About AIO
About the AIO
Building new tools and methods for digital platform and social data research
The Australian Internet Observatory is a national research infrastructure facility established in 2024 through the Australian Government’s National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy (NCRIS) and supported through co-investment from our partners.
Our mission is to build an interconnected ecosystem of people, data, and tools that enables research on digital platforms, applications and emerging technologies in the public interest.
AIO works with Australian and international partners to deliver on four core pillars: a research platform, data collection tools and methods, data governance and outreach.
Digital Research Platform
A full research workflow platform for project collaboration, data collection and analysis.
Data sourcing
An integrated suite of data sourcing methods including data donation methods, APIs and large language models.
Data governance and management
Ethical and legal frameworks and guides for working with digital research methods and social data, including guidance for Human Research Ethics Committee (HREC) applications
Outreach and training
Supporting research training and engagement through workshops, events, training and online resources.
Watch a brief introduction to the Australian Internet Observatory
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=euBcBukcW8w
Meet Our Team
The AIO is governed by a Steering Committee and built by a team based across our partner organisations
Our Partners
The AIO is a co-investment partnership with the Australian Research Data Commons (ARDC) through the HASS and Indigenous Research Data Commons (DOI:10.3565/hjrp-b141). The ARDC is enabled by the Australian Government’s National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy (NCRIS).
AIO is delivered by six Australian university partners: RMIT University, Queensland University of Technolgoy, University of Queensland, University of Melbourne, Swinburne University, Deakin University. AIO is developed in collaboration with researchers, research centres, and organisations across Australia and internationally including the ARC Centre of Excellence for Automated Decision Making + Society.
A focus area of the ARDC HASS & Indigenous Research Data Commons
The HASS & Indigenous RDC includes 6 focus areas across Indigenous data capabilities, social science, creative arts, languages and data integration, along with the Australian Internet Observatory.
International Collaboration
The Australian Internet Observatory is part of a network of research organisations and projects around the world developing innovative tools and methods to for digital platform research.