WO2016139680A1 - System and method for recordal, collaboration and recognition of research activities on a network-based platform - Google Patents

Abstract

The invention pertains to system and method for recordal, identification, validation and collaboration of research activities by users on a network-based platform. The research activity profile of each user is authenticated/validated by the administrator of the concerned user group. The research activity profile of each user and user group is scored, recognized and validated on the basis of endorsements, contributions, activity, etc. of the concerned user or user group on the network. The research activity profile of users and user groups on the platform is searchable by other users, user groups and visitors on the network.

Description

System and Method for Recordal, Collaboration and Recognition of Research Activities on a Network-

Based Platform

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATION

[0001] This application claims priority to Indian Patent Application No. 608/DEL/2015, filed March 4, 2015, which is hereby incorporated by reference in its entirety.

FIELD OF INVENTION

[0002] The invention relates, in general, to the field of network based platform for research based profiling, validation, collaboration and recognition of Scientists/Researchers/Academicians across scientific/academic community.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

[0003] Currently, there are various social networking sites that allow users to post profiles and content on an online forum, via posting, commenting, liking, endorsing.

[0004] However, as most of the user activities in the sites are not under strict regulation which may not successfully prevent the unhealthy posts or comments or activities which may harm the interests of other users of the website.

[0005] To address this, some sites have sought to improve 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 academic context because the Users forming a group in a social network site may not be working as a group in their professional life. [0006] And there is a need where people working as a group in professional life are only allowed to form a group in the social network site, and Hierarchical regulation built in the same context would help allowing healthy and fruitful activities flow into the site across the users, as any unhealthy activity would also harm their professional life.

[0007] This kind of regulation across the site would allow users to maintain the reputation across the community, which would help build their professional life both in offline and online activities across their community.

[0008] There are websites, where users are entitled to perform some activities like, liking, posting or commenting or uploading a file. The activities performed by user are left to user's discretion. And the user despite his regular activity performance doesn't receive anything in return except mental satisfaction. There is a need to recognize the efforts of the user, who is educating other users by posting articles, encouraging others by Liking or commenting, or helping others by posting answers to other user's queries. Indeed, there is a need to recognize these efforts of every user in a way to provide a collaborative environment across the users of the website. Recognition of these activities are via reputation build up exercises which help users gain recognition across the community. There is a need of building such tools for scientific community which might help in driving collaborations between different users across the community for building a better world through their shared thoughts, development of better vision leading to subsequent discoveries.

[0009] There are websites, where users are entitled to build their scientific reputation across the community. In this context, users are treated as individual entities, where as in a real world researchers work in a collaborative environment to achieve their research goals in a time efficient manner. Thus there is a need to exactly imitate this where individuals as above, a single user reputation is added to the Research groups, building the Research groups reputation across the community. Thus there is a need to exactly imitate the above mentioned scenario where, every single user's activity helps individual's as well as group's growth, likewise reputation is built for individual for every activity which subsequently adds to their respective Research groups. [00010] The user activities are stored as digital data in servers and accumulate over a period of time and accessible exclusively to the users and viewed as a time line data, an overview of his/her activities over a period of time. But this data built may also show case their passion towards a particular subject or area. Making this visible to the people outside the community or recruiters, would help gain recognition to ascertain the user's passion or understanding of a particular subject or area. This data is cumulative for an individual, or Research groups which allows users or people outside the community to assess the expertise or passion of a Researcher or Research group towards a subject or area over a period of time.

[0011] There are websites, where expertise of individual users is endorsed by other users, irrespective of the differences between the users in context to subject or work or location. Validation of the expertise area of any user is a necessary step for channelizing queries or problems associated with the subject matter in context to the expert for finding out proper solutions. Expertise area of any expert will be validated on the basis of key inputs provided for solving multiple queries associated with subject of his expertise area on the web interface.

[0012] After validation of expertise in an particular subject, grouping of the people will be done based on subject area, so multiple queries linked with multiple active discussions can be redirected and distributed uniformly across individual experts grouped on the basis of subject.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF FIGURES

[0013] 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;

[0014] 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;

[0015] FIG. 3A 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;

[0016] FIG. 3B is a schematic view of illustrative data that can be extracted and accessed by a computer device for grouping the user in accordance with one embodiment of the invention is a schematic view illustrating a method to extract and access the data out of a uploaded article, by a computer device for grouping the user in accordance with one embodiment of the invention.

