Talk:International University Vienna

NPOV

The article about The International University (IU) lacks important information about IU's legal status, omits references, and contains a number of errors. Initially, the first reference cites an article with completely different content and consequently is strongly misleading. The article states that IU’s subsidiaries in Kiev and Altea were closed subsequent to IU’s loss of Austrian accreditation. This is not stated in the cited German article (please see source http://science.orf.at/science/news/70425). This citation is misquoted and proven false since our subsidiary in Kiev has approximately 600 students this semester. There was no evidence and no plans to close this campus down. For further details please visit the website under http://icu.edu.ua/eng/university/. Further, the Altea (Spain) subsidiary was an IU pilot program for about 6 months in the academic year 1999/2000 which IU discontinued before even applying for Austrian accreditation. Once more, the questionable quality of the research is seen in the following “In 2003, the accreditation was withdrawn by the council by 31 July 2006.[2]”. The correct information from the quoted reference is 31 July 2003.

IU’s licensure and approval in the United States can be verified on the official and public Alabama Department of Postsecondary Education website (http://www.acs.cc.al.us/ - under the private school licensure section). The legal background for issuing U.S. degrees is the authority from a State Department of Education. IU operates as an American private university in Austria – a foreign institution rather than an Austrian university.

Degrees conferred by non-accredited but licensed and approved universities in the U.S. are not illegal although they may be scrutinized and their use might be restricted – rather with regard to U.S. governmental employment. However, please refer to the U.S. Council for Higher Education Accreditation (CHEA) website. CHEA, the highest U.S. authority responsible for authorizing accrediting agencies in the U.S., acknowledges that accreditation stands for quality assurance and that most institutions begin with state licensing – and therewith legally entitled to confer degrees. Further, CHEA also clearly states “other than the fact that accreditation is not required for a school to operate, only an accredited institution can secure public funds in any form, ….” (please see CHEA http://www.chea.org/pdf/Tasks_Jan1999.pdf, page 5). In addition, Wikipedia states “when discussing accreditation in the United States, it is important that the concept of accreditation not be confused with the authority to operate. The authority to operate a school in the U.S. is granted by each of the states individually. The U.S. is a federal republic, and the federal government possesses only specific limited powers with all others reserved to the states (pursuant to the Tenth Amendment to the United States Constitution)” (please see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Educational_accreditation.)

Wikipedia also states: "Despite the widely recognized benefits and accountability of accreditation, some institutions choose, for various reasons, not to participate in an accreditation process. According to the United States Department of Education, it is possible for postsecondary educational institutions and programs to elect not to seek accreditation but nevertheless provide a quality postsecondary education. [15] Yet, other unaccredited schools simply award degrees and diploma without merit for a price."

The quality of IU's programs is in part affirmed by the excellent career opportunities its graduates have and the number of accredited institutions to which its graduates have transferred www.iuvienna.edu and the numerous affiliations with U.S. accredited universitites.

Finally, we would like to mention that the withdrawal of Austrian accreditation of IU, a primarily career-oriented academic institution rather than focused on institutional research -- should be placed - - with respect to the content - - under legal status of the programs and not under a separate heading which precedes the overview. This appears to lack neutrality since IU operates as an American private university and not an Austrian one, and was only Austrian accredited for nearly 3 of its 26 years of existence.

Therefore would it not be more in line with Wikipedia’s philosophy to jointly provide neutral and valuable information on IU?

Globalcitizens (talk) 15:52, 11 December 2007 (UTC) The IU Global Citizens

1. I have moved ref. 1 to the correct position, corrected the wrong information on Kiev, and also the typing error with the date when the withdrawal of the accreditation came into force (in fact 2003, not 2006).

2. In my first version of the article I pointed out that the degrees have no legal status in Austria or Europe, but the Alabama licensing may imply, that the grades are legal in the US. The latter was corrected by other users. Unfortunately I am not an expert in Alabama educational law, so I cannot comment on this. I appreciate that we agree on the fact, that the degrees are not valid in Europe.

3. It can not be denied that IUV has (successfully) applied for accreditation as an Austrian university. If after the withrawal of the accreditation you argue, that "IU operates as an American private university in Austria – a foreign institution rather than an Austrian university", this appears to be a 'sour grapes' story.

4. The withdrawal of the accreditation (and in particular the reason named by the accreditation council) is a singular and outstanding event. It is justified to mention it under a separate heading.

5. All information in the article is neutral and in fact highly valuable for WP users.

--Wikiwatchers (talk) 00:25, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for your reply and for the correction of some of the mistakes. Your honesty about your limitation of knowledge regarding the U.S. legislation is noteworthy. However, we have never indicated that we agree with your opinion that the degrees are not valid in Europe. We certainly do not agree. First you indicated they are not legal; now you indicate they are not valid. In order to clarify the legal situation: degrees conferred from universities outside the EU may require nostrification in order to have the same legal status as degrees issued from Austrian public universities. This situation only applies to Austria. Important to mention is that businesses in general rarely ask for nostrification as it is uncommon - - especially in an international environment. Businesses generally rely on the grades a student has earned and a review of the content of the courses. A few exceptions may occur if public or governmental institutions explicitly request a degree from an accredited university. Nevertheless, IU graduates are hired consistently and their degrees are accepted around the world.

Further, IU has a number of partnerships with fully accredited universities; for example a student exchange program with Seattle Pacific University, Seattle, Washington (http://www.spu.edu/sbe/studyabroad/europe.asp. Additionally IU’s programs are validated by the Varna Free University in Bulgaria, a fully accredited European university (http://www.iuvienna.edu/574_EN-News-Detailpage.5153737f0ffd5e8377975bc89ddf50f21e4cc4?recordid=29 & http://www.vfu.bg/en/).

