User:Moray An Par/b

This is an

Wikipedia:College and university article guideline.

It contains the advice or opinions of one or more Wikipedia contributors. This page is not an encyclopedia article, nor is it one of Wikipedia's policies or guidelines, as it has not been thoroughly vetted by the community

. Some essays represent widespread norms; others only represent minority viewpoints.

This set of college and university article advice is intended to apply to all college and university articles (and some related articles). While the guidelines presented here are well-suited for the vast majority of such articles, alternate approaches and exceptions have been taken, often the result of national educational differences. Articles for universities in the United States may differ slightly from articles in the United Kingdom. However, the guidelines are designed to apply to all colleges and universities. If something seems unusual or out-of-place, it may be worthwhile to ask before attempting to change it, as there might be reasons for the oddity that are not immediately obvious.

Notability

thoroughly vetted by the community

.

In general, all colleges and universities are

policy

and should not be treated as such. It is also important to bear in mind that anyone can set up an institution and call it a "college" or, in many countries, a "university", so that it is essential to be clear whether an institution actually merits such a description.

Reliable sources

Wikipedia

reliable sources

.

Special care is required for citing

self-published sources, such as information about a college/university published by the college/university itself: the cited information must be authentic, not be self-serving (see Neutral point of view

), and not involve claims about third parties. Self-published sources cannot comprise the majority of an article's citations. Student-published college newspapers and university-published press releases are generally reliable sources for verifying information, however, these sources are not as strong a source to demonstrate notability as mainstream news organizations, and should be evaluated on a case by case basis. Coverage by mainstream news organizations should always be preferred over press releases by a college or university's news office and stories in the student newspaper.

However, colleges and universities do publish a wide variety of important and authoritative information that should be included in any article. The Common Data Set, a fact book/almanac, President's reports, course catalogs, and/or faculty handbooks are excellent and authoritative sources of information on the college or university and can commonly be found on the websites for the provost, registrar, or institutional research office. A university's library or archives office may have a list of published articles or books about the university's history that can be used as reliable sources as well.

Independent organizations and national governments also collect and disseminate information about colleges and universities. In the United States, the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching publishes widely-used descriptive classifications of colleges and universities, the Department of Education publishes statistics through the College Navigator website, and the National Science Foundation publishes information on research & development expenditures.

Neutral point of view

Make sure to write from a

undue weight

to either side.

Watch out for overly general and vague statements such as "there are many who think University of X's business program is great" or "Y College is widely recognized as a preeminent institution". Such

peacock terms and other words to avoid

is strongly discouraged (e.g., "University of Z is a highly prestigious…" or "Z College is a renowned…") Remember, Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not an admissions pamphlet and these pieces of fluff actually lower the prose to an unprofessional level.

If you cite college and university rankings, be precise and honest. Refactoring rankings (71st nationally according to the source, but 2nd among colleges in the state) to boost the score constitutes

synthesize

an image of the institution, whether good or bad. Give one factual statement summarising overall "most recent" rankings obtained in key surveys (for example, "In 2010, institution 'A' has been ranked #3 by The Economist, #5 by The New York Times and #8 by Financial Times."). In the lead, do not give the sub factor rankings obtained in each survey (for example, details like "ranked #x in placements" or "ranked #3 in research" should not be given in lead at all).

Naming conventions

This section is a complement to

Wikipedia's naming conventions

, not a replacement. Always consider the Wikipedia conventions first when naming a page.

College and university articles

Colleges and universities should always be named using the

common

(not necessarily official) name of the institution. This can often be determined by looking at current branding of a university via their website, published documents, and advertisements.

Capitalize every word in the title except for articles such as the, of, and and.

In general, do not use The before the institution name unless it is the commonly recognized name of the university, such as
The Art Institute of Boston. Institutions may be officially named using The (such as Ohio State University and George Washington University
), however it is preferred that The be left out of the article name.

Never use abbreviations or acronyms in titles unless the institution you are naming is almost exclusively known only by including such terms and is widely used in that form. See

Wikipedia:Naming conventions (abbreviations)

for more information.

For universities that are part of a

University of Colorado at Boulder

). Most university websites should provide clarification, but in general it is preferred that all institutions in the system use the same naming convention. This may be overruled by common branding.

