Talk:Imperial College London

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)

Opening of CGLI

"The Central Institution of the City and Guilds of London Institute was opened as a technical education school on Exhibition Road by the Prince of Wales in early 1885."

"Prince of Wales" is wikilinked to George V, which certainly means that something is incorrect in the sentence as it stands. The future Geprge V's title at this time was not "Prince of Wales" but "Prince George of Wales". If, on the other hand, the Institution was opened by the Prince of Wales of that time, the phrase should be wikilinked to Edward VII. Harfarhs (talk) 23:47, 2 September 2023 (UTC)

The source says "Prince of Wales", so I've changed the link to Edward VII. Robminchin (talk) 00:52, 3 September 2023 (UTC)

Entrepreneurship and innovation

@Mikecurry1: Rather than discuss this through edit comments, I thought it would be better to open a topic here :)

Thanks for adding the additional citation. While this does support the entreprenurial culture, it is based on what Imperial's president said in his speech rather than being an independent source. It would be much better if this was backed up by a third-party source as I'm not sure that this is within WP:ABOUTSELF, in particular whether the claim to have an entreprenurial culture is "neither unduly self-serving nor an exceptional claim". While facts given by the president are almost certainly accurate, we must assume that opinions are influenced by his position. I've left it in for now, but if there is a third party source that would make it much stronger.

There should also be some discussion in the body for it to be in the lead (which is a summary of the body). The current 'Innovation' subsection falls under Rankings in Academic Profile – it would actually be good to change this to 'Reputation and rankings' (in keeping with other universities), and to discuss Imperial's reputation for innovation and entrepreneurship in this section. Robminchin (talk) 21:21, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

Yes, that sounds good. This is a better idea to discuss on the talk page then over edit comments.

Yes, I agreed with you, additional sources would be good. My first citation - wasnt clear at all, I agree. The new citation by the university president describing the school simply, i thought was better and likely accurate, I should find additional sources that are third-party as you said, so the source appears less Wp:aboutself.

Yes, your point makes sense to me, and I agree too, it should be in the body more as well. I will work on incorporating that to rename the section 'Reputation and Rankings'. Hopefully we can find something we both like and think is an improvement. I agreed with all your points. :) I'll try to write something brief about Imperial's reputation from third party sources. I'll ping you when i incorporate something, and hopefully we can edit that towards something that would be an improvement.Mikecurry1 (talk)

@Robminchin: I just incorporated the section 'Reputation and Rankings' as per your idea. It was a good one. It can be edited further, and I am sure editors will want to as it is not perfect yet, and will get better. It was a good idea to incorporate that section though. Mikecurry1 (talk)

Looks like a good start. I tracked down some expert opinion sources when doing edits to the reputation and rankings sections of the Cambridge and Durham articles, some of which mention Imperial (quite a few older sources just talk about 'London'), you might want to take a look at those. It's normally better to base reputation statements on reports of expert opinion (c.f. WP:REPUTATIONS) rather than on rankings, which show how an institution performed in the measures used by that ranking rather than what their reputation is. Robminchin (talk) 15:43, 18 March 2024 (UTC)

I checked out the Cambridge and Durham articles reputation sections for their edits, they looked good. For anyone wanting to update the new reputation section it is always appreciated, especially improving the expert opinion citations re:WP:REPUTATIONS. Yes, it makes sense to base it on expert opinions instead of relying on only rankings. I am glad you thought it looked good at your initial review. I am sure editors will want to improve it over time. Great idea for the new reputation section! Cheers, Mikecurry1 (talk) 17:43, 18 March 2024 (UTC)

Update Logo

Should the new logo be updated to the new Imperial one? [2] example outside of buildings: [3]

Mikecurry1 (talk) 17:46, 17 March 2024 (UTC)