Template talk:Infobox US university ranking/Archive 1

Biz

Is the business school rankings for undergrad or graduate programs? USNWR ranks both. --Eustress (talk) 03:31, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

CMUP rankings

I think the CMUP "ranking" should be removed, as there really isn't an overall ranking provided. There are I believe 9 different category rankings, and the tier rankings are based on how many of these rankings appeared in the top 25. Universities that tied are simply alphabetized. There are about 50 universities in the "top 25" list and about 30 in the 26-50 list. Should UC-Santa Barbara with one top 25 ranking and one 26-50 ranking be ranked higher than Georgia Institute of Technology, with zero top 25 rankings and seven 26-50 rankings? (The answer is no I think, but the point is, there's no way to determine how universities in the two lists match up.) If there are no objections, will removing this variable from the template cause any issues on pages that are already using the variable? Klubbit (talk) 16:47, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

I have similar concerns about how to actually operationalize the rank order that is implied there, but the organization is an otherwise reliable and independent source for university-wide information so I don't know that I could fathom taking it out. However, it isn't a true ranking so perhaps it should be removed. Madcoverboy (talk) 16:56, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

True, but the purpose of the template is to provide rankings, not to provide general information about universities. We could perhaps list the individual rankings, but that seems like overkill to me, and almost all the measures favor large institutions over small institutions (e.g., financial expenditures/assets/gifts, faculty awards, degrees awarded, National Merit Scholars). There's a control rank, but it only takes into account whether the university is private or public and results in two separate rankings. It seems like it would be better to include most of this factual information in the body of the article rather than as a ranking. Klubbit (talk) 18:16, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

Well, I added this notice to the beginning of the parameter description: "(Deprecated: See talk page)". It should probably be deleted at some point, but I'll leave that up to someone else. Klubbit (talk) 17:51, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

I've removed it from the template and documentation. Madcoverboy (talk) 00:45, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

Public health and order of rankings

I think the recently added USNWR public health ranking should be removed. Currently the rankings just include the main ones listed in the left column here. If we were to add every specialty, we'd have to add in something like 100 new variables. This table is just meant to give a broad overview of rankings, not a comprehensive list of rankings. If there are specific notable program rankings for a school, they can be mentioned in the article.

Second, I think we should alphabetize the rankings so as not to favor one over another. Thoughts? Klubbit (talk) 19:27, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

I agree that the public health rankings should not be included since they are a distinct specialty. While I don't want to read into motives out of WP:AGF, they were added by a user editing the article for which the university happened to be ranked #1. Madcoverboy (talk) 00:41, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

How about a free field or two then to allow for some of these more specialized programs? Certainly the large universities have tons of programs and don't need more programs to list, but some of the smaller universities may have more specialized programs that USNWR or others may provide "reliable" rankings that may help fill out the template and not look so sparse with only a program or two that is covered by the standard template fields. Aboutmovies (talk) 09:36, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

I dunno, that could work. I'm just afraid it will turn into a place to put the highest rankings one can find for the school. But maybe others don't have a problem with that. Also, is there any way to automatically alphabetize the list? If not, we'd probably have to put free fields at the end of the list, so it could look strange if there are, say, a couple USNWR rankings at the top then another at the very bottom. Klubbit (talk) 17:22, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

I don't think there is a way to alpha them automatically on each article. But we could add one blank field at the top, one at the bottom, and maybe two at the end of the USNWR section. This would keep it from looking too odd. As to finding/adding the highest ranking, you would still be guided by NPOV and RS, so lower rankings would still need to be included per NPOV, and far out ones (i.e. the one I just made up in my basement to make my school the best) would be subject to having to come from an RS. Aboutmovies (talk) 18:25, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

There is no way schools of public health should be considered a "speciality" any more than other schools of specific disciplines, such as medicine, should be. To go down the road of cherry picking which rankings to include risks the suggestion of bias against a particular field. Likewise, schools of public affairs, library/information science, veterinary medicine, nursing, rehabilitation sciences, fine arts, etc. All of these fields have their own specialities programs within each particular discipline, and more often than not, are formulated into their own schools or college within a university. Their parent classification can no more be considered a specialty than could the existing categories of law, medicine, business or education that are already included. It is probably important to consider that US News is not applying the naming conventions for their rankings with the purpose of providing wikipedia editors with a convenient way to create inclusion criteria for an infobox. If med schools are going to be over represented in the table with two separate USNWR rankings, then schools and colleges in other disciplines deserve to at least have similar space when they are also so ranked. I agree that subdisciplines (like psychiatric nursing) would best excluded from such a table, but there is an obvious need for additional or blank fields so that entire schools and disciplines aren't completely omitted. As an alternative, I think to avoid an uncontrollable swelling of the infobox, that the table might actually be better off refocused to only include overall university rankings. Several overall rankings are missing that appear in the College and university rankings article that could be used to replace the discipline-specific rankings. I think it might also be useful to group the table into "International" and "Domestic" rankings. CrazyPaco (talk) 09:57, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

Ref #21 is a dead link

Ref 21 (FSP Index Top Performing Schools) is a dead link. Could someone familiar with this template try updating it? Thanks. upstateNYer 20:58, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

Washington Monthly LA updated

Washington Monthly Liberal Arts numbers have been updated for 2009. I've updated the reference. Here's the link. ❄ upstateNYer ❄ 17:13, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

discussion about substantial revisions

I'd like to make some substantial revisions to this template, but I need some feedback on the process. what I'm thinking of is the following:

• modifying it to handle British rankings as well (the original request for this was at Wikipedia:Requested_templates#Infobox_UK_University_Rankings
• setting it up with a subtemplate to create the actual table rows (I've begun that at {{Infobox US university ranking/row}}, though it's not implemented yet)
• setting it up so that references are transcluded from the template into article pages (saving the need to update both the ranking and the reference
• other ease-of-use fixes.

however, I need to get some idea of how this template is used in practice, so that I can make it as easy to use as possible. comments, please? --Ludwigs2 05:20, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

I'd prefer to limit this template strictly to U.S. institutions. If you would like to experiment with an omnibus template, perhaps create Template:Infobox university ranking. Also, I think the reason the refs are not currently transcluded is because even though a ranking is displayed in a table, it still needs to be communicated in prose in the body, with an accompanying citation. —Eustress ^talk 20:13, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

well, I think there is room for improvement there. it seems a bit silly to have separate article and template refs - the references should be established in one place, otherwise you're likely to get contradictory citations (when an editor forgets to update one or the other). I can create that template just for a test; I'd still like to get some sense for how it's used, however, to make it as convenient as possible. --Ludwigs2 23:35, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

I see what you mean. I've just been using WP:REFNAME so as to use the same refs as those in the template, but it's a pain b/c then I have to look up the refname in the template every time. Regarding experimentation, I mentioned creating Template:Infobox university ranking if you want to see how the community reacts to a multinational university template. If you just want to experiment with syntax, you can just create the template in your userspace and link to it as you would any normal template, and test it out that way. —Eustress ^talk 00:42, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

You're welcome to copy wholesale this US university infobox and create a Template:Infobox UK university rankings. However, I believe the two should remain wholly separate and I intentionally constrained this infobox to only US universities in light of the difficulty of trying to rank internationally. Madcoverboy (talk) 22:01, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

well, I wasn't thinking about trying to do international rankings; I was just considering making a single template that would do rankings for different regions (an issue of simplicity and visual consistency). but your point is taken. --Ludwigs2 22:17, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

As this template is titled "US university rankings," I can't comprehend why first rankings listed are from publications based in China and the UK. Astuishin ^(talk) 06:13, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

Why not? —Eustress ^talk 06:38, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

The rankings are alphabetized so as not to favor one over another. Klubbit (talk) 16:11, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

Back to basics

The scope of this template is getting out of control. It strives to cover too many disciplines and too many sources. I feel it would be wise to edit this template so that it only presents overall university rankings only, as ranked by various sources. —Eustress ^talk 01:16, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

I've now updated the template accordingly. —Eustress ^talk 20:14, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

I broadly concur, but I also worry whether or not this will lead to a reproliferation of the same disciplinary rankings found in the prose as an unintended side-effect. My hope was that ranking "sections" could be wholly done away with once this Infobox was implemented. Madcoverboy (talk) 21:59, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

I will partially disagree. Having only overall rankings is reflective of ONLY undergraduate education.

Subject specific rankings will need to be reflected, such as engineering, business, medicine, etc. I think that basics should include overall rankings of broad classes of fields. Otherwise schools may just ignore the templates all together. Rootxploit (talk) 17:27, 22 May 2010 (UTC)

Well, it's up to the editors to use the template or not. I don't think there's any good criteria for what's a "broad class" and what isn't (see CrazyPaco's comment on this page), plus each "broad class" could have many rankings. It also doesn't appear that the rankings focus exclusively on undergraduate education, with the possible exception of USNWR. They look at research, faculty awards, peer reviews, etc. Users can of course click on the wikilinks or sources if they want more details on what the rankings represent. --Klubbit (talk) 21:55, 22 May 2010 (UTC)

THE National

Are there actually THE national rankings? It seems there are only world rankings, which is what both THE ref links point to. Obviously you could figure out what your national ranking is, but I don't think it should be included unless THE actually produces national lists. Klubbit (talk) 18:29, 19 January 2010 (UTC)

I was wondering about that too. I'm fine with removing it. —Eustress ^talk 03:31, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

Bias to liberal arts?

I noticed that the template includes USNWR Liberal Arts and WM Liberal Arts, but not the other USNWR or WM subcategories. What's the rationale there? —Disavian (^talk/_contribs) 23:01, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

Liberal arts isn't a subcategory of the national universities ranking, the two are mutually exclusive. Liberal arts colleges emphasize undergraduate study whereas "national universities" also emphasize graduate study and academic research. The template only includes overall college/university rankings, not subject rankings like English, education, social sciences, etc. Klubbit (talk) 01:32, 7 March 2010 (UTC)

Okay, that made sense. I was assuming lib arts was just another subcategory. —Disavian (^talk/_contribs) 07:57, 7 March 2010 (UTC)

National vs. North & Latin America

The ARWU North & Latin America ranking was just changed to read National ranking, and I'm curious what the consensus is on this. I think there are two arguments for leaving it as North & Latin America. First, it has been "North & Latin America" since September 2009, and the ref has pointed to the North & Latin America ranking since January 2009, so most people who are currently using the template will have the North & Latin America ranking. Second, these are the categories that ARWU uses, so I don't see why we would modify them. It doesn't make sense to say that we should use the national rankings because "this is only for US universities". The template is for rankings that apply to U.S. universities, but it doesn't exclude rankings that include non-U.S. universities (e.g., ARWU world and THE). So, I think our options are:

1. Change it back to North & Latin America. (My preference.)
2. Keep it as National, in which case both ARWU rankings should use the world source, and the documentation should be updated. Otherwise, people will follow the North & Latin America ref and add the wrong ranking.
3. Same as #2 but follow through with limiting the rankings to U.S. university-only rankings. This would involve removing ARWU world and THE (since full country rankings aren't provided, just the top 15). The title on the template should also be changed to read something like "Rankings among U.S. universities" so as to avoid confusion about what the template is intended for.

--Klubbit (talk) 04:43, 31 May 2010 (UTC)

There was no consensus, just my boneheaded bold edit. I believe the North & Latin America moniker is an artifact of the fact that ARWU didn't rank nationally in years before 2009 (I believe) and so I included the regional ranking to give a more granular view. Given that this is a US template, I'm of the mind that the National ranking is more salient than either the world or regional rankings, especially in the case of US universities. Madcoverboy (talk) 05:47, 31 May 2010 (UTC)

Your edit was fine, just didn't want to change it without discussing it. I see what you mean though, it doesn't look like ARWU really highlights the regional rankings anymore, at least no more than the national rankings. And we can use this ref for the national rank (thanks to Google, wouldn't have figured out how to get there using ARWU's site). So, I say we either keep it as is or only have the world ranking (since that seems to be the main ranking, with the regional and world rankings being based on that). I guess if we have both people can always choose to include the national ranking or not. --Klubbit (talk) 07:03, 31 May 2010 (UTC)

Consensus Composite

User:Zoroastrama100 has added Consensus Composite (CC) as a ranking in this template. I feel it should not be included for the following reasons:

1. CC is an aggregate measure, which is unparallel with the other rankings listed. The scope of this template is to provide all original rankings and allow users to draw their own conclusions, in order to conform with WP:NPOV.
2. CC as an organization is not notable, so the accuracy of the aggregate rankings is suspect.

