Intranet mediator

Abstract

An intranet mediator for obtaining direct answers to natural language questions allowing users to search both reconciled structured data repositories and unstructured data sources. The intranet mediator allows the user to obtain an answer to a natural language question without having to surf the data sources in which the answer might be contained, or without being limited to one specific factual item return. The intranet mediator operates on the supposition that most answers to business queries are contained within data sources that have been integrated into the reconciled structured data repository thereby having common schema and known contents. Preselection of the most relevant data source(s) is thus possible before query output. Searches of unstructured data can also be performed for additional context surrounding either the question or the answer. A direct answer is given in answer to the question. If desired, the intranet mediator may also display a list of data sources where additional relevant information may be found.

1 . A method for digital data gathering in answer to a query, comprising: conducting concurrent searching of a reconciled structured data repository and unstructured data sources, and preselecting at least one data source from the reconciled structured data repository and the unstructured data sources most likely to contain a direct answer to the query before submitting the query to the data sources.  
   
   
       2 . The method for digital data gathering in answer to a query, according to  claim 1 , further comprising: combining results from said reconciled structured data repository and unstructured data source searches.  
   
   
       3 . The method for digital data gathering in answer to a query, according to  claim 1 , further comprising: performing a search of the query in the preselected data sources, combining results from the preselected data source searches, sorting the results and providing a direct answer to the query.  
   
   
       4 . The method for digital data gathering in answer to a query, according to  claim 1 , further comprising: combining a plurality of structured data sources into a reconciled structured data repository with a meta-data repository.  
   
   
       5 . The method for digital data gathering in answer to a query, according to  claim 4 , further comprising: performing a search of the query in the preselected data sources, combining results from the preselected data source searches, sorting the results and providing a direct answer to the query.  
   
   
       6 . A method of digital data gathering for providing a direct answer to a natural language question, comprising: 
 a) accepting input of a natural language question;    b) identifying the relevant concepts of the natural language question;    c) assembling the relevant concepts of the natural language question into a query;    d) identifying a reconciled structured data repository likely to contain an answer to the query;    e) performing a first search of the query in the reconciled structured data repository;    f) performing a second search of the query in an unstructured data source;    g) integrating the results of the first and second searches and selecting a direct answer to the natural language question; and    h) displaying the direct answer to the natural language question.    
   
   
       7 . The method of digital data gathering for providing a direct answer to a natural language question, according to  claim 6 , further comprising: combining a plurality of structured data sources into the reconciled structured data repository.  
   
   
       8 . The method of digital data gathering for providing a direct answer to a natural language question, according to  claim 6 , further comprising: combining a plurality of unstructured data sources into the reconciled structured data repository.  
   
   
       9 . The method of digital data gathering for providing a direct answer to a natural language question, according to  claim 6 , further comprising: combining a plurality of structured and unstructured data sources into the reconciled structured data repository.  
   
   
       10 . A method for digital data gathering in answer to a query, comprising: 
 conducting concurrent searching of a reconciled structured data repository and unstructured data sources,    preselecting individual structured data sources and unstructured data sources most likely to contain a direct answer to the query before submitting the query to the data sources; and    sorting results of the data source searches and providing a direct answer to the query.    
   
   
       11 . A method for digital data gathering in answer to a query, comprising: 
 combining data sources into a reconciled structured data repository with a meta-data repository,    conducting a search of the data within the reconciled structured data repository,    conducting a search of unstructured data sources outside of the reconciled structured data repository if a direct answer is not selected from the reconciled structured data repository search, and    sorting results of the search and providing a direct answer to the query.    
   
   
       12 . The method according to  claim 1  further including conducting a search of unstructured data sources outside of the reconciled structured data repository if a direct answer is not selected from the reconciled structured data repositories search.  
   
   
       13 . The method according to  claim 1  further including conducting a search of an unstructured data source outside of the reconciled structured data repository and combining and sorting the results of the unstructured data source search outside of the reconciled structured data repository with the results of the reconciled structured data repository search.  
   
   
       14 . The method according to  claim 12  wherein the selection of the direct answer is weighted to the search results from the reconciled structured data repository.  
   
   
       15 . The method according to  claim 13  wherein the selection of the direct answer is weighted to the search results from the reconciled structured data repository.