P - R
POP_SCHOLAR
Short Title: POP SCHOLAR Proposal URL: http://classic.ipy.org/development/eoi/proposal-details.php?id=295 The goal of this project is to make scholarly writing about the North more accessible to the general public, in both the North and the South. The scale of International Polar Year and the mass media attention that it will generate make this a perfect time to attract the general public to polar research. While many people are interested in the North, and aware of Northern issues in so much as they are presented in newspapers and on the evening news, such interested non-specialists do not have an obvious place to turn to get more detailed, in-depth information about Northern research. Our goal is to provide these people with a place to go for solid, complex information presented in an easy-to-read, accessible manner. The Arctic Institute of North America, which houses the journal _Arctic_, is an ideal place to undertake this project. _Arctic_ is a leading multidisciplinary scholarly journal focusing on the North, which publishes quarterly for a largely academic audience. Many of its articles about science and culture in the North would have wide interest for a public audience, but the language and format in which they are presented is not designed for a non-academic audience. Similarly, the scientific papers in _Polar Research_ and the social sciences and humanites topics explored in _Etudes/Inuit/Studies_ have clear relevance for a larger audience base in both the North and the South. We believe that making the synopses of academic articles more user-friendly will inspire interested readers to pursue further knowledge about the North. Each quarter, we will select two to three articles from _Arctic_, _Polar Research_, and _Etudes/Inuit/Studies_ for "popularization" and provide these synopses on the AINA website. By mounting these synopses on the Web and making them freely accessible, we are furthering that endeavour and significantly broadening our reach beyond that of a traditional subscriber-based print journal. We expect this site to become a one-stop portal for Northerners, media, and interested readers in the South. A key aspect of the project will be to partner with other Canadian and international journals with a Northern focus to expand the service to a wider range of articles that are potentially of public interest. We have, for instance, contacted the editors of _Polar Record_ and _Northern Review_ to invite them to join us in this new project, and are awaiting their responses. The project will also partner with Native organizations such as the Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami to identify priority topics of interest to Northerners and assist with translation services in the appropriate language for each region covered by a given article. Ultimately, we would like to see links from Northern community groups' own websites to the AINA website to broaden interest and access to the article synopses.