Dr Frances Johnson

Senior Lecturer

My profile

Biography

Frances is a Lecturer in Information Retrieval Systems in the Manchester Metropolitan University iSchool and Co-Director of the iSchool Research Group, Digital Semantics which focuses on use and design of search technologies and digital libraries. Early in her academic life she worked in Artificial Intelligence/ Natural Language Understanding and on projects to develop automatic abstracting systems and conversational interfaces in information seeking and question/answering. Subsequently her work at Manchester Met has been on the frameworks and evaluation tools supporting the user perspective of the effective interface in facilitating information access and discovery. This has been developed in work on externally funded projects (for example, with SERC, British Library R&DD, JISC, AHRC) and working with research student supervisions, and has led to the provision of innovative courses in search technologies, information seeking behaviour, human computer interaction, trust and ethics in experience design, and text mining in the digital humanities. During this time she has explored the use of information behaviour models, mental models and technology fit to theorise influence and to design change. Her research approach spans lab based experimental science, behavioural talk aloud protocols and applied programming in languages including Prolog. Her work has been published in leading information science journals including the Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology (JASIST), Information Processing and Management, Journal of Documentation, Information Research and across disciplines in the British Journal of Educational Technology (BJET). She regularly speaks at conferences and workshops and currently Associate Editor of Data Technologies and Applications, and Features Editor of the Health, Information and Libraries Journal. She is a member of the British Computer Society, Member of the American Society of Information Science (SIGIR) and Fellow of the Higher Education Academy.

Academic and professional qualifications

Frances has a Ph.D, and MSc from the Department of Computer Science in the University of Manchester (and UMIST University of Manchester Institutue of Science and Technology). 

She is Member of the British Computer Society and Fellow of the Higher Education Academy.

Other academic service (administration and management)

  • Research Degrees Coordinator
  • Programme Leader MA in Library & Information Management, MSc Information and Data Management

External examiner roles

Current and recent appointments

  • Department of Information and Computer Science, University of Strathclyde 2015-
  • University of Salford, Ph.D external examiner,  2015
  • University of Sheffield, Ph.D external examiner, 2014

Expert reviewer for external funding bodies

I am Associate Editor of Data Technologies and Applications, and Features Editor for Dissertations into Practice of the Health, Information and Libraries Journal.  I regularly review for the Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology (JASIST), Health Informatics Journal, Journal of Information Science.

Personal website address

http://onsearchon.wordpress.com/

Get in touch

0161 247 6156
5.09 Grosvenor East Building

Teaching

Postgraduate teaching

  • Information Organisation and Search  (MA LIM)
  • Assessing Information Seeking and Behaviour (MA LIM)
  • Digital Interactions and Behaviour (MSc CBCA)
  • Using Technology to “Read” People: (MSc CBCA)

Subject areas

Information Retrieval, HCI and Information Search Behaviour

Supervision

In Progress

  • A. Ahmed (PhD)
  • S.Bayounis (PhD)
  • F Alotaibi (PhD)
  • A.Alhabeeb (PhD)
  • C Ellis (PhD)
  • T Leigh (PhD)

Completed

  • K.Menzies 2016
  • O.Okulona 2015
  • S.Robinson 2012
  • E. Vassilakaki 2010
  • S. Crudge 2006
  • D. Ellen 2000

Research outputs

  • Chapters in books

    Walton, G., Naughton, J. (2023) 'Health literacy, patient information and combating misinformation.' In Walton, G., Johnson, F., Stewart, D., Young, G., Case-Wyatt, H. (ed.) Introduction to Healthcare Knowledge and Library Services. London: Facet Publishing,

    Vassilakaki,, E., Garoufallou, E., Johnson, F.C. (2014) 'Users’ Information Seeking Behaviour in a Professional Search Environment.' In Paltoglou, G., Loizides, F., Hansen, P. (ed.) Professional Search in the Modern World: Lecture Notes in Computer Science. Springer-Verlag., pp. 23-42.

