Centre for Information Discovery and Data Analytics

The Centre for Information Discovery and Data Analytics (CIDDA) specialises in developing new approaches to find relevant information in massive data collections.

Data Science and Data Analytics are fundamental building blocks of today’s digital economy. With an established history of internationally renowned research in information retrieval, data mining, databases, knowledge discovery, statistics, and machine learning, CIDDA establishes a capability for processing the enormous volume of data produced by new technologies. CIDDA research staff tackle both the technical challenges posed by the volume and complexity of this data, as well as the human and organizational challenge of interacting and making sense of such data. CIDDA staff collaborate with partners in industry, government, and scientific organizations to investigate significant challenges in society and business, and help create value for Australia through new insights and innovations driven by turning massive data collections into knowledge.

Research areas

Data (Analytics)

Spatial / Temporal Analytics, Mobile / Social Networks, Text Mining, Health Analytics, Financial Analytics, Situational Awareness Sentiment Analysis, Data quality and integration

Systems (Storage and Retrieval)

Multi-Stage Search Engines, Recommender Systems, Databases (Spatial, Temporal, Text), Question Answering, Large Scale Machine Learning, Virtual Assistants, Conversational AI

Users (HCI)

Interactive Information Retrieval, Search Evaluation, Information Search Behaviour, Search Interfaces and Result Presentation, User Analytics, Modelling User Interaction, FATE* (Fairness, Accountability, Transparency, and Ethics)

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Our publications

Discover publications relating to the Centre for Information Discovery and Data Analytics.

Our people

The Centre for Information Discovery and Data Analytics is made up of a team of researchers with a wide span of research interests.

Professor Shane Culpepper

Centre Director

Professor Falk Scholer

Deputy Director

Professor Zhifeng Bao

Deputy Director

Dr. Damiano Spina

Deputy Director

Outcomes and grants

  • ARC Discovery Early Career Research Award DE200100064: D. Spina: "Fair and Transparent Information Access in Spoken Conversational Assistants." 2020-2023
  • ARC Industry Transformational Training Centre IC170100030,T. Baldwin (lead), plus many others incl. L. Cavedon,  Cognitive Computing for Medical Technologies, in partnership with IBM Research Australia, 2018-2023

  • ARC Discovery Grant DP170102231: T. Sellis, J. S. Culpepper, C. L. A. Clarke, and J. Lin: "Trajectory Data Processing - Spatial Computing meets Information Retrieval." 2017-2019

  • 2017H1 Mozilla Research Grant : J. S. Culpepper: "Efficient and Effective Multi-Stage Retrieval in Rust." 2017-2018

  • A cyber physical and socially aware personal assistant: M Sanderson, F Salim, F Scholer, Y Ren. Funded by: Microsoft Corporation (USA) - research grant 2018 from (2018 to 2019)

  • Efficient Temporal Segmentation in Mining Big Time Series for Accurate Prediction of Heterogeneous Activities and Events: F Salim, Data 61, 2018-2021.

  • Business Process Development, Information Management and Data Analytics for Performance Benchmarking: F Salim, Aurecon, 2018.

  • Behaviour Analytics of Indoor Occupants to Optimise and Personalise Activity Based Working: F Salim, Y Ren, and J Chan. Arup and RMIT ECP Opportunity Fund, 2018-2019.

  • National Science Week Grants: A. L. Uitdenbogerd: “Textual Data Sonification and Algorithmic Composition Competition.” 2018.

  • Spatio-temporal Data Analytics for Situation Awareness in Airport Operations: F Salim and J Chan, Northrop Grumman Corporation, USA, 2017-2018.

  • Pedestrian Analytics Project: F Salim, City of Melbourne, 2017.

  • ARC Discovery Grant DP170102726: Z. Bao, M. Sanderson, W.B. Croft: Continuous and summarised search over evolving heterogeneous data, 2017-2019

  • ARC Discovery Grant DP180102050: R. Zhang, J. Qi, Z. Bao, E. Tanin, H. Jagadish, X. Xie: Continuous Intent Tracking for Virtual Assistance Using Big Contextual Data, 2018-2020/

  • ARC Discovery Grant DP180102687: F. Scholer, M. Sanderson, W.B. Croft: Finding answers for complex questions, 2018-2020

  • ARC Linkage Grant LP150100246: J Burry, F Salim, S Watkins, Swarming: micro-flight data capture and analysis in architectural design, 2015-2018, in partnership with Aurecon and UAV Australia.

  • ARC Linkage Grant LP150100252: L. Cavedon, M. Sanderson, F. Scholer, T. Baldwin, A. Moffat, J. Zobel, W. Wong, E. Balfe” “User-Adaptive Search and Evaluation for Complex Information-Seeking Tasks”. In partnership with SEEK Ltd. 2016-2019

  • ARC Discovery Grant DP170103174: P. Stuckey, J. Bailey, C. Leckie, R. Kotagiri, J. Chan, I. Davidson and T. Guns: "Data driven decision making for complex problems." 2017-2019.

  • Social Services Log and Predictive Analytics: J. Chan, M. Sanderson, F. Scholer, X. Zhang, Infoxchange and Capital Markets CRC, 2017-2018.

  • X. Zhang “Topic-sentiment Mixture Analysis in Product Reviews for Product Ranking Purposes”, Data61 project. 2018--2021.

  • X. Zhang “Text Classification and Text Generation using Deep Learning Models”. Data61 project. 2018--2019.

  • Karanasios, S. V, Cooper. Poblet, M “Building resilience and inclusion amongst vulnerable populations through social media”, Emergency Management Victoria, National Disaster Resilience Grants Scheme. 2017-2018.

Interested in collaborating with us?

Get in touch:

Centre for Information Discovery and Data Analytics

Key Contact: Professor Shane Culpepper - Director

Emailshane.culpepper@rmit.edu.au

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Acknowledgement of Country

RMIT University acknowledges the people of the Woi wurrung and Boon wurrung language groups of the eastern Kulin Nation on whose unceded lands we conduct the business of the University. RMIT University respectfully acknowledges their Ancestors and Elders, past and present. RMIT also acknowledges the Traditional Custodians and their Ancestors of the lands and waters across Australia where we conduct our business - Artwork 'Luwaytini' by Mark Cleaver, Palawa.

aboriginal flag
torres strait flag

Acknowledgement of Country

RMIT University acknowledges the people of the Woi wurrung and Boon wurrung language groups of the eastern Kulin Nation on whose unceded lands we conduct the business of the University. RMIT University respectfully acknowledges their Ancestors and Elders, past and present. RMIT also acknowledges the Traditional Custodians and their Ancestors of the lands and waters across Australia where we conduct our business.