About

A collaborative partnership building National Research Infrastructure for the Humanities and Social Sciences and beyond.

The Australian Internet Observatory is a four-year project (2024-2028) to develop National Research Infrastructure for collecting and analysing social data and digital platforms.

AIO is an initiative of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Automated Decision-Making + Society (ADM+S) in collaboration with researchers and research centres, university partners and organisations across Australia and internationally.

The Australian Internet Observatory received investment from the Australian Research Data Commons (ARDC). The ARDC is funded by the National Collaborative Infrastructure Strategy (NCRIS).

The facility is being developed and led by RMIT University in partnership with Queensland University of Technology, The University of Queensland, The University of Melbourne, Swinburne University of Technology and Deakin University.

Key elements of the Australian Internet Observatory

Over four years the project plan aims to deliver:

Data governance frameworks and implementation plans based on NRI Roadmap and linked data principles
Ethical and legal frameworks and guides for working with crowdsourcing methods and social data
A national research training program
Citizen science data donation program
An integrated suite of data sourcing and data donation tools including browser extensions, data donation packages and APIs
Generative AI models for text, audio and image generation
Test environments and simulation tools
An integrated suite of open source machine learning tools and data visualisations for analysis and insights

Our partners

Collaborating Projects

An initiative of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Automated Decision-Making + Society
ARC Centre of Excellence for the Digital Child
Australian Digital Observatory
Australian Urban Research Infrastructure Network (AURIN)
US National Internet Observatory

A Focus Area of the HASS & Indigenous Research Data Commons

The Australian Internet Observatory is a Focus Area of the HASS & Indigenous Research Data Commons (RDC) which is harnessing research data to enhance Australian social and cultural wellbeing, and help Australia understand and preserve our culture, history and heritage.

The HASS & Indigenous RDC includes 6 focus areas across Indigenous data capabilities, social science, creative arts, languages and data integration, along with the Internet Observatory.

The HASS & Indigenous RDC is supported by the Australian Government through the 2023 National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy (NCRIS) Funding Round