Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Universities

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/Archive 1
August 2003 - November 2006

Contents

[edit] University ratings

Looking through a good number of UK university articles it sometimes seems as though the ratings cited are far more those that show the institution at its best rather than a common standard for comparison with similar universities locally and nationally. Plus the ratings aren't even year consistent, with many seemingly only citing the highest place in a particular listing in the last few years, making comparisons harder. (Also some of the information about ratings is appearing not in a dedicated section but elsewhere, sometimes even in the introduction to the article, as though making a pre-emptive defence.)

Is there any way that a standard set can be worked out as to which listings should and shouldn't be included? Obviously most of this would need to be country specific (although are there many international ratings?) and even then there are always going to be institutions that don't appear or aren't really relevant to them (for instance a lot of UK newspapers rankings are based on full-time undergraduates so Birkbeck, University of London is often left out) but something firm would make the information far more balanced and easier to compare within countries at least. Timrollpickering 03:15, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

That is a good point. My experience is UK-only, but it would seem sensible to include the Times GUG and Guardian listings for these where they exist, and they are currently the principal ones mentioned at League tables of British universities, and, from experience, the ones the universities pay most attention to. I suppose the question is whether to include the whole variety of other ones too, and the "regional" (Scotland, England, etc) ones. Is it also worth including RAE/QAA specifications? Then there's the issue of the various rankings for the specific departments within the University - I think this might be going to far, unless the department has its own specific wikipedia article, but within a university which comes fairly low in many rankings, it can still have world-class departments.
From the point of view of what these rankings actually say, they do notoriously add weight to particular features of a university, which may or may not be relevant in each case. However, in terms of NPOV, it would seem best to present the information as is and let the reader decide. Completeness is most likely the best policy. In the cases like Birkbeck, the explanation on the page why it doesn't often appear I think is perfectly sufficient. But if we do that for some universities, the thought then arises that perhaps we should "explain" the rankings of other universities - why they're 2nd in this one, but only 27th in that one, etc, which begins to sound like a fairly major task.
On the international scale, I think there are fewer of these: in the UK, the THES listing is the one I know most about, but then there's the Shanghai Jia Tong listing too. Lies, damn lies... Rlfb 15:55, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
I'm almost wondering if a specific infobox for UK university ratings would be useful. It could include fields for THES, Sunday Times, Guardian, Shanghai Jia Tong, RAE and so forth. The main advantage would be to focus the statistics to make for clear comparisons between institutions. (For those that don't appear we can include explanations like "not included", "not placed", "declined to participate" as appropriate with a note in the article as to why - e.g. Birkbeck.) Thoughts? Timrollpickering 21:29, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
Why not expand League tables of British universities with a section discussing each of the major league tables, creating a central place where the merits of and problems with each are dealt with. Then articles which make a claim based on whatever league table makes them look best can be linked to the relevent section on that page, which discusses the relative merits of the methodology used by the Times, THES, Guardian or whatever. If you can find a consensus for which league tables are 'good'/'recognised', then articles with information from 'bad' league tables can be edited and the bad information replaced with good. Adding an infobox to every single article seems like an awful lot more work than just creating a big table from the List with a column for each league table ranking. — mholland 23:19, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
My immediate thought on the matter was also an infobox. That would allow the reader to be presented with the facts and allow them to draw their own conclusions, rather than any attempt to interpret them which might be original research. Would there be a copyvio risk in effectively republishing the entire lists on Wikipedia (albeit with only one record per article), given that some are published commercially, eg. the annual Times GUG book? DWaterson 23:22, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
There is already a defunct infobox available (seems to be part of an aborted project to standardise this sort of information). {{Infobox World university rankings}} is pretty much what's being suggested here. There's also a sort of guideline (WP:PRESTIGE) from User:Rbellin which, if applied, would weed out the weasel words in articles which do not include ranking stats in a transparent fashion. — mholland 23:46, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
Centralised statistics on a page like League tables of British universities is all fine and well and is definitely worth doing, but I suspect people are still going to try and add snippets of such information to pages about specific universities. When people want to do this, an infobox would seem to be the best approach, linked suitably to the central league table page - can we resurrect the aborted project? I am slightly concerned about copyright - would need to check this, as some information is only available by subscription (eg THES). Rlfb 00:01, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
Most league tables are compiled from publicly available statistics (in the UK, mostly from HESA) - the dead tree editions of university guides are only copyrighted and paid-for because of the accompanying analysis. — mholland 00:22, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
There's a table at Imperial College London#Academic reputation that might be a starting model. For the UK I think it may useful to include the National Student Survey as an alternative take on how universities are measured. I agree that all league tables should be treated with some scepticism (you're asking some of the cleverist people in the country who've spent years if not decades training people to pass tests to erm pass a test...) but it seems virtually impossible to keep them off the articles (especially as they are the nearest to a formal source for many places' reputation) and a structured format would make it much easier for people reading different articles to be able to compare. Timrollpickering 15:20, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
The table at Imperial is a case in point. Consistently ranked in the top three universities is weasel, and the tables chosen are selected to endorse that opinion. The Guardian currently ranks Imperial fifth; in 2003 it ranked Imperial seventh; but the chosen statistic is 2005, when they were placed third by the Guardian. — mholland 16:15, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
I am following the link from Talk:University of Manchester about the wider debate. I don't think we are seriously going to list every ranking for every university and update them every year. Indeed that would be pointless as one could look up the league tables. So at present the articles tend to mention them if they are interesting, like they rose or fell dramatically, or very good in one and bad in another, or was somebody's "university of the year" and why that year. I must also add that like most academics I regard league tables as generally bollocks. Taking arbitrary weighted sums of including things like TQA and A level scores is pretty much irrelevant. It may be notable if it has some effect, such as student applications going up or departments being closed.Billlion 09:27, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
We, as academics, have a habit of regarding league tables generally as bollocks unless it happens to look upon our own department/university favourably, at which point the result gets posted on the front page of our website and in our articles here at wikipedia, which is really stretching NPOV beyond its limits. I don't see a problem with putting the information in every year - there are many wikipedians giving many hours' work to wikipedia, and this, by comparison, is a fairly straightforward task. Either that or we ban all league table quotes on uni web pages as contravening NPOV. Rlfb 17:46, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
  • How about simply mentioning the most recent UK rankings? So obviously all university articles will carry their ranking for 2007. Next year the articles are updated with the relevant 2008 ranking and so on. this prevents selectivity. Magic Pickle 15:35, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