Disambiguation

Do not

naming conflict

exists.

Never make a disambiguation tag longer than necessary.

For institutions that share a name, both institutions should follow their name with the highest uncommon location in parentheses. For example, if there are multiple institutions with the same name in the U.S., put the state name in parentheses (not the city name) like in

Augustana College (South Dakota)

. For institutions that have the same name between countries put the country name in parentheses.

Consider creating redirects to the correct page from pages with names similar to the correct one and from pages with names which are discouraged per this convention. Also consider adding hatnotes linking between articles with similar names.
Add a link to the institution on its corresponding
NYU
) and can be redirected right to the university article without a disambiguation page.

Lists

A list article's title should accurately describe its content.
Lists should be named "List of..." (e.g. List of alumni of Jesus College, Oxford).

Article structure

The basic structure of a college or university article should follow the general format below. Sections may be expanded, customized, or moved depending on need and type of institution. It may help to take a look at some of our

references

.

Infobox — All institution articles should utilize {{
references
to potentially contentious information such as endowment and enrollment.
Lead — The article should start with a good
lead section
. This should include basic information like: the name(s) of the institution, location (city name; describe multiple campuses if present), founder and founding name, and affiliation with any larger university system or major local affiliate network, if applicable. Give other names for which the university may be known (e.g. Cal) and bold them, too. A thumbnail sketch of the dominant and distinguishing characteristics should be given in the lead, and expanded later. Attributes should include public/private, coeducational/single-sex, 2/4-year, religiously-affiliation if applicable, and type (liberal arts college, multi-school university, vocational school, research institution, community college, etc.) It should be mentioned whether it is an undergraduate-only institution, or if graduate programs are present (and if so, specific stand-alone programs like medical, law, and divinity schools should be mentioned). In addition, do not include images in the lead, they should be placed elsewhere. The lead should not include information not covered in the main body of the article. Summarize the rest of the article without giving undue weight to any particular section (such as rankings) and mention distinguishing academic, historical, or demographic characteristics. The lead should be a concise summary of the entire article — not simply an introduction.
History — Describe the history of the college/university, including noteworthy milestones in its development such as sexual and racial integration, major campus expansions, foundation of new schools, notable student protests or reforms, and impact of major historical events like wars. It is a good idea to include old pictures of buildings which no longer exist or photos traditions practiced centuries ago. You can find many old images on
public domain image search engines
.
Campus, or if more appropriate Facilities or Buildings — Describe the overall layout and size of the campus as well as its geographical context or proximity to major cities. Expand on the previous historical discussion of the expansion of the university by describing important buildings, their design, and uses. If any buildings have been included on historic registers or have historic or cultural importance beyond the university itself, be sure to mention this with appropriate citations. This section could also summarize information about satellite campuses,
study abroad
sites, libraries (which may also be found in the academic or research sections depending on emphasis), and on-going campus planning activities. If the college or university has made significant commitments to sustainability or other environmental initiatives, summarize this information as a subsection here.
Organization and administration — Discuss the structure of the administration, current leadership, budget, relationship with a board of trustees or regents, student government, endowment information, and academic divisions of the college/university. If this college/university has a special organizational structure, such as a
Five Colleges) or is a member of a major consortium or other inter-university organization (Annapolis Group, Association of American Universities
, etc.), mention these as well.

Academics or Academic profile — This section contains information related to the

WP:BOOSTER

, the rankings should be presented neutrally and without undue weight — do not exclude or re-factor rankings because they are inconveniently low, attempt to include every ranking or all historical rankings, or emphasize rankings of sub-disciplines over rankings of the college or university as a whole.

Research — This section may be included as a subsection of academic profile, but there needs to be information regarding research expenditures, government support and significant grants (land grant or space grant status, in the U.S. for example), the scale of the physical research plant, and notable research programs.

Student life — This section discusses specific traditions of the college/university, like

external linking

policies, do not include minor or common activities or provide links to homepages. As before, do not attempt to include an exhaustive list of all student activities or present the list of activities as embedded lists.

Noted people — This section is not for a list of famous

notability

guideline should not be included.

