Granted Patent B2

US 12,566,804 · App. 18/534,305 · Granted Mar 3, 2026

Inventors: Kevin Males (Kings Lynn, GB); Alistair James Brain (Cambridge, GB)

Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation

G06F16/94G06F16/24578G06F16/338G06F16/35G06F16/9535G06F16/9538G06F40/20G06F40/205G06F40/30

Abstract

Claims (50)

1 . A computer program product for determining an order in which to present documents to a user, wherein the computer program product comprises a computer readable storage medium having program instructions embodied therewith that when executed cause operations, the operations comprising:

providing a document having text, comprising at least one of words and characters, associated with topics, wherein the document provides a hierarchy of topics, wherein at least one section of the text is associated with multiple topics in the hierarchy, including a topic and lower level topics of the topic;

determining, for each topic in the hierarchy in the document, an amount of text, comprising a number of at least one of words and characters, within the topic and the lower level topics of the topic in the hierarchy;

applying familiarity scores for a user for the topics to the determined amounts of text within the topics and lower level topics of the topics, wherein a familiarity score for a topic comprises a numerical value indicating a user familiarity with the topic;

determining a comprehensibility score of the document, indicating comprehensibility of the document to the user, based on results of applying the familiarity scores for the topics to the determined amounts of text within the topics and the lower level topics of the topics; and

using the comprehensibility score for the document to determine an order in which to present the document to the user with a group of documents.

2 . The computer program product of claim 1 , wherein the determining the comprehensibility score comprises:

determining unassociated text in the document not associated with a topic; and

using a familiarity score for the unassociated text, wherein the comprehensibility score further includes the familiarity score for the unassociated text in the document.

3 . The computer program product of claim 2 , wherein the familiarity score for the unassociated text indicates full comprehension.

4 . The computer program product of claim 1 , wherein the documents comprise structured documents and wherein the text comprise tagged text elements associated with the topics.

5 . The computer program product of claim 1 , wherein the determining the comprehensibility score comprises:

determining, for the topics, coverages comprising an amount of text within a topic and lower level topics of the topic as a percentage of total text in the document, wherein the coverages for the topics and the familiarity scores associated with the topics are used to determine the comprehensibility score.

6 . The computer program product of claim 5 , wherein the operations further comprise:

processing unassociated text in the document not associated with a topic and a comprehensibility score for the unassociated text to determine the comprehensibility score.

7 . The computer program product of claim 1 , wherein the determining the comprehensibility score comprises:

determining, for the topics, coverages for the topics, wherein a coverage for a topic comprises an amount of text for a topic and lower level topics of the topic divided by total text in the document, wherein the coverages for the topics are multiplied by the familiarity scores associated with the topics to determine the comprehensibility score, wherein the coverage for a topic is multiplied by a familiarity score associated with the topic.

8 . The computer program product of claim 1 , wherein the operations of determining the familiarity scores and determining the comprehensibility score are performed for each of the documents in the group of documents, and wherein the using the comprehensibility score to determine the order in which to present the document comprises sorting the documents by their comprehensibility scores.

9 . A system for determining an order in which to present documents to a user, comprising:

a processor; and

a computer readable storage medium having program instructions embodied therewith that when executed by the processor performs operations, the operations:

providing a document having text, comprising at least one of words and characters, associated with topics, wherein the document provides a hierarchy of topics, wherein at least one section of the text is associated with multiple topics in the hierarchy, including a topic and lower level topics of the topic;

determining, for each topic in the hierarchy in the document, an amount of text, comprising a number of at least one of words and characters, within the topic and the lower level topics of the topic in the hierarchy;

applying familiarity scores for a user for the topics to determined amounts of text within the topics and lower level topics of the topics, wherein a familiarity score for a topic comprises a numerical value indicating a user familiarity with the topic;

determining a comprehensibility score of the document, indicating comprehensibility of the document to the user, based on results of applying the familiarity scores for the topics to the determined amounts of text within the topics and the lower level topics of the topics; and

using the comprehensibility score for the document to determine an order in which to present the document to the user with a group of documents.

10 . The system of claim 9 , wherein the determining the comprehensibility score comprises:

determining unassociated text in the document not associated with a topic; and

using a familiarity score for the unassociated text, wherein the comprehensibility score further includes the familiarity score for the unassociated text in the document.

11 . The system of claim 9 , wherein the documents comprise structured documents and wherein the text comprise tagged text elements associated with the topics.

12 . The system of claim 9 , wherein the determining the comprehensibility score comprises:

determining, for the topics, coverages comprising an amount of text within a topic and lower level topics of the topic as a percentage of total text in the document, wherein the coverages for the topics and the familiarity scores associated with the topics are used to determine the comprehensibility score.

13 . The system of claim 9 , wherein the determining the comprehensibility score comprises:

determining, for the topics, coverages for the topics, wherein a coverage for a topic comprises an amount of text for a topic and lower level topics of the topic divided by total text in the document, wherein the coverages for the topics are multiplied by the familiarity scores associated with the topics to determine the comprehensibility score, wherein the coverage for a topic is multiplied by a familiarity score associated with the topic.

14 . The system of claim 9 , wherein the operations of determining the familiarity scores and determining the comprehensibility score are performed for each of the documents in the group of documents, and wherein the using the comprehensibility score to determine the order in which to present the document comprises sorting the documents by their comprehensibility scores.

15 . A method for determining an order in which to present documents to a user, comprising:

providing a document having text, comprising at least one of words and characters, associated with topics, wherein the in document provides a hierarchy of topics, wherein at least one section of the text is associated with multiple topics in the hierarchy, including a topic and lower level topics of the topic;

determining, for each topic in the hierarchy in the document, an amount of text, comprising a number of at least one of words and characters, within the topic and the lower level topics of the topic in the hierarchy;

applying familiarity scores for a user for the topics to the determined amounts of text within the topics and lower level topics of the topics, wherein a familiarity score for a topic comprises a numerical value indicating a user familiarity with the topic;

determining a comprehensibility score of the document, indicating comprehensibility of the document to the user, based on results of applying the familiarity scores for the topics to the determined amounts of text within the topics and the lower level topics of the topics; and

using the comprehensibility score for the document to determine an order in which to present the document to the user with a group of documents.

16 . The method of claim 15 , wherein the determining the comprehensibility score comprises:

determining unassociated text in the document not associated with a topic; and

using a familiarity score for the unassociated text, wherein the comprehensibility score further includes the familiarity score for the unassociated text in the document.

17 . The method of claim 15 , wherein the documents comprise structured documents and wherein the text comprise tagged text elements associated with the topics.

18 . The method of claim 15 , wherein the determining the comprehensibility score comprises:

determining, for the topics, coverages comprising an amount of text within a topic and lower level topics of the topic as a percentage of total text in the document, wherein the coverages for the topics and the familiarity scores associated with the topics are used to determine the comprehensibility score.

19 . The method of claim 15 , wherein the determining the comprehensibility score comprises:

determining, for the topics, coverages for the topics, wherein a coverage for a topic comprises an amount of text for a topic and lower level topics of the topic divided by total text in the document, wherein the coverages for the topics are multiplied by the familiarity scores associated with the topics to determine the comprehensibility score, wherein the coverage for a topic is multiplied by a familiarity score associated with the topic.

20 . The method of claim 15 , wherein the determining the familiarity scores and determining the comprehensibility score are performed for each of the documents in the group of documents, and wherein the using the comprehensibility score to determine the order in which to present the document comprises sorting the documents by their comprehensibility scores.

Assignments (1)

Continuity (2)

References Cited (175)