[0017] FIG. 3C is a flow diagram illustrating a method for signup process followed by authentication via extraction and access by a computer from an uploaded article and grouping the user in accordance with one embodiment of the invention;

[0018] FIG. 3D is a flow diagram illustrating a method for signup process without authentication or via employing alternative way of authentication, according to which grouping occurs in accordance with one embodiment of the invention; according to which computer decides on providing access rights to the user, in accordance.

[0019] FIG. 3E is a flow diagram illustrating a method for signup process for Research Group Leader or Principal Investigator and inviting all his subordinates to get complete access once registered without any further authentication, according to which grouping occurs in accordance with one embodiment of the invention;

[0020] FIG. 4 is a flow diagram illustrating a method for hierarchical regulation, where content generated by users of a particular research lab is being monitored by Group leader of the same lab, also he is managing the public visibility of the content posted by his/her sub-ordinates, likewise content accumulated from different labs gets visible on public page of the institute, monitored and managed by Institute PR, in accordance with one embodiment of the invention; [0021] FIG. 5 is a flow diagram illustrating a method for gaining influential credits for the activities performed by Primary User, also mentioning the factors which are being used for gaining influential credits and their cumulativeness from Primary user to Group Leader to institute PR to Funding agencies, in accordance with one embodiment of the invention;

[0022] FIG. 6 is a schematic view of illustrative scheme displaying influential credits gaining when a user from a research lab has left his job and joined another lab, in accordance with one embodiment of the invention;

[0023] FIG. 7 is a flow diagram illustrating a method for sending and receiving of notifications or messages at an intra-university or institute level via a secured channel through the website, in accordance with one embodiment of the invention;

[0024] FIG. 8 is a schematic view of illustrative scheme displaying influential credits by user/researcher with respect to different routes of building of influential credits, will be getting accumulated independently into different categories which gets accumulated for individuals as well as to higher authorities in hierarchy in accordance with one embodiment of the invention;

[0025] FIG. 9 is a flow diagram illustrating a method by which recruiter can look for experts in context to location and subject of interest, which will be processed by server to sort the experts in the same particular subject in descending order of influential credits, in accordance with one embodiment of the invention;

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

The present invention provides a system for enabling recordal, validation, collaboration and recognition of research activities by users on a network base, the system comprising: one or more processors; one or more servers having one or more computer-readable non-transitory storage media embodying logic, and coupled with one or more processors; and a network along with network connection means connecting the server with devices of users, wherein the logic is operable, when executed by one or more processors, to: (i) configure a communication interface to acquire the information feed from user, wherein the information feed comprising: (a) research activity details of the user; (b) details of user group the user belongs to; and (c) personal details of the user; (ii) process the information feed for authentication by the administrator user of the user group of the user; (iii) publish and display the selective information of user profile to other users and visitors on the network; (iv) enable means of communication among registered users on the network; (v) deduce and maintain score of each registered user on the network on the basis of endorsements and contributions of the user received on the network; wherein a user includes a user group, and wherein each user group has at least one administrator user.

The present invention also pertains to a method for recordal, validation, collaboration and recognition of research activities by users on a network base, the method comprising: (i) configuring a communication interface to acquire the information feed from user, wherein the information feed comprising: (a) research activity details of the user; (b) details of user group the user belongs to; and (c) personal details of the user; (ii) processing the information feed for authentication by the administrator user of the user group of the user; (iii) publishing and displaying the selective information of user profile to other users and visitors on the network; (iv) enabling means of communication among registered users on the network; and (v) deducing and maintaining score of each registered user on the network on the basis of endorsements and contributions of the user received on the network; wherein a user includes a user group, and wherein each user group has at least one administrator user.

Additionally, the present invention also encompasses a computer-readable non- transitory storage media on a network embodying logic and coupled with one or more processors, wherein the logic is operable when executed by one or more processors, to: (i) configure a communication interface to acquire the information feed from user, wherein the information feed comprising: (a) research activity details of the user; (b) details of user group the user belongs to; and (c) personal details of the user; (ii) process the information feed for authentication by the administrator user of the user group of the user; (iii) publish and display the selective information of user profile to other users and visitors on the network; (iv) enable means of communication among registered users on the network; (v) deduce and maintain score of each registered user on the network on the basis of endorsements and contributions of the user received on the network; wherein a user includes a user group, and wherein each user group has at least one administrator user.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

[0026] Before describing in detail the particular method and system for reputation building of users such as Scientists/Researchers across the Scientific/Research/ Academic community in embodiments of the present invention resides primarily in combination of steps related to facilitating reputation building of users across the scientific community on a network. Accordingly, the system components and method steps have been represented, where appropriate, by conventional symbols in drawings, showing only those which are pertinent for clear understanding of the present invention, so as to reduce the uncertainty in clearly defining the details.