Notes/References — If you use the appropriate

inline citations

throughout the article (as you should), then this section is simply typing <references/> or {{Reflist}} If the same source is cited multiple times, collapse these repeated citations into a single reference by using <ref name="XYZ">citation template</ref> (where XYZ is a short name such as "CDS" for Common Data Set for example) after the first instance and <ref name="XYZ"/> for every subsequent instance.

External links — Give a link to the official website of the college/university, preferably in the English language. The number of links here should be kept to an absolute minimum: do not to link other university pages (e.g., admissions, School of Law, Department of Psychology), related groups (e.g., student media, unions, clubs), or pages already linked from earlier citations.

Navigation Templates — Some major universities have enough related articles that they create

navigation templates

to allow users to navigate through them. Universities may also be members of athletic conferences, research consortia, or other types of organizations which have navigation templates as well. All navigation templates should be placed at the very end of the article.

Sub-articles

When university pages become too large or too comprehensive it may be beneficial to break off certain sections into sub-pages. When this happens, a

criteria for notability

as well as the following criteria:

General splitting of articles

Separate articles explaining a college or university's history (History of Texas A&M University), campus (Campus of Michigan State University), and alumni (List of Athabasca University people — see lists guideline above) must still fulfill the notability policy of receiving significant coverage in reliable sources independent of the university. Such articles are generally notable only at large institutions or institutions where one of these aspects is especially important or significant. Smaller institutions with historical significance (like Harvard University) are an example of this exception.

Sports

Separate sports articles for institutions which have large sports programs are acceptable (i.e.

Division I in the United States, and well-known programs elsewhere). Again, sports programs at large institutions or those which are significant may also have their own sub-article. For some larger sports program articles it is acceptable to create additional sub-articles for specific sports (Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets football), seasons (2007 Appalachian State Mountaineers football team), and, although rare, games (2007 Appalachian State vs. Michigan football game

) so long as they fulfill the notability policy of receiving significant coverage in reliable sources independent of the university.

Faculties and academic colleges

If an institution's

WP:ORG) and should not be split off from the main institution article in the absence of significant coverage by reliable, independent sources. If some faculties or academic colleges have significance and others do not, it may be the case that the institution's academic programs as a whole are notable. In this case it may be acceptable to create a separate academics article (see Michigan State University academics, Colleges of the University of Oxford

)

Student life

Student life and university traditions articles are generally not notable unless they are sufficiently unusual that they have received significant coverage in reliable sources independent of the university. Some articles satisfy this criteria (

WP:ORG, students' unions

/organizations/governments should only have their own article if they are independently notable. This means that they:

Have been the subject of coverage in
all content must be attributable
.

The "secondary sources" in the criterion include reliable published works in all forms, such as (for examples) newspaper articles, books, television documentaries, and published reports by organizations—none of which should be written by any part of the union/organization/government or university itself. These sources may come from other universities or from the university press but never from the university which the group or organization is a part of.

Press releases; advertising for the student group or organization; and other works where the group talks about itself—whether published by the university, group itself, or re-printed by other people—are not acceptable sources to establish notability.

Works carrying merely trivial coverage are also not acceptable to establish notability. For example: newspaper articles that simply report meeting times or election results, or the publications of telephone numbers, addresses, and directions in business directories.

Individual chapters of national and international organizations are usually not notable enough to warrant a separate article (even if the parent organization is notable). Local chapters may be notable if sufficient notability is established through
reliable sources. However, chapter information may be included in list articles as long as only verifiable information is included. This especially applies to Greek organizations
.

Organizations whose activities are local in scope are usually not notable unless verifiable information from reliable independent sources can be found.

The organization’s longevity, size of membership, or major achievements, or other factors specific to the organization may be considered. This list is not exhaustive and not conclusive.

Under Wikipedia's rules for media notability, a campus or college radio station is notable if it is duly licensed by the appropriate media regulatory authority, such as the FCC in the United States or the CRTC in Canada. Unlicensed university or college radio stations which broadcast only on Part 15, carrier current or Internet radio may be mentioned in the school's main article, but are not entitled to independent articles unless they are themselves the subject of reliable secondary sources. Similarly, student newspapers may be mentioned in the school's main article, but need to be the primary subject of reliable secondary sources to qualify for independent articles.