AIO Presentations at the HASS and Indigenous Research Data Commons Symposium 2025 now available

The Australian Internet Observatory team presented a comprehensive overview of the program’s research infrastructure development at the ARDC HASS and Indigenous Research Data Commons Symposium 2025. The session addressed key technical, methodological and governance challenges associated with generating digital observability for social research.

For those who missed it, the presentation is now available to watch online.

We have spent the last eighteen months pushing forward a bold proposition, that researchers across the humanities and social sciences should have access to reliable and ethically governed observability of the digital platforms shaping public life. The AIO initiative advances scalable observability of online platforms through:

• Automated social media data collection pipelines using platform APIs

• Data donation workflows and analytics

• Mobile-based data acquisition

• Data analysis tools and workflows

• Engagement and onboarding procedures for researchers and participants

In their presentation Dr Amanda Lawrence provided an overview of the context and need for digital observability and the challenge presented by continuous negotiation with platform ecosystems that are always changing and often opaque. University of Melbourne’s Prof Richard Sinnott described the automated data pipelines for social media monitoring using APIs being developed in Aired. Lauren Heydon provided an overview of data donation methods followed by two case studies from current research projects using AIO. Prof Patrik Wikström from the Queensland University of Technology presented a case study from his ARC Discovery Project using AIO’s data donation capability—working closely with participants to understand how personal data archives can be contributed in ways that balance scientific value and personal agency. Behind the scenes, this work has demanded intensive design thinking: how do individuals navigate their own data? How can researchers make donated data intelligible, rather than overwhelming? Dr Giselle Newton from The University of Queensland, provided another case study from the ARC Centre of Excellence for Automated Decision-Making Ad Obverstory 2.0 project on the observability of targeted advertising.

Ensuring this infrastructure can be accessed securely and responsibly across institutions has been another major component of the program and Dr Bogdan Mamaev provided an overview of AIO’s training program.

Demo: The AIO Data Donation Visualisation Platform

In a separate session Lauren Hayden and AIO Principal Software Developer Michael Esteban, demonstrated how AIO is transforming complex data download packages into interactive visual environments. This session is available to view here:

This progress was a direct outcome of months of engineering work within the AIO software team—unravelling the structure of personal platform archives and reassembling them into formats that support qualitative interpretation, exploratory analysis and more collaborative research relationships with data donors.

Collectively, these developments show that large-scale digital observability does not emerge from technology alone. It emerges from coordination, trust-building, iterative problem solving, and a shared belief that research must keep pace with the systems that influence public communication.

The AIO continues to evolve as a community-driven and technologically robust platform, powered by teams committed to enabling social research innovation in Australia. For those working to analyse digital environments and the societal impacts of online platforms, the tools and workflows demonstrated at the symposium represent a growing and open invitation to collaborate.

Researchers are encouraged to explore the presentation and engage with the AIO as we expand this national capability.

For Researchers: Get Involved

AIO welcomes collaboration with researchers working on the social impacts of digital platforms, observability methods, and socio-technical data governance. Our tools, workflows and secure access environments are designed to support sophisticated cross-platform analyses at scale. To view more videos from AIO team, visit our YouTube channel.

To explore our capabilities and access documentation, please view our Tools or connect with the AIO team on contact@internetobservatory.org.au.