Should there really be a common list used? Different lists favour different Universities. Speak to staff at Universities and ask them about league tables and they'll say they're a joke. The league tables are there for a general impression but nothing more. Each page should list the best position it is at in guides and maybe any other pertinent information such as rating in the research world by industries. A standardised method of ranking Universities here on Wikipedia would add fuel to the fire. Spanky Deluxe 12:15, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

I wouldn't put it as strongly as "Different lists favour different Universities". Different methodologies produce different rankings, but no ranking that is calculated to favour a particular institution should be in use on Wikipedia. Such rankings do exist, and are usually limited to prospectuses (next to claims such as "Did you know that Poppleton University is ranked number one for a low drop-out rate among institutions with a department of Classics and an olympic-sized swinning pool on campus?").
You suggest including the best stat. I don't particularly object to this, but others might, on the basis that there's no good reason to pluck a favourable statistic with no objective reason. Indeed, why not let's include the worst statistic – that would be just as fair. What I do think, though, is that we would still need a consensus on which league tables have sufficient integrity to be included. I could find best statistics from some pretty disreputable sources, if I wanted. — mholland 15:44, 25 February 2007 (UTC)
I agree with you that there need to be limitations in regards to 'best' statistics, I didn't take that into account in my message above. League tables that could be chosen from are, in my opinion, the league tables of leading newspapers, Times, Guardian, Telegraph etc and reputable rankings such as Newseek 'Top 100' or that world rankings list by the Shanghai Jiao Tong University. Added information such as being ranked by big businesses or research organisations could be added sometimes but would have to be evaluated on a case to case basis. I think some leeway should be given as to which year's league tables are used. One University might be ranked say 20th in 2005 and then 40th in 2006. Since league tables should only be a rough indication, I'd say that league tables referenced in the last 5 years is acceptable. I do think that less importance should be played on league tables as opposed to things like international recognition of specific departments, which would be more suited for sections on those departments in articles. Some Universities do not do so well in league tables, however, they sometimes have one area of research in which they are world reknown.

In a nutshell, 'best' should be the highest rating a University has had in the past 5 years out of the most reknown league tables published. This should always be followed by more specific ratings and details on reputation in notables areas of study and research. Thoughts? Spanky Deluxe 16:06, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Lists of universities - to use rankings or not?

There's currently a rather small participation debate on Talk:List of universities in London#Why use Guardian rankings here? over whether or not the information should be a straightforward list of universities in London (give or take sections to distinguish foreign universities and the colleges of the federal University of London) or whether it should be listed according to the institution's placing in a couple of newspaper league tables. Since this could lead to other lists of universities being rearranged wider input is highly desirable. Timrollpickering 22:44, 15 December 2006 (UTC)


problematic, due to the proliferation of widely different ranking scales, besides basic problems how much the rankings actually mean, obviously the difference between say, Oxford and Bolton are clear but why 'rank' Wolverhampton over Bolton? (or vice versa?)--Isolani 21:29, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia Day Awards

