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In this closing chapter the editors review key themes that have emerged through the book. We recognize the varied and dynamic nature of information experience across multiple contexts, and present our own conceptualization of information experience. Finally, we consider possible future directions for information experience research.

This chapter reflectively explores the idea of doing art-based research (ABR) through poetic methods for studying the experience of learning in higher education. Taking some literature on faculty development to exemplify different ways of experiencing learning, this chapter serves as a counterpoint to researching experiences of learning from a phenomenological approach. The fundamental reasoning for this is that the basic epistemological assumptions in phenomenology would limit our understanding of experiences of learning and thus, other methodological options would be worth exploring. To that end, this chapter elaborates on the relationship between knowledge production, speech and experience, all circling around the notions of research method and construction. Here, the aim is to reflect upon an understanding of research that is aligned with a dialogical and relational conceptualization of the experience of learning. Finally, an argument will be outlined that suggests conducting research as an experience. Taking from Dewey, Kvale, Law, Scheurich, Talmy and others, this exploration will present the idea of studying the experiences of learning by way of producing/devising experiences through arts. With the notion of art as experience from Dewey, the argument goes to ABR in a general sense, and poetry in particular, as a sound and coherent alternative way of researching learning as an experience. Thus, this chapter explores the possible theoretical-methodological contributions of thinking about and doing research understood as an experience through art.

This chapter presents a form of both co-participation theory and artful inquiry methodology as useful approaches in carrying out research into the student experience. Participatory Pedagogy is predicated on repositioning participants as co-producers of knowledge by introducing them to important aspects of the research, providing a platform to foster expression and affording opportunities to co-shape the research process. Artful inquiry can take many different forms, but collage in particular has the capacity to bring new meanings to the surface even in well-researched fields, such as the student experience. In supporting a Participatory Pedagogy approach, collage can unpack powerful testimonies of personal experience. A practical application of this pairing is also presented based on research into the student experience. This gives readers an insight into how it can be applied to a study, what its limitations might be and especially how students, particularly those from under-represented backgrounds, can benefit from being involved.

In this chapter, the process of doctoral research is discussed in relation to narrative inquiry. I was the doctoral supervisor for Cindy and Derek while they completed their PhDs. I examine in this chapter my experiences alongside Derek and Cindy. I consider the process of recruitment, field text collection and generation, the writing process, and considerations based on the methodology on narrative inquiry, with attention focused on the Deweyan ontology of experience, the three-dimensional narrative inquiry space, co-composition of research texts, narrative threads, living and telling narrative inquiries, and the relational quality of narrative inquiry. This chapter closes with thoughts about who we are in relationship with each other in the graduate process and the fluid nature of research.

This chapter highlights the varied scope of research in the emerging information experience domain. First, I share my perspective as educator-researcher on information experience and its association with informed learning. Then, in six methodological snapshots I present a selection of qualitative approaches which are suited to investigating information experience. The snapshots feature: action research, constructivist grounded theory, ethnomethodology, expanded critical incident approach, phenomenography and qualitative case study. By way of illustration, six researchers explain how and why they use one of these methods. Finally, I review the key characteristics of the six methods and their respective benefits for information experience research.

This paper aims to explore contribution of informal learning space - Research Cafe - to enrich research learning experiences of graduate students. Developing strong research skills among graduate students is a prime focus of higher education around the world. Thereby, universities are striving to maximise opportunities that can foster and enrich students’ learning experiences of research; however, the focus is mostly confined to formal opportunities such as research method courses and thesis writing. The provision of informal learning spaces has been recognised as a useful tool for fostering research learning experiences of graduates. This reflective paper is among a few focusing on a model of student-led informal learning space for enriching research experiences in higher education in the context of Pakistan.

This paper uses a reflective approach to generate a metalogue. The research experiences shared by the participants were further reflected by the authors after each research café session. The authors then shared their collective metacognitive reflections with each other, generating a metalogue, which was used as the data set. The metalogue was analysed thematically to generate themes.

Findings reveal that the research café is an informal space to promote academic socialisation by providing a conducive environment, peer support and informal supervision opportunities to foster the research learning experiences of graduate students. Importantly, the model presented in this paper provides a complimentary pathway for boosting learning experiences.