    Johnson, F. (2011) 'Shifting contexts: relating the user, search and system in teaching information retrieval.' Teaching and learning in information retrieval. Springer-Verlag,

    Johnson, F.C., Paice, C.D., Black, W.J., Neal, A.P. (1997) 'The application of linguistic processing to automatic abstract generation.' In Sparck Jones, K., Willett, P. (ed.) Readings in information retrieval. Morgan Kauffman, pp. 538-553.

    Johnson, F.C. (1996) 'A natural language understanding system for reference resolution in information dialogues.' Information retrieval: new systems and current research: proceedings of the 16th research colloquium of the british computer society information retrieval specialist group version 2. Taylor Graham,

  • Reports

    Johnson, F.C., Craven, J. (2010) Usability testing of Copac’s interface (A JISC funded online catalogue of the holdings of the Research Libraries UK.

    Johnson, F.C., Griffiths, J.R., Hartley, R.J. (2000) Devise: a framework for the evaluation of internet search engines. CERLIM (Centre for Research in Library and Information Management).

  • Journal articles

    Alotaibi, F., Johnson, F., Rowley, J. (2023) 'Google Scholar or University Digital Libraries: a comparison of student perceptions and intention to use.' Journal of Librarianship and Information Science,

    Johnson, F. (2022) 'Wanted! Health information students & early career health information workers new to writing for publication.' Health information and libraries journal, 39(3)

    Johnson, F. (2022) 'Dissertations into Practice: 10 years on, 40 articles later.' Health information and libraries journal, 39(1) pp. 79-81.

    Johnson, F. (2020) 'Health information professionals: delivering core services and value in extraordinary times.' Health information and libraries journal, 37(3) pp. 245-247.

    Alotaibi, F., Johnson, F. (2020) 'Why we like Google Scholar: postgraduate students' perceptions of factors influencing their intention to use.' Aslib Journal of Information Management, 72(4) pp. 587-603.

    Rowley, J., Johnson, F., Sbaffi, L., Frass, W., Devine, E. (2017) 'Academics' behaviors and attitudes towards open access publishing in scholarly journals.' Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology, 68(5) pp. 1201-1211.

    Okunola, O.M., Rowley, J., Johnson, F. (2017) 'The multi-dimensional digital divide: Perspectives from an e-government portal in Nigeria.' Government Information Quarterly, 34(2) pp. 329-339.

    Ellis, C., Johnson, F., Rowley, J. (2017) 'Promoting information literacy: perspectives from UK universities.' Library Hi Tech, 35(1) pp. 53-70.

    Cunningham, A., Johnson, F. (2016) 'Exploring trust in online health information: a study of user experiences of patients.co.uk.' Health Information and Libraries Journal, 33(4) pp. 323-328.

    Johnson, F., Sbaffi, L., Rowley, J. (2016) 'Students' approaches to the evaluation of digital information: Insights from their trust judgments.' British Journal of Educational Technology, 47(6) pp. 1243-1258.

    Menzies, K., Johnson, F. (2015) 'Academic attitudes toward new media: An exploratory multidisciplinary study.' Information Society, 32(1) pp. 1-13.

    Rowley, J., Johnson, F., Sbaffi, L., Weist, A. (2015) 'Peer-based information literacy training: Insights from the NICE Evidence Search Student Champion Scheme.' Library and Information Science Research, 37(4) pp. 338-345.

    Rowley, J., Johnson, F., Sbaffi, L. (2015) 'Students' trust judgements in online health information seeking.' Health Informatics Journal, 21

    Rowley, J., Johnson, F., Sbaffi, L. (2015) 'Gender as an influencer of online health information-seeking and evaluation behavior.' Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology, 68(1) pp. 36-47.

    Johnson, F., Rowley, J., Sbaffi, L. (2015) 'Exploring information interactions in the context of Google.' Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology, 67(4) pp. 824-840.

    Vassilakaki, E., Johnson, F. (2015) 'The use of grounded theory in identifying the user experience during search.' Library and Information Science Research, 37(1) pp. 77-87.

