Patent Application
20190272334
This application is based on and claims priority under 35 USC 119 from Japanese Patent Application No. 2018-038823 filed on Mar. 5, 2018.
The present invention relates to an information processing device, an information processing method, and a non-transitory computer readable medium storing an information processing program.
According to an aspect of the invention, there is provided an information processing device including a providing unit that identifies information desired by a user from answers to questions, and when relevant information related to the identified desired information is acquired, provides the relevant information to the user.
Exemplary embodiment of the present invention will be described in detail based on the following figures, wherein:
Hereinafter, an exemplary embodiment of the present invention will be described with reference to the drawings. It is to be noted that the same or equivalent components and parts in the drawings are labeled with the same reference symbol. Also, the dimension ratio in the drawings is significantly changed for the sake of convenience of description, and may be different from the actual ratio.
As illustrated in
The answer acquisition device 10 is a device that acquires answers to questions. The answers to questions may be acquired as any type of data, such as image data, character data, voice data, or video data. When an answer is acquired as image data, the answer acquisition device 10 is an imaging device such as a multifunctional device capable of performing functions such scanning, printing, and copying, a scanner having a scan function, or a camera or a smart glass including an imaging device. The answer acquisition device 10 reads an image of a sheet, such as an answer sheet 50, on which an answer (solution) is written, and acquires image data. The answer acquisition device 10 may include an optical character recognition reader that extracts characters from read image data and recognizes the characters. When an answer is acquired as character data, the answer acquisition device 10 may be any device including a communication interface for receiving character data. When voice data is acquired, the answer acquisition device 10 is a device that has a voice recognition function that converts voice data into character data. When video data is acquired, the answer acquisition device 10 is a device that converts the voice data included in a video to character data by a voice recognition function, and cuts out images from a video to retrieve character data. Like this, the answer acquisition device 10 can acquire an answer in various manners. In the exemplary embodiment below, the case where image data of the answer sheet 50 is acquired as an answer will be described.
The information processing device 20 identifies information desired by a user, in other words, information in which a user is interested from an answer acquired by the answer acquisition device 10, and acquires information related to information desired by a user from the database 40 and provides the information to a user. In the present description, information related to information desired by a user is called relevant information. The information desired by a user is, for instance, information on a word a user wants to know (check), and the relevant information is information that explains the meaning of the word a user wants to know. A detailed description of the information processing device 20 will be given later.
The user terminal 30 can communicate with the information processing device 20, and allows a user to utilize relevant information acquired by the information processing device 20. The user terminal 30 includes an input device such as a mouse or a keyboard, and a display device such as a display. A user can utilize the functions of the information processing device 20 by inputting a user ID and a password to the information processing device 20 via the user terminal 30. In response to input of a user ID and a password, the information processing device 20 identifies the user who is utilizing the user terminal 30, and performs information processing by utilizing user information on the user.
The database 40 is a device that stores relevant information and can communicate with the information processing device 20. The database 40 may be a specific device, or many unspecified devices accessible via the Internet. In addition, as a specific device, the database 40 may store results of graded answers to the same or similar questions on exams conducted by other schools and other educational institutions.
Next, a hardware configuration of the information processing device 20 will be described.
As illustrated in
The CPU 21 is a central processing unit, and executes various programs and controls each component. Specifically, the CPU 21 reads a program from the ROM 22 or the storage 24, and executes the program using the RAM 23 as a workspace. The CPU 2 controls the components and performs various types of calculation processing in accordance with programs stored in the ROM 22 or the storage 24. In the exemplary embodiment, the ROM 22 or the storage 24 stores information processing programs.
The ROM 22 stores various programs and various types of data. The RAM 23 serves as a workspace to temporarily store programs or data. The storage 24 is configurated by a hard disk drive (HDD) or a solid state drive (SSD), and stores various programs including an operating system, and various types of data.
The input 25 includes a pointing device such as a mouse, and a keyboard, and is used to perform various inputs.
The display 26 is, for instance, a liquid crystal display, and displays various types of information. The display 26 adopts a touch-panel, and may function as the input 25.
The communication interface 27 is an interface for communicating with other devices such as the answer acquisition device 10, the user terminal 30, and the database 40, and for instance, standards such as Ethernet (registered trademark), FDDI, and Wi-Fi (registered trademark) are used.
Next, the functional configuration of the information processing device 20 will be described.
As illustrated in
The acquirer 201 acquires the image data of the answer sheet 50 as information (hereinafter referred to as answer information) on an answer for a question. When a character written on the answer sheet 50 is recognized, the acquirer 201 also acquires character data together. The image data of the answer sheet 50 includes not only data indicating a character, but also data indicating a graphic or a photograph. It is to be noted that the information acquired as an answer for a question by the answer acquisition device 10 as described above is not limited to the image data of the answer sheet 50. The answer may be acquired as any data such as image data, character data, voice data, or video data. In the exemplary embodiment, a case is described in which the image data of the answer sheet 50 is acquired as the answer information.