This paper would be useful for graduate students, faculty and university manager to acknowledge the potential of informal learning spaces in promoting research learning experiences. This paper highlights opportunities for replication, and further empirical research are needed to establish the efficacy of research café.

This study contributes to the global debate about graduate research learning experiences through informal learning space, which is yet to be explored, particularly in developing contexts like Pakistan. The idea of the research café is original, as it was conceived keeping in consideration the contextual and cultural aspects. The methodology used in this paper was specifically derived which can be replicated by other researchers.

This paper aims to discuss what it means to consider the information experience of academic information management from a constructivist grounded theory perspective. Using a doctoral study in progress as a case illustration, the authors demonstrate how information experience research applies a wide lens to achieve a holistic view of information management phenomena. By unifying a range of elements, and understanding information and its management to be inseparable from the totality of human experience, an information experience perspective offers a fresh approach to answering today's research questions.

The case illustration is a constructivist grounded theory study using interactive interviews, an original form of semi-structured qualitative interviews combined with card-sorting exercises (Conrad and Tucker, 2019), to deepen reflections by participants and externalize their information experiences. The constructivist variant of grounded theory offers an inductive, exploratory approach to address the highly contextualized information experiences of student-researchers in managing academic information.

Preliminary results are reported in the form of three interpretative categories that outline the key aspects of the information experience for student-researchers. By presenting these initial results, the study demonstrates how the constructivist grounded theory methodology can illuminate multiple truths and bring a focus on interpretive practices to the understanding of information management experiences.

This new approach offers holistic insights into academic information management phenomena as contextual, fluid and informed by meaning-making and adaptive practices. Limitations include the small sample size customary to qualitative research, within one situated perspective on the academic information management experience.

The study demonstrates the theoretical and methodological contributions of the constructivist information experience research to illuminate information management in an academic setting.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the ways engineering doctoral students draw on prior experiences to inform their doctoral research. This study includes the experiences of “returners” – those who have worked as practitioners for five or more years before entering a PhD program – who have distinct experiences from “direct-pathway students,” which may inform how they engage in doctoral research. This study also explores the traits that distinguish varying levels of sophistication in the ways PhD students think about the research process and how prior experience may contribute.

This study draws on interview data from 52 returning and direct-pathway engineering doctoral students. A thematic analysis of this interview data highlights the primary ways participants’ prior professional, academic and life experiences inform their doctoral research. In addition, the authors conducted an iterative analysis process to sort participants’ responses about their management of a hypothetical research scenario into emergent categories of research thinking sophistication to understand what characterizes varying levels of sophistication in research thinking and explore how experience may contribute.

Participants identified past experiences as shaping their research, related to how they identify a research problem, considering what needs to and can be done to address the problem, identifying an appropriate research approach, managing unexpected challenges, responding to critical feedback, determining their comfort taking risks and using intuition to lead a project.

Outcomes of this research can inform how graduate education supports students throughout their degree by identifying key experiences that may contribute to students’ research approaches.

As immersive technologies gain wider adoption, contemporary service researchers are tasked with studying their service experiences in ways that preserve and attend to their holistic and human characteristics. The purpose of this paper is to provide service researchers with a new qualitative approach to studying immersive technologies.

Using logic and following established methodological rules, this article develops the scope, definition and set of procedures for a novel form of netnography specifically adapted for the study of immersive technologies: immersive netnography. The research question is “How might netnography be adapted to research service experiences in virtual and augmented environments, which include and overlap with the notion of a Metaverse?”

Immersive netnography should be at the vanguard of phenomenological service experience studies of augmented reality, virtual reality and the Metaverse. A set of data collection, analysis, ethical and representational research practices, immersive netnography is adapted to digital media phenomena (customer and employee) that include immersive technology experiences. Developed through logical argumentation after analyzing key differences between social media and immersive technology, immersive netnography is procedurally customized for experience research in immersive technology environments.

Three of the most significant practical limitations to producing high-quality netnography are rapidly changing contexts, scarce time resources and narrow researcher skillsets.

