To promote the practical application of text mining technology in industry and social services, the TAR Industry-Academia Alliance held the academic forum “Decoding the Power of Text Mining” on April 25 at Room CM1019 of the College of Management, National Sun Yat-sen University. The event attracted 25 in-person participants and an additional 18 online attendees, including representatives from both academia and industry, who gathered to explore innovations and developments in text mining across various domains.
The forum opened with remarks from the project principal investigator, Professor San-Yih Hwang from the Department of Information Management at National Sun Yat-sen University. Professor Hwang introduced the alliance’s objectives, encouraged academic membership, and provided a brief overview of text mining technologies. A group photo with all attendees marked the formal start of the forum.
The forum featured a diverse and engaging lineup of presentations from both industry and academia:
- Dr. Hsin-Yi Lin, a researcher from the Strategic Planning and Promotion Division of the Metal Industries Research & Development Centre (MIRDC), kicked off the session by sharing insights on using text mining to uncover emerging industry trends. Since 2019, MIRDC has collaborated with the College of Management at NSYSU and the TAR Alliance on numerous industry-academic projects, applying text mining to industry trend analysis and policy research. These efforts have significantly enhanced data-driven decision-making and improved the efficiency of producing industry analysis reports, demonstrating tangible outcomes from cross-sector collaboration.
- The second speaker, Associate Professor Hsing-Tzu Lin from the Department of Information Management at National University of Kaohsiung, discussed the real-world application of text mining in social services, highlighting its impact on public policy and community welfare. Drawing from her experience as an advisor on government open data initiatives and in collaboration with civic organizations, she presented a case study on “Charity Café,” which integrated text data and design thinking. Using data analytics and innovative technologies, Professor Lin showcased how the double diamond model helps identify problems and design solutions to foster social care and sustainable impact through data-driven action.
- The third speaker, Assistant Professor Chia-Yu Lai from the Department of Information Management at National Pingtung University of Science and Technology, explored how text mining supports academic research and patent analysis. Her work spans various applications, including CSR report analysis, news and social media mining, and patent text evaluation. By extracting insights from structured and unstructured text, text mining offers researchers powerful tools for trend analysis and prediction, greatly enhancing the accuracy and efficiency of academic work.
To conclude the forum, PhD student Chia-Ming Chang from NSYSU introduced the alliance’s flagship service platform: Tarflow – A Workflow Platform for Text Analysis. He demonstrated how the platform supports users in conducting effective text mining, even when dealing with large and diverse data sets. Tarflow integrates sentiment analysis, topic modeling, and text classification in a user-friendly interface that requires no programming knowledge. This enables users to build systematic analytical workflows adaptable to a wide range of issues and public opinion studies, improving both efficiency and depth of analysis.
During the final Q&A and interactive discussion session, participants actively engaged with the speakers, showing great enthusiasm for the topics presented. The alliance also announced its first workshop of the year—Tarflow Beginner Workshop, scheduled for Friday, May 16. The workshop will provide hands-on training starting from basic functions, with practical exercises to help participants—whether newcomers or researchers aiming to enhance their applied skills—become more proficient with Tarflow and text mining technologies.