I welcome the viewpoint of others to help establish a consensus. —Eustress ^talk 20:55, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

I agree, although for different reasons. First, to address the reasons for inclusions proposed by the person who added the material, Consensus Composite doesn't seem to be particularly more reliable than the more notable rankings, seeing as how CC is based entirely on 1)these other rankings, 2)admit rate, and 3) yield. However, I think this is a moot point because it's inappropriate for us to decide which rankings are good and which are bad, since at the end of the day the measurement of what makes a good or bad college is purely subjective. We should focus on just reporting the bigg'ns instead of pretending we're experts in university ranking methodology. — DroEsperanto (talk) 22:52, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

Nevertheless, I'd like to see some notability guidelines developed. There's a lot of public data out there and anyone can do an analysis and throw up a website. Certainly if the rankings themselves have been the subject of significant and third-party press or academic coverage, they should be included. Madcoverboy (talk) 18:26, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

I neglected to mention that I don't believe these are notable rankings and changes to articles should be reverted. Madcoverboy (talk) 02:22, 3 August 2010 (UTC)

I was coming here to post about the same thing. I appreciate the editor's boldness but I don't think this ranking is notable. I've certainly never heard of it. ElKevbo (talk) 02:10, 3 August 2010 (UTC)

No, I don't think the "Consensus Composite" ranking should be in the template. These rankings do not appear to have become well-known within the public.--GrapedApe (talk) 15:35, 3 August 2010 (UTC)

Action

Pursuant to the consensus above, I have removed the ranking from the template and documentation pages. Thank you. —Eustress ^talk 16:28, 3 August 2010 (UTC)

Hello, Eustress, I don't see how notability plays a factor at all in this sort of discussion. And I have never had a voice in the discussion. You refrained from telling me the location of the discussion page (I just found out myself now). If notability is a factor in ranking listing, then wikipedia is indeed inaccurate and biased. The point of encyclopedic sources is to include information, and have the readers make up their views. You have no authority to omit sources based on notability (maybe on creating a page but that is a different story). You should only omit INACCURATE sources. As far as it is concerned, you have not found a valid reason to decide Consus Group as an inaccurate, invalid source. Less notable, yes, but censoring a less notable source here is pure CENSORSHIP. I need further discussion on this matter, and will revert the changes back for now. Zoroastrama100 (talk) 17:10, 3 August 2010 (UTC)

I have temporarily protected the template page in order to preserve the consensus established above, but I welcome further discussion on the matter. Regarding Zoroastrama's comment above, WP:RS outlines what sources may and may not be used on Wikipedia. If a source is deemed unreliable, Wikipedia's policy is to omit it. This is the case with CC, as determined by the consensus above. —Eustress ^talk 17:25, 3 August 2010 (UTC)

To Eustress' comment, please provide evidence that the source is not reliable. Notability has nothing to do with reliability, and suspicion is only a suspicion. As with all rankings, unreliability naturally exists, and I hope you all put that into perspective. Otherwise, I may have to request the deletion of all rankings, because in the end, every ranking, including the notable by media exposure, are flawed in essence. If you don't believe, just go to the very wikipedia pages of those rankings that wiki editors, we ourselves, created. I expect fair, rational discussion to ensue. I hope that all wikipedia editors will adhere to fair-minded rationality and faith to the original nature of encyclopedia, and NOT let the tyranny of a biased majority rule.Zoroastrama100 (talk) 17:32, 3 August 2010 (UTC)

We do not include every piece of information available about subjects, even if the information is reliable. Instead, we must make judgment calls about what information is important enough to include and what is trivial enough to omit. The burden of establishing that material is important enough to include falls on the editor(s) who wants to include it.

So, given the above discussion, why should this ranking be included in Wikipedia articles about colleges and universities? Do other sources of information about colleges and universities include this ranking in their publications? Have others commented on this ranking system and its impact?

(And I think that reliability isn't really the issue here. Clearly these rankings are reliable for what they're saying since the only thing they're saying is that this group has ranked institution X in position Y. This is really an issue of notability and weight.) ElKevbo (talk) 17:38, 3 August 2010 (UTC)

Hey ELKevbo, you are talking through two different angles. First, there is a big difference between importance and notability. Notability refers to the amount of media exposure and public reaction to a piece of information, whereas importance is how much of an insight, or valid perspective, a piece of information adds. Notability hardly ever come across with reliability so thank you for reaffirming the fact that CC is not so much flawed by its unreliability. When deciding what information is important, a fair-minded editor should try the best he can to avoid thinking hmm, is this the top google search information. Instead, he/she should judge the piece of information by what it is inherently. A notable falsity is neither reliable nor important in the sense that it should be included. However, an important piece of evidence, though hidden, should be included for it sheds new perspective in an encyclopedic article. CC is important inherently. It introduces a new perspective into ranking in that it is a composite, thus allowing readers to again find a new point of reference when looking at rankings (just as how USNWR and Forbes provide different points of references in their rankings). The CC ranking is fairly constant from year to year (since it is an average), so it anchors against many of the other original rankings which can fluctuate (relative to the rate of how university quality actually change) annually. Even in class, people find average, and/or other forms of acceptable data presentation, helpful. The same is true for ranking which is so mathematically based these days.

Again, we are not talking about creating a new wiki page for a subject, in which case notability is important. If all wikipedia editors like ELKevbo are so caught up with notability in every aspect at the expense of actual substance and importance, I can do nothing. I can only lament the fact this culture will blemish the reputation of wikipedia even more. Thank you ElKEvbo for adding your insight.Zoroastrama100 (talk) 18:03, 3 August 2010 (UTC)

Sorry but we are not at all interested in "[[WP:NPOV|introduc[ing] a new perspective into ranking" nor are we interested in "allowing readers to again find a new point of reference." Please provide evidence that others have judged this ranking system to be indeed useful and interesting. ElKevbo (talk) 18:33, 3 August 2010 (UTC)

Hey ElKevbo, we, I'm assuming, are the editors. I think it was not long ago that people like DroEsperanto emphasized the need to avoid being the judge of what is good, interesting ranking and let the readers decide, as long as the source is valid, reliable. I have presented why the ranking is important and interesting. I have made the point. All you did is using your own opinion and preference to censor the works/edits of others by stating blankly, to paraphrase, 'we don't care about these.' I want to take your comment in good faith, but it is hard when you are so blatanly biased and made that statement just to adhere unconditionally to your original stance. It is useless to debate with you, a wikipedia editor who only cares about what he judges, refuses to make valid reasonable points, and cares too much about notability, even if it is not applicable. You made the statement blankly and was unfounded.Zoroastrama100 (talk) 19:36, 3 August 2010 (UTC)

Also, to add a bit more, ElKevbo talks about weight. Weight pertains to majority/minority theories and ideas. First, rankings are not theories and ideas substantiated by references. They are simply references on which ideas and theories are based. Also, CC does not disproportionately enlarge its own "view," should it even have a view, and disparage the majority view, should there even be one in rankings. Again, wiki editors cannot be the judge of the majority view in ranking. Let's take the example of Earth. The scholarly society has a clear majority view that Earth is round, so the view of flat Earth belongs to the minority view. It is a wide consensus in the scholarly community. On the otherhand, not only don't rankings by USNWR, Forbes, or WM present an established view on university rankings (as you can see, all of them warn that their rankings should be merely used as REFERENCES) but also there is no community which has a consensus that says: Ok, USNWR, Forbes, or whatever, is the established ranking system-it represents the majority view. So then, wiki editors should not establish majority VIEW when there is not one, in the case of rankings. Otherwise, information from wikipedia will be up to abuse by its editors. In conclusion, weight does not have any bearing on CC or rankings, lest discredit it. Zoroastrama100 (talk) 18:17, 3 August 2010 (UTC)

Weight does not just apply to "theories", it applies to viewpoints, and rankings are viewpoints: they are purely subjective measurements of quality, and the fact that they use some quantitative measurements in their rankings doesn't make them "reliable" (which isn't an applicable term since an opinion can't be reliable). Now, lots of people/institutions have views on which colleges are better than others. Whose viewpoints should we give the most weight to in articles? Certainly the ones which people care about, the ones that have been commented on the most, and that's USNWR, THE, etc. Without this criteria, then we'd have to allow College Crunch, General University Ranking, and every other no-name ranking that anyone has ever published, which of course would never work.

Futhermore, you stated on my talk page that you were the "original publisher" of these rankings. I'm assuming that you probably meant that you were the one who originally added CC to this template, but if you are actually referring to you publishing the rankings, then I'd suggest you remove yourself from the discussion, per WP:COI. — DroEsperanto (talk) 19:06, 3 August 2010 (UTC)

I am the publisher of these rankings on the template, yes. Let me ask you then, are you solely concerned about the notability of a ranking system? It seems so, when you said just let the "biggins" in, even when they may be unreliable such as THES, which has been recognized by many to be biased. In fact, USNWR has ended its relationship with THES because of its poor quality. So I guess you just want to throw in the "biggins," even when it might be trash, and don't care so much about quality, which should be the main concern of a wiki editor. Notability factor helps with deciding quality, which I understand why you feel shaky about putting in no-name rankings, but in the case of CC, it's quality is not poor, if you take the extra time and view its background. You can check the background of the publisher of the rankings. You can check its methodology. Why do you instead take the short cut and instead look solely at the popularity? I hope the wiki culture is just about what "is popular", what is "notable." So far it seems to be, as argued by you and ElKevbo.Zoroastrama100 (talk) 19:36, 3 August 2010 (UTC)

Notable rankings are included even if they are biased -- it's not up to us to determine if they are accurate or not, but if a reliable source points out a bias in a ranking, we could certainly mention that in the appropriate place (the ranking's article) and cite the source. It's clear that these are rankings provided by a specific organization, not a factual statement that university x is better than university y, and the template allows users to click on a ranking for that ranking's article. Your comments about the reliability (or validity) of the CC ranking represent original research, and the main issue is notability anyway. As others have mentioned, there appears to be a conflict of interest here. Klubbit (talk) 19:55, 3 August 2010 (UTC)

Klubbit, original research pertains to ideas that is published in the wiki article, not ideas I am presenting here on a talk page if that is what you are referring to. I have not published these ideas on any wiki article. And can you clarify your point about "It's clear that these are rankings provided by a specific organization, not a factual statement that university x is better than university y, and the template allows users to click on a ranking for that ranking's article."Zoroastrama100 (talk) 20:25, 3 August 2010 (UTC)

Fair enough, let me rephrase: we can't determine that the ranking should be included based on your own research, as there is no evidence that any third parties are interested in the ranking -- not exactly what I was saying before, I realize, but I think notability is really the issue. In the quote I meant that the validity of the rankings doesn't determine whether they should be included or not, since there is no single "valid" or correct way to rank schools. The template links to the articles about each ranking so that readers can see what the source of the ranking is and also read about any criticisms that have been cited there. e.g., if you click "ARWU" on the template. Klubbit (talk) 03:46, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

(Nitpicking: One certainly can talk about the reliability of these classifications. Given their simple construction as an arithmetic combination of other figures, these rankings are highly reliable because you'll naturally get the same result each time you perform those calculations. As a measurement, the question here is one of validity. And, of course, these rankings have terrible validity as a measure of institutional quality. ElKevbo (talk) 19:21, 3 August 2010 (UTC))

• Consensus is clear: the Consensus Composite is not appropriate for this template. Further, it appears that the only one pushing its inclusion is User:Zoroastrama100, who is the publisher of those rankings. --GrapedApe (talk) 19:26, 3 August 2010 (UTC)

Hey GrapedApe, I was the publisher of these rankings on the template. The Consus Group is an organization that I am not affiliated with. Contact them if you don't trust me.

