Talk:University of Southampton

University of Southampton received a peer review by Wikipedia editors, which is now archived. It may contain ideas you can use to improve this article.

Higher education B‑class

	This article is within the scope of WikiProject Higher education, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of higher education, universities, and colleges on Wikipedia. Please visit the project page to join the discussion, and see the project's article guideline for useful advice.Higher educationWikipedia:WikiProject Higher educationTemplate:WikiProject Higher educationHigher education
B	This article has been rated as B-class on Wikipedia's content assessment scale.

Restructuring

It might be a good idea if someone were to actually have a look at properly restructuring the whole University of Southampton page and make it more akin to that of Warwick, Imperial, etc. where we can see a proper structure and layout rather than a hodge-podge of information stuck together. -- (A.szczep) 18:44, 17 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Dear Tzartzam,

FYI - the Sutton Trust is a highly biased source for comparing universities. It's stated focus is on education and not academic research. Incidentally, this is also the inherent bias in most journalistic treatment of the issue. Southampton is a research university!

Also re the RAE comment you removed, RAE may not publish a top ten, but it is a relatively simple exercise to get the institutional rankings by counting up the number of 5*s, 5s, etc. that each institution received in the published RAE tables. Do so and you will see that Southampton is top ten any way you care to slice it - and has been for many years!

_________________________________________________________________

Who is writing this article?- Southampton students I imagine as it seriously overstates Southampton's research and prestige. Also deleted the comment about the RAE as the RAE did not publish a top ten. Can we edit from a NPOV, as with all due respect Southampton is not really a top university and is never anywhere near the top ten in any British league table. Based on league tables the top universities are Cambridge, Oxford, LSE, Imperial, UCL, Warwick, York, Bristol, Edinburgh, Birmingham, St Andrews and Durham- this list was published by the Sutton Trust an independent analysis of Britian's top universities based on league tables.

Needs to have a NPOV. And should sound less like the text from a prospectus. Should include:

What the university does -- main subjects, areas of research, famous achievements
Who's been there -- famous people who went there

User:Tzartzam 2 Oct 2002

Just been reading this article, and its rather embarrasing the POV in this, and I even graduated from Soton Uni. The info could be much better presented esp the first openning paragraph Philbentley 03:50, 28 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Moved POV material, needs rewriting/correcting:

...the UK's nearest equivalent to an Ivy League, and is currently ranked 5th for overall research quality. Southampton's research performance is bettered only by the University of London, Oxford, Cambridge and Warwick. Southampton's teaching quality is regarded as one of the best in the country and arguably the best of the Red Brick universities. The university has a strong technical and technological pedigree and has long been regarded as one of Britain's best science universities and the best at engineering. Southampton's economics and business qualifications are in high demand internationally, particularly at post-graduate level, because of the university's acknowledged supremacy in econometrics and quantitative methods.

In terms of atmosphere, Southampton's focus is on research and acquiring knowledge rather than social positioning. To draw a parallel with US universities, if Harvard is America's Oxford, then MIT is America's Southampton. Southampton's student population grew a lot in the 1990s to become one of the UK's largest universities and also one of the most in demand. It occupies a spacious campus on the south English coast.

User:Imran 14 Nov 2002

"if Harvard is America's Oxford, then MIT is America's Southampton", I couldn't have put it better myself. Perhaps we should include that in the article Paskari 16:23, 2 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The above text was then edited three times in December 2002, ending up as follows:

The Sunday Times ranks the University of Southampton 5th for among the Russell Group of specialist research universities for research quality, bettered only by the University of London, Oxford, Cambridge and Warwick. Southampton's teaching quality is regarded as one of the best in the country and arguably the best of the Red Brick universities. The university has a strong technical and technological pedigree and has long been regarded as one of Britain's best science universities and the best at engineering, with the only HEFC 5* rated Engineering faculty in the country. Southampton's post-graduate economics and business qualifications are in high demand internationally, largely because of the university's reputation in econometrics and quantitative methods.

The University of Southampton has close links with America's MIT. Southampton's student population grew a lot in the 1990s to become one of the UK's largest universities and also one of the most in demand. It occupies a spacious campus on the south English coast.

Part of the above material has subsequently been incorporated into the article. Which still needs a lot of work, incidentally, and I suppose I should be doing that work myself, to be honest. Maybe later... -- Oliver P. 00:11 10 Jul 2003 (UTC)

I think that most of the above is wide of the mark. The top ten universities are markedly different for science, engineering and arts. Most people would rank Oxford and Cambridge as the top two UK universities for classics and in the top five for virtually arts subjects. Nobody would rank Oxford in the top ten for engineering and they would struggle to get into the top twenty. Cambridge is much stronger in engineering and there is certainly top rank science at Oxford but pretty everyone would rank Manchester in the top five for science as well. I don't think anyone would rank Warwick there and London University is a totally different animal, UCL and Imperial are effectively separate universities. Southampton has always had a first rank engineering department and a middling to mediocre arts and law side. It has a medical school which in itself is significant.

