Australian Internet Observatory to boost social science research in Australia
The University of Melbourne has welcomed the establishment of the Australian Internet Observatory (AIO), a new research initiative that is set to unlock the ‘black box’ of digital platforms and their algorithms.
An initiative of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Automated Decision-Making + Society (ADM+S) in collaboration with universities and organisations across Australia and internationally, the AIO will deliver the tools and capabilities required to gather and analyse online user experience data, algorithms, and interactions.
It will support innovative approaches to the collection and analysis of digital social data and internet platforms and the analytical tools and governance required to support cutting-edge research on social, economic, health and environmental issues.
Professor Christopher Leckie, from the University’s Faculty of Engineering and Information Technology, will investigate the use of generative AI by humanities researchers, and lead work on deploying AI tools to help researchers analyse diverse types of social media.
“This project provides a great opportunity for us to develop new types of research infrastructure to analyse the diverse range of online data that is available online. By working as part of the AIO team, we can ensure that this infrastructure makes an impact on the wider research community,” Professor Leckie said.
AIO Program Lead and Director of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Automated Decision Making and Society (ADM+S), Distinguished Professor Julian Thomas, said there has been a dramatic transformation in how Australians use digital platforms, interact with the automated systems and the digital economy, and communicate with machines and each other over the last decade.
“Every day, we are now using more platforms, more intensively, for a wider range of activities. But as researchers we’ve had very little visibility of how digital platforms work,” Professor Thomas said.
Through the AIO, researchers will be able to have visibility over how people use critical services, such as search engines, social media, video on demand services, messaging systems, and other digital services, for the first time.
The facility will be developed and led by RMIT University in partnership with QUT, the University of Queensland, University of Melbourne, Swinburne University of Technology and Deakin University. The AIO is supported by the Australian Research Data Commons (ARDC), enabled by the Australian Government’s National Collaborative Infrastructure Strategy as part of the Humanities and Social Science (HASS) and Indigenous Research Data Commons.
For more information, visit the Australian Internet Observatory website.