Hello, all. It was initially my hope to try to have this done as part of Esperanza's proposal for an appreciation week to end on Wikipedia Day, January 15. However, several people have once again proposed the entirety of Esperanza for deletion, so that might not work. It was the intention of the Appreciation Week proposal to set aside a given time when the various individuals who have made significant, valuable contributions to the encyclopedia would be recognized and honored. I believe that, with some effort, this could still be done. My proposal is to, with luck, try to organize the various WikiProjects and other entities of wikipedia to take part in a larger celebrartion of its contributors to take place in January, probably beginning January 15, 2007. I have created yet another new subpage for myself (a weakness of mine, I'm afraid) at User talk:Badbilltucker/Appreciation Week where I would greatly appreciate any indications from the members of this project as to whether and how they might be willing and/or able to assist in recognizing the contributions of our editors. Thank you for your attention. Badbilltucker 23:02, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] College of the Holy Cross

Hi everyone, I'm pretty new to Wikipedia. Some of my friends have been working on the entry for College of the Holy Cross and would like to find out to request feedback/peer review on the entry so far. It's definitely needs to major work on photos, history, and campus but we just needed feedback on the structure and what to do to get to GA status. If you could let me know or send me a message that would be great. Thanks! Destinvil 00:18, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

Hi there. Good work on College of the Holy Cross. This WikiProject is comparatively small, and does not operate an article assessment table. You may find that, having posted here, a few active members will make some adjustments to your article anyway.
  • If you would like to have the article peer reviewed by a general group of editors, go to Wikipedia:Peer review and follow the instructions there.
  • If you would like to put the article forward for GA status, go to Wikipedia:Good articles/Candidates and list it in the Education section.
Hope that helps; College of the Holy Cross looks pretty good already. — mholland 05:19, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Infobox University and images

The Infobox template has recently been adjusted. Would anyone like comment on the discussion over on its talk page about the use of images in the box? - mholland 01:16, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] WikiProject template

Is there a template to go on relevant article talk pages? At the moment it seems a lot of editors don't know about the existance of this project and this often leads to changes on individual articles. Timrollpickering 12:50, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

I've created one at Template:WikiProject Universities which I'll add to articles as I come across them. Help in getting the template everywhere would be much appreciated. Timrollpickering 15:14, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Noted alumni, faculty: Recommend that sources be cited; note definition of "alumnus"

Under "structure," I'd like to see a specific note an "alumnus" means anyone who has attended a school, whether or not they completed a degree. (It is a frequent misconception that alumnus means "graduate").

I'd like to see a specific recommendation that sources be cited inline, directly in the list.

There seems to be a feeling around WIkipedia that the verifiability policy goes out the window for lists, or that a lists of names need not have citations "because the information [in theory in an ideal world would always be] found in the linked article." Experience has shown that it is quite often the case that linked articles for an alumnus/a do not' mention the school he or she attended, and even when it does it is much more frequently the case that the linked article cites no source. But in any case a Wikipedia article is not considered a reliable source for another Wikipedia article. If the linked article does cite a source, it should be copied into the list.

Given that most notable people associated with universities have bios quickly available online... if not through standard reference sources... I'd really like to ask people to spend the five minutes up front to source these as they go in, rather than leaving them as a blob of unsourced material. Dpbsmith (talk) 19:32, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

This brings up two issues. Not the citation part, the alumnus defintion. First, the defintion you are using is not the only defintion, someplaces list it as only graduates. On wikipedia it uses the definition you are using, but you need to include the entire definition that includes the part about poeple working somewhere being an alumnus. There is where the problem lies. According to this expanded definition any faculty would also qualify as alumni and go into the alumni list/category as well. The second issue then comes with categorization, where there are often categories for both ABC U alumni and ABC U people/faculty. I think either we need to define alumni as graduates only, or simply remove the distinction and have lists/categories of ABC U people as there would likely be few if any people that fit people but not alumni. Basically, there is no difference between alumni and people if we use the newer definition of alumni. Aboutmovies 19:27, 18 February 2007 (UTC)
(Comments also made at Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions#University categories
It's very difficult to use "graduate" as a definition without full access to records of graduation - most of the information available is about whether someone attended an institution and there are many reasons they may not have graduated - not finished their course, declined to actually take the formal final award (two common anecdotal cases involve research students not actually writing up the thesis but instead going into employment with their sponsor and students with debts to the university not repaying them and so not getting the degree), taken a course that doesn't end with graduation (this happens a lot with short and technical courses), been to university in an earlier era when graduation didn't mean much and so forth. I'm not sure where this "working somewhere" stuff comes through for staff - from what I can see the only cases where staff are being listed as alumni are where they were also students (a number who haven't yet got their PhDs do take them internally) or the handful of universities that confer honourary degrees upon staff who aren't alumni. Using "former students" is the only workable definition. Also adding in staff and others with university connections would massively increase many categories to the point that they'd need to be sub-divided again. Timrollpickering 20:10, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Making better use of this WikiProject

Looking at some of the other WikiProjects, especially Military history, I feel that more could be made of this project with a clearer structure, more detailed guidelines on issues (ranging from "what is an alumnus" above to naming conventions) and targetted articles.

