Innovative tool to search and extract information on technological innovation
The EU-funded DISCOVER-IT(opens in new window) (Demonstrating technical and market feasibility of an advanced web semantic information system supporting SMEs innovation processes) project's method supports semantic searching for information relevant to technological innovation. Emphasis was placed on search techniques for information retrieval and extraction, applied to structured and unstructured information sources. Work initially focused on technical improvements. The team described the functionalities that its finalised system will offer in support of the innovation process. Also defined was the information content upon which the system will run searches. Both steps were validated by project partners and external organisations. They formalised the validation case of each partner in addition to key performance indicators. Project members applied state-of-the-art learning methods to discover novel concepts in data streams. Information extraction was performed through various semantic techniques to detect meaningful concepts in documents. The team demonstrated a crawler and related indexing and monitoring functionalities. Technical achievements included establishment of the overall architecture, importation and indexing of data, and usability improvements. The information retrieval and extraction techniques were integrated into different information technology (IT) systems. Researchers tested the system with an iterative approach, whereby new features were added separately and tested after each addition. Customised applications were developed to enable the DISCOVER-IT tool's information flow to be integrated into SMEs' daily operations. A detailed market analysis helped define the marketing strategy that guides SMEs in commercially exploiting project results. Several validation cases were carried out on the DISCOVER-IT tool, first by giving feedback on usability requirements and then via testing. Feedback was used to improve functionalities. DISCOVER-IT helped bridge the existing market gap between SMEs' need to innovate to maintain their competitiveness and the absence of specialised ITs that support the research and innovation process.