Supernova rates are directly coupled to high mass stellar birth and evolution .
As such , they are one of the few direct measures of the history of cosmic stellar evolution .
In this paper we describe an probabilistic technique for identifying supernovae within spectroscopic samples of galaxies .
We present a study of 52 type Ia supernovae ranging in age from -14 days to +40 days extracted from a parent sample of \sim 350,000 spectra from the SDSS DR5 .
We find a Supernova Rate ( SNR ) of 0.472 ^ { +0.048 } _ { -0.039 } ( Systematic ) ^ { +0.081 } _ { -0.071 } ( Statistical ) SNu at a redshift of \langle z \rangle = 0.1 .
This value is higher than other values at low redshift at the 1 \sigma , but is consistent at the 3 \sigma level .
The 52 supernova candidates used in this study comprise the third largest sample of supernovae used in a type Ia rate determination to date .
In this paper we demonstrate the potential for the described approach for detecting supernovae in future spectroscopic surveys .