I'm going to ask about for ideas. One early priority is to get this project more widely known - a starting point is getting this template {{WikiProject Universities}} onto all university articles which is not the easiest of tasks but one that will in turn make it easy to reach the relevant articles. Timrollpickering 21:36, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

From early suggestions and looking at Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Guide the single biggest thing this project is missing is an internal review process to assess articles, nominate individual ones for improvements, hold up good practice and so forth. Does anyone have any suggestions as to how to implement this? Timrollpickering 11:17, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] New article creation - language

This is one that's been kicking about a while on Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Missing encyclopedic articles/Colleges and Universities:

'how aggressive should we be about names being in English? I rather believe that everything should be titled in English... however, some institutions are insisting that their "English" names are the same as their native names, and others without English websites are hard to determine, and Google searches often find a variety of English translations without a dominating version. I think that the style guidelines suggest that if an official English translation isn't available, a reasonable one should be given. How do we feel about it? Cpastern 20:27, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

Does anyone have a suggestion? Timrollpickering 11:04, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

I assume you mean for cases more difficult than [Native place-name] + [Native word for 'University']? Those are straightforward to translate, and I think general naming conventions cover whether or not they should be translated. If an institution is known more by its native name than by its English name, then that should be the article title. There's always the infobox, where the English name always goes at the top, and the native name inside the box, so there's no case for always translating.
The trouble is that if a University does not itself provide an English translation of its name, it's likely to be because it doesn't teach any courses or publish any research in English — so it's less likely to pop up on our radar, however notable it may be. — mholland 18:19, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
Whatever guideline/policy we come up with, we'll have to allow for exceptions because some are heavily politicised. See University of Prishtina (and its talk page archive) for a nightmare example. This one flipped between Prishtina (Albanian) and Priština (Serbian) frequently for a while, and like the rest of the Kosova-related articles, it's likely to flare up again from time to time. It's debatable whether they were the same institution, but two separate articles is as unpopular with some people as is one article with both names. – Kieran T (talk) 18:33, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
If an institution teaches no classes in English and does not even translate its name then does it even belong in en.wikipedia? --ElKevbo 18:40, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
Sure it does. They do notable things in non-English speaking places all the time. — mholland 18:44, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
Can you please clarify who "they" are and about what "things" you are speaking? --ElKevbo 18:49, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
I'll be honest and say I've no clue, because I don't speak any non-European languages. But if I were to ask you to prove that nothing notable ever happened in, say, Tianjin Medical University, you'd be just as stumped. I don't believe that notable information should be excluded from Wikipedia just because it was discovered in another language — it would be arrogant of me to assume that all worthwhile research is done in, or even translated into , English. — mholland 19:20, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
I think you may have misunderstood my question and my intent in asking it. Specifically, I was asking you to clarify the indefinite nouns used in your statement as I was honestly confused by the jump from singular to plural and subsequent lack of specificity.
I certainly agree with your assertion that non-English contributions to history, knowledge, human development, etc. have and continue to take place (and given the rise of China and India, among others, I expect this trend to increase). I think there are two questions hidden here:
1. How extensive should coverage of explicitly non-English institutions should be present in the English version of Wikipedia? Although this question touches issues of bias I ask in the spirit of Wikipedia's current policies and culture.
2. Ignoring the massive decentralization inherent in Wikipedia, how should we prioritize creation, maintenance, and improvement of articles describing explicitly non-English articles in the English Wikipedia?
--ElKevbo 19:33, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
Apologies for poor articulation :) In response:
1. Coverage should be every bit as extensive as that of Anglophone institutions. I realise, though, that the bottleneck in achieving that sort of coverage is probably the language barrier and not notability criteria. If a University's website is exclusively in a foreign tongue, then extracting information for the English Wikipedia is going to be a problem.
2. I think, as editors, we have to prioritise articles that we can best contribute. Perhaps the best way of getting good coverage of Foreign University X is for us to request an article/expansion of an article from the WikiProject covering the country where University X is located.
— mholland 19:49, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

(resetting indentation for those on small screens)
I'd agree about covering all institutions of note — there are plenty of reasons why somebody who is primarily comfortable with English (and therefore using the English Wikipedia) might want to read about a foreign-language institution. Also, incidentally, well done Tim for speedily adding the project tag to Prishtina Uni! ;) – Kieran T (talk) 19:58, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

