Talk:Aston University

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

A mortarboard This article is part of WikiProject Universities, an attempt to standardise coverage of universities and colleges. If you would like to participate, you can edit the article attached to this notice, or visit the project page, where you can join the project or contribute to the discussion.
B This article has been rated as B-Class on the quality scale.

Contents

[edit] Accommodation

Does anyone have a source for the supposed plans to build more accommodation? RichF 20:04, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

It was featured in the student newspaper last year, but they don't have an online archive. Since it's still being planned, nothing has been publically announced by the university yet.. --smigs 11:04, 19 August 2006 (UTC)
Main contractor was awarded about 2 months ago!

For more information go to http://www.emporis.co.uk/en/bu/nc/ne/?id=101869

[edit] NPOV?

I don't think that some of the sections here read from a neutral point of view. The Students' Guild section seems to be heavily biased with lots of opinion such as "Most importantly, the guild is run for students by students." and "serving good quality food at affordable prices."

The section on off-campus accommodation describes the UNITE properties of Londonderry House and the Heights in glowing terms. The use of subjective terms such as 'ideally situated' and 'excellent facilities' without any reference to whose opinion they are does not seem appropriate to me.

62.172.106.178 23:26, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I think one of the student guild executive (or someone otherwise connected with the guild) -and possibly someone from UNITE as well (although the nearby UNITE accomodation _is_ ideally situated - it's just across the road from the university)- has been editing this entry. Plus, the article as a whole needs a rewrite. There's plenty of content there, but not well-presented. --smigs 00:32, 4 October 2006 (UTC)
I agree that UNITE places are well located, but factual information (five mins from campus) is already given so 'ideally' seems both subjective and perhaps superfluous. I've removed the adjectives 'ideally' and 'excellent' from the Londonderry house entry. As for the Guild... I don't know enough about it to feel very comfortable editing it much. I may give it a go when I have a bit more time.

62.172.106.178 11:35, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

There's not enough about the university's core activities - teaching and research - and too much about accommodation and food. There ought to be something about the Academy of Life Sciences - I'd write it myself but I left before this was built.Notreallydavid 22:34, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

  • I have tried to take a stab at NPOV-ing the student guild part. I'll try to do something similar to the accomodation part... and Notreallydavid is totally right about the focus of this article being complete skewed. It's-is-not-a-genitive (talk•contribs) 13:41, 24 February 2007 (UTC).
  • I have (albeit in a timorous manner) removed the NPOV notices, and I think that the sections are fair, with no weasel terms. Now what we need is photographs (which I'll go take in a few days) and more of an emphasis on the university, rather than where people live. --It's-is-not-a-genitive 13:50, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] University ratings

(I'm posting this to all articles on UK universities as so far discussion hasn't really taken off on Wikipedia:WikiProject Universities.)

There needs to be a broader convention about which university rankings to include in articles. Currently it seems most pages are listing primarily those that show the institution at its best (or worst in a few cases). See Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Universities#University ratings. Timrollpickering 22:21, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Citations

Further to the above, this article has a large number of uncited claims, tagged with {{fact}}. An anon user has twice removed these tags,a and I've reverted. I have no objection to some of them being rolled up together, if appropriate, but I do object to their wholesale removal,. Furthermore, "The Times' Good University Guide" and "The Guardian's University Guide", without dates and other citation information, are not valid references. Andy Mabbett 22:34, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

I kind of disapprove when editors breeze through an article tagging for citations without making an effort to kick-off the sourcing process themselves. Partly because I think it's the polite thing to do; partly because {{unreferenced}} does the same job and looks less annoying than a page full of superscript; and partly because I agree with Jimbo that the honourable thing is to delete completely spurious claims on sight. There are few clearly unsourceable claims here, like the vague claim that the "business school is world-renowned".
There is, however, a deplorable amount of academic puff in the intro. I'll have a scoot around for sources, and remove anything that's obviously unsourceable. — mholland 20:07, 24 March 2007 (UTC)
...Done. I have tried to pick out what makes Aston unique and notable. Could do with being a bit longer, but there's little that's properly sourced in the article which can yet be summarised for the intro. — mholland 21:26, 24 March 2007 (UTC)