    Sbaffi, L., Johnson, F., Griffiths, J., Rowley, J., Weist, A. (2015) 'NICE Evidence Search: Student Peers' Views on their Involvement as Trainers in Peer-based Information Literacy Training.' Journal of Academic Librarianship, 41

    Johnson, F.C., Rowley, J., Sbaffi, L. (2015) 'Modelling trust formation in health information contexts.' Journal of Information Science, 41(4) pp. 415-429.

    Vassilakaki, E., Garoufallou, E., Johnson, F., Hartley, R.J. (2014) 'Users’ information search behavior in a professional search environment: A methodological approach.' Lecture Notes in Computer Science (including subseries Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence and Lecture Notes in Bioinformatics), 8830pp. 23-44.

    Rowley, J., Johnson, F. (2013) 'Understanding trust formation in digital information sources: The case of Wikipedia.' Journal of Information Science, 39(4) pp. 494-508.

    Vassilakaki, E., Hartley, R.J., Johnson, F. (2012) 'Image seeking in multilingual environments: a study of the user experience.' Information Research, 17(4)

    Robinson, S., Johnson, F. (2012) 'The process and affective environment of students’ personal information management.' Enhancing Learning in the Social Sciences, 4(2) pp. 1-13.

    Johnson, F. (2012) 'Using semantic differentials for an evaluative view of the search engine as an interactive system.' CEUR Workshop Proceedings, 909pp. 7-10.

    Johnson, F.C., Craven, J. (2010) 'Beyond usability: The study of functionality of the 2.0 online catalogue (OPAC).' New Review of Academic Librarianship, 16(2) pp. 228-250.

    Craven, J., Johnson, F.C., Butters, G. (2010) 'The usability and functionality of an online catalogue.' Aslib Proceedings, 62(1) pp. 70-84.

    Johnson, F., Rowley, J. (2010) 'Contributions from the Department of Information and Communications, Manchester Metropolitan University.' Aslib Proceedings, 62(1) pp. 5-10.

    Vassilakaki, E., Johnson, F., Hartley, R.J., Randall, D. (2009) 'Users' perceptions of searching in flickling.' CEUR Workshop Proceedings, 1175

    Vassilakaki, E., Johnson, F., Hartley, R.J., Randall, D. (2008) 'A study of users' image seeking behaviour in Flickling.' CEUR Workshop Proceedings, 1174

    Griffiths, J.R., Johnson, F.C., Hartley, R.J. (2007) 'User satisfaction as a measure of system performance.' Journal of Librarianship and Information Science, 39(3) pp. 142-152.

    Johnson, F.C., Crudge, S.E. (2007) 'Using the repertory grid and laddering technique to determine the user's evaluative model of search engines.' Journal of Documentation, 63(2) pp. 259-280.

    Jenkins, M., Johnson, F.C. (2004) 'Awareness, use and opinions of methodological search filters used for the retrieval of evidence-based medical literature.' Health Information and Libraries Journal, 21(1) pp. 33-43.

    Crudge, S.E., Johnson, F.C. (2004) 'Using the information seeker to elicit construct models for search engine evaluation..' J. Assoc. Inf. Sci. Technol., 55pp. 794-806.

    Johnson, F.C., Griffiths, J.R., Hartley, R.J. (2003) 'Task dimensions of user evaluations of information retrieval systems..' Inf. Res., 8

    Hartley, R.J., Johnson, F.C., Oulton, A.J. (2000) 'Image, audio and text: a review of recent research in information retrieval.' New Review of Information and Library Research, 6pp. 171-206.

    Johnson, F.C. (1999) 'A critical review of system-centred to user-centred evaluation of automatic abstracting.' New Review of Information and Library Research, 5pp. 49-63.

    Johnson, F.C. (1995) 'Automatic abstracting research.' Library Review, 44(8) pp. 28-36.

    Johnson, F.C. (1994) 'A Classification of Ellipsis Based on a Corpus of Information Seeking Dialogues..' Inf. Process. Manag., 30pp. 315-326.