Just to make clear, it is Consus, not Consensus, and I am not the publisher of the rankings themselves. Check your facts when you argue. I think we can do better than this, wiki editors.Zoroastrama100 (talk) 19:40, 3 August 2010 (UTC)

I can see that all of you here are coming from the notability standpoint, and solely notability standpoint. It is sad to hear this certainly that wikipedia is just a conglomerate of only things notable at the expense of reliability, quality. Klubbit, yes you can point out the flaws, but do you know that some of the editors want to remove CC on the very ground that it is unreliable. See many start the arguments with reliability factors, but shifted their arguments as time progresses. They felt their original argument didn't work, and they improvised to find other arguments in order to stifle the original edit. Is this act of good faith? On the technical side, knocking out a reference source simply because it is deemed not notable enough by some editors is not a valid reason for removal. Once again, rankings, unlike what DrosEsperantos said, are not established viewpoints. There is no conflict of major/minor views. Of course DrosEsperantos can define viewpoint as he likes, but as the wikipedia article originally points out implicitly in its example, majority/minority viewpoints apply to ideas that the scholarly community, or community that has far greater authority than a bunch of wiki editors, deem important or not. And the last time I checked, USNWR and other "notable" ranking organizations refused to be classified as established "views," for technical and legal reasons. They simply want to be referred to as references, which again is NOT a view or a theory. It is simply raw insight that can be used by a group to create a view. References have nothing to do with weight, because they are not established views themselves. In the end, I don't know how you can discredit my edit based on reliability, importance, notability, and other parameters originally thrown at me.Zoroastrama100 (talk) 20:19, 3 August 2010 (UTC)

I can't say that I follow a lot of this argument, but I think that adding a ranking to this infobox is equivalent to adding a sentence to an article such as "U.S. News & World Report ranked the university 26th among national universities" -- it's a quick way to convey the exact same information. While sources don't necessarily have to be notable, content added to articles does to some extent (there may be some other area this falls under such as scope, level of detail, etc. -- not sure). Otherwise every tiny detail would have to be retained in an article as long as it was properly cited. Klubbit (talk) 03:56, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

Update links 2010

Need to update refs for 2010.Stan9999 (talk) 13:32, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

Making a table caption out of the column header

University rankings (overall)

ARWU World	{{{ARWU_W}}}
ARWU National	{{{ARWU_N}}}
Forbes	{{{Forbes}}}
QS World	{{{QS_W}}}
Times Higher Education	{{{THES_W}}}
USNWR National University	{{{USNWR_NU}}}
USNWR Liberal Arts	{{{USNWR_LA}}}
WM National University	{{{Wamo_NU}}}
WM Liberal Arts	{{{Wamo_LA}}}

Hi. In order to improve accessibility of this template, according to WP:ACCESS, I would like to suggest the following change. To replace the column header by a table caption would be semantically more accurate, have a large number of benefits for search engines and reuses of content, and accessibility. This technique is recommended by the w3C. As explained in accessible data tables tutorial, the current column header is a perfect match for a table caption.

Not only that, but this layout would also improve readability, as explained at Wikipedia:WikiProject Usability/Readability guidelines, because the font size is homogeneous and bigger. This non-bold table caption is also more easy to read, because bold is usually slightly harder to read. What do you say? Yours, Dodoïste (talk) 22:44, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

Are most commonly used infoboxes considered accessible? If so, it seems every infobox uses a smaller title and text size than this -- granted, our current template is even smaller than others, which I'd be fine with changing. If the title shows up outside of the box, shouldn't it follow the Template:Infobox formatting (bold, smaller font size)? That template doesn't indicate that having the title outside of the box is preferable though. Klubbit (talk) 01:06, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

Concerning infoboxes standardized with {{infobox}}, they are considered to be "accessible enough" at the moment. Most of the job was done when I requested the improvement of {{infobox/row}}: it's correction made most standardized infoboxes accessible. However, two big issues remains. without considering the quality of the table caption when present, a large number of standardized infoboxes uses column headers in the place of a table caption. Worse, most infoboxes contains column headers inside the table, which is a complex issue that we don't yet know how to address. Since we do not know how to further improve infoboxes, we won't raise this issue yet.

But the remaining issues with most infoboxes are not present here, so we can improve this template more than other infoboxes. The last issue with this university ranking template is the column header that should be a table caption.

Concerning the layout, do as you wish. I only suggested to try out a new layout for table captions, with good reasons to do so. But this layout improvement is not a priority, so if you feel it is more important to be hemogeneous with other infoboxes, bold table captions are fine by me. Yours, Dodoïste (talk) 19:26, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

University rankings (overall)

ARWU World	{{{ARWU_W}}}
ARWU National	{{{ARWU_N}}}
Forbes	{{{Forbes}}}
QS World	{{{QS_W}}}
Times Higher Education	{{{THES_W}}}
USNWR National University	{{{USNWR_NU}}}
USNWR Liberal Arts	{{{USNWR_LA}}}
WM National University	{{{Wamo_NU}}}
WM Liberal Arts	{{{Wamo_LA}}}

How about this? It retains the caption and increases the font size while still matching other infoboxes. Klubbit (talk) 21:01, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

It's great, I support your proposal. :-) Is this discussion among the two of us considered to be enough of a consensus, or should we announce this proposal to Wikipedia:WikiProject Universities for example? Yours, Dodoïste (talk) 21:26, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

It's a pretty small change, so I think you can go ahead. If you want you could wait a day or two in case others want to comment here. Klubbit (talk) 22:23, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

OK then. I've been bold and made the change. Feel free to revert and discuss if necessary. :-) Dodoïste (talk) 22:50, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

Whoops, I just understood where the "font-size:88%" I just carelessly removed came from, and your earlier post. Template:Infobox does uses this small formatting, and I never realized it before because I always enlarge text by default on Wikipedia to prevent reading difficulties created by such smaller font size.

You may replace "font-size:88%" if you want, I won't argue. But I will definitely try my hardest to have the default text size in Template:Infobox set back to default. Small font size are hard to read, and thus reduce usability. This was proved by scientific reading studies, small text size can lengthen the reading rate by 1.5 (for example, a text that you could read in 20 seconds in normal size (12 points) could take you 30 seconds in smaller size (10 points). See Wikipedia:WikiProject Usability/Readability guidelines. This is the next task on my todo-list. Yours, Dodoïste (talk) 22:58, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

RfC

Help is needed to establish consensus at Talk:Pennsylvania_State_University#Ranking_in_lead. Followers of this article may be interested in commenting there. Regards —Eustress ^talk 20:15, 28 November 2010 (UTC)

Issue now resolved. Thank you! —Eustress ^talk 18:13, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

Separate

Anyone know how to separate U.S. and World rankings (like I tried) without leaving blank World rankings sections for universities that don't list any world universities? Also, USNWR has a world ranking that could be added here. See http://www.usnews.com/education/worlds-best-universities/articles/2010/09/21/worlds-best-universities-top-400-. 74.79.150.20 (talk) 02:48, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

TARU

If it's unclear, the TARU discussion can be found here (CMUP is the organization that creates this report). Any further thoughts? Klubbit (talk) 16:41, 3 June 2011 (UTC)

Georgetown

A user is trying to supplant this template on the Georgetown University article with a skewed and inconsistent template (up for deletion here). Any input from others appreciated. —Eustress ^talk 11:17, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

Who's in charge of updating the template?

The 2011-2012 rankings are now out, but the links point to 2010-2011 rankings. -Ttownfeen (talk) 22:07, 23 September 2011 (UTC)

I'm sure someone watching this page will get around to it eventually (myself included), but if you've got some time to invest in the encyclopedia, please lead the way. I just updated the dates and verified the links for the 2012 USNWR rankings, so now we just need to update all rankings throughout Wikipedia! —Eustress ^talk 01:47, 25 September 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for updating the citations. I would have done it myself for sure, but I am uncomfortable in general with editing templates since I am unfamiliar with the syntax used in them. --Ttownfeen (talk) 21:32, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

The 2012 ARWU rankings are out so references should be updated: http://www.shanghairanking.com/ARWU2012.html I don't know how to do this though so I guess someone else has to do it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.217.235.63 (talk) 03:27, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

Forbes Rankings

This template displays the Forbes rankings as national rankings, but for most schools, their overall ranking is listed. By clicking on each school from Forbes' website, it will display the school's ranking in the research university category, which is what USNWR and WM refer to as national universities. For comparison's sake, I think we should be consistent. Since the template does display "national" instead of "overall," I have changed several schools from their overall ranking to their national or research university ranking. That way we have consistency with each Forbes rankings when compared to USNWR and WM. Treydavis3 (talk) 15:33, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

This seems logical to me. But the link in the template is for the listing of overall rank. Forbes does not have a list of ranks for "research universities," which is beyond our controls. --Ttownfeen (talk) 21:30, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

I disagree. They are all overall rankings, not research-only rankings. Take USNWR... Yes, it classifies schools based on research productivity/degrees offered (e.g., "National University" -- full range of degrees; "Liberal Arts" -- focus on undergrad, half of degrees in liberal arts; see other classes here), but this is only to make sure you are comparing apples to apples and not apples to oranges. Its rankings are actually based on many factors in addition to research productivity: (From USNWR Methodology) "The rankings allow you to compare at a glance the relative quality of institutions based on such widely accepted indicators of excellence as freshman retention and graduation rates and the strength of the faculty."

Now, each ranking agency utilizes different factors to determine its overall ranking, but it's still an overall ranking. We present them nicely and concisely in this template and allow readers to draw their own conclusions. —Eustress ^talk 23:59, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

ARWU_NU to ARWU_N

I propose updating the syntax as mentioned, because it seems that many if not most uni articles still use the ARWU_N syntax instead of ARWU_NU, and furthermore, ARWU_N is more consistent with the existing ARWU_W syntax used in this template. --81.100.44.233 (talk) 03:22, 27 December 2011 (UTC)

I think the change from ARWU_N to ARWU_NU was an unintended side-effect of this edit in November. I have changed the template coding so that both ARWU_N and ARWU_NU work; the value of either parameter is passed down to {{Infobox US university ranking/National}} as the ARWU_NU parameter that it is expecting.

Your edit didn't work because it passed a ARWU_N parameter down to {{Infobox US university ranking/National}}, and that template didn't understand it. -- John of Reading (talk) 09:32, 27 December 2011 (UTC)

Ah, cheers. --81.100.44.233 (talk) 09:58, 27 December 2011 (UTC)

National and Overall University Rankings - Keep an eye out

I've noticed that many university articles are utilizing either (i) a custom rankings table or (ii) the standard rankings infobox yet missing particular rankings from it. It seems that in some cases the latter was a result of attempts by users to purposely exclude rankings that they deemed unfavorable (e.g. there seem to be many cases of Forbes rankings excluded), which is against Wikipedia's policies as outlined here. I would like to raise awareness to anyone reading this: if you are an active Wikipedia contributor and happen to visit a university article, please check to see if a standard infobox is being used for the rankings list, with up-to-date rankings included for all applicable parameters. For a comprehensive university, at the time of writing, there should usually be 7 values available. See Template:Infobox US university ranking for more info. --81.100.44.233 (talk) 11:40, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

ARWU

The ARWU rankings website (shanghairanking.com) has been blacklisted. I've inquired at MediaWiki_talk:Spam-blacklist#shanghairanking.com for any reasons why. —Eustress ^talk 04:59, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

Okay, blacklisting should be lifted now. See thread linked to above for details. —Eustress ^talk 06:31, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

Forbes ranking doesn't belong

The Forbes entry currently included in the Template:Infobox US university ranking is an undergraduate institution ranking, not an overall university ranking. Please see the explicit description provided by Forbes:

America's Top Colleges

Our annual list of America's best undergraduate institutions focuses on educational outcomes, not reputations.