[0027] For an embodiment, a method for facilitating the reputation building of in a website is provided. One embodiment of the invention is a system for creating and sharing academic user profiles, a research article and credential information for a multiple academic user. 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 user's professional background. 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 to prove their professional background by sharing a scientific article published elsewhere by the user or by the Research group/institute in which they are working for their academic or professional career. [0028] 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 article that was shared to the admin while user is creating a profile in the website. A process for determining the Research group Leader/Principal Investigator and also determine the academic institute where the particular user belongs to. 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 and also the information that the system gathers from Scientific article, enabling the user profile from the academic user to be viewed by other academic users on acceptance by Research group Leader/Principal Investigator (Fig 3C).

[0029] Another embodiment of the invention is a computer program product composed of a series of instructions executable on a computer for performing a process for gathering data provided in the scientific article, Like Corresponding authors (Usually Research group leader in the Academic context) and Affiliated institute (Usually the place where the Research group is located geographically). These process would automatically determine the Research group/location of the user and help the admin to authenticate the professional role of the user who is creating his profile in the site (Fig 3C).

[0030] Another embodiment of the invention is a computer program product composed of a series of instructions executable on a computer for performing a process of gathering data provided in the scientific article, Where the corresponding author in the article (Usually Research group leader in the academic context) would be sent a notification E-mail that, A User from their Research group is claiming for his belonging to their Research group. Research group leader would now can authenticate the user belonging to their Research group in real profession. After confirmed authentication of the Research group leader about his role in the Research group, user is allowed to successfully login and use the website for building scientific reputation (Fig 3C).

[0031] Another embodiment, if any user is unable to upload an article or Research group Leader/Principal Investigator is unable to accept the request for adding up the academic user. User will still be able to access the website interface but will not be able to interact with other users or post any responses in context to Likes, Comments, participation in Forum or Discussion (Fig 3D).

[0032] Another embodiment, if Research group Leader/Principal Investigator has joined the website first from the Research group, he can directly invite all his Research group members, where Research group members need not to upload any research article for associating themselves with the same Research group (Fig 3D).

[0033] Another embodiment of the invention is a computer program product composed of a series of instructions executable on a computer for performing a process of gathering data where every single user activity is accountable to the Research groups/institute where the user professionally belongs. Research group leaders would now be able to view the content that a particular user generates belonging to their Research group and help monitor their activities and guide them which may help build their reputation across the community. Thus in total every user activity in the site would help build user's credentials as well as the Scientific Research group/Institute/University where the user belongs (Fig 4).

[0034] Another embodiment of the invention is a computer program product composed of a series of instructions executable on a computer for performing a process of gathering data where the Influential credits of the user are calculated depending on their activities performed in the site. User Activities include Participations in Forum/Discussion/news boards etc.. Users influential credits depend on the number other users actually liked or commented or praised or ranked etc., for his activities. Users like or comments or praises belonging to individuals from the same Research group may not be used for calculating influential credits as users belonging to a same Research group might have a biased opinion towards the user who performed an activity (Fig 4).

[0035] Another embodiment, like in real world every scientific publication represents the scientific efforts or reputation of the entire group who has published the article including actual authors who performed the work, corresponding authors who guided or monitored the research activity involved in the published work, institute where work has been performed and funding agency who has provided financial grant for aiding the complete research activities. Similarly, in our invention, a single user influential credit will be cumulatively added to the respective Research Group, Research Institute etc. (Fig 5).

[0036] Another embodiment, User/Researcher will be collecting influential credits based on different activities viz. like, comment, posting a research article etc, each activity will form a different category where influential credits will be added for different time line events. Subsequently influential credits will be added to Group Leader/Principal Investigator under the same category as it was added for a user/researcher, cumulatively increases within the same categories for Institute and University (Fig 8).