    Johnson, F.C., Black, W.J. (1988) 'A practical evaluation of two rule-based automatic abstracting techniques.' Expert Systems for Information Management, 1(3)

  • Conference papers

    Ahmed, A., Johnson, F. (2021) 'Gamification as a way of facilitating emotions during information seeking behaviour.' In iConference: Diversity Divergence and Dialogue. 12646. 21/3/2021 - 26/3/2021.

    Ahmed, A., Johnson, F. (2021) 'Gamification as a Way of Facilitating Emotions During Information-Seeking Behaviour: A Systematic Review of Previous Research.' 12646 LNCS. pp. 85-98.

    Ahmed, A., Johnson, F., Walton, G., Bayounis, S. (2020) 'A phenomenographic approach to the effect of emotions on the information behaviour of doctoral students: A narrative inquiry.' In iConference. 12051 LNCS. University of Boras, Sweden Virtual Conference, 23/3/2020 - 26/3/2020. pp. 874-883.

    Leigh, T., Johnson, F. (2020) 'Levelling the Playing Field: A Genre Analysis of Online Search Language and Behaviour in UK Higher Education.' In Proceedings: CHIIR '20: Conference on Human Information Interaction and Retrieval. Vancouver, Canada, 14/3/2020 - 18/3/2020. Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), pp. 323-327.

    Johnson, F. (2019) 'Evaluating personalised information retrieval: a perception of trust.' In Second Annual Workshop on the Evaluation of Personalisation in Information Retrieval (WEPIR 2019). Glasgow, Scotland, 9/3/2019 - 14/3/2019. ACM,

    Johnson, F. (2018) 'From Accessibility to Assess-Ability: An Evaluation Heuristic Based on Cognitive Engagement in Search.' In iConference 2018. 10766. University of Sheffield, 26/3/2018 - 28/3/2018. Springer Verlag,

    Johnson, F. (2016) 'Evaluating usability: A two-fold assessment.' 14-16-.

    Johnson, F. (2015) 'Evaluation of the User Experience of engagement in the stages of search.' In CLEF 2015 - Conference and Labs of the Evaluation forum. Toulouse, 8/9/2015 - 11/8/2015.

    Vassilakaki, E., Garoufallou, E., Johnson, F., Hartley, R.J. (2015) 'An exploration of users’ needs for multilingual information retrieval and access.' 544. pp. 249-258.

    Johnson, F., Sbaffi, L., Rowley, J. (2014) 'Assessing trustworthiness of digital information.' In International Data and Information Management (IDIMC) 2014 Conference. University of Loughborough, 17/9/2014 - LISU, pp. 68-76.

    Johnson, F.C. (2014) 'Exploring cognitive activity in information interactions.' In euroHCIR2014. BCS Headquarters, London, 13/9/2014 -

    Vassilakaki, E., Johnson, F.C., Hartley, R.J.R.J., Randall,, D. (2010) 'Users image seeking behaviour in multilingual environments: experience in combining qualitative and quantitative data.' In Conference on Qualitative and Quantitative Methods in Libraries. Chania, Greece, 26/5/2009 - 29/5/2009.

    Vassilakaki, E., Johnson, F.C., Hartley, R.J., Randall, D. (2009) 'A Study of Users' Image Seeking Behaviour in FlickLing..' 5706. Peters, C., Deselaers, T., Ferro, N., Gonzalo, J., Jones, G.J.F., Kurimo, M., Mandl, T., Peñas, A., Petras, V. (ed.) Springer, pp. 251-259.

    Johnson, F.C. (2007) 'User interactions with results summaries (position paper).'

    Johnson, F.C. (2006) 'Optimal results presentation for dynamic search (position paper).'

    Johnson, F.C. (1994) 'A natural language understanding system for reference resolution in information dialogues..' In BCS IRSG 16th Information Retrieval Research Colloquium,. Strathclyde, 22/3/1994 - 23/3/1994.