Cheers. Getting back to the naming, I'll start with some examples. Let's take an existing transnational list - the European Association of Distance Teaching Universities. One particular problem here is that whilst within the country names like "Open University" and "Distance University" are unambiguous, internationally they are more of a problem and the institutions might either stick to the native language form, use an acronym or even add the country name for international purposes. We have:
Native language is English:
Open University UK - Easy. (Although as an aside the OU does do some stuff in the Welsh language, run out of the regional centre for Wales. I've no idea about what, if any, language provisions there are for Scots, Scots Gallic, Orkadian and Shetlandic, though UHI Millenium Institute in Scotland has published materials in all four Scottish languages.)
Article using native language name:
Centre national d'enseignement à distance France. (It doesn't actually have a translation yet.)
FernUniversität Hagen Germany. (From what I can see this is the preferred name to use in English rather than "Distance University Hagen" which appears to be just a literal translation.)
Universidade Aberta Portugal. (No infobox yet, but the name is translated in the article as "Open University".
Universitat Oberta de Catalunya Spain, specifically Catalonia, using the Catalan name form. It means "Open University of Catalonia". The website uses Catalan, Spanish and English.
Article using native language acronym:
Uned Spain. "Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia". The info box gives as the first title "National University for Distance Education".
Article using English translation:
Open University (Netherlands) rather than "Open Universiteit Nederland", despite "Open Universiteit" being used throughout the article text (and is used in the memberlist for the EADTU).
Anadolu University. Turkey - the Turkish is "Anadolu Üniveristesi". Anadolu itself redirects to Anatolia - the pennisula which most of Asian Turkey occupies.
And that's just a handful of institutions in Europe! There are more complicated cases where it's very hard to determine whether the native language form or an English translation is commonly used in English. The best example I can think of is actually the student representative bodies - see Eurodoc#Members and Observers (postgraduates/doctoral researchers) where most organisations are in the native language form and National Unions of Students in Europe#Full members which is predominantly translated. And both lists contain a lot of red links. Timrollpickering 20:24, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] School colors

I've noticed that many universities, like the University of Chicago and Penn State, use markup to show samples of the school colors within the infobox for that article. I'm relatively new to this project - has there been any talk about creating a template to standardize this usage? -- PSUMark2006 talk | contribs 23:43, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

My personal opinion is that that's a template (or parameter) too far. I think that if users need a little square of maroon and another little square of white in order to visualise the colors of the University of Chicago, then they need to put the mouse down and step away from the keyboard. There's a standard on pages using {{Oxbridge College Infobox}} for putting a strip of the college scarf on (e.g. Clare Hall, Cambridge) which I'm more in favour of - at least it's an arrangement of colours. Other UK universities which have adopted a scarf have put that in {{Infobox University}} (e.g. Durham University). In general, though, I think that just mentioning the colours in words suffices for most colleges. — mholland 21:51, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
  • I would agree. It used to be that school colors were just stated as a wikilink to the color itself. That, IMHO, is wholly sufficient. The boxes—way too much. —ExplorerCDT 21:57, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
  • P.S. Thanks for mentioning the Academic scarf article. I learned something new, found something I like enough to recommend via e-mail that Rutgers adopt one. —ExplorerCDT 21:58, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
Understandable. After I made the suggestion, I did a little research of my own and found out that a template similar to the one I described already exists - {{Colorbox}}. Not to be difficult or argumentative, but I don't think it's a matter of "needing to visualise" the colors, but it's a matter of making as user-friendly an encyclopedia as we can, providing the kind of attention to detail that users might expect. I'm certainly not saying that this needs to become a requirement or make it a part of the infobox, just that since these aren't the only two articles I've seen use such a template (I've seen similar uses of boxed color swatches as part of legends, keys, or other descriptors elsewhere), it might be worth thinking about making it easier to provide this functionality. -- PSUMark2006 talk | contribs 21:59, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
That's fine. The boxes certainly aren't harming the Chicago article. — mholland 22:05, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] WikiProject Big Ten

Hi. I'm starting a WikiProject that is somewhat of a spinoff of this one, WikiProject Big Ten. Anyone in this project who is especially familiar with the Big Ten would be an asset, and we could certainly combine on the main college articles. If there's no interest here my apologies, but hopefully there is. --Wizardman 03:15, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] University Yearbooks

I would like to propose an addition to the Infobox_University template: Yearbook / Yearbook name

Every school has (or had) a yearbook in it's history. The yearbooks represent the institutional memory of the university and are an important resource that should be added to the template. For example, did you know that the University of Mississippi got it's nickname "Ole Miss" from the yearbook? These yearbooks contain relevant and original content such as:

  • Pictures of hundreds of thousands of alumni
  • Photos from all the sporting activies (trips to the Rose Bowl, basketball national championships as well as all the sports teams)
  • Photos of all the greek organizations and activities
  • Pictures of faculty, staff, Board of Regents, Deans of Schools
  • A broad photo portfolio of student organizations and activities
  • Original photography by students of important events on campus

Does anyone disagree with this proposal? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 71.198.39.140 (talk) 04:38, 9 January 2007 (UTC).

