Smart survey with progressive discovery

A system, comprising:

• a processing unit, computer readable memory and a computer readable storage system;
• first program instructions to select a set of experts that each have higher value metrics scores relative to value metric scores of other unselected experts of a population of known experts and that are indicative of an expertise relevant to at least one question in a plurality of survey questions and to expand the selected set of experts by adding experts from the population of known experts that are noted in referrals in answers received in response to questions of a plurality of survey questions sent to the selected set of experts;
• second program instructions to determine a degree of correlation of an answer within said response received from the associated expert to an expected answer;
• third program instructions to update the value metric scores of the experts as a function of a timeliness of the response received from an associated expert and of the determined degree of correlation of the answer;
• and
• fourth program instructions to update the plurality of survey questions by removing questions satisfied by response answers from the selected set of experts and send out the updated plurality questions to the selected expert sets until each question in the updated plurality of survey questions is satisfied and removed as determined by iterative repetitive application of the first, second and third instructions;
• and
• wherein the first, second, third and fourth program instructions are stored on the computer readable storage system for execution by the processing unit via the computer readable memory.

A computer program product for collection of data or information from a dynamic and adaptive target group selection, the computer program product comprising:

• a computer readable storage device;
• first program instructions to select a set of experts that each have higher value metrics scores relative to value metric scores of other unselected experts of a population of known experts and that are indicative of an expertise relevant to at least one question in a plurality of survey questions and to expand the selected set of experts by adding experts from the population of known experts that are noted in referrals in answers received in response to questions of a plurality of survey questions sent to the selected set of experts;
• second program instructions to determine a degree of correlation of an answer within said response received from the associated expert to an expected answer;
• third program instructions to update the value metric scores of the experts as a function of a timeliness of the response received from an associated expert and of the determined degree of correlation of the answer;
• and
• fourth program instructions to update the plurality of survey questions by removing questions satisfied by response answers from the selected set of experts and send out the updated plurality of questions to the selected expert sets until each question in the updated plurality of survey questions is satisfied and removed as determined by iterative repetitive application of the first, second and third instructions;
• and
• wherein the first, second, third and fourth program instructions are stored on the computer readable storage device.