[0037] Another embodiment, if a user/researcher left job in one lab and joins a new research lab, new Group Leader/Principal Investigator can directly invite him to be part of the group, subsequently all the influential credits gained after switching to the new lab will be cumulatively added up in the new research group, new institute & new university (Fig 6).

[0038] Another embodiment, web interface will be developed for recruiters viz. Companies or Institutes, where recruiters will be able to sort individuals or Research groups based on expertise area, location and relevant activity on their individual public pages. Recruiters can have complete access to this web interface and can use it to search for skilled candidates based on parameters mentioned above (Fig 9).

[0039] Another embodiment, web link of public pages of Individual Users or Research Group or Institute or University can be used as independent links to reach to their respective pages and displays their contribution within the website, using this link for public access is solely under the discretion of the respective user or Research Group Leader or Institute PR or University PR.

[0040] Another embodiment, web interface will be developed for Research Grant or Support funding/sponsoring agencies, where representative persons from these agencies can have access to which they have provided the research grants or support once declared by the Research group leader or research institute. Transparency about Scientific contribution at multi-levels i.e. Research Lab, Institute or University, via collaboration and helping other research groups or individuals is provided for them in the web interface (Fig 9).

[0041] Another embodiment, web interface will be developed for communication between the people/users across the groups as mentioned in Fig 7.

Although the present invention has been described in considerable detail with reference to certain preferred embodiments and examples thereof, other embodiments and equivalents are very much possible. Even though numerous characteristics and advantages of the present invention have been set forth in the foregoing description, together with functional and procedural details, the disclosure is illustrative only, and changes may be made in detail, especially in terms of the procedural steps within the principles of the invention to the full extent indicated by the broad general meaning of the terms in which the appended claims are expressed. Thus various modifications are possible of the presently disclosed system and method without deviating from the intended scope and spirit of the present invention. More particularly, the system and method as depicted in the present invention, is simplified and generalized one and there are several trivial variations possible. Accordingly, in one embodiment, such modifications of the presently disclosed system and method are included in the scope of the present invention. In addition to the method, there are functional variants of the presently disclosed system, all of which are included in the scope of the present invention.

Claims

CLAIMS I/We claim:

1. A system for enabling recordal, validation, collaboration and recognition of research activities by users on a network base, the system comprising: one or more processors; one or more servers having one or more computer-readable non-transitory storage media embodying logic, and coupled with one or more processors; and a network along with network connection means connecting the server with devices of users, wherein the logic is operable, when executed by one or more processors, to: configure a communication interface to acquire the information feed from user, wherein the information feed comprising: research activity details of the user; details of user group the user belongs to; and personal details of the user, process the information feed for authentication by the administrator user of the user group of the user; publish and display the selective information of user profile to other users and visitors on the network; enable means of communication among registered users on the network; deduce and maintain score of each registered user on the network on the basis of endorsements and contributions of the user received on the network; wherein a user includes a user group, and wherein each user group has at least one administrator user.

2. The system as claimed in claim 1, wherein the said network is a private area network or the internet, preferably the internet.

3. The system as claimed in claim 1, wherein the said user group is a group of individuals formally working as a group in a research project, such as research group of a laboratory, an academic institute, a university, a company, or any organization.

4. The system as claimed in claim 1, wherein the said user group has a minimum of one user.

5. The system as claimed in claim 1, wherein the said information feed further comprising subject matter of research, research publications authored or co- authored by the user, etc.

6. The system as claimed in claim 1, wherein the said personal and research information is displayed in chronological order in a timeline format on the network profile page of the user.

7. The system as claimed in claim 1, wherein the said administrator of user group is the user who is supervisor, group leader or principle investigator of the research activities carried on by the other users in the concerned user group.

8. The system as claimed in claim 1, wherein the said administrator of a user group is notified through e-mail for authentication of new information feeds which includes any new content generated by a registered user in the user group.

9. The system as claimed in claim 1, wherein the user is registered only upon authentication and validation by the administrator of the user group.

10. The system as claimed in claim 1, wherein the administrator of a user group can monitor and control the content generated by any user of the concerned user group.

11. The system as claimed in claim 1, wherein the users in a user group are sorted and registered in a hierarchical setting according to their actual roles in the user group determined by the administrator and wherein the content generated by any user can be monitored and controlled by any user higher up in hierarchy to the user.

