Yamamoto, an electrician acquirer, Jiro Tanaka, an electrician acquirer”, and also displays an input frame for question items because it is the lowest layer of field and item selection. I do.

The requester 16 selects both Taro Yamamoto and Jiro Tanaka (clicks both selection buttons) and inputs the illustrated question article. The selection information and the text information of the question article are returned to the expert information processing means 52 and passed to the mail generation means 522.

The mail generation means 522 stores the corresponding mail address, answer destination address,
Create an information request email by embedding the question article and the questioner name. For example, as shown in FIG. 4, underlined information is added to the template mail.

The generated information provision request mail is sent by the expert information processing means 52 to the web mail communication means 5.
1. It is sent to a mailbox corresponding to the terminal 2 through the communication network of the Internet 7 and read out by the mail receiving means 24.

When the respondent 26 performs an answer creation operation, the received mail information is copied to the mail transmitting means 25,
The Yamamoto @ xbu. zkk. co. jp
Is transferred to the sender address section, and satoh @ wbu.
zkk. co. jp is transferred to the destination address part.

When the respondent 26 enters the response information and performs a response transmission operation, a response mail arrives at the terminal 1 side. Response emails from other respondents will be delivered as well.

With the above-described system, the entire know-how of the electrician examination can be quickly grasped as compared with the case where the requester 16 investigates a book or the like.

In addition to collecting information for the qualification test, when the requester 16 has a problem with the electrical equipment or the communication equipment, the information collecting system can be used to search for a qualified person and take measures. Obtain the opinion of swiftly.

In particular, it is applicable to a person who is engaged in the acquisition of a qualification, the assignment of work, or the overall work as an effective support means of the work.

Next, a second embodiment of the present invention will be described with reference to the drawings. In the present embodiment, in addition to the above-described components, the host system performs a management process for motivating a person selected as a respondent and promoting a response.

FIG. 5 shows the host system 5A of the present embodiment.
The expert information processing means 52A has a management processing means 523, and includes accounting / point data 59 and a notification mail template 60 under the control of the means. The components other than the above are the first
This is the same as the embodiment.

The components of the terminals 1, 2,... 4 are the same as described above, except that when the mail transmitting means 15, 25 transmits the reply mail, a copy thereof is also sent to the host system 5A.

The billing / point data 59 is a file for managing and holding the billing value to the information requester and the point (score) value to the information provider on a user basis. The notification mail template 60 is an aggregate of template mails for a mail that promotes a delayed response, a periodic billing mail, and a reward transfer mail.

The management processing means 523 performs charging, point processing, expense settlement, transfer processing, and payment confirmation processing.

Next, the operation of this embodiment will be described with reference to the drawings. Referring to FIG. 4, when the respondent 26 receives the information provision request mail and performs a reply creation operation, the mail information is copied from the mail receiving means 24 to the mail transmitting means 25. Along with the transfer, the sender address host @ kanribu. zk
k. co. jp is set in the CC address (destination address as a copy) part, and the reply mail is sent to the host system 5A in the reply transmission operation thereafter.

Turning to FIG. 5, expert information processing means 5
2A, upon receiving a copy of the reply mail through the web mail communication means 51, adds a predetermined charge value to the charge data of the user who is the destination of the mail, and adds the predetermined point value to the sender's point data. to add.

The accounting / point data 59 is settled for each user, for example, in a cycle of several months. That is, the billing value,
If the point value is canceled and the billing value is exceeded as a result, the difference billing e-mail is transmitted to the user. If the point value is exceeded, the difference is paid to the user's designated account.

When a charge is made, it is confirmed whether or not payment has been made to a predetermined account with the target user name. These processes are performed online through the Internet 7.

When the information providing request mail is transmitted, the management processing means 523 keeps a record of the destination address for a certain period of time. If a copy of the reply mail is not received within the predetermined period, the management processing unit 523 sends the reply promotion mail. Send.

Next, a third embodiment of the present invention will be described with reference to FIG.
This will be described with reference to FIG. In the present embodiment, the host system 5
B has a response information storage processing unit 524, an index file 61, and a response information DB 62, as compared with the host systems 5 and 5A.
Before the requester 16 selects an expert (expert), there is also provided a means (program information corresponding to screen information) for prompting entry of a keyword for a question item. Other components are the same as in the second embodiment.

The additional components will be described together with the operation. The index file 61 stores, for each field-item,
It has a keyword of the answer information to be stored and pointer information of the corresponding answer information. The pointer is a record number in the answer information DB 62 or a file name.

Upon receiving the copy of the reply mail, the reply information storage processing means 524 registers the text of the reply and the respondent (sender) in the reply information DB 62, and sets the requester carried by the mail. The keyword is registered in the index file 61.

Note that field and item information is also carried around.
It is registered in the corresponding segment of the index file 61 and the answer information DB 62.

The DB access means 521B transmits the requester 16
Receives a keyword when a field-item name is selected and a question item is input, and searches the index file 61. If the search results in a hit, the corresponding answer mail is read from the answer information DB 62 and transmitted to the terminal 1.

At this time, if the number of hits exceeds a predetermined value, resetting (narrowing down) of the keyword may be requested.

If the search is not hit, the expert DB 57 is searched by the field-item name, and the corresponding information is
Send to The requester 16 selects the expert information, and if necessary, inputs a questionnaire in a normal sentence not based on a keyword. Thereafter, as in the first and second embodiments, an information provision request mail is sent to the terminal 2 of the respondent 26 (expert), and the reply mail is sent from the respondent 26 to the terminal 1 of the requester 16. Then, the requester 16 communicates with the respondent 26 about unknown points and the like.

The expert information processing means 52B
The answer information is stored.