As the infobox title clearly suggests, the infobox is for 'University rankings (overall)', and therefore a ranking of only the university's undergraduate institution does not belong in the infobox, in which case it should be removed. --Coolbb (talk) 08:43, 25 June 2012 (UTC)

Good point, but since undergraduates represent the majority of any university's population, I could see how this could be a fair overall university ranking. What do others think? —Eustress ^talk 14:22, 25 June 2012 (UTC)

Thank you for seeing this crucial point, and I appreciate your response. I do realize that undergraduates often represent a majority of a university's population. However, that is not a necessary trait (it may not be the case for all universities), plus (crucially) a university is simply not the same, by definition, as an undergraduate institution, regardless of how the latter factors into the former. If editors believe that the Forbes ranking should be included in every article, then I propose that it should be relocated to somewhere suitable, or re-rendered so that it seems more suitable for the current infobox. Here are some possibilities:

(a) A lightweight option: keep the infobox as it is, and include the Forbes ranking, but put an informative note adjacent to the Forbes title in the infobox, in parentheses - so that it is something like Forbes (Undergraduate) or Forbes (Undergrad) - to make it clear that although it is a ranking of what may likely be a significant part of a university, it is not actually an overall university ranking.

(b) Include it in a 'University rankings (undergraduate)' infobox.

(c) The 'University rankings (overall)' infobox could be updated to just 'University rankings' to make room for additional major categories of rankings.

Other proposals are welcome. --Coolbb (talk) 15:47, 25 June 2012 (UTC)

The very same argument holds for U.S. News & World Report "Best College" rankings which only rate the undergraduate program. Whatever holds for Forbes, must also hold for USNWR. And regarding the "ludicrous" methodology employed by Forbes, I think all ranking methodologies are ludicrous in their own ways and would like to have them all omitted from Wikipedia articles. But that's my POV. However, it's not our job to adjudicate the validity of ranking methodologies, only to include and report notable rankings. Which Forbes is, so it gets to stay. Madcoverboy (talk) 17:00, 25 June 2012 (UTC)

I urge against messing with the layout of the infobox or considering having another class of subcategories. Either Forbes is an "overall" university ranking or it is not, and you both make compelling arguments that it is not. More specific university rankings can be referenced in the body of the article but do not belong in the infobox. Therefore, I agree to excluding the Forbes ranking from this template. —Eustress ^talk 20:29, 25 June 2012 (UTC)

Are you also suggesting that the US News & World Report rankings should be removed, too, since it also focuses on the undergraduate experience? ElKevbo (talk) 20:47, 25 June 2012 (UTC)

The USNWR 'National University Rankings' list here looks like a sub-category within a college ranking list - therefore a sub-category within an undergraduate institution ranking list - instead of an overall university ranking list. The category of 'National University' appears to be a qualifier within the category of college rankings - referring to a list of all national universities within the college rankings, instead of just liberal arts colleges, or regional colleges, etc. (which also have their own college lists as can be seen here). The categorization method is also reflected in the order of components in the URL: for instance, in http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-colleges/rankings/national-universities/data, 'best-colleges' is the ranking category, and 'national-universities' is the ranking sub-category.

The somewhat misleading title of 'National University Rankings' might on its surface seem to imply overall university rankings when it's really an undergraduate institution ranking list with a filter of 'national universities'. In that case, the USNWR ranking list would basically be in the same boat as the Forbes ranking list - it's not really overall university rankings, but undergraduate institution rankings.

A simple fix to the infobox that would allow the Forbes and USNWR sources to match the infobox category and thus be more suitable for the infobox, is to switch 'University rankings (overall)' to a category that is broad enough (e.g. 'University rankings') to allow for both overall university rankings as well as undergraduate institution rankings.

Alternatively, USNWR does have an overall university ranking list that could be included, located here, which is global instead of national, although it appears to be based on the QS World University Rankings, which are already included. --Coolbb (talk) 22:12, 25 June 2012 (UTC)

(I'm not sure to whom you are replying but I'll respond anyway.) Relatively minor reshuffling, renaming, or recategorizing would be fine with me. I am adamantly opposed to anything that would include removal of the USN&WR rankings outright as they're by far the most influential ranking system in the U.S. ElKevbo (talk) 22:43, 25 June 2012 (UTC)

Good discussion. I've gone ahead and modified (1) the title of the template to simply say University rankings and (2) the documentation to clarify the purpose of the template per this discussion. I've also reinstated the Forbes ranking. Ideally, if further clarification is needed for readers, it would be provided on the template page and not on the template itself. Cheers —Eustress ^talk 00:30, 26 June 2012 (UTC)

Forbes is a horrible ranking, but as Madcoverboy said "it's not our job to adjudicate the validity of ranking methodologies". BTW, USNews global ranking is the same as QS. US News simply republishes them. There are plenty of major missing evaluators of colleges, such as the Center for Measuring University Performance and Princeton Review whose scores don't fit necessarily neatly fit in the ordinal numbering system of US News, etc. How these could be incorporated should be considered. There are plenty of missing international rankings, such as HEEACT, Leiden, and SCImago. Some rankings focus solely on undergrad education (US News, WAMO), some on Research (QS, HEEACT), and some on overall institution (THES, CMUP). These categories could also be included. But to solve the issue of having "bad" rankings, perhaps the way to go is just to include all legitimate, third party rankings in order to give a truer overview and allow the reader to determine the legitimacy. CrazyPaco (talk) 01:50, 26 June 2012 (UTC)

Notability of the CWUR rankings

The article of this recently created ranking (CWUR World University Rankings) does not contain sufficient information regarding the publisher. Who is the Center for World University Rankings? Are they a notable organization? The website linked on this article (http://www.cwur.org/) offered little to no details about this group. It is also difficult to find reputable external sources about them.--DerechoReguerraz (talk) 06:24, 11 July 2012 (UTC)

Info About CWUR Rankings:

• reported by universities:

1) http://www.utexas.edu/news/2012/07/05/university-of-texas-ranked-no-30-among-world-universities/

2) http://today.uci.edu/facts/rankings_distinctions.php

3) http://live.psu.edu/story/60316

4) http://www.colorado.edu/content/cu-boulder-lands-two-top-100-international-rankings

• reported by the media:

1) http://www.kvue.com/news/UT-makes-top-100-list-of-best-universities-in-the-world-161469485.html

2) http://abclocal.go.com/ktrk/story?section=news/local&id=8729939

3) http://view.koreaherald.com/kh/view.php?ud=20120710000910&cpv=0 Uwkcls1c (talk) 08:02, 11 July 2012 (UTC)

These links above are reporting the rankings, but none of them are about this organization. Further, none of the articles above mentioned anything regarding the "prominence" of this CWUR organization. The only thing that is known is that this Center for World University Rankings is from Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, but everything else is unknown. Further, if the above articles are indicators, that's not a very wide coverage by the media.--DerechoReguerraz (talk) 09:15, 11 July 2012 (UTC)

I agree: The available evidence does not indicate that this new ranking system is sufficiently notable or important enough to include in this template or Wikipedia articles. I support removing them from articles into which they have been inserted. ElKevbo (talk) 17:30, 11 July 2012 (UTC)

I see no evidence for notability in my preliminary search. I recommend removal with no prejudice to their subsequent re-admission if notability is established. FYI, information about methodology appears to be available here. Madcoverboy (talk) 18:23, 11 July 2012 (UTC)

Methodology seems subjective and fair. We need more information about this but it can be useful source for us.Anonymous1 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 121.64.175.67 (talk • contribs) 06:16:52

Saying that it "seems subjective and fair" is simply a personal opinion. That doesn't establish the notability. 121.64.175.67, please also stop inserting the CWUR ranking in other articles (and in many cases removing other rankings without an explanation and inserting this CWUR ranking in its place instead, for examples, [1], [2], [3], [4], [5], [6]) unless the consensus establishes that it is notable for the infobox.--DerechoReguerraz (talk) 22:25, 15 July 2012 (UTC)

Institution's notability? then you should deduct QS ranking in the ranking table first. QS is not a professional institution or research center. It just small private COMPANY based in London and its controversy hasn't end yet. Talk:QS_World_University_Rankings — Preceding unsigned comment added by 121.64.175.67 (talk) 10:44, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

The Center for World University Rankings has also been mentioned in:

1) the US Congress: http://www.c-spanvideo.org/videoLibrary/clip.php?appid=601978974 <video> see also here: http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?r112:H11JY2-0031

About the first link, someone who is an alumni of Rice University mentioning this ranking doesn't equate the view of "the US Congress". Also, the second link doesn't contain any information.--DerechoReguerraz (talk) 08:49, 15 July 2012 (UTC)

2) EBS News (Korean): http://tvpot.daum.net/brand/ClipView.do?ownerid=8Q4vdRFuOiQ0&clipid=43188897&page=1&q=&type=&lu=b_frm_cview_clip <video>

3) TV Chosun (Korean): http://news.tv.chosun.com/site/data/html_dir/2012/07/10/2012071001388.html <video>

4) Yahoo Japan (Japanese): http://headlines.yahoo.co.jp/hl?a=20120710-00000014-scn-kr

5) Atlanta Business Chronicle: http://www.bizjournals.com/atlanta/news/2012/07/10/georgia-tech-ranked-among-best-in.html

6) Dayton Business Journal: http://www.bizjournals.com/dayton/blog/morning_call/2012/07/ohio-universities-among-tops-in-world.html

and finally

7) from Purdue University: http://www.purdue.edu/oir/rankings.html mentioning CWUR along with ARWU, QS, and THE as the only global rankings. Uwkcls1c (talk) 14:40, 13 July 2012 (UTC)

None of these articles above demonstrated the notability of this organization; they are just reporting the news of this ranking.--DerechoReguerraz (talk) 08:49, 15 July 2012 (UTC)

I agree with Derecho, we're looking for some evidence that this is more than just a guy with a website who crunched some numbers and got universities who liked their position to make some press releases. Madcoverboy (talk) 17:53, 16 July 2012 (UTC)

I've submitted the CWUR article to AfD. If the article is deemed notable there, then I don't think we should exclude it from this template. —Eustress ^talk 19:45, 16 July 2012 (UTC)

I disagree. The criteria for "having an article" and "including in a specific template" are different and should not be conflated. I expect that this AfD will result in a "keep" because this subject has sufficient press coverage to meet our notability threshold. But that in no way implies that this new and untested ranking, no matter how popular with local newspapers and university press agents, belongs in this template. ElKevbo (talk) 20:24, 16 July 2012 (UTC)

Perhaps you're right. On second thought, not sure CWUR would satisfy the guideline for reliable sources, since that's essentially the purpose of rankings here in this template (their sources are piped directly onto target article pages). Just trying to beware of POV amongst ourselves, but on reconsideration, WP:RS is a major concern. Cheers —Eustress ^talk 23:01, 16 July 2012 (UTC)

Baccalaureate colleges

So I tried adding the infobox baccalaureate colleges since, it seems to be a category used to rank some schools which baccalaureate but not liberal arts. For example Washington monthly has such a ranking. I used that as the basis for the creation of a new infobox, but it doesn't appear to be working. I guess some help would be nice.--El Mayimbe (talk) 04:25, 28 August 2012 (UTC)

You had Wamo_Bac instead of Wamo_BAC in one place. I fixed it. Indyguy (talk) 15:22, 28 August 2012 (UTC)

2013 USNWR

Note: the built-in references for this template point to the 2012 USNWR. This is problematic, as the 2013 USNWR ratings now are available. Thanks, DA Sonnenfeld (talk) 22:24, 21 September 2012 (UTC)

USNWR_GU is listed but doesn't work?

Does anyone else have the same problem? I tried USNWR_GU, USNWR_W, etc... for world USNWR rankings, it doesn't seem to work. Please helps. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.89.212.77 (talk) 12:56, 25 September 2015 (UTC)

Additions and subtractions

To follow up on my comment in June (see above section on Forbes), this template, frankly, is very problematic in its inclusions and exclusions of various rankings. That in itself introduces selection bias for ranking from Wikipedia's editors. The inclusiveness of the table is therefore highly suspect. Here are some issues:

1) US News World Ranking is simply a republication of QS and should be eliminated. (see here and compare to QS)

2) Long standing and highly respected, academically-produced international rankings such as HEEACT, Leiden, SIR, and URAP are missing for no apparent reason. These are rankings of total universities, not departments. And while these rankings focus on research impact and output, the methodology or focus of any particular ranking, whether it be undergraduate measures like US News and WAMO or research/graduate measures like ARWU and QS, is not within Wikipedia's directive to determine the importance of one methodology over another. In fact, what makes these rankings particularly important is that their methodologies are driven solely by quantitative data, thus eliminating any survey or prestige bias. In the least, a "research" section should be considered in the table that will include these rankings.