Disagree- I can't see how yearbook name can be useful. In fact, I would guess most colleges yearbooks don't have special names, and some colleges/universities don't have yearbooks at all. I think there is already a section for "nickname". Also, any more suggestions should go on the template talk page. Danski14 05:05, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

Not of sufficiently general application for a field on the infobox, I think. Add a note to Template talk:Infobox University if you really want to push the case. But I wholeheartedly encourage you (User:71.198.39.140) to create an account and add relevant, sourced information to the articles under this project. — mholland 17:59, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Loyola Marymount University as part of your project?

Hello, while on vandal patrol, I noticed this article taking some hits. Loyola Marymount University seems like it should be part of your project. I noticed it did not have a tag on its talkpage like Stanford University does. Cheers. Ronbo76 06:24, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

Then feel free to add the tag in. I'll go do it now.--Wizardman 06:29, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
I was also out on vandal patrol and spotted a university that needed adding. I've added it but I think someone from your project should have a look at it because to me it reads like an advert from their prospectus. Thanks. - X201 09:23, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
Forgot to add the link. Sorry. The university is this one, University of Wollongong - X201 09:35, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] WikiProject Rutgers

FYI: I've started a WikiProject, hopefully to be under the auspices of the New Jersey and Universities WikiProjects to direct efforts to articles related to Rutgers University, at Wikipedia:WikiProject Rutgers. —ExplorerCDT 16:40, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Possible conflict of interest

Just wanted to note that an editor has been adding references to a book presumably written by that same editor or someone associated with him (the Wikipedia username matches the author's name). I've posted a brief message on the editor's Talk page. I just wanted a few more eyeballs on this to ensure (a) I've acted appropriately and (b) there are others aware of this editor and other editors who may behave similarly. --ElKevbo 17:52, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

Ostensibly, it's a scholarly work, published reputably - although I agree it's a COI if the editor is also the author, and I note that the citation is just dumped in the refs, and no information in the articles actually comes from the book. I'd suggest that the user is just an enterprising newbie, and he's already had policy brought to his attention.
Given the articles on which they appear, I'd recommend leaving them, but changing to a neutral citation (i.e. not SUP with its 'BUY IT NOW' link). — mholland 00:18, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Request Peer Review

I'm requesting a peer review for the University of Oklahoma article. One other editor gave me some great feedback and I've made most of the changes he recommended but I'm still working on others. I'd like to nominate this article for FA sometime soon. Please let me know of your opinions: Wikipedia:Peer review/University of Oklahoma.--NMajdan•talk 14:44, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Rutgers University Peer Review

I put a request in for Rutgers University to be peer reviewed at WP:PR two weeks ago, and got a disappointingly minimal response. The only people who reviewed were users I asked to chime in with their examination and scrutiny. Peer Review right now is badly inactive. If anyone from this wikiproject has a few minutes to read through the article and give a few pointers or suggestions, I'd be much obliged if you'd stop by and leave some comments at the Rutgers University article's discussion page. —ExplorerCDT 22:38, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

I'll try to take a look at this tomorrow. But, would you mind doing the same for University of Oklahoma? I also tried the PR process and only got the response of one person who is on the college football WikiProject with me. He left some detailed notes on the OU peer review page. I'll try to review Rutgers tomorrow at the earliest or mid next week at the latest.--NMajdan•talk 22:50, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
  • Coincidentally, I just started reading the Oklahoma article a few moments ago, right after I initially posted this request. (I intend to read it twice...first for style and technical issues, second for content) I should be able to provide my input at OU's peer review shortly after dinner this evening. Thank you. —ExplorerCDT 22:55, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] University of Wisconsin

I'd appreciate some wider input at Talk:University of Wisconsin (disambiguation)#Requested move. The issue is that the disambiguation page has been moved from the unqualified name at University of Wisconsin to University of Wisconsin (disambiguation), and the resulting redirect then pointed to University of Wisconsin-Madison. There's also a suggestion that University of Wisconsin-Madison be moved to University of Wisconsin.

I'm a bit far from the action, but I gather there's been a lot of debate about this outside of Wikipedia, including a referendum last year that failed to rename the Milwaukee campus. Currently the position seems to be that University of Wisconsin is an unofficial and previous name of the Madison campus, and also of the larger University of Wisconsin System.

What I fear is that Wikipedia may become involved in these political name games. Is there perhaps a push to see University of Wisconsin reinstated as the official name of the Madison campus? That would explain a lot.

