Overall, the delegates found that the notion of using a SMD (such as an iPhone) as a research tool was
not a new concept. However SMDs had not been commonly used within this group as such, especially for
qualitative research. Only one delegate was using his SMD as a research tool for interviews and hence
provided the second example of practice in this paper. The other delegates had only informally
experimented with SMDs or were considering them as potential research tools for the future.
Nevertheless, these sessions proved very useful in both the discussion they stimulated and the resources
that were suggested.
Three examples of practice are provided in this paper, which describe the use of SMDs in ethnography
(Beddall-Hill), interviews (Jabbar), and design-based research (Al Shehri). Before reporting on the
examples and discussing the commentary from the conference, some background on the use of SMDs in
research is provided, alongside other closely related areas of work