3)Webometrics, which is undoubtedly a major ranking with demonstrated staying power, should also likely be included because of the reasoning given above: "it's not our job to adjudicate the validity of ranking methodologies".

4) Major US evaluators of universities, particularly Princeton Review and, perhaps the most widely respected inside of academia, The Center for Measuring University Performance, are completely ignored simply because of the difficulty of incorporating their evaluations into a standard ordinal rank. For such evaluators, their scores could be reported, such as PR's academic and admissions scores and CMUP's # of measures in the top 25 (although CMUP's could be listed as clusters as well).

I aim to remove USNews World and add, at minimum, HEEACT, Leiden, SIR, URAP, Webometrics, Princeton Review academic score (perhaps admission score as well), and CMUP (either # of 25 measures or cluster grouping). Comments before I get started? CrazyPaco (talk) 08:48, 27 January 2013 (UTC)

Please don't get started, let us discuss here first. This template impacts numerous articles. Let's discuss each separately (see below). Keep in mind that the goal of this template is to present overall rankings of universities. There are myriad rankings that reflect only single aspects of universities (academics, research, athletics, environmental friendliness, social presence, etc.) or university departments/school/colleges -- too much and too complex to reflect in any one template; therefore, the community has decided to have a standard "overall rankings" template for all U.S. universities. More boutique rankings are welcome in prose in the body of the article. —Eustress ^talk 18:17, 27 January 2013 (UTC)

Agreed. I'd like evidence that these ranking systems are influential and taken seriously beyond the organizations who create them, local media who report anything about local institutions, university press releases, and general "we have nothing else to write about today so here's this thing that happened" "news" stories. In fact, I think it would be wonderful if we stepped back and did that for even the items currently included in this template.

So on those grounds I stand opposed to adding anything else to this template until it's actually demonstrated - not merely asserted without evidence - that a ranking system has significant influence and merit. ElKevbo (talk) 04:16, 28 January 2013 (UTC))

None of the suggested inclusions are of dubious merit as was CWUR above, unless you are suggesting non-commercial government agencies and university based academic researchers are dubious. HEEACT is the non-commercial Higher Education Evaluation and Accreditation Council of Taiwan, funded by the country's Ministry of Education, and has been releasing its study for 7 years. It is perhaps the most influential academic research ranking in the world, certainly in Asia. SCIMago is consortium of university statistical researchers out of Spain and their methodology has been published in scientific journals (see this article in FASEB). Same with Leiden (here and in the journal Scientometrics). This ranking obviously comes from Leiden University in the Netherlands at their Centre for Science and Technology Studies. It is probably most noted academic research rankings in Europe. URAP is one of the newer ones, but arrises from the non-profit Informatics Institute of Middle East Technical University in Turkey and holds annual academic symposiums. These are non-commercial, respected, academic-based rankings...truly international ones, that obviously don't get articles published regularly about them in the NY Times because they aren't best sellers in newsstands or hocked by guidance councilors to high school students and their parents. However, they are followed closely by academics and published and presented in academic forums. I recommend you click on the links to them above to see if they look anything like the fly-by-night commercial rankings you are concerned about. CrazyPaco (talk) 08:48, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

(Sorry, Crazypaco; this isn't personal or directed at you! We struggle to keep college and university articles neutral and the constant additions of rankings of meritorious and dubious merit alike makes that job very difficult. It's bad enough that nearly all of our articles about U.S. colleges and universities make them out to be glowing paragons of academic rigor, student happiness, and research productivity without us adding fuel to the fire by continuing to pile on more ranking systems. ElKevbo (talk) 04:16, 28 January 2013 (UTC))

Difficulty in maintaining articles is not a guiding principal of Wikipedia or a valid criteria for inclusion or exclusion of content. Neutrality, preciseness and expert knowledge are. Exclusion of legitimate information by arbitrary criteria achieves the opposite of your objective, which in this case should be a well-rounded and inclusive use of a variety of evaluative methodologies. CrazyPaco (talk) 08:01, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

NPOV is a core policy and that is the problem I am addressing. ElKevbo (talk) 14:49, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

Hold on individual ranking discussion

USNWR_W

• Agree with removal I'm fine with the immediate removal of this ranking. I believe it was added to this template recently and without discussion, and its website says, "These new 2012 rankings are based on data from the QS World University Rankings". —Eustress ^talk 18:17, 27 January 2013 (UTC)

HEEACT

• Oppose inclusion The objective of this template is to present uni rankings that reflect an overall view of the schools. HEEACT focuses exclusively on research criteria (i.e., research productivity, research impact, and research excellence). Research is only one aspect of universities. This ranking can still be mentioned in prose in the body of the article, but I do not believe it is appropriate for this template. —Eustress ^talk 18:17, 27 January 2013 (UTC)

• HEEACT measures the same thing as ARWU, which is also focused exclusively on research criteria. Therefore, by your logic, ARWU should be removed from the table. Likewise Forbes and US News only measures "undergraduate" components, ignoring graduate, service and research aspects of universities, and therefore they both should be removed. WaMo measure indices of "service" provided by universities, ignoring research, graduate, and undergraduate aspects of the institutions, and thus it will also have to be removed. Repeat this rebuttal for each of your objections and see below for a more thorough discussion.* CrazyPaco (talk) 07:33, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

Leiden

• Oppose inclusion Leiden reflects only the publications of universities, and only publications in two fields. Per its website, "The Leiden Ranking 2011/2012 is based on publications in Thomson Reuters’ Web of Science database in the period 2005-2009. Only publications in the sciences and the social sciences are included." (citation). Again, not general enough for this overall template. —Eustress ^talk 18:17, 27 January 2013 (UTC)

SIR

• Oppose inclusion SIR is a ranking of "institutions' research performance... based on the scientific outputs of institutions and the citations they receive" (citation). Again, not general enough for this overall template. —Eustress ^talk 18:17, 27 January 2013 (UTC)

• SIR states their rankings are based on "scientific impact, thematic specialization, output size, and international collaboration networks of the institutions". There are six indices: output, international collaboration, normalized impact, high quality publications, specialization index, excellence rate, and leadership. As with HEEACT, this is no different of a focus than ARWU. CrazyPaco (talk) 07:33, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

URAP

• Oppose inclusion URAP is an academics rankings "determined by quality and quantity of scholarly publications" (citation), again, not general. —Eustress ^talk 18:17, 27 January 2013 (UTC)

• ditto HEEACT and SIR CrazyPaco (talk) 07:33, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

Webometrics

• Comment I'm undecided on Webometrics. It seems to be research-focused, but it appears to incorporate other factors as well. Would appreciate further discussion on this one. —Eustress ^talk 18:17, 27 January 2013 (UTC)

• I don't like Webometrics, but as with every one of these rankings, it is not Wikipedia's place to pass judgment on the priorities of the ranking agencies in their university comparison or their methodologies.CrazyPaco (talk) 07:33, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

Princeton Review

• Oppose inclusion Does not have an overall university ranking at the national or global level. —Eustress ^talk 18:17, 27 January 2013 (UTC)

• It has an overall academic score at the national level. It does not ordinal rank. The academic score could be easily included. Is it an ordinal rank? No. Is that more important than leaving out what is likely the second most prominent evaluator of schools in the US after US News? CrazyPaco (talk) 07:33, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

CMUP

• Oppose inclusion CMPU was already discussed here (see Template_talk:Infobox_US_university_ranking/Archive_1#CMUP_rankings). It does not provide any overall university ranking, so inclusion on this template not appropriate. —Eustress ^talk 18:17, 27 January 2013 (UTC)

• That discussion, between two editors in 2009, seems to convey a misunderstanding of CMUP report. CMUP clearly lists universities in an order based on the number of each of 9 measures that a university has ranked in, firstly, the top 25 of all research universities, and secondly, from 26-50. CMUP definitively groups schools into clusters (denoted by a weighted line), the number of which could easily reported (cluster 1, cluster 2, cluster 3, etc). Further, ordinal rank could be easily applied albeit with multiple ties between institutions, but more importantly, with the possible danger of violating WP:OR. Regardless of this, the number of ranked measures is sufficiently easy to report (eg. Top 25 measures: 9). The CMUP report, btw, in academic circles, is without a doubt the number one most respected evaluator of research universities in the US. CrazyPaco (talk) 07:33, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

*^{The rankings you decry as being just about "research performance" is almost exactly identical to what the included ARWU ranking evaluates: "1) the number of alumni and staff winning Nobel Prizes and Fields Medals 2) number of highly cited researchers selected by Thomson Scientific 3) number of articles published in journals of Nature and Science 4) number of articles indexed in Science Citation Index 4) per capita performance with respect to the size of an institution. The ARWU is a pure research ranking, ignoring all undergraduate and and outreach/service components of any institution and its inclusion in this template is entirely inconsistent with your definition of "overall". Further ARWU is really no different than HEEACT which prioritizes the measures three key components "research productivity, research impact, and research excellence" with many essentially identical metrics. Likewise SIR maintains a emphasis on "scientific impact, thematic specialization, output size, and international collaboration networks of the institutions". SIR is in turn similar to URAP. In fact only QS and THES seem to have an interest in the "overall" university, but then their methodologies are heavily weighted towards research, and several of their metrics are duplicated in the "research-focused" rankings above. For QS, "40% is an academic quality survey that asks for respondents opinion of what institutions "they consider best for research", 20% is publication citations from Scopus, 20% is student faculty ratio, 10% is international faculty and students, and 10% is employer reputation. So QS weights research, at minimum, as 60% of their score. Likewise, THES basis their ranking on Research (30%), citations (30%), industry income (2.5%, which is research), international outlook (including research, 7.5%), student:faculty ratio (4.5%), PhDs to bachelors ratio (2.25%), PhDs awarded (6%) and academic reputation survey of research (15%...the THES reputation survey questions scholars "at the level of their specific subject discipline" with such queries as "Which university would you send your most talented graduates to for the best postgraduate supervision?" Such a question therefore doesn't evaluate undergrad education at all.) Therefore, conservatively, at least 85% of THES ranking is based on research or graduate measures. CrazyPaco (talk) 07:33, 28 January 2013 (UTC)}

--

IMO, there is a major flaw in your reasoning before you even began to examine each of the rankings because you are addressing these rankings without defining the template scope, which currently is inconsistent. You need to clarify this before you address individual rankings.

You state that the object of this template is to present "overall rankings". Your definition of "overall" is ambiguous. "Overall" can and does mean the university in toto, as opposed to individual components of the institution such as individual university schools, programs, departments, and centers. Each of the above rankings evaluates the university as a whole in this manner, i.e. not breaking things down to specific fields or disciplines as is found in many rankings. Since I stated this above and you did not comment on it, I therefore have to assume that how you are attempting to define "overall" as the inclusion of all aspects of a university's mission or function. The problem is that there is not a single ranking methodology in existence, including the ones currently included in the table, that measures any institution's overall mission or function.

For example, take the mission statement of, as a random choice, UCLA, which primarily states it exists for the "creation, dissemination, preservation and application of knowledge". This seems like it would apply to many universities, but most of the included rankings (US News, Forbes) do nothing to evaluate UCLA's core mission of the "creation" of knowledge, which is research. Further, UCLA states "civic engagement is fundamental to our mission as a public university", something that you'll find central in many university missions but ignored by almost all rankings except Washington Monthly. Therefore, your initial premise that any ranking evaluates the "overall" university, in terms of its function or mission, is fatally flawed. No one rankings comes close to evaluating the sum of the stated core missions or functions of the vast majority of universities and colleges.