So it really depends on the subject area. Southampton is in the top five for engineering. Tim Berners-Lee would not be a part time prof at a mediocre university. The electronics and aeronautics departments are world class. It is not an understatement to use the term 'leading'. In the Engineering field Southampton outranks Oxford. The studies cites are all average measures of the university courses. I don't think that makes any sense. Southampton is a world class engineering university. Oxford is world class in classics. Both are mediocre in the other's specialty. When determining leading one looks to the areas of excellence where the institution leads. There is no institution that is world class in every field. --217.204.89.130 00:18, 24 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Clubs & socs as external links

I don't think clubs and socs should be listed as external links in this article. To include some and not others looks like advertising/spam (I notice that they're usually added one at a time by different individuals, which raises my suspicions) and there are too many to list all of them here. If we are to have a list of all the clubs and socs, it should be a separate list from the main article, and (presumably) each society should also have its own article, if it's notable enough. I'm sure they're all linked to from the student union's site, so surely just the one link there would suffice. Waggers 14:45, 30 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Babel Template

I have added this little template for your user profiles. Template:User SOTON. Jenzo 13:10 GMT, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

Endowment

Most other universities indicate their endowment, I e-mailed the university but they refuse to tell me how much their endowment is, does anyone know? Paskari 16:23, 2 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

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 23:34, 21 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Managed to verify most of the recent rankings from all reliable and unique major newspaper rankings (Times, Guarduan and Sunday Times). Can't verify 2006 and 2005 for Times at the moment. Once found, they will be added. At least this shows that Soton uni is improving year after year. They are on their way achieve their ambition of being a top 10 uni in the UK in the near future [from a neutral point of view through deduction from the tables]. --Dedkenny66 02:11, 24 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

request for reassessment

Thanks for posting over at WikiProject Universities about a reassessment. After reading through the article, I think it needs to stay as B-Class. It's not to the level of an A-Class article yet because it lacks a level of completeness and thoroughness as compared to other of the university articles at that level. As it stands now, big chunks of the article are lists (nothing wrong with lists, but you need more than that). I'm sure the peer review you've requested will highlight things like this, too.

In addition, it can't be a Good Article without going through the GA process. You'll have to list the article there for review if you want it promoted to GA-Class (it doesn't have to be GA-Class to reach A-Class, although most A articles are, in fact, GA too).

If you've got any questions, feel free to contact me. Cheers! Esrever 03:15, 2 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Organisation and Notable alumni sections

The Organisation section needs description about when the schools and centres were founded, research groups in each school, activities and notable events and achievements regarding more schools.

I think the Notable alumni section needs to be organised better and include maybe degree(s) studied.

Dedkenny66 21:57, 5 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Not to be confused with Southampton Solent University.

Not to be confused with Southampton Solent University.

Is this necessary? Who confuses the two? Timrollpickering (talk) 14:24, 4 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I agree, it's not as though there is an example of this on any other University pages (e.g. University of Liverpool Liverpool John Moores University) Srpnor (talk) 15:25, 4 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I think you'll find solent students get mixed up. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.151.116.237 (talk) 21:30, 17 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Style note - capitalisation

It's a minor point, but I just noticed a mix of "University" and "university" throughout the page. I'd propose that when we're talking about THIS university as an institution, and using the definite article, we should capitalise ("the University blah blah") and when talking about universities in general, or using the indefinite article, we shouldn't ("is a university", "this university is one of many that..."). Any comments? Srpnor (talk) 08:20, 5 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Organisation Section

Is it just me, or does everything from "School of Electronics and Computer Science" down in the organisation section read like a series of self-promotional press releases? Definitely needs to be edited for neutrality and notability? Srpnor (talk) 08:26, 5 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Crest?

Rather ridiculously, I can't find any online imagery of the University's crest. If someone can track such down, and sort out the copyright, it probably belongs in the infobox, as for, say, the University of Warwick. (Apparently, we sell cufflinks with it on. Fancy that.) —Preceding unsigned comment added by LionsPhil (talk • contribs) 21:47, 13 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Done. 10:10, 8 September 2008 (UTC)~ Nun12

NPOV dispute - History (2008 Rebranding)

With the rebrand still fresh, it's clear that there are some rather strong opinions re: the loss of the dolphin affecting editors of this page. I have tried to keep that subsection of the history sticking to the facts presented by the notable citations, but the edit history shows some rather strong deviations in either direction. This article needs a close (ideally external) eye for the near future to keep this encyclopaedic, not a place to spin away criticism or rant about Adolf Finn's demise. In particular, currently I think the term "disappointing" needs revision by someone less involved---to whom is it a dissapointment? That's highly objective. (Full disclosure: I am alumni. I am not an "external, less involved" arbitrator here, hence this call for general NPOV attention.) --LionsPhil (talk) 22:12, 13 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

There is a lot of this kind of ping-ponging; there is effectively an edit war over which adjective to use regarding the reaction. --LionsPhil (talk) 20:17, 18 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Rebranding comments

On 4th February 2008, the university rebranded itself, and changed the logo from the 'dolphin' to one containing only text. Despite a protest group on Facebook, [10] which exceeded 2,000 members, the rebranding still went ahead.

I'd question the appropriateness paragraph. The re-brand might be notable (and if so, perhaps we should detail prior rebrandings, including the one that introduced 'Adolph'), but mentioning the Facebook "protest" just smacks of pettiness. It might have been notable if the rebranding had caused weeks of industrial action, but a protest group on a social networking site comprising well under 10% of the University's members (indeed, if you consider that alumni are members of the University, the figures look even worse!) hardly constitutes a fact worthey of encyclopaedic note. I, personally, don't think much of the new brand either, but then that's not really the point of an encyclopaedic article is it? Srpnor (talk) 08:15, 5 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]