As part of this discussion, there's been mention of the need for a standard for all US State University systems, so some wider input would be timely for this reason too. Andrewa 08:10, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

Hi there. From what I can see, the debate is a bit of a lame war over whether one particular institution gets the 'prize' designation of the redirect "University of Wisconsin". Of course there must be one article each about every notable institution in the UW System, and of course there must be a dab page to sort them out.
The relevant policy in determining whether to use parenthetical disambiguation or not is WP:DAB#Primary topic. I can only suggest that it be impartially applied here. — mholland 02:18, 25 January 2007 (UTC)
You've hit it right on the head.
In terms of WP:DAB, the problem is that there are (at least) two competing views as to what is the primary topic. It seems to depend on context... see this previous version of the disambig for what we ended up with after a lot of previous discussion.
I'm trying to be impartial, but I do have an agenda... that of the non-US readers of Wikipedia! What seems very obvious to Wisconsin residents (one of whom gave an edit summary the name says it all at one stage) can be very confusing to others of us. Andrewa 04:22, 25 January 2007 (UTC)
See also Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/University of Wisconsin (disambiguation). Andrewa 10:51, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Straw Poll regarding renaming Rutgers University

[edit] Proliferation of Campus Building Articles

What is you opinion of the proliferation of articles on buildings at universities? I am of the opinion that many of them are not sufficiently notable for inclusion in Wikipedia. Besselfunctions 16:18, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

Could you provide some examples? A lot of buildings which aren't sufficiently notable get a few lines merged into the Campus section of the parent article, or deleted outright. Is that not happening efficiently at the moment? — mholland 18:00, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

Perfect example, at Rutgers: Demarest Hall. It doesn't connect to the Rutgers University article as when i wrote it I didn't find it relevant, likewise, I didn't include it on the {{Rutgers}} template. It's only accessible through the Rutgers University category (that's how I found it). Some Demarest resident thought it notable beacuse that's where Rutgers threw a couple special interest groups, but mostly on campus it's thought poorly of for being filled with wannabe hippies and homosexuals (which the article, glaringly, does not mention). It is the only article about a dormitory or individual building at Rutgers. I wisely think any discussion about buildlings should be limited, individually, to those that are historically significant....Nassau Hall at Princeton (which was the nation's capital in 1783), the tower where the sniper shot at a few peole from UTexas-Austin for example, the Bodleian Library or Radcliffe Camera at Oxford, or the Great Tower of Magdalen College, Oxford. But generally, absent that significance historically, I don't think articles about individual buildings should be made. If the building is not notable in itself, but might be part of a historically notable quad or area, like Harvard Yard, or Old Queens (Rutgers oldest historical building, and the surrounding "campus" with 5 (formerly 6) other buildings that takes its name) or the Voorhees Mall (historical-academic core at Rutgers, it should be included on such an article, but not to stand alone. —ExplorerCDT 18:44, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

Merging into lists is sometimes good. These have short paragraphs of buildings and/or discussion of the campus and links to major buildings with their own pages. For another approach, take a look at Buildings at the University of Kentucky or Buildings at Marshall University. These are fairly big schools, and most of the buildings listed are notable, but they shouldn't think they need an article on every building. I think a good thing to do when non-notable buildings are found is merge them into a article on the campus or a "Buildings at _____" article or something related. An example of this was Aquinas College (actually a secondary school, in western Australia (!?!) ). Editors found a huge collection of misc. articles (at least 15-20 I'd say). A few were listed here : Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Old Aquinians Hockey Club. The result was to downgrade them all and merge into the main article. Danski14 04:29, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

I haven't read this whole discussion yet but the topic made me think of something I saw awhile ago. List of Male Dorms at Notre Dame & List of Female Dorms at Notre Dame. About 25-30 dorm buildings each with its own article. See also Category:University_of_Notre_Dame_residence_halls↔NMajdan•talk 04:55, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
Most of those links in the list articles are redirects back to the list. There are only 10 entries in the Category. --Bduke 06:00, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] notability of colleges/universities

I remember reading somewhere (probably from the schools notability debate) that tertiary education institutions, no matter their nature (private/public, non-profit/for-profit, liberal arts/engineering/community college/technical) are automatically notable and not subject to CSD 7. Am I just dreaming or can someone point me to the policy, guideline, or consensus about this? Twice this month I've had to defend college articles I created from deletion on notability grounds. Thanks. Wl219 06:42, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Hi there. There's no inherent notability for universities or colleges that I'm aware of. There is, however, a proposed guideline at Wikipedia:Schools, which adopts the US definition of 'school', including tertiary/higher education institutions. That proposed guideline is the third major redraft of the proposal, and there's a big talk archive full of not much consensus. One of the current proposals is that private, for-profit Universities should be assessed for notability under WP:CORP. Apart from that, the criteria seem a lot easier for a university or higher college to pass than for a school.
While it seems to me that most universities are clearly notable, you only have to go through the yellow pages to find some (usually foreign) unaccredited doctorate-farms whose 'campus' is an office above a kebab shop in London or Berlin. These obviously aren't inherently notable, and while the debate at WP:SCHOOLS3 shows no sign of consensus approval yet, I doubt 'inherent notability' will be in there. — mholland 12:28, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Bicol University

