This issue holds the content of the students who took part in Simon Fraser University's President’s Dream Colloquium on Making Knowledge Public. The colloquium was both a public speaker series with leading thinkers and a seminar course open to students from the across the university.
But what was the course about? Making Knowledge Public offered a broad overview of the ways in which research makes its way into society. Through the public lectures, readings, and discussions, the course pushed emerging researchers (i.e., students!) to not take for granted the public value of their work. The course, and this jorunal, are premised on the belief that, in today’s climate, it is more important than ever for universities and researchers to assert themselves in the public sphere in more purposeful ways.
In a concerted effort to Make Knowledge Public, the students of the course were asked to begin with their own work. Every assignment in the class was required to be an act of public scholarship, whether that be a blog post, podcast, youtube video, op-ed or other public contribution to knowledge like comments or Wikipedia edits. The topics were of the student's own choosing, as was the style and form (as long as they are publicly available). This journal offered one of many vehicles for capturing their public scholarship and sharing it with the the public.