Talk:Imperial College London/Archive 6

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Archive 6

Golden Triangle in Intro?

Should the 'Golden Triangle' be in the intro? It is in the intro on many of the other wiki's LSE, Kings, UCL, and Cambridge. 68.170.67.14 (talk) 21:48, 15 February 2022 (UTC)

At the moment, the lead doesn't mention any of Imperial's affiliations or associations. Rather than thinking about the 'golden triangle' (which is an unofficial grouping without a defined membership), it would be better considering whether the lead should mention the Russell Group, the League of European Research Universities and the Global Alliance of Technological Universities. If the answer to this is yes, then we can consider whether that Imperial is generally considered one of the institutions in the 'golden triangle' should be included alongside its membership of those other groups. Robminchin (talk) 05:59, 16 February 2022 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 7 July 2022: endowment figure

change endowment figure from GBP 202.1M to GBP 562.8M (latest official figure from January 2022: https://www.imperial.ac.uk/media/imperial-college/about/leadership-and-strategy/college-endowment/Endowment-Fund-Holdings---31st-January-2022.pdf) DrKSquare (talk) 06:56, 7 July 2022 (UTC)

No. The figure of 202.1M is from the latest audited accounts and includes the assets that qualify as endowments under UK accounting standards. The other figure, which surfaces occasionally here, is what is in a fund that Imperial calls the Endowment Fund. This has always been much higher than the amount of endowments shown in the externally audited accounts and the number reported to the Higher Education Statistics Agency (which matches the accounts). It is clear that not everything held in the 'Endowment Fund' is actually an endowment. Imperial can, of course, call their accounts whatever they like, but when legally obliged to report their endowment the number they use is 202.1M. Robminchin (talk) 03:03, 8 July 2022 (UTC)

 Not done: Per Robminchin. Padgriffin ^{Griffin's Nest} 09:21, 9 July 2022 (UTC)

"Is known for..." statement removed from lead

I've removed a statement claiming that what Imperial is known for is "an emphasis across subjects on innovation and entrepreneurship". This appeared to be backed only by references to Imperial doing well in rankings of innovation. But rankings don't tell you how well a university is known for the subject of the ranking, only how it compares to other institutions on that measure. Rankings cannot be used to back up this claim.

Further, saying that this is what Imperial is known for is a claim by omission that it is not known for other activities, e.g. its research or its teaching quality. It is a statement that the subject of the article is primarily notable for the activity it is identified as being known for. This is, in the case of Imperial, patently untrue. There are a huge number of things that Imperial is known for – singling out one and putting it in the lead will always be giving undue weight to that particular activity. Robminchin (talk) 15:49, 18 August 2022 (UTC)

National and Global Table image

Hi @EmyRussell: I appreciate the desire to visualize the tables over 10 years in the newly added image.

One of the commonly commented hurdles of the UK uni rankings is known disparities between national and global tables, see the article section Rankings of universities in the United Kingdom #Disparity with global rankings. It is commented that many uni's that score strongly in national tables, score worse in global tables, and vise versa. If you are adding an image for the national tables, is it possible to add a global table image (for the big three) also? Or combine the image to show both national and global rankings? Mikecurry1 (talk) 21:32, 1 March 2023 (UTC)

Hello @Mikecurry1:. The reason why the table was used for the domestic league tables is because of the volatility in performance for some universities and to map their consistence performance over a period of time to account for any trends and anomalies. Another reason is because the Complete University Guide no longer makes previous versions of their tables easily accessible and the Times/Sunday Times has always only been accessible via a subscription. As this information was available on Wikipedia, I thought it best for the information to be preserved and represented graphically.

As far as I am aware, ARWU/QS/THE all still make previous versions of their league tables easily accessible and their performances are charted graphically on the university page, e.g. https://www.topuniversities.com/universities/imperial-college-london so I did not see the need to do this for the global rankings. However in my view, if you choose to do so, you are more than welcome to. I will focus on solely updating the images for domestic rankings only as I help update multiple university pages in the UK and it would be difficult for me to track even more rankings. If you were to choose to do so, I would advise against combining the six rankings onto one image. EmyRussell (talk) 01:33, 2 March 2023 (UTC)

@EmyRussell: Yes, I agree 100 percent. Those reasons all make sense to me, including about the consistent performance and the volatility.

Yes, I agree we can probably just use one of the tables that is premade, such as from the link you provided. It would have been ideal if there were all three rankings, but I think any of the british global rankings would be fine. I imagine it is preferable for a british global ranking as the table image. I also agree with you it can be in two seperate tables one below each other.

