Helena Francke

Since 2021 my primary place of work is as academic librarian at the University of Gothenburg. More information here: https://www.gu.se/en/about/find-staff/helenafrancke 

During fall 2022 I am responsible for the course Scholarly publishing (offered in Swedish).

I am associate professor of Library and Information Science. In my research, I have primarily focused on the use of digital media , e.g. concerning credibility and authority, information seeking (MIL), scholarly publishing, and organizational development. Lately, I have, among other things, studied the new tasks that academic libraries take on with regard to publishing and evaluation, for example open access to publications and management and sharing of research data. I am also curious about researchers' roles and practices with regards to publishing, visibility and evaluation. One of my most recent projects (at Lund University) has focused on academic networking sites, such as ResearchGate and Academia. 

I have worked at the University of Borås as a teacher and researcher since 1999. In 2008, I defended my Ph.D. dissertation The (re)creation of scholarly journals: Document and information architecture in Open Access e-journals. Before that, I studied Library and information science at the University of Borås and English and Comparative literature at the University of Gothenburg. I have also worked for shorter periods of time at Lund University, UiT The Arctic University of Norway, and the Chinese University of Hong Kong and I have been a guest researcher/teacher at the Queensland University of Technology and Makerere University.

Between 1999 and 2007, I was one of the editors of Human IT: Journal for Information Technology Studies as a Human Science.

Scholarly publishing and media and information literacy are also areas where I do the majority of my teaching (see Assignments).

Assignments

Research

In 2015-2021 I was strategic advisor on research at the Faculty of Librarianship, Information, Education and IT. This meant that I worked strategically and practically with research issues at the Faculty level.

I was conference co-chair for the iConference 2020. The conference was to take place in Borås but was converted to a virtual conference at the last minute due to the Coronavirus pandemic. The conference was co-organized by the University of Borås, OsloMet and the iSchools.

I was co-director of The Linnaeus Centre for Research on Learning, Interaction and Mediated Communication in Contemporary Society (LinCS) at the University of Gothenburg and the University of Borås 2010-2018. During 2012-2015 and 2018-2019, I also co-lead the research group Information practices. 

I was a member of the Postgraduate Education Committee in Library and Information Science until June 2021.

Education

I have taught primarily in the two Master's programs Library and Information Science, distance education and Library and Information Science: Digital Library and Information Services, but also in the Bachelor's Degree programs Librarianship and Web Editor, as well as in the PhD program in LIS. I have also lead professional development courses in Scholarly publishing and Research data management.

During the period 2008-2019, I co-ordinated three Master's Degree programs in Library and Information Science.

Voluntary work

During 2014-2015, I was Record holder for ASIS&T European Chapter.

Researcher's publications in DiVA (Digitala Vetenskapliga Arkivet)

Doctoral thesis title

The (re)creation of scholarly journals: Document and information architecture in Open Access e-journals.