12. The system as claimed in claim 1, wherein the said means of communication between the registered users on the network includes means for endorsement of research activities, sharing comments and views on the research perspectives, question-answers, participation in forum, news boards, participation in one-one discussions, chat rooms, potential collaborations, recruitments, etc.

13. The system as claimed in claim 1, wherein the said scoring of a user is a grade of the user deducible from a number of parameters such as the number and impact of research publications, endorsements by the other users, recognition by peers and other user groups, active contribution and support, etc.

14. The system as claimed in claim 1, wherein the said score of a user group is a cumulative score of the users of the user group.

15. The system as claimed in claim 1, wherein the said user is enabled to change the user group subject to authentication by the group administrator of the new user group.

16. The system as claimed in claim 1, wherein the said personal and research information displayed on the user profile is searchable by recruiters and visitors on the network, based on area or subject matter or relevant research activity.

17. The system as claimed in claim 1, wherein funding agencies can monitor the research activities of user groups funded by them.

18. A method for recordal, validation, collaboration and recognition of research activities by users on a network base, the method comprising: configuring a communication interface to acquire the information feed from user, wherein the information feed comprising: research activity details of the user; details of user group the user belongs to; and personal details of the user, processing the information feed for authentication by the administrator user of the user group of the user; publishing and displaying the selective information of user profile to other users and visitors on the network; enabling means of communication among registered users on the network; deducing and maintaining score of each registered user on the network on the basis of endorsements and contributions of the user received on the network; wherein a user includes a user group, and wherein each user group has at least one administrator user.

19. The method as claimed in claim 18, wherein the said network is a private area network or the internet, preferably the internet.

20. The method as claimed in claim 18, wherein the said user group is a group of individuals formally working as a group in a research project, such as research group of a laboratory, an academic institute, a university, a company, or any organization.

21. The method as claimed in claim 18, wherein the said user group has a minimum of one user.

22. The method as claimed in claim 18, wherein the said information feed further comprising subject matter of research, research publications authored or co- authored by the user, etc.

23. The method as claimed in claim 18, wherein the said personal and research information is displayed in chronological order in a timeline format on the network profile page of the user.

24. The method as claimed in claim 18, wherein the said administrator of user group is the user who is supervisor, group leader or principle investigator of the research activities carried on by the other users in the concerned user group.

25. The method as claimed in claim 18, wherein the said administrator of a user group is notified through e-mail for authentication of new information feeds which includes any new content generated by a registered user in the user group.

26. The method as claimed in claim 18, wherein the user is registered only upon authentication and validation by the administrator of the user group.

27. The method as claimed in claim 18, wherein the administrator of a user group can monitor and control the content generated by any user of the concerned user group.

28. The method as claimed in claim 18, wherein the users in a user group are sorted and registered in a hierarchical setting according to their actual roles in the user group determined by the administrator and wherein the content generated by any user can be monitored and controlled by any user higher up in hierarchy to the user.

29. The method as claimed in claim 18, wherein the said means of communication between the registered users on the network includes means for endorsement of research activities, sharing comments and views on the research perspectives, question-answers, participation in forum, news boards, participation in one-one discussions, chat rooms, potential collaborations, recruitments, etc.

30. The method as claimed in claim 18, wherein the said scoring of a user is a grade of the user deducible from a number of parameters such as the number and impact of research publications, endorsements by the other users, recognition by peers and other user groups, active contribution and support, etc.

31. The method as claimed in claim 18, wherein the said score of a user group is a cumulative score of the users of the user group.

32. The method as claimed in claim 18, wherein the said user is enabled to change the user group subject to authentication by the group administrator of the new user group.

33. The method as claimed in claim 18, wherein the said personal and research information displayed on the user profile is searchable by recruiters and visitors on the network, based on area or subject matter or relevant research activity.

34. The method as claimed in claim 18, wherein funding agencies can monitor the research activities of user groups funded by them.

35. A computer-readable non-transitory storage media on a network embodying logic and coupled with one or more processors, wherein the logic is operable when executed by one or more processors, to: configure a communication interface to acquire the information feed from user, wherein the information feed comprising: research activity details of the user; details of user group the user belongs to; and personal details of the user; process the information feed for authentication by the administrator user of the user group of the user; publish and display the selective information of user profile to other users and visitors on the network; enable means of communication among registered users on the network; deduce and maintain score of each registered user on the network on the basis of endorsements and contributions of the user received on the network; wherein a user includes a user group, and wherein each user group has at least one administrator user.