The image processor 202 determines whether the image data acquired by the acquirer 201 includes designation information for designating information desired by a user. The designation information for designating desired information is, for instance, indicates an underline 501 and an underline 502 written in the answer in an image 500 of the answer sheet 50 as illustrated in
When it is determined by the image processor 202 that designation information is included, the rectangular content determiner 203 sets the range of the desired information designated by the designation information, and determines the content in the range. For instance, the rectangular content determiner 203 detects upper line components of the range designated by the underlines 501, 502, identifies the group of the line components as a single character, and sets rectangular areas 503 and 504 indicated by a dotted line in
Based on the content determined to be characters by the rectangular content determiner 203, the character recognition processor 204 recognizes the characters by optical character recognition. On the other hand, when it is determined by the image processor 202 that designation information for designating desired information is not included (designation information such as the underline 501 is not written on the answer sheet 50), the character recognition processor 204 recognizes the characters in the entire range of the image of the answer sheet 50 by optical character recognition.
The natural language processor 205 recognizes meaningful characters and a character string, in short, a word, and further recognizes the structure of a sentence from the characters recognized by the character recognition processor 204. Since the technique of natural language processing is well-known, a description is omitted here.
The user information registry unit 206 registers user information regarding users. As illustrated in
Also, the user information registry unit 206 includes a search exclusion list 220. The search exclusion list 220 is a list that indicates the keywords to be excluded as a search target when search is performed by the search processor 209. A keyword is added to or deleted from the keywords indicated by the search exclusion list 220 based on the search history stored in the later-described search history storage 207 and results of feedback made by the feedback processor 211.
The search history storage 207 stores a search history indicating the usage history of desired information retrieved by the search processor 209. As search histories, the search history storage 207 stores desired information which has been searched by the search processor 209 and utilized by users, and desired information which has been searched by the search processor 209 but not utilized by users. The desired information not utilized by users is determined to be information not desired by users, and may be added to the search exclusion list of
Based on the user information registered in the user information registry unit 206, the user determiner 208 identifies the characters and character string desired by a user as the desired information from the characters and character strings included in answers obtained by the natural language processing unit 205. In addition, when relevant information related to the identified desired information is searched for, and multiple pieces of relevant information are found, the user determiner 208 determines the order of priority in presenting multiple pieces of search results to a user based on the user information and the search history.
The search processor 209 acquires a result of searching the database 40 as the relevant information using desired information as search information. As described above, the desired information is characters, a character string, or a graphic included in the area 503 set by the rectangular content determiner 203, in other words, characters, a character string, or a graphic designated via designation information by a user. Also, the desired information is the characters or character string identified by the user determiner 208 from the characters and character strings included in answers.
The search processor 209 further associates the acquired relevant information with the word identified as the desired information. The association is implemented as so-called link in which when a word, which is desired information included in an answer, is clicked (selected), relevant information related to the desired information is presented.
The providing unit 210 provides relevant information retrieved by the search processor 209 to a user. The providing unit 210 provides relevant information to a user, for instance, on the screen as illustrated in
The feedback processor 211 receives feedback from a user about the relevant information retrieved by the search processor 209. For instance, on the screen illustrated in
The answer accumulator 212 accumulates the image 500 of the answer sheet 50 in association with each word identified as the information desired by the user in the answer sheet 50, and the retrieved relevant information.
Next, the function of the information processing device 20 will be described.
The CPU 21 acquires answer information to questions as the acquirer 201 (step S101). In the exemplary embodiment, image data of answer sheets is acquired as the answer information.
As the image processor 202, the CPU 21 checks to see whether or not the answer information includes designation information that serves as an index of desired information (step S102). When designation information is included (YES in step S102), as the rectangular content determiner 203, the CPU 21 sets a rectangular range as the range of the desired information indicated by the designation information (step S103).
The CPU 21 determines whether or not the content of the desired information determined in step S103 is characters (step S104). When the content of the desired information is not characters (NO in step S104), in other words, the desired information is a graphic or a photograph, the CPU 21 causes the flow to proceed to the processing in step S109. When the desired information is characters (YES in step S104), the CPU 21 recognizes the characters as the character recognition processor 204 (step S105).
Returning to the description of step S102, when designation information is not included in the answer information (NO in step S102), the CPU 21 recognizes characters from the answer information, further recognizes words as the natural language processor 205, and also recognizes graphics other than characters if presented (step S106).
As the user determiner 208, the CPU 21 checks user information registered in the user information registry unit 206 (step S107), and identifies the desired information from the words and graphics recognized in step S106, based on the user information (step S108). Specifically, the desired information is identified in the following manner. The CPU 21 estimates information known to (learned by) a user from the user information illustrated in
As the search processor 209, the CPU 21 performs search processing to search for relevant information in the database 40 using the words and graphics identified as the desired information as search information (step S109). The details of search processing will be described later.