For a particular examples of this, Forbes "America's Top Colleges" states right on the front of its website "Our annual list of America's best undergraduate institutions focuses on educational outcomes..." Therefore, Forbes ONLY focuses on and thus evaluates undergraduate components of institutions, NOT the "overall" university that includes graduate, research, community outreach. Thus all other aspects of institutions are ignored other than what Forbes has determined to be its focus. Because of this, based on your definition of "overall" that you use to exclude many of the above rankings, I can find no justifiable way to also continue to include Forbes' rankings. Therefore, this template is entirely inconsistent with your stated criteria of "overall" rankings by your definition. You can make this same argument for every single ranking already included in the template, some more strongly than others. What this effectively results in is the inclusion of some rankings based on editorial WP:POV or WP:Bias, not on a standardized criteria applicable across the plethora and diversity of American institutions of higher education.

What differs in each of all published rankings is their purpose, which is reflected in the unique methodology that each organization constructs to evaluate universities towards their own ends. Each ranking therefore brings their own priorities and Points of View as to the importance of any one metric for the comparison of one universities to another. For US News, the purpose of their annual "Best Colleges" ranking is serve as a college guide for prospective undergraduate students. Therefore, their methodology reflects the evaluation of metrics that they have deemed important in the cross-institutional evaluation for these future college applicants. For Washington Monthly, their ranking states that they are interested in university's "contribution to the public good" and thus their methodology focuses on social mobility, research, and service while largely ignoring undergraduate and graduate education itself. Every ranking is thus POV and/or Biased, and it is not Wikipedia's place to editorialize on either the focus or methodology of any one ranking, whether this editorialization comes in the form of a written critique or via censorship, by exclusion, of any one established ranking's individual POV on university quality. The only way to avoid this editorialization-by-exclusion is for Wikipedia to be as inclusive as possible in providing available information to readers so that can decide for themselves the importance or relevance of this information.

And with this stated, it is easily justifiable to include "research-focused" rankings in this table, perhaps in a separate "research" section, or to create an new separate research ranking table that would be inclusive of these measures. In either case, because of the individuality and diversity of educational institutions in the US, along with infinite numbers of possible motives and interests of any one reader, an editorialized POV of the merits of rankings' focus and methodology, as is manifested in the current form of this template, should not be foisted into the Wikipedia articles of colleges and universities. Undoubtedly, in the template's current state, readers of the articles are better off with customized tables that adhere to WP:NPOV and are able to reflect the individual missions and focus of each particular institution: undergrad, grad, research, service, value, etc.

I look forward to you addressing these points. Respectful regards. CrazyPaco (talk) 07:33, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

• Good points, although brevity would be appreciated in the future. I think the community needs to have a discussion about the scope of this template before discussing individual rankings any further. Once we can decide upon some criteria, I think the rest will flow. —Eustress ^talk 23:03, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

I do apologize. Being wordy is often a weakness of mine, especially as I try to show various examples and angles. CrazyPaco (talk) 07:03, 30 January 2013 (UTC)

• The whole premise of this template is troubling--I would support a deletion altogether. If they are to be used at all (something I do grudgingly accept), these rankings need context within the article, not a hit-it-and-quit-it infobox.--GrapedApe (talk) 13:29, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

• I think it's beneficial to have a table that concisely presents a handful of notable rankings. —Eustress ^talk 23:03, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

• Without context, especially explaining the ranking, the rankings are useless.--GrapedApe (talk) 00:41, 29 January 2013 (UTC)

The Kiplinger ranks should be added too: http://www.kiplinger.com/tool/college/T014-S001-kiplinger-s-best-values-in-private-colleges/index.php?table=all — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jaxhks (talk • contribs) 01:20, 3 July 2017 (UTC)

Template 2.0

This template has served enwp well for a while now, but the discussion above makes me feel like a discussion about the fundamentals about the template is needed. That is, we need to decide upon the scope of the template, some criteria of what rankings should be included and which ones should not. Here are the key criteria as I see them:

• Notability. The ranking should, as ElKevbo said above, be "influential and taken seriously beyond the organizations who create them, local media who report anything about local institutions, [and] university press releases". Anyone can create their own ranking and get it cited by universities for whom the ranking is favorable.
• Reflects the university as a whole and not a subcomponent. The ranking should address the university, not a department/school/college of the larger university.
• Reflects a broad aspect of the universitiy. This one is complex. CrazyPaco is correct that "there is not a single ranking methodology in existence... that measures any institution's overall mission or function;" however, I think this template should strive to include rankings that are as broad in aspect as possible. Ranking a university's undergraduate education such as USNWR is broad, but a ranking that considers only publications in two academic fields such as Leiden is too narrow.
• Standardized format. Rankings should be in ordinal format (Jimbo University #1, Wales College #2, etc.) so all rankings in the template are parallel in format.

What do you think? Again, my hope is that once the criteria are nailed down, we can easily run current and proposed rankings through them. —Eustress ^talk 23:31, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

One way to further operationalize "notability" in this context would be to set a minimum number of years for which the system has been in place. ElKevbo (talk) 02:15, 29 January 2013 (UTC)

I have a dream, my friends, that some day we will have this and similar templates (e.g., parts of the university infobox, Carnegie Classifications) regularly populated and updated by one or more bots pulling from centralized sources of data (e.g. IPEDS, annual NACUBO endowment listing, tables of rankings). Anyone up for helping me think about this some more and maybe moving it foeward in some small way? ElKevbo (talk) 02:15, 29 January 2013 (UTC)

• Thank you for starting this discussion. I agree it is needed. I will try to have more brevity in my comments.

re: Notability I agree with your statements on notability, but this should not necessarily be the same as WP:Notability policy for the appropriateness of inclusion of articles within Wikipedia. For instance, academic journals are generally thought to be sufficiently notable, within certain guidelines, to warrant their own articles despite the fact few of them have ever received "significant coverage" from secondary sources. (See Wikipedia:Notability (academic journals)). Therefore, academically produced and utilized evaluations may suffer a similar lack of coverage (outside of ranked universities' press releases promoting their ranking). However, this does not make them necessarily less valid than highly commercialized rankings. Therefore, I would caution on the use of the word "notability" in order to avoid confusion with Wikipedia policy that governs the worthiness of article inclusion within Wikipedia. For commercial rankings, or just random blogs and websites, yes, I do think WP:NOTE is a valid criteria, but academic ones may warrant special consideration. Thankfully, it is pretty easy to tell the difference between the two.

That said, academic-based rankings that have been covered in academic literature, or have published their methodology in academic literature, are in no danger of resembling ones "just anyone is making up". As you mentioned, it may be useful to note if they publish updated rankings somewhat regularly as well, although I'm not sure that fact alone make a ranking legitimate. Preemptively, here is an academic article comparing HEEACT, AWRU, and THE-QS (now QS methodology). Here is a journal article on SCImago's methodology. Here's one on Leiden. An article in the journal Science discusses ARWU, THES, and Leiden here. Here's an article from The Chronicle of Higher Education that mentions the significance of CMUP's rankings within academia.

re: Reflects the university as a whole and not a subcomponent. I agree.

re: Reflects a broad aspect of the university The broad aspect is a difficult question to tackle, and may require more space than this reply. Are, in fact, undergraduate-focused rankings broad? You say they are, yet I say they are not. I think you can get into trouble be defining "broad" in ways that are, ironically, narrow. Is a "best value" ranking broad? They typically take into account both the aspects of the financials of attendance and quality of undergrad teaching. Therefore, perhaps "best value" rankings are broad, or even more broad because they evaluate additional criteria. What then about other rankings of more limited scope, like "Top Publics"? Rankings are more meaningful for one school than another based on mission (public/private, research/non-research, etc) and we likely cannot create a one-size-fits-all model. Moreover, is it actually problematic for this template offer the ability to include such rankings if they meet the criteria of being from reputable source? I don't think that it is. If you are going to offer this template as a tool for editors to help summarize rankings of a school, which effectively highlights those rankings in the school's article, then we have to be careful that such highlighting doesn't unfairly editorialize on the rankings by our inclusion or exclusion of them.

Regarding Leiden specifically, and perhaps this should wait until later, but Leiden states upfront that it measure sciences and social sciences, but not humanities and arts because of insufficient accuracy of publication indices in those fields. However, it is somewhat disingenuous to claim all of science and social sciences constitute but two fields. These are major super-categories of human intellectual endeavor covering hundreds, perhaps 1000s of fields. Again, this gets into issues of institutional missions and differences for which a satisfactory one-sized-fits model will not exist. BTW, the already included ARWU ranking also exclude arts and humanities from its evaluation. The truth is, most research-based rankings do exclude humanities and arts for the same reason Leiden does...and because the evaluation of productivity and quality in the humanities and arts doesn't necessarily follow the peer-reviewed research publication model of science...and therefore it is very difficult to evaluate.

re: Standardized format. I disagree with the requirement for an ordinal rank. I don't think it is problematic to include non-ordinal evaluations. In particularly, doing so eliminates the most influential inter-academic evaluation in the US: CMUP. Notations can be added to the template to explain the values assigned. I don't see how that would be difficult, or that difficulty is a valid reason to prevent an evaluation's inclusion. I also think it is more in line with Wikipedia's mission to err on the side of providing info, rather than to eliminate info because it doesn't fit neatly into a paradigm that, in this case, has popularized by commercial evaluations like US News. CrazyPaco (talk) 09:06, 30 January 2013 (UTC)

2013 Forbes

Note: the built-in references for this template currently point to the 2012 Forbes ranking. This is problematic, as the 2013 Forbes ratings now are available. Thanks, DA Sonnenfeld (talk) 09:25, 25 July 2013 (UTC)

Along similar lines, the 2013/14 QS rankings are available: [7]. I'd try to fix things myself, but I honestly can't find the page where I could make the change. Zagalejo^^^ 02:44, 11 September 2013 (UTC)

I've updated info for Forbes, USNWR, and QS, thanks. —Eustress ^talk 20:19, 11 September 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for doing that. Zagalejo^^^ 05:11, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

Washington Monthly should be removed

They use totally different criteria -- e.g. rate of participation in ROTC -- to judge universities. This leads to highly unorthodox results, such as Texas A & M and University of Texas at El Paso (which has a 99.8% acceptance rate (1) ) being ranked nearly two dozen spots above Yale (and higher than both Harvard and Princeton). ((2). They're entitled to their opinion, but they're sufficiently heterodox that simply putting them in the template box (which provides no explanation as to methodology, etc) is misleading and WP:Undue. Steeletrap (talk) 22:46, 10 October 2013 (UTC)

Please stop jumping around with this. There's a discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Universities#Mass removal of Washington Monthly rankings and let's keep it there for the time being. Madcoverboy (talk) 22:49, 10 October 2013 (UTC)

The main point of that discussion is my alleged "misbehavior." Reread the section title. This is about the rankings. Steeletrap (talk) 22:58, 10 October 2013 (UTC)

I agree - that thread is focused on behavior and not on content or this desired change. Would anyone mind if I copied the substantive comments in that thread and in other places (e.g. Talk:University of Chicago) here to centralize the discussion? ElKevbo (talk) 02:06, 11 October 2013 (UTC)

Good idea. You might also post a {{moved to}} template. And hat the other comments above. – S. Rich (talk) 02:26, 11 October 2013 (UTC)

• Keep Washington Monthly in template. It's no worse than any other of the ridiculous rankings.--GrapedApe (talk) 11:36, 11 October 2013 (UTC)
• I agree that this ranking should be kept in this template. It's discussed in many reliable sources and it's a credible ranking system (within the paradigm of ranking systems; if you reject them entirely then of course I expect that you would also reject this particular one). ElKevbo (talk) 13:54, 11 October 2013 (UTC)
• OP: Keep in article but not in template The methodology of the WM rankings is extremely different from the other ones so they can't simply be listed in the template without explanation. The natural assumption is that the WM rankings are determined according to "mainstream criteria" -- e.g. amount of research, endowment, student high school grades/test scores, employment/grade school prospects, etc -- so presenting them without explanation misleads many of our users. It should be removed from the template but can be included in the body of articles, provided that its criteria (e.g. rate of ROTC participation) are made clear. Steeletrap (talk) 21:54, 11 October 2013 (UTC)
• WM is appropriate for template. The description of criteria for Rankings of universities in the United States is one for that article. Once we have WM as "notable" in as much as it has its own article, the RS which can discuss the appropriateness of its university ranking methodologies can be included in that article. To try and parse out how well WM performs its rankings cannot be done in individual school articles. If I read OP's comments correctly, she would like an explanation of the methodology, including caveats about ROTC participation, in the prose for each of the school articles. Well, actually, the template serves to avoid such parsing, which is vulnerable to BOOSTERism. Moreover, consider what is to be done when doing these comparisons in the prose. UCSD is ranked #1 by WM. Do they have an ROTC program? I don't see it described in the article. But USCD mentions WM on their webpage Campus Profile with the 1st for Positive Impact, which they achieved without an ROTC program. Should we say so in the prose & point out how they got the first w/o the ROTC participation factor? If anything is to be done, the template might be modified to say "Positive Impact" on the WM line. – S. Rich (talk) 02:22, 12 October 2013 (UTC)
• Keep WM in the template. Reasoning has been posted below a couple times. Chris1834 (talk) 02:33, 12 October 2013 (UTC)

