Member
Harith Alani
KMi Director
+44 (0)1908 659399
I hold the position of Director at the Knowledge Media Institute, where I have founded and currently lead the interdisciplinary Social Data Science group. Our cutting-edge research is dedicated to the field of computational social science, utilising advanced methodologies to create models, gain insights, and track various social phenomena in the digital landscape. This research draws upon the collective expertise in Artificial Intelligence, Semantic Web Technologies, and Social Computing, synergising their capabilities for impactful socio-technical outcomes.
Keys: social data science, social media analysis, computational social science, online behaviour analysis, social informatics
News
04 Dec 2025
18 Nov 2025
12 Nov 2025
27 Mar 2025
13 Mar 2025
Burel, G., Lisena, P., Daga, E., Troncy, R. and Alani, H. (2025). ClimateSense at CheckThat! 2025: Combining Fine-tuned Large Language Models and Conventional Machine Learning Models for Subjectivity and Scientific Web Discourse Analysis: Notebook for the CheckThat! Lab at CLEF 2025. In: CLEF 2025, Conference and Labs of the Evaluation Forum, Information Access Evaluation meets Multilinguality, Multimodality, and Visualization, In CheckThat! Lab, 09-12 Sep 2025, Madrid, Spain. https://oro.open.ac.uk/107353/.
Burel, G. and Alani, H. (2025). ClimaFactsKG: Towards an Interlinked Knowledge Graph of Scientific Evidence to Fight Climate Misinformation. In: 5th International Workshop on Scientific Knowledge: Representation, Discovery, and Assessment, 02 Nov 2025, Nara, Japan. https://oro.open.ac.uk/107352/.
Alani, H. and Burel, G. (2025). New Frontiers in Fighting Misinformation. arXiv https://oro.open.ac.uk/102444/.
Altoe, F., Burel, G., Pinto, S.M.G., Alani, H. and Pinto, H. (2024). Towards AI-mediated Meme Generation for Misinformation Correction Explanation. In: 1st Multimodal, Affective and Interactive eXplainable AI Workshop, MAI-XAI24 2024, 19 Oct 2024, Santiago de Compostela. https://oro.open.ac.uk/102051/.
Burel, G., Mensio, M., Peskine, Y., Troncy, R., Papotti, P. and Alani, H. (2025). CimpleKG: A Continuously Updated Knowledge Graph on Misinformation, Factors and Fact-Checks. In: ISWC 2024, 23rd International Semantic Web Conference, 11-15 Nov 2024, Baltimore, Maryland, USA. https://oro.open.ac.uk/101150/.
Reyero Lobo, P., Daga, E., Alani, H. and Fernandez, M. (2024). Enhancing Hate Speech Annotations with Background Semantics. In: 27th European Conference on Artificial Intelligence (ECAI 2024) – Including 13th Conference on Prestigious Applications of Intelligent Systems (PAIS 2024), 19-24 Oct 2024, Santiago de Compostela, Spain. https://oro.open.ac.uk/98676/.
Burel, G., Tavakoli, M. and Alani, H. (2024). Exploring the impact of automated correction of misinformation in social media. AI Magazine, 45(2), pp. 227–245. https://oro.open.ac.uk/97963/.
Reyero Lobo, P., Daga, E., Alani, H. and Fernandez, M. (2023). Knowledge-Grounded Target Group Language Recognition in Hate Speech. In: 19th International Conference on Semantic Systems, 20-22 Sep 2023, Leipzig, Germany. https://oro.open.ac.uk/92895/.
Burel, G. and Alani, H. (2023). The Fact-Checking Observatory: Reporting the Co-Spread of Misinformation and Fact-checks on Social Media. In: The 34th ACM Conference on Hypertext and Social Media, 4-8 Sep 2023, Rome, Italy. https://oro.open.ac.uk/92622/.
Mensio, M., Burel, G., Farrell, T. and Alani, H. (2023). MisinfoMe: A Tool for Longitudinal Assessment of Twitter Accounts’ Sharing of Misinformation. In: UMAP '23: 31st ACM Conference on User Modeling, Adaptation and Personalization, 26-29 Jun 2023, Limassol Cyprus. https://oro.open.ac.uk/90632/.
Pavón Pérez, Á., Fernandez, M., Al-Madfai, H., Burel, G. and Alani, H. (2023). Tracking Machine Learning Bias Creep in Traditional and Online Lending Systems with Covariance Analysis. In: WebSci '23: 15th ACM Web Science Conference 2023, 30 Apr - 1 May 2023, Austin, TX, USA. https://oro.open.ac.uk/88769/.
Tavakoli, M., Alani, H. and Burel, G. (2023). On the Readability of Misinformation in Comparison to the Truth. In: Text2Story 2023, 02/04/2023, Ireland. https://oro.open.ac.uk/88556/.
Alani, H., Burel, G. and Farrell, T. (2022). Elon Musk could roll back social media moderation – just as we’re learning how it can stop misinformation. The Conversation. https://oro.open.ac.uk/83189/.
Alani, H. (2022). Have you been misinformed?: Computational tools and analysis of our interactions with false and corrective information. In: Companion Proceedings of the Web Conference 2022, 25-29 Apr 2022, Virtual Event, Lyon France. https://oro.open.ac.uk/84912/.
Reyero Lobo, P., Daga, E., Alani, H. and Fernandez, M. (2023). Semantic Web technologies and bias in artificial intelligence: A systematic literature review. Semantic Web, 14(4), pp. 745–770. https://oro.open.ac.uk/85070/.
Reyero Lobo, P., Mensio, M., Pavon Perez, A., Bayer, V., Kwarteng, J., Fernandez, M., Daga, E. and Alani, H. (2022). Estimating Ground Truth in a Low-labelled Data Regime: A Study of Racism Detection in Spanish. In: Workshop on Novel Evaluation Approaches for Text Classification Systems on Social Media (NEATCLasS), 6-9 Jun 2022, Atlanta, Georgia. https://oro.open.ac.uk/83210/.
Hotho, A., Blomqvist, E., Dietze, S., Fokoue, A., Ding, Y., Barnaghi, P., Haller, A., Dragoni, M. and Alani, H.E. (2021). The Semantic Web – ISWC 2021. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 733. Springer. https://oro.open.ac.uk/83188/.
Farrell, T., Alani, H. and Mikroyannidis, A. (2022). Mediating learning with learning analytics technology: guidelines for practice. Teaching in Higher Education, 29(6), pp. 1500–1520. https://oro.open.ac.uk/83186/.
Reyero Lobo, P., Daga, E. and Alani, H. (2022). Supporting Online Toxicity Detection with Knowledge Graphs. In: Sixteenth International AAAI Conference on Web and Social Media, 6-9 Jun 2022, Atlanta, Georgia. https://oro.open.ac.uk/82776/.
Burel, G., Farrell, T. and Alani, H. (2021). Demographics and topics impact on the co-spread of COVID-19 misinformation and fact-checks on Twitter. Information Processing & Management, 58(6), https://oro.open.ac.uk/78748/.