The CPU 21 determines whether or not desired information associated with relevant information has been selected by the search processing (step S110). As described above, desired information is selected by clicking a word or a graphic identified as the desired information on the image 500 of the answer sheet 50 in the screen illustrated in
As the feedback processor 211, the CPU 21 receives feedback from the user for the displayed relevant information (step S112). When the preference of the user is fed back, the CPU 21 stores the feedback result in the storage 24 as the search history storage 207.
The CPU 21 determines whether or not checking of the answer information is completed by the user (step S113). Whether or not checking of the answer information is completed can be determined, for instance, based on whether or not the screen illustrated in
Next, the search processing in step S109 will be described.
The CPU 21 searches for relevant information in the database 40 based on the desired information identified in step S108 (step S201). The CPU 21 then performs filtering and sorting of multiple pieces of relevant information obtained from the database based on the user information (step S202).
Regarding the filtering and sorting, the CPU 21 refers to the user information for age for instance, and performs filtering and sorting of multiple pieces of relevant information according to the preferences of people in the same age group. The preferences of people in the same age group can be estimated from the preferences of other users stored in the search history storage 207. In addition, the CPU 21 refers to the user information for history as teacher, and performs filtering and sorting of multiple pieces of relevant information according to the preferences of other users having approximately the same history as teacher. When the feedback in step S112 indicates that one of the multiple pieces of relevant information displayed is a favorite site of the user, the preference of the user is stored in the search history storage 207. The CPU 21 sorts multiple pieces of relevant information obtained by searching based on the information on search history stored in the search history storage 207 so that the order of priority of the relevant information obtained from the favorite site of the user is increased. Conversely, when the feedback indicates that a piece of relevant information is not a favorite site of the user, the CPU 21 decreases the order of priority of the relevant information from the same site, or prevents the relevant information from the same from being displayed by filtering.
The CPU 21 associates the desired information with relevant information (step S203). Consequently, when desired information in the area 503 is clicked on the screen illustrated in
Various changes and improvements may be made to the information processing device 20 in the exemplary embodiment within the scope of the technical idea of the present disclosure.
In the exemplary embodiment, an example has been described in which answers to questions are acquired as the answer sheets 50. However, answers to questions may be acquired in various manners. For instance, answers to questions may be acquired by recitation. In this case, voice data obtained by recitation is converted into character data by the answer acquisition device 10. After the conversion into character data, similarly to the exemplary embodiment, natural language processing is performed on the character data, and desired information is identified. In this manner, the function of the information processing device 20 is applicable not only to the answers to tests, but also to answers obtained in a situation such as a workshop or group discussion.
In the exemplary embodiment, relevant information related to identified desired information may be utilized by a user. Meanwhile, a word which is not identified as the desired information may be actually desired by a user. In such a situation, for instance on the screen illustrated in
Alternatively, a user may click (press down) a reload button 700 on the screen illustrated in
In the exemplary embodiment, addition of a word to be registered in the search exclusion list 220 has been described. However, not only a word is simply added, but also words of a high-level concept may be extracted, for instance, by grouping multiple words, and may be added to the search exclusion list 220.
Also, in the exemplary embodiment, when filtering and sorting are performed on multiple pieces of relevant information obtained from the database based on the user information, the filtering and sorting are in accordance with the preferences of other users having similar user information. However, the filtering and sorting do not have to be performed in accordance with the preferences of other users. For instance, keywords corresponding to user information are preset, relevant information is searched for in the database 40 using desired information and the preset keywords as AND condition, and thus the relevant information may be filtered and sorted. For instance, when the age in the user information indicates 20s, a keyword, “is . . . ” is preset. Relevant information is searched for using desired information and “is . . . ” as AND condition, thus a site including the content such as “X (desired information) is . . . ” is among the top of search results. The above-mentioned preset keyword is merely an example. A preset keyword is determined as appropriate by investigating what type of secondary keywords are used by a user for searching according to age, sex, or history as teacher.
The above-described information processing can also be implemented by a dedicated hardware circuit. In this case, the information processing may be performed by a single piece of hardware or multiple pieces of hardware.
Also, a program, which causes the information processing device 20 to operate, may be provided by a computer-readable recording medium such as a Universal Serial Bus (USB) memory, a flexible disk, a compact disc read only memory (CD-ROM), or may be provided on-line via a network such as the Internet. In this case, the program recorded on a computer-readable recording medium is normally transferred to and stored in a memory or a storage. Also, the program may be provided as a single application software, or may also be incorporated in software as a function of the information processing device 20.
The foregoing description of the exemplary embodiment of the present invention has been provided for the purposes of illustration and description. It is not intended to be exhaustive or to limit the invention to the precise forms disclosed. Obviously, many modifications and variations will be apparent to practitioners skilled in the art. The embodiment was chosen and described in order to best explain the principles of the invention and its practical applications, thereby enabling others skilled in the art to understand the invention for various embodiments and with the various modifications as are suited to the particular use contemplated. It is intended that the scope of the invention be defined by the following claims and their equivalents.
| Number | Date | Country | Kind |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2018-038823 | Mar 2018 | JP | national |
