US Patent 9703840 Handling information source ingestion in a question answering system

A question-answering (QA) system first receives input questions. Each question is then assigned to a first question category of a plurality of question categories. The QA system then identifies a set of candidate answers to each question using a core information source. A set of confidence scores, including a confidence score for each candidate answer, is then calculated. The QA system then determines that the first set of confidence scores fails to satisfy confidence criteria. In response to this determination, an updated information source is ingested.