As described above, the conventional information providing site function and the information providing request e-mail setting function for the expert can be provided without overlapping hardware resources and processing sequences as much as possible.
Since both functions are combined, a system with good information collection efficiency and excellent usability per cost is realized by the merits of the respective functions.

In the above description, the network for communicatively connecting the terminals 1, 2,... 4 to the host system 5, or 5A, 5B is the Internet. However, the network is not limited to this and may be an intranet. .

[0070]

As described above, the information collection system of the present invention can immediately connect to an expert (expert) on the target information by a simple operation if the necessary information and data fields are known. Since the information can be obtained, the answer information from the expert can be obtained, and since the mail can be exchanged with the expert, the information can be efficiently obtained and grasped.

Further, the information collection system of the present invention has an effect that the expert information can be efficiently searched because the expert information is organized in one database for each field and item.

In the information collecting system according to the second embodiment of the present invention, points are added when information is provided, so that there is an effect that answer information can be obtained smoothly. In addition, since the charging, the point addition processing, the settlement processing, the billing, the payment confirmation, and the reward money transfer processing are automatically executed, there is an effect that the system management and the number of operation steps are reduced.

The information collecting system according to the third embodiment of the present invention has means for accumulating answer information from an expert as a database in association with a keyword representing the content of a question to an expert, and corresponds to the content of the question. If the answer is registered in the answer information DB, it is returned, otherwise the answer from the expert is automatically set.
Experts have the advantage that they do not have to respond to the same questions and requests for information every time. For information requesters, they can obtain the required information immediately, or if they do not, they will receive an e-mail from the expert. Has the guaranteed benefits.

[Brief description of the drawings]

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

FIG. 2 is a view showing an example of a menu screen for expert information and a screen for selecting expert information, which are displayed on the terminal 1 of FIG. 1;

FIG. 3 is a view showing the contents of one record of an expert DB 57 in FIG. 1;

FIG. 4 is a diagram showing an example of an information provision request mail.

FIG. 5 is a block diagram showing a configuration of a host system 5A in an information collection system according to a second embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 6 is a block diagram showing a configuration of a host system 5B in an information collection system according to a third embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 7 is a diagram for explaining a conventional information collection method.

[Explanation of symbols]

 1 terminal 11 output means 12 input means 13 web browsing means 14 e-mail receiving means 15 e-mail transmitting means 16 requester 2 terminal 21 output means 22 input means 23 web browsing means 24 e-mail receiving means 25 e-mail transmitting means 26 respondent (expert) 4 Terminal 46 Respondent (expert) 5, 5A, 5B Host system 51 Web / mail communication means 52, 52A, 52B Expert information processing means 521, 521B DB access means 522 Mail generation means 523 Management processing means 524 Reply information storage processing means 53 Output unit 54 Input unit 55 User information 56, 56B Menu information 57 Expert DB 58 Question / registration mail template 59 Billing / point data 60 Notification mail template 61 Index file 62 The answer information DB 7 Internet

Claims (7)

[Claims] 1. A terminal of a requester who wants to obtain information, a terminal of an expert who answers an information provision request, attribute information of an expert for each item in each field of information service,
An information providing system in which a host system holding an e-mail address as an expert database is connected to a network, wherein the host system sends the expert database and a list of fields and items held by the database to a requester's terminal. Means for transmitting and searching the expert database using the designated field and item as a key, transmitting the searched expert information to the requester's terminal, and generating an information provision request mail based on the question information from the requester's terminal An information collection system comprising: means for transmitting the e-mail to a corresponding expert terminal in accordance with information selected from the requester's terminal. 2. The information providing request mail includes a requester's mail address, and a reply mail is transmitted to the requester from an expert terminal that has received the information providing request mail. Information collection system described. 3. The terminal of the requester and the terminal of the expert, when receiving the field, the item list information and the searched expert information, execute and display the information, and host the selection information and the input question information. 3. A system according to claim 2, further comprising a browsing unit for replying to the system, a mail transmitting unit, and a mail receiving unit, so that both a process for requesting information and a process for replying as an expert can be performed. Information collection system described. 4. A copy of the reply mail from the expert's terminal to the requester's terminal is also transmitted to the host system, and the host system also has management processing means, charging for each user, and point data. When receiving the copy of the reply mail, the management processing means adds the billing value of the requester who is the recipient of the mail, and adds the point value of the reply person who is the expert of the mail sender. And periodically adjusts the billing value and point value of each user,
3. The information collection system according to claim 2, wherein the user is billed for the expense and the incentive money is transferred according to the billing value and the point value that have not been offset. 5. The management processing means includes a transmission recording means for transmitting the transmitted information provision request mail, and when a copy of the response mail is not received within a predetermined period from the transmission of the mail, the response promotion 5. A means for transmitting said e-mail to said expert respondent.
Information collection system described. 6. A copy of a reply mail from the expert's terminal to the requester's terminal is also transmitted to the host system. The host system includes a reply information storage processing means, an index file, and a reply information. When receiving a copy of the reply mail, the reply information storage processing means converts the keyword and the reply information included in the reply mail information into an index file and a reply information database, respectively. When the host system receives the field and the item from the requester's terminal, the host system also receives the query keyword, searches the index file using these as a key, and registers the corresponding answer information. If so, read this answer information from the answer information database and return it to the requester's terminal. If not registered, search the expert database with the field and item information, transmit the corresponding expert information, receive expert selection information and question information from the requester's terminal, and generate the information provision request mail. 3. The information collection system according to claim 2, wherein the selected information is transmitted to an expert terminal corresponding to the selected information. 7. A network for connecting the terminal of the requester, the terminal of the expert, and the host system to the Internet.
The information collection system according to 2, 3, 4, 5, or 6.