I think the reason for having the global rankings table next to the national one is because of this paragraph from the wiki I linked describing differences in global vs national rankings, such that many schools like Manchester, Edinbururgh, and KCL perform far differently in global rankings vs national rankings due to their different purposes and methodologies. This paragraph from that wiki page explains it well:

"It has been commented by The Sunday Times that a number of universities which regularly feature in the top ten of British university league tables, such as St Andrews, Durham and LSE (in the case of LSE 3rd to 13th nationally whilst only 327th in the U.S. News & World Report Rankings / 35th in the QS Rankings / 23rd in the THE Rankings), "inhabit surprisingly low ranks in the worldwide tables", whilst other universities such as Manchester, Edinburgh and KCL "that failed to do well in the domestic rankings have shone much brighter on the international stage".[14] The considerable disparity in rankings has been attributed to the different methodology and purpose of global university rankings such as the Academic Ranking of World Universities, QS World University Rankings and Times Higher Education World University Rankings. International university rankings primarily use criteria such as academic and employer surveys, the number of citations per faculty, the proportion of international staff and students and faculty and alumni prize winners.[15][16][17]... The national rankings, on the other hand, give most weighting to the undergraduate student experience, taking account of teaching quality and learning resources, together with the quality of a university's intake, employment prospects, research quality and drop-out rates."

So I agreed with that wiki point. What would your preference be for the global table below the national table? The QS image you linked would be one good option? I am fine with that. I went onto the Times Higher Education website and only saw yearly rankings over 10 years as data points, but I did not see a graphical chart that was usable [1]. I would think any one of the british global rankings over 10 years would be fine as an image. I do not know any images with all the big three global rankings that are already made. I am fine with the QS image that you linked below the national table. If we can find an image for the THE charted that could be an alternative option. If we are too visualize the rankings, any way to have both global and national tables visualized side by side would be good, if we are too visualize them so there is a balance between national and global rankings. Of course, all big three would be ideal, but that is too time consuming to make. I am open to other images too if we can find them, but I am fine with the QS idea that was charted graphically you provided as an easier option. Mikecurry1 (talk) 03:43, 3 March 2023 (UTC)

I would be cautious of uplifting any image directly from QS/THE as that may infringe on their copyright, and I would also be against only representing one of the three major global rankings in an image as that would breach WP:NPOV and having edited other UK university pages, I am aware that previous editors have tried to hide positions of certain rankings. I provided the QS link to you to show to you that this information is easily accessible on the publication's own website, not to push for any preference in a global ranking. With regards to ARWU/THE, they make it easy to find out the ranking of universities in previous years. This is not the case with the three major domestic rankings.

Nevertheless, if you were still keen to represent Imperial's global ranking graphical performance over a 10-year period, it would be best to include Imperial's performance from 2014-23 from the results of all three of: ARWU, QS and THE (making sure to account for ARWU's difference in publication year/naming).

The UK university infobox currently has the national rankings above the global rankings, so it would make sense for the global table to be below the national table though I have no strong opinion on this matter. EmyRussell (talk) 15:31, 3 March 2023 (UTC)

Yes, I agree 100 percent on all your points. I also think it is ideal to include all the QS/THE/ARWU rankings and it is better not to use just one. I was just trying to save us time. I did not think about the copyright issue, but that is a great point. Let's see how we can create it then for all the global rankings for the most NPOV. The reason I was trying to include global as a graphical chart too was for a more NPOV, because many uni's that focus on research are evaluated by global rankings more compared to national rankings that better evaluate the undergrad experience, and the main point to create more of a balance between national and global. I liked your idea to include a graphical image for those 10 years for all the rankings as a graphical chart, and I support it. Perhaps, it is easy to make for anyone on this wiki when we have the time to add it below the other one. Mikecurry1 (talk) 21:51, 3 March 2023 (UTC)

I wish you all the best on this. Unfortunately, I will be unable to map it out myself as I want to focus my time on on updating information on Wikipedia that is not as easily accessible and understandable. If ARWU/QS/THE decide to remove previous versions of their rankings, then we can re-consider this. I have to consider that if I were to do this, I would be doing so for 30-50 UK university pages on Wikipedia and it would not be a resourceful use of my time. EmyRussell (talk) 22:21, 3 March 2023 (UTC)

Yes, I was primarily thinking about the time part. I'll do it real quick for those years suggested. Maybe someone besides us will update these in the future. Mikecurry1 (talk) 23:04, 4 March 2023 (UTC)