This paper describes how one researcher learned to overcome artificial intelligence (AI) paralysis and embrace ChatPDF. This freely available AI application uses natural language processing (NLP) to respond to user queries about an uploaded PDF. Researcher insights from experimenting with the AI tool ChatPDF for qualitative data analysis are presented, highlighting the advantages, pitfalls, and application-related considerations. As a two-phase curiosity experiment, the researcher engaged in a theory-building exercise to explore key concepts for understanding when using ChatPDF to assist researchers in qualitative data analysis. The experiment generated insights about the purposeful use of AI tools that incorporate NLP for analysis and the risks of inaccuracy when researchers are not familiar with the data or skilled in prompt engineering. Insights raise questions about whether ChatPDF is a viable research assistant for qualitative researchers, ethical issues with specific forms of qualitative data, and the potential of AI tools for community and student researchers.

Action research (AR) comprises a diverse family of methodologies. Common amongst most types of AR are both an emergent design – leading to action or change – and participation or community involvement. While this type of research has expanded considerably since the early 2000s, the criteria used for ethical review have apparently been slow to adapt to the emergent and participatory nature of this research. This has resulted in researchers reporting negative attitudes towards, and experiences with, review boards and ethics review processes; painting ethical review committees, at times, as insufficient or unnecessary. A review of the literature was undertaken to assess the state of play in this regard. Few articles disclose the side of the ethical review boards or committee members and the issues they face in undertaking ethical review of studies with an emergent, action, or participatory focus. A larger number of peer-reviewed journal articles report on the views of the researchers, but mainly through specific case examples where ethical review processes presented challenges to researchers and communities employing a participatory approach to research. The focus of this article will be on both the generic challenges researchers report in managing ethical review and of strategies utilized or recommended to conduct participatory research in an ethical manner. The contrasting experiences of researchers and ethical review committee members will be considered where available.

Young people in physical isolation because of significant illness experience disconnection from social and educational contexts. A ground-breaking intervention in New Zealand aimed to foster social inclusion for young people who are hospital-or-home-bound due to cancer treatment. A formative assessment of five young people aged 13–18, their parents, and their teachers was undertaken to determine the efficacy of telepresence technology to connect young persons to a chosen educational environment. Results indicate that the use of this technology enabled young people to experience being there in familiar educational environments and provided early evidence of the effectiveness of this intervention in helping to disrupt isolation, increase connectedness, and lift participants’ moods. This paper highlights the implications for teachers, social workers, and counsellors.

Background: Children and young people who are hospitalized can feel disconnected from their peers and families, which can, in turn, predispose them to psychological problems, including anxiety and depression. Immersive reality experience technology, recently developed by the New Zealand Patience Project Charitable Trust, may help to overcome these issues. Immersive reality experience technology uses immersive 360° live streaming and a virtual reality headset to enable children and young people who are hospitalized to connect through cameras located in either their school or home environment and via SMS text messaging with a designated buddy. Objective: This trial aims to expand qualitative findings from a previous smaller proof of concept trial to ascertain the views of New Zealand children and young people who are hospitalized, their caregivers, and teachers regarding immersive reality experience technology and quantitatively evaluate the effectiveness of immersive reality experience technology in reducing social isolation and improving social connectedness and well-being using validated outcome measures. Methods: An open trial of immersive reality experience technology was conducted between December 2019 and December 2020 for which 19 New Zealand children and young people aged 13 to 18 years who had been hospitalized at Starship Hospital—a specialist pediatric hospital in Auckland—for at least 2 weeks were recruited. All young people completed the Short Warwick–Edinburgh Mental Well-Being Scale, an abbreviated version of the Social Connectedness Scale, and the Social Inclusion Scale at baseline. Of the 19 participants, 10 (53%) used immersive reality experience technology as often as they wished over a 6-week period and completed postintervention measures. Semistructured interviews with a subset of the 10 young people, 4 caregivers, and 6 teachers were conducted immediately after the intervention. Results: Participants reported improvements in social inclusion (mean change 3.9, SD 2.8; P=.06), social connectedness (mean change 14.2, SD 10.0; P=.002), and well-being (mean change 5.7, SD 4.0; P=.001). Key themes from interviews with participants, caregivers, and teachers were the importance of support for using immersive reality experience technology, connecting versus connectedness, choice and connection, and the value of setting it up and getting it right. Recommendations for improving connectedness via immersive reality experience and related technologies were also provided. Conclusions: Immersive reality experience technology can improve the social inclusion, social connectedness, and well-being of New Zealand children and young people who are hospitalized. With some technological modifications and simplified implementation, immersive reality experience and related technology could become part of standard care and support children and young people who are hospitalized in New Zealand and elsewhere to sustain family and peer cohesion, experience fewer psychological problems, and more easily return to normal life following the completion of treatment. Trial Registration: Australian New Zealand Clinical Trials Network Registry ACTRN12619000252112; https://www.anzctr.org.au/Trial/Registration/TrialReview.aspx?id=376837&isReview=true

This article examines how collaborative design practices in higher education are reshaped through postdigital entanglement with generative artificial intelligence (GenAI). We collectively explore how co-design, an inclusive, iterative, and relational approach to educational design and transformation, expands in meaning, practice, and ontology when GenAI is approached as a collaborator. The article brings together 19 authors and three open reviewers to engage with postdigital inquiry, structured in three parts: (1) a review of literature on co-design, GenAI, and postdigital theory; (2) 11 situated contributions from educators, researchers, and designers worldwide, each offering practice-based accounts of co-design with GenAI; and (3) an explorative discussion of implications for higher education designs and futures. Across these sections, we show how GenAI unsettles assumptions of collaboration, knowing, and agency, foregrounding co-design as a site of ongoing material, ethical, and epistemic negotiation. We argue that postdigital co-design with GenAI reframes educational design as a collective practice of imagining, contesting, and shaping futures that extend beyond human knowing.

Community–university research partnerships (CURPs) comprise a diverse group of stakeholders who share differing capabilities and diverse insights into the same issues, and they are widely regarded as valuable to navigate the best course of action. Partnering as co-researchers is core to nurturing these partnerships, but it requires careful navigation of complexities. The different insider and outsider positionalities occupied by co-researchers highlight experiences of ‘walking on the edges’ of each other’s worlds. This not only challenges these collaborations, but also enables a depth of understanding that may not be achieved in CURPs where the luxury of, or effort in, building a team of co-researchers to collect, analyse and write up data is not present. This article focuses on learning strategies to advance the co-researching capacities of CURPs where stakeholders occupy divergent positions. The focus will be on lessons from a co-researching partnership comprising a university-affiliated academic researcher, a local Kenyan non-governmental organization (NGO) and members of a community in which the NGO worked. We argue that applying selected learning strategies may facilitate positive experiences of edge walking and enhance the meaningful two-way sharing required for cross-cultural CURPs. It is recommended that community and university research partners examine the utility of these learning strategies for strengthening co-researching in CURP contexts.