Industries and organizations may benefit from a new, holistically focused, ethically robust and culturally attuned market research method for understanding service experience in immersive technology contexts.

There have been no prior studies that develop netnography for the service research opportunities presented by immersive technologies. By applying the rigorous methodological guidance provided in this paper, future service researchers may find value in using specifically adapted qualitative research methods to study immersive technology experiences.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the extent to which the position of a former insider with multiple levels of knowing and being known, afforded me benefits and challenges in a complex higher education institution in Uganda. A reflexive autoethnographic account of the author’s research experience is employed as methodology. The study observes various benefits and challenges of this position. These include: firsthand knowledge of institutional culture and informants, leading to multiple levels of access; ability to conduct enriching interviews; and good rapport with informants. The challenges include: complexity of the institution; ethical challenges; power dilemmas; and anonymization of data. Access was noted to be a key benefit and it was experienced at five levels: personal relational networks; informant’s knowledge of a family relation; links to institutional and national networks; the role of media; and situational factors. In accordance with Bourdieu’s (1986) concepts of forms of capital, the study established that four levels of knowing were linked to social, cultural, economic or media capital. The study reveals existence of a link between different levels of knowing and being known and their affiliated forms of capital. It shows that possession of any or a combination of these forms of capital leads to what the study defines as “information access capital.” The study suggests that the different levels of knowing and being known determine the breadth and depth of a researcher’s information access capital. The study implies that power imbued relationships can limit access.

The paper applies a reflexive autoethnographic methodology where the author uses their personal research experience to make sense of the benefits and challenges of gaining access as a former insider with multiple identity positions. The paper draws from the author’s personal experience (auto) set in an institutional cultural context (ethno), to analyze the research process (graphy) of gaining access of top and middle management informants. First person (auto) accounts of the author’s organizational cultural (ethno) and research process (graphy) experiences and how they link to the benefits and challenges of researching an organization as insider are used as data.

The study observed various benefits and challenges of the insider position. These include: firsthand knowledge of institutional culture and informants, leading to multiple levels of access; ability to conduct enriching interviews; and good rapport with informants. The challenges include: complexity of the institution; ethical challenges; power dilemmas; and anonymization of data. Access was noted to be a key benefit experienced at five levels: personal networks; informant’s networks; institutional networks; the role of media; and situational factors. The four levels were linked to social, cultural, economic or media capital.

The study is limited to the researcher’s personal experience of the institution. The paper shows the role that social, work, political, media, institutional and national networks and their affiliated forms of capital play in affording insider researchers access. It shows that researchers deficient in these capitals have low-information access capital and face challenges of access. It also shows that although friendship may enable access, if infused with power dynamics, power hinders access. The study shows insider researchers in complex organizations have to continually navigate the insider-outsider continuum and challenges thereof. Practicing relational ethics during and after research is key when conducting organizational insider research.

The paper shows the role that social, work, political, media, institutional and national networks and their affiliated forms of capital play in affording insider researchers access. It shows that researchers deficient in these forms of capital have low-information access capital and face challenges of access. It also shows that although friendship may enable access, if infused with power dynamics, power serves as hindrance to access. The study also shows insider researchers in complex organizations may have to continually navigate the insider-outsider continuum and challenges thereof. Practicing relational ethics during and after research is a key consideration of insider researchers.

The paper reveals the challenges of accessing top and middle management in complex, bureaucratic and guarded higher education organizations. It shows that although higher education institutions, by virtue of their research orientated missions, should ideally set the right example for easy access to information at all levels and ranks of the organization. However, the reality of access for an insider research may be far from the ideal due to factors of complexity and previously formed power imbued relationships.

The paper contributes to understanding factors at play when gaining and maintaining research access to top and middle management in a higher education context. In accordance with (Bourdieu’s, 1986) concepts of forms of capital, the paper contributes to understanding the relationship between multiple levels of knowing and their affiliated forms of capital and how these capital forms may facilitate information access. It shows that possession of any capital form increases a researcher’s information access capital. The paper expands Weinreb’s (2006) definition of stranger and insider interviews, by showing multiple ways of “knowing or being known” before and during the study.