Discussion previously held at WikiProject Universities

I have sound reasons for this "mass removal", which I provided as edit summaries. Inclusion of the Washington Monthly Rankings is WP:Undue because those rankings radically contradict all of the other (mainstream, reliable) rankings. For instance, Texas A & M, University of California at Riverside, and University of Texas, El Paso are ranked well ahead of Harvard, Princeton, and Yale (1). Some of the Criteria sued to detemrmine the rankings highly dubious, such as rate of ROTC participation (which has roughly as much weight as Research expenditures). It is WP:Undue to include these fringe rankings alongside the notable, mainstream ones they contradict. Steeletrap (talk) 22:07, 10 October 2013 (UTC)

Ranking something a varied and complex as university is an absurd endeavor in its own right. Each published methodology represents a separate view point and certainly will contradict each other because they are measuring very different aspects of the same institution. IMO, either all view points should be included or they shouldn't be used at all, which is my personal primary problem with how the ranking template is set up to begin with (and discussed here). But picking and choosing inclusion of sourced opinion (eg rankings) based solely on an editor's personal opinion of the outcomes of the employed methodology has no place on Wikipedia per WP:NPOV. All major rankings should be included, and Washington Monthly is certainly one of them. CrazyPaco (talk) 22:32, 10 October 2013 (UTC)

Again, this has nothing to do with who is "right" or "wrong." (though I have to emphatically reject your apparent view that the criteria of the mainstream rankings -- test scores and high school grades of students; size of endowment; reputation among peers; employment/grad school prospects -- are arbitrary.) The question of which university is "better" is inherently subjective in any case. However, on Wikipedia, we go off of what mainstream sources say. Mainstream rankings do not say the University of Texas, el Paso, is a better school than Harvard, Yale and Princeton. The school has a 99.8% acceptance rate. (1) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Steeletrap (talk • contribs)

I agree with Paco's arguments vis-a-vis varying levels of insanity, inanity, and absurdity in ranking methodologies' POVs but come down on the other side as to my preferred outcome -- that rankings should be omitted entirely and the substance these rankings purport to synthesize be discussed instead. If A&M is notable for having lots of ROTC, great, let's unpack that. If Harvard is notable for having lots of money, great, let's unpack that. But there's little consensus for this and the accommodation we've reached instead is to include a summary of notable rankings. WM explicitly markets its method as being purposefully orthogonal to other approaches so it's not surprising that institutions come higher or lower than popular perceptions. WM's rankings are recognized by other reliable sources as worthy of discussion, so UNDUE simply doesn't apply here as it's not a fringe ranking (though there are plenty of those linkbait as well). The purpose of the infobox is in part to prevent editors from erecting post-hoc justifications for excluding rankings that are unflattering to their institution on the basis on methodological qualms. Madcoverboy (talk) 22:43, 10 October 2013 (UTC)

• ElKevbo is right to revert. The Washington Monthly college rankings are no more flawed than any other ranking. It's not WP:UNDUE.--GrapedApe (talk) 00:18, 11 October 2013 (UTC)

Discussion previously held at Talk:University of Chicago

These absurd "rankings" claim Yale is #41 in the U.S. while Texas A & M is 2nd (1). (They also have Princeton ranked 6 spots below University of California at Santa Barbara) These should be removed from all the college rank pages because they contradict what the clearly reliable, mainstream rankings from major publications say. They appear to be a "populist" attempt to denigrate elite private schools (Ivies, UChicago, and others) and elevate low-tier public schools. Steeletrap (talk) 17:39, 10 October 2013 (UTC)

They're pretty widely reported so you need a much better reason than your own personal opinion to justify removing them. ElKevbo (talk) 19:29, 10 October 2013 (UTC)

Personal opinion? That's not what she said. Look at the most widely cited rankings -- US News, Princeton Review, and others. SPECIFICO talk

(edit conflict)

The WP:UNIGUIDE has suggested guidance related to this issue. Also see Rankings of universities in the United States. – S. Rich (talk) 19:53, 10 October 2013 (UTC)

The WM rankings, whether or not they are "right" or "wrong", radically contradict (E.G., through their claim that UT El Paso and Texas A & M are vastly superior institutions to Princeton and Yale) literally every other RS ranking cited. Therefore it is WP:Undue to include them uncritically alongside these other rankings. Steeletrap (talk) 20:01, 10 October 2013 (UTC)

Also: LOL at their methodology. Rate of "ROTC participation" is one of their criteria for a top university, which is why A&M is so high. Steeletrap (talk) 20:04, 10 October 2013 (UTC)

There was a little discussion re Washington Monthly at Template talk:Infobox US university ranking. As this question pertains to more than just Yale, UofC, or other particular schools, I suggest bringing up the issue on the UNIGUIDE talkpage Wikipedia talk:College and university article guidelines. – S. Rich (talk) 20:38, 10 October 2013 (UTC)

So you believe that this ranking system is not useful because it doesn't duplicate other existing systems...? First, that is your personal point of view which is wholly insufficient to remove the material or pass judgment on it; that is particularly evident in your unjustified and uncritical disdain for the methodology. Second, as a criterion for validity it's a very problematic one because of the differences in methodologies.

Look, I get that we need to employ some level of editorial judgment when deciding what material to include or exclude in encyclopedia articles. But we can't employ our personal judgment to omit material simply because we don't like it or have an amateur gut feeling that the material might be incorrect when reliable sources have clearly stated otherwise. This particular ranking differs from your own judgment of the comparable quality of U.S. colleges and universities; deal with it. ElKevbo (talk) 20:39, 10 October 2013 (UTC)

It's an especially bad idea to edit war over this (or any other) issue. You've made your case; please respect WP:BRD and by not edit warring. ElKevbo (talk) 20:41, 10 October 2013 (UTC)

This is an accepted WP template we are talking about. If it was populated with only the best looking or worst looking numbers, then WP:BOOSTER would be in play. But if it is populated with all or most of the available rankings, then we go with it. We would really be in trouble if we went to the Tx A&M article and removed this particular data from the template because the methodology included ROTC. – S. Rich (talk) 21:03, 10 October 2013 (UTC)

However, it a very problematic template in that its contents has been unnecessarily limited (and thus biased) to a very small subset of rankings that often excludes other major evaluations measuring other major components of universities as discussed on the template's discussion page. CrazyPaco (talk) 22:16, 10 October 2013 (UTC)

Just because a ranking uses different criteria doesn't make it wrong. It can use whatever criteria it wants. If someone wants to know why it is ranked that way, they can continue on and find out just like they can with any of the other rankings...which all use different methods to some degree. I don't believe any one has brought just cause as to why these rankings should be excluded. Chris1834 (talk) 21:15, 10 October 2013 (UTC)

Again, it's not about "right or wrong." It's about "mainstream or fringe." By virtue of radically opposing the rankings of the mainstream RS, Washington Monthly's inclusion is WP:Undue. You seem to fundamentally misunderstand the rules of this community. Steeletrap (talk) 22:01, 10 October 2013 (UTC)

OK let me rephrase... Just because a ranking uses different criteria doesn't make it fringe. It can use whatever criteria it wants. If it was claiming to use the same criteria and came up with vastly different rankings, I may agree with you but these are rankings...with different criteria all published by reputable major sources. "Neutrality requires that each article or other page in the mainspace fairly represents all significant viewpoints that have been published by reliable sources, in proportion to the prominence of each viewpoint in the published, reliable sources." --WP:UNDUE. This ranking is named on the University rankings WP page. That seems like there is a consensus that it is major enough to be listed on that page and thus major enough to be included here. Chris1834 (talk) 22:42, 10 October 2013 (UTC)

You're engaged in disruptive edit warring to prove your POV. Until such time as there's consensus to remove WM as a ranking, it stays in this and other articles using this template. While I'm very much sympathetic to your critiques about the flaws in the methodology, you don't get to pick and choose which notable rankings are included in the article based on gut feelings. Madcoverboy (talk) 22:13, 10 October 2013 (UTC)

"Absurd" is your personal point of view, which apparently leads you to disapprove of what Washington Monthly is actually measuring with their particular methodology, which isn't the same methodologically to what other rankings measure. All rankings have their absurdities and biases and none of them are ranking the exact same aspects of schools. The fact remains that Washington Monthly is a ranking published by a highly cited, national source and represents an alternative view point on institutional rankings that should not be ignored because of personal preference. Frankly, as a scientist, I find Forbes to be the most ridiculous of all published rankings because it employes extremely faulty and biased statistical methodologies, but Forbes is still widely cited and distributed and should be included as an alternative view point.

Now, that said, the ranking template itself is very poor in that it provides a very limited view on institutional rankings based on its own set of biases and the template (and Wikipedia readers) would be greatly served to be all-inclusive so that readers can form their own opinions. Wikipedia should be providing all pertinent sourced information, not casting judgements on them via inclusion or exclusion which is the crux of WP:NPOV. (see template discussion). CrazyPaco (talk) 22:16, 10 October 2013 (UTC)

QS & THE (national)

I wonder why only ARWU was incorporated into the national part but not QS and THE which also rank universities around the world. Biomedicinal (contact)

CWUR Ranking

Please make CWUR visible in the US table ranking!Juicy fruit146 (talk) 00:45, 20 July 2014 (UTC)

Template-protected edit request on 30 July 2014

Please make the CWUR global rankings visible. It's in the template, but for some reason, it's not showing up in the code. These are notable rankings of the Top 1000 universities in the world. Thanks! -AllisonFoley (talk) 13:05, 30 July 2014 (UTC) AllisonFoley (talk) 13:05, 30 July 2014 (UTC)

That would essentially mean reverting this edit; accordingly, Not done: please establish a consensus for this alteration before using the {{edit template-protected}} template. See Template talk:Infobox US university ranking/Archive 1#Notability of the CWUR rankings for previous discussion. --Redrose64 (talk) 14:31, 30 July 2014 (UTC)

Sources

Where do the sources come from, and how do they get updated? In the example, they just magically appear. BollyJeff | talk 18:15, 9 September 2014 (UTC)

They're coded into the six subtemplates Template:Infobox US university ranking/Global, Template:Infobox US university ranking/National, Template:Infobox US university ranking/Baccalaureate, Template:Infobox US university ranking/Masters, Template:Infobox US university ranking/LiberalArts, Template:Infobox US university ranking/Regional. --Redrose64 (talk) 19:30, 9 September 2014 (UTC)

Thank you. BollyJeff | talk 20:07, 9 September 2014 (UTC)

Merge discussion

FYI, Wikipedia:Templates_for_discussion/Log/2014_November_29#University_ranking_templates —Eustress 23:23, 30 November 2014 (UTC)

Expansion of inclusion

I read from the post above that only overall rankings with multiple factors should be included in the template. So, I suggest to encompass two international rankings, the Best Global Universities by US New & World Report, which previously collaborated with QS, and the ARWU Alternative Ranking. Moreover, I saw two national measures on the Stanford page which are stated as using multiple factors - not sure if they should be comprised as well. Biomedicinal (contact)

Overall Rankings v Multi Dimensional Rankings

This is the first time I have posted to Wikipedia. I am here for a very specific reason, which is to understand more about your views on colleges rankings and share our view, which I imagine is quite different. We run a website and a data science business called College Factual. Our site is comprised of over 280,000 pages of unique insights on over 3,000 US College 4 year programs. We publish this site in English and in Mandarin, and expect to add more languages in the future. We will extend this to graduate programs, etc. We publish rankings for colleges and universities at the programs and majors level. While we do publish overall rankings for our media partners USA today, we focus more on going deeper to help students understand more of what is "inside" of a college, since colleges are generally collections of 15 to 25 different programs and majors. We do not employ any "survey" data from college administrators, preferring instead to focus on data analysis. We acquire our data from over 40 different sources and this continues to grow every day. We look at an extensive number of factors, with a significant focus on outcomes. We carry over 500 rankings, with more than 400 of them focused on the potential majors a student might select. We innovated in this space because we long ago concluded there was a need to improve the level of understanding a buyer of education needs to have to understand the language spoken "inside" the college system, which is truly different from the language spoken "outside" the walls of college systems. We also believe the business of rankings for colleges and universities is only beginning. Google delivers over 3.5 billion ranking results a day, yet the knowledge available to buyers of one of the largest purchases in their life, is highly limited. We also believe the purpose of rankings is for the consumers of education. To the extent rankings start to expose a consumer of higher education to more knowledge, the consumer is better armed to ask questions. We believe consumers asking tough questions will have more of a positive impact on education than anything we can possibly imagine. We even publish questions a consumer should consider asking on the College Factual Website. If you are interested in learning more let me know.

