IMAIL is a research project conducted by DSV/Stockholm University, and CSC/KTH Royal Institute of Technology in collaboration with the Swedish Social Insurance Agency and Statistics Sweden. The objective of the project is to partially automate these authorities’ e-mail reply procedures.

The Swedish Social Insurance Agency receives approximately half a million e-mails every year. Roughly a quarter of the questions could be answered with an automatic reply. By sending automated replies to simple and frequently asked questions, officers can save time which can be spend on more complex matters. This would lead to better utilisation of officers’ expertise, in turn resulting in improved service to citizens and making officers’ work less monotonous.

Automatic e-mail reply
A few systems are currently used for automatic e-mail reply. For example, a person e-mailing a company or an authority may receive an autoreply with answers to frequently asked questions. If this e-mail does not provide the answer to the question the person asked for, he or she can send the question to be answered manually by a handling officer or customer service representative.

The IMAIL project develops systems that recognise text patterns in e-mails. This is carried out through clustering and text mining. Individual officers are unable to overview the vast number of questions and cases stored by public authorities. With the help of text mining, new, usable information can be produced from stored text. This new information can be used in automatic e-mail replies.

A key aspect of the IMAIL project is to examine how primary users (handling officers) and secondary users (members of the public) perceive and feel about the new technology.

Learn more at: IMAIL