Hi! Please take a look at this article especially the part where it says "Contributed by" (last lines). I don't know what to do with it. Thanks! Fddfred 07:21, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Presidents at multiple universities

What infobox templates, if any, should be used to adequately describe presidents who have served at multiple universities? The one I've been using, {{Infobox University Chancellor}}, doesn't allow for multiple tenures to be listed. — PSUMark2006 talk | contribs 03:47, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

That's kind of an ugly template. Perhaps we need to create a replacement. —Disavian (talk/contribs) 07:15, 28 February 2007 (UTC)
Try
{{s-start}}
{{s-aca}}
{{s-bef | before=[[Richard Haldane, 1st Viscount Haldane|The Viscount Haldane of Cloan]]}}
{{s-ttl | title=[[Chancellor (education)|Chancellor]] of the [[University of Bristol]]}}
{{s-aft | after=[[Henry Somerset, 10th Duke of Beaufort|The Duke of Beaufort]]}}
{{end}}
Academic Offices
Preceded by
The Viscount Haldane of Cloan		 Chancellor of the University of Bristol Succeeded by
The Duke of Beaufort
Preceded by
The Viscount Haldane of Cloan		 Chancellor of the University of Bristol Succeeded by
The Duke of Beaufort
(The non-duplicate example here is one from an old revision of Winston Churchill). You can add as many s-bef, s-ttl, s-aft as you need. Splash - tk 17:11, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Notable Alumni

I regret if this has been covered previously, I did not find a specific answer in my brief review to this point. I am writing to inquire on whether this group has developed, at a very general level, a baseline on what defines a "notable alumnus" of an institution. I am beginning to see, and I sure it has always been prevelant, the inclusion of individuals, perhaps by their own addition, whose achievements or other determining qualitative factors do not merit inclusion. How have others handled this issue? Internazionale 18:41, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

In the past I have seen a number of lists of alumni which are essentially limited to those who have a wikipedia article. I don't know if this is necessarily an official policy, but it acts as a reasonable guide. Obviously some exceptions will occur - not everyone notable necessarily has a wikipedia article (though most do), and some people with articles in wikipedia are not particularly notable (though in this case the page about the person probably shouldn't exist). Rlfb 20:33, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

That is an interesting approach. I don't know if I would venture to that extreme, I just don't think that notable alumni lists should become near advertisements for individuals who show a bit of initiative by adding their information. I suppose it becomes difficult to distinguish, a scientist who might be strong in his/her profession does not get the same level of "notability" as any level of a major league sports athlete. It is of course subjective. Thanks though. Internazionale 21:09, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

AS I say, just a guideline really. Certainly with academics it is harder to quantify their "notability". If, however, there are people adding themselves as advertisement, then I'd have though this contradicts the conflict of interest guideline. Rlfb 21:24, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Userbox

Is anyone up for creating a userbox for this project?--Imaginationac 03:15, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

Ask and ye shall receive:
This user is a member of WikiProject Universities.
Use {{User:UBX/WPUNI}}. You may want to go and adjust the colours: I've defaulted to very very boring. — mholland 04:26, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] University template not working

The infobox puts a lot of extra spaces all of a sudden. See George Washington University or University of Tennessee. What's the deal? --AW 17:35, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

Someone fixed it. thanks --AW 17:38, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Problem of continually changing statistics

This issue may have already been raised in the "Rankings" discussions, but I've noticed university articles making claims such as "The largest school in the state,county,etc." While these statements may have been true at the time they were written, student enrollment continues to fluctuate and articles should be contiually updated accordingly. Comparisons should use the most currently available data. I suggest that sections with these statements be should contain some sort or temporal tag. Perhaps a new type of tag needs to be created for this very purpose. Hanjabba 05:23, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

Can you give any examples? Claims of that sort should cite a good source, or be deleted as puff - if there's no current statistic quoted, you'd be right just to delete the claim. Have you encountered WP:AO, which deals with quickly-dating statistics? It may be what you're looking for. — mholland 12:28, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Oriel College

I am surprised to see that Oriel College, a featured article belonging to WikiProject Universities, lacks any mention of academics. There are many other problems with the article as well, and I have noted them on the talk page of the article. I would request experienced editors of this WikiProject to share their comments over the issues raised. — Ambuj Saxena (talk) 11:19, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

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