Of course you will wonder how reputable we are. You will find us publishing rankings at the majors level twice weekly with USA Today, as we do this on a year round basis. You will also find us on the newsstand as the Annual USA Today College Guide is based upon our data, analytics, and insights. If you have an interest, we are happy to provide ideas on how a template might be designed to make it easier for a reader to understand.

Skier2001 (talk) 12:26, 10 November 2015 (UTC)

@Skier2001: I'm far from expert in the area of college rankings, but I'll respond to you, just in case you're still checking for a response after two months, simply because common respect requires it.
Understanding how Wikipedia works in general, I think it's unlikely we'll drop any rankings that are still widely recognized. I doubt we make judgments about the merits of ranking systems. If you can at some point show that your rankings are widely recognized, you could make a case here for supporting them in this infobox, and it would be given careful consideration. But we can't support them for the purpose of helping you achieve that recognition.
Any discussion about anything not directly related to this infobox would be out of place on this page, and you might visit a page like Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Universities for such discussion.
That's just one editor's take on the situation, others may disagree. ―Mandruss ☎ 22:13, 13 January 2016 (UTC)

More visual emphasis for the ranking number

Just wondering if I can inspire any support for adding visual emphasis to the ranking numbers, prototyped here. These numbers currently have the least emphasis of anything in the box, which seems wrong. I would also like to visually offset the ranking number bettter from the adjacent citation number, if any. Obviously I could do this piecemeal on an article basis, but consistency would be good on this; it's one of the benefits of using templates. ―Mandruss ☎ 17:36, 14 January 2016 (UTC)

Looks good, but probably big or bold, and not both. See WP:Manual_of_Style#Formatting_issues and WP:Manual of Style/Text formatting. BollyJeff | talk 17:55, 14 January 2016 (UTC)

@Bollyjeff: Do you think this discussion warrants advertising? If so, where? ―Mandruss ☎ 19:08, 14 January 2016 (UTC)

I don't think so. Its a pretty simple change to formatting, not content. I would say leave it up for a week or two and then do it. BollyJeff | talk 19:35, 14 January 2016 (UTC)

Ok. As for "do it", I lack those skills so I would have to rely on someone who doesn't. ―Mandruss ☎ 20:23, 14 January 2016 (UTC)

I'm okay with the formatting as it is right now. I'm not familiar with what areas of the WP:MOS would come into play here but it might be good to look into that or check with the editors who hang out there in Talk. For me, the bold would be ok but making the numbers large is unacceptable simply because we don't use that formatting anywhere else so it appears garish and out of place. ElKevbo (talk) 22:30, 14 January 2016 (UTC)

Advertised at WT:MOS. ―Mandruss ☎ 03:55, 15 January 2016 (UTC)

More visual emphasis like ... bolding? I don't know, but I suspect every ranking system has its own distortions. And it's a one size fits all system for a whole institution, which belies the variations within universities, even within schools. Tony (talk) 09:12, 15 January 2016 (UTC)

Oppose. The purpose of boldfacing (or minor variants of it, like using a bigger font, something WP generally does not do except for headings, automatically) is to make a particular thing stand out. Boldfacing all of the numbers of a particular kind in tabular data defeats the purpose, except when there are many rows or columns of such data, and one in particular, as a set, is most important (e.g. totals). Here, there is only a single column of numbers, so there isn't anything to distinguish it from.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  04:16, 17 January 2016 (UTC)

So why is everything else in the table, except for the numbers, already in bold? BollyJeff | talk 04:58, 17 January 2016 (UTC)

Thank you, BollyJeff. And "there isn't anything to distinguish it from" misses the other main point of my opening comments, the citation number. Disagree with me as you wish, but please at least give some indication you read and understood what I said, perhaps even say why you disagree with it. It was hardly a wall of text. ―Mandruss ☎ 05:07, 17 January 2016 (UTC)

Oppose. Aesthetically, it looks clunky. Also, minimal emphasis and clever use of space can often guide the reader's attention to what isn't overtly emphasized. Yanping Nora Soong (talk) 09:09, 20 January 2016 (UTC)

@Bollyjeff: What would you suggest I do at this point? ―Mandruss ☎ 08:22, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

It looks like you are out of luck here. Either take it to a more widely viewed forum or give up and move on. BollyJeff | talk 13:26, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

Liberal arts colleges - dead/broken references

Can someone fix (or show me how to, and I'll do it myself) the problems with the following references?

The U.S. News & World Report reference shows " "Liberal Arts Colleges Rankings". America's Best Colleges 2012. U.S. News & World Report. September 13, 2011. Retrieved September 25, 2011." Clicking on it results in "404: Page Not Found". How about changing the url to lead to the available 2016 rankings?

The Washington Monthly ranking, when clicked on, leads to the 2011 ranking. The 2015 rankings are available: can we get the url changed to bring those up? Thanks. Contributor321 (talk) 23:05, 31 January 2016 (UTC)

The links listed above in the heading "Sources" where I asked a question about it. Select one and click Edit to view/change the sources that are used. BollyJeff | talk 23:31, 31 January 2016 (UTC)

Thanks very much - now fixed! Contributor321 (talk) 05:01, 1 February 2016 (UTC)

Template-protected edit request on 11 June 2016

USNWR_GU is in the template documentation but is missing from the template source. Please correct. 1.161.140.178 (talk) 10:26, 11 June 2016 (UTC)

Looks like was just added to the documentation without updates to Template:Infobox US university ranking/Global. For |USNWR_NU=, Template:Infobox US university ranking/National includes a citation for http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-colleges/rankings/national-universities?int=9ff208. On the same site, I couldn't find one for global rankings. Hence, I've removed it from the documentation, unable to act further. — Andy W. (talk · ctb) 15:56, 11 June 2016 (UTC)

There was a problem with the citation. The USNews global rankings does indeed exist at http://www.usnews.com/education/best-global-universities/rankings . Please add USNWR_GU back into the template and documentation with the corrected citation.-1.161.140.178 (talk) 00:14, 12 June 2016 (UTC)

Done Re-open if there are issues. Thanks — Andy W. (talk · ctb) 02:39, 12 June 2016 (UTC)

 Undone Actually, reading on the talk page about this param, which used to be called |USNWR_W=, it was removed in 2013 due to lack of discussion. Read the above section for more details. As of now, I've undone the additions to the template and subtemplate. Folks that have a higher stake in this template, pardon the lapse in awareness. — Andy W. (talk · ctb) 17:43, 12 June 2016 (UTC)

According to the information here the current U.S. News Best Global Universities Rankings was launched launched in 28 October 2014 therefore there is reason to believe it is not the same ranking under discussion in 2013. The cited reason that I can find in the previous discussions for the removal of a world ranking from the same publication previously was that it was exactly the same as the QS ranking. This is no longer true. The U.S. News Best Global Universities Rankings is produced through a collaboration between U.S. News & World Report and Thompson Reuters both of which are reputable sources of information. The obvious reason to include it would be it will add a necessary diversity by being the only US based world university ranking included (ARWU_W being China based, QS_W and THES_W being UK based). As far as I can tell, the inclusion of it to the template would be conducive to the stated goal of presenting an overall view of university rankings while the exclusion of it would be the opposite.

Andy W., could you please allow your additions to stand and this issue be reopened if new discussion arise.--Deepgrass (talk) 10:28, 14 June 2016 (UTC)

@Deepgrass: I'd like to leave this open for others to look at and comment for now. Pinging @Crazypaco and ElKevbo: for awareness. — Andy W. (talk · ctb) 15:35, 14 June 2016 (UTC)

Thanks. I have no strong feeling on this issue; this ranking appears to be as useful and interesting as the other rankings already included. ElKevbo (talk) 19:51, 14 June 2016 (UTC)

The ranking template should be as inclusive of rankings as possible. Otherwise, the template introduces editorial bias for particular ranking methodologies and thereby effectively imposing the editors' views of ranking methodology (and which aspect of schools' missions: undergrad education, research, etc) on the reader. I've long been uncomfortable with this template and the rankings that it excludes. CrazyPaco (talk) 01:10, 15 June 2016 (UTC)

That's a fair point but there needs to be some minimal standard for inclusion in this template and articles. Rankings of universities in the United States suffers from a problem of lack of standards and over-inclusion with the only apparent requirements being (a) the ranking has a website and (b) someone is willing to edit Wikipedia to include it.

Should we work toward (a) defining the criteria for inclusion in Rankings of universities in the United States and then (b) reformatting this template so it's either parallel with that article or a reasonable subset of the rankings in that article? ElKevbo (talk) 01:38, 15 June 2016 (UTC)

It sounds like there is favor of inclusion, so, in terms of this edit request, I'll re-introduce |USNWR_W=. Please feel free to keep me in the loop about further updates to the subtemplates and additional rankings with pings. I'll help out if I'm around. Thanks — Andy W. (talk · ctb) 02:47, 15 June 2016 (UTC)

Template-protected edit request on 28 September 2016

Please add parameter for "WSJ" ranking to this template under the U.S. rankings group -- already integrated into Template:Infobox US university ranking/National but this template is protected so can't add here too. WSJ is a reliable source and a notable ranking and should be listed here.

190.223.56.137 (talk) 11:27, 28 September 2016 (UTC)

Pinged Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Universities — Andy W. (talk · ctb) 19:04, 28 September 2016 (UTC)

The new WSJ/THE US ranking is certainly coming from reliable sources. I have a slight concern that it is not yet notable - almost all of the coverage seems to be coming from either the two publishers or colleges that are trumpeting their success. In one of the few independent articles I could find (admittedly in a fairly quick search), Time mentions it alongside the currently included rankings and rankings from The Economist and Princeton Review (both of which would be considered reliable sources) that are not currently included in the template.[8]. It seems questionable whether the WSJ/THE ranking has been established as notable at this point, given it was only launched a few hours ago! As far as I can see, for instance, Inside Higher Ed hasn't mentioned it since it appeared (although there was an article earlier in the year mentioning that THE was planning to launch a US ranking - without mention of WSJ at that time), although the ranking is so recent this could change over the next few days. I think It's worth waiting a little longer before including the new ranking, until it is definitively established as notable. Robminchin (talk) 20:36, 28 September 2016 (UTC)

Toggling for now per the list's relative "newness" above. No objection to add at some point later though — Andy W. (talk · ctb) 18:31, 29 September 2016 (UTC)

Notability guidelines do not apply to content within an article (WP:NNC) including templates. The threshold is reliability, so I believe WSJ should indeed be included straightaway. 190.223.56.137 (talk) 14:13, 1 October 2016‎ (UTC)

I concur with the other two comments; without notability for the ranking itself, the addition to this template would only link to WSJ without specifically addressing the ranking part. TOOSOON applies. Please wait a while. Primefac (talk) 17:45, 1 October 2016 (UTC)