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COVID-19 has impacted research worldwide, with many researchers turning to online methods. While online and co-creation research methods are well established, there are no instructional articles or guides for researchers aiming to conduct online co-creation workshops. Such workshops can provide quality data and are increasingly used. This methods paper addresses this gap by outlining the steps involved in conducting online co-creation workshops. Using the TruSTFood sustainability food labelling study as an example, this paper provides instructions and considerations for researchers. It serves as a guide for those interested in or new to this area and can be used to transfer existing research online owing to social distancing and the pandemic or new research beyond. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Australia responded to the emergence of the COVID-19 global pandemic in 2020 by initiating a border and bio-security zone lockdown and policies emphasising social distancing and hand hygiene. To understand the public response to this, Southern Queensland Rural Health commenced a two-phase research project exploring attitudes and practices towards the COVID-19 pandemic in Australia. An initial online survey foreshadowed 90 qualitative interviews with respondents to explore what the pandemic meant for everyday life. This paper details use of a qualitative approach by a national collaborative of investigators from 9 rural university departments in Australia who came together to research the qualitative phase of the project. Our methodological approach aligned with extant literature describing the management of large-scale interviewing and coding in the context of unfolding and dynamic contexts. The 'RITA' model (Rapid Identification of Themes from Audio recordings) entails a five-step process designed to progress from identifying research foci, through deductive and iterative coding to identify key concepts. We used a combination of coding templates, organisation and tagging of field notes and real-time sharing through a secure cloud drive to create a data set for immersive analysis and generation of ideas. Use of this method has added to the collective knowledge about successful rapid research investigations, recognising the inherent tension between speed and rigour. This is not a binary but a dialectic; trustworthiness is integral to qualitative research. However, use of fresh approaches is accommodated by new technologies and can preserve adequate rigour while enabling collaboration, research capacity building and increasing the pace of data collection and analysis. This project has presented methodological challenges and highlights some strengths of such an approach. It is hoped that reporting our approach and experiences is useful for the broader health and research community considering large-scale qualitative research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Face-to-face participatory research and interaction is at the heart of empirical social research. The COVID-19 pandemic and the resulting physical distance restrictions had a significant impact on qualitative research. Instantly, conventional qualitative social science methods had to be adapted to 'remote' and digital modes of interaction. The focus of this article is to analyze how and why video-mediated formats such as online conference tools and online whiteboards affect personal interaction, cooperation, collaboration and data acquisition. In a retrospective process, we first inductively defined three characteristics of interaction, namely emplacement, communication and rapport. Conducting research about climate adaptation in coastal regions touches upon a sensitive and emotional topic. Emplacement is a decisive characteristic to understand how identities are built. The combination of verbal and non-verbal communication leads to contextualization, and building rapport is essential for trustful collaboration. To answer the question if video-mediated formats enable a replacement of face-to face formats, we deductively analyze the implications of video-mediated formats used in semi-structured interviews, qualitative social network analysis and focus groups on these characteristics. Our analysis reveals that video-mediated formats are sufficient to gather information but hamper crucial relational and trust-building processes. This implies that, by using video-mediated formats, the content level was hardly exceeded. Compared to face-to-face formats, non-verbal communication, emplacement and rapport are limited using digital formats, with problematic consequences for data generation and its understanding as well as for interaction in terms of trust, lasting relationships, knowledge generation and liability. In brief: Video-mediated formats hold the danger that research is done about participants and not with participants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The COVID-19 pandemic forced a shift in long established participatory visual qualitative methods. Some researchers adapted photovoice— which traditionally happens in-person—and used technology to connect with participants referred to as "digitally mediated photovoice". Collective knowledge about best practices for digitally mediated photovoice to support and enhance research with older adults is in its infancy. Thus, to advance the field, we describe our approach to digitally mediated photovoice with older adults for a study in Vancouver, Canada. We explore participant and researcher reflections with data generated during three sessions over two-and-a-half years during the COVID-19 pandemic. The first two virtual interview sessions used photo elicitation, and the third session was an in-person interactive photography exhibition. We identified three central benefits to using digitally mediated photovoice. This approach 1. built rapport through the shared experience of navigating technology; 2. allowed a rich exchange of information despite physical distancing; and 3. facilitated opportunity for participants to exercise their agency. As we consider constraints for in-person data collection, digitally mediated photovoice may offer an avenue to establish mutually beneficial researcher-participant relationships with older adults. We add to the growing body of literature that addresses how qualitative researchers incorporate technology into the research process to reshape how we understand intimacy and access. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The COVID-19 pandemic, travel restrictions, and social distancing measures have made it difficult to observe, monitor, or manage urban life. To capture the experience of being in New York City during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, we used a novel method of remote ethnography to interview people who were walking the city. We developed the Walkie-Talkie Map to collect and present these interviews, enabling website visitors to see what the subject saw as they walked the route of their choice. Visitors can interactively scroll through the interview and have access to additional visualizations and imagery that contextualize the main narrative. Visitors are thus able to vicariously experience what it was like to be in New York City at the outset of the COVID-19 epidemic. This work provides a case study on how to perform observational research when geographic and bodily distance has become the norm. We discuss the advantages and limitations of our method and conclude with its contributions to the study of cities and for others looking to conduct remote observational research in different fields of knowledge. The Walkie-Talkie maps can be found on this url: https://www.socialdistancing.tech.cornell.edu/what-is-a-walike-talkie [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the current coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, web conferencing became a staple in professional communication, with new and evolving applications amidst unique social distancing measures mandated across the globe. In this article, we describe Collaborative Zoom Coding (CZC) as an adaptive approach to qualitative data analysis that our research team developed in light of social distancing measures imposed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. CZC uses the web conferencing platform Zoom, to help analyze data. Our team used CZC to develop a code book for the community-based research (CBR) project, Sexual Health and Diasporic Experiences of Shadeism (SHADES). CZC enabled all team members to participate in data analysis by providing opportunities for group training and real-time collaborative data analysis, irrespective of team members' location and level of experience with research. This article describes our specific processes for CZC and outlines its advantages as well as challenges. We conclude with a discussion of how researchers can conduct collaborative coding using Zoom and other conferencing technologies to further democratize the research process, particularly for community-based research endeavors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]