It is regrettable that you still maintain that the information provided is neutral. The lack of references - - not to mention reliable verification - - especially with the paragraph about the legal status of academic degrees proves otherwise. Verifiability is one of Wikipedia’s core content policies ensuring acceptable quality of Wikipedia articles. Therefore it’s stated that if no reliable, third-party sources can be found, Wikipedia should not have an article on it. All quotations and any material challenged or likely to be challenged should be attributed to a reliable, published source using an inline citation (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Verifiability) or they may be removed after giving the author a chance to provide sources which we request herewith.

Lack of neutrality is also indicated by the selection of information. In fact, the content given is not in the least an overview, contrary it seems arbitrarily chosen and incoherent. There is nothing mentioned about the history of 26 years, about exchange programs, admissions, curricula or anything else which would be of interest with regard to education. It appears the paragraph about the Christian dimension and the simple list of programs have been selected as alibi content to give the impression of an overview.

Finally, the statement that IU operates as a foreign institution in Austria is included only for the following reasons: to provide true and correct information and to eliminate any possible confusion between our location and the source of our diploma authority. If IU indicated its degrees were Austrian or European degrees – rather than American degrees -- this would be incorrect. Truth and neutrality are, in fact, guidelines of Wikipedia.

Globalcitizens (talk) 19:14, 21 December 2007 (UTC)globalcitizens

1. You are right, I was inconsistent when at first indicating that the degrees are not legal and later, that they are not valid. Correct is: they are not legal. Using the grade in Austria can be penalized (to a maximum of 15000 Euro, see UG2002, §116, page 99). This is the text of the law, taken from the website of the ministry (Bundesministerium für Wissenschaft und Forschung) and should meet the requirements for third party sources.

2. You are right, the grade can be legalized by nostrification. But this situation does not only apply to Austria. Nostrification is also necessary in other counties like Germany. I cannot comment on your statement "that businesses in general rarely ask for nostrification as it is uncommon", because you provide no reliable, third-party source for that statement.

3. I feel only responsible for my edits on the article. The information I gave in the initial version of the article (2 September 2007) is verified by five links, including a link to the Austrian accreditation council (Österreichischer Akkreditierungsrat, ÖAR, the authority that withdrew the accreditation). It looks like momentarily there is a problem with the English website of the ÖAR, but here is the information in German: ÖAR: Decision on the revocation of accreditation and ÖAR: Revocation was accepted by the minister and came into force. For changes made by other users please address those users.

FYI in English: OAR Decison and Inforcement. -- Alfie (talk) 20:48, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

4. The information on the christian dimension seemed important to me, as it is the USP of IUV, the main difference to other universities in Europe. I do not see how mentioning the christian dimension should put any negative spin on the article. Of course you are free to initiate the usual WP processes for quality or NPOV disputes to attract the attention of a larger number of users.

--Wikiwatchers (talk) 20:32, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for adding references; unfortunately, the cited paragraph does not at all apply to The International University. We wish to repeat that the cited §116 Article 2 describes in detail what is illegal according to the Austrian university law. The cited law clearly states that an institution must be recognized in its home country to legally confer degrees which can be used in Austria. This article does not apply to IU since IU is licensed and recognized in it’s country of origin - - Alabama, U.S. - - as an American university domiciled outside the State of Alabama with permission to confer degrees through the Department of Postsecondary Education in Alabama, U.S. This is further verified on the Alabama Commission on Higher Education site, which not only lists IU as one of its Non-Resident Private Degree-Granting Institutions, but further states definitively, "Accreditation is a voluntary, nongovernmental process .... In the absence of centralized authority over institutions of higher education at the national level, the fifty states assume varying degrees of control over educational institutions." (http://www.ache.state.al.us/Colleges&Universities/Accreditation/Index.htm). Please refer once more to our earlier citations from CHEA, which also confirm the same legal argumentation that accreditation is voluntary in the U.S. while authority to confer degrees is mandatory. The same information you can find on other sources such as the U.S. Department of Education (http://www.ed.gov/students/prep/college/diplomamills/accreditation.html#chea). In summary, with our home country being the U.S., where our official recognition is proven and confirmed by the above mentioned citations, the argument that IU's degrees are illegal or invalid is once again proven false. Therefore, we wish to clarify that IU degrees are not in the least illegal or invalid neither in Europe nor in the U.S.. We think you will agree that a jointly written article about IU, which includes some additional essential facts on the educational programs, but also retains the historic reference to the withdrawal of Austrian accreditation, would achieve your goal of a neutral and balanced presentation of IU on Wikipedia.

-- IU Globalcitizens Tue Jan 29 09:23:44 CET 2008

IOV operates in Austria and is thus governed by Austrian law.

--Peter Putzer (talk) 09:20, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

Revert of 00:19, 22 February 2008

I have reverted the edit made by Globalcitizens (contribs) on 23:21, 18 February 2008. While the edit added some new information on IUV, its main purpose was obviously to delete some undesired information (including the infobox) or give it a different (and in IUV's view more desirable) spin. For example, the uniqueness of the withdrawal of the accreditation and its reasons are replaced by a statement that suggests that accreditation withdrawals are common in Austria. In fact, this was not only the first but until now the only revocation of a University accreditation in Austria (in case of IMADEC the accreditation period ended regularly and was not renewed). The link to the Austrian Ministry of Interior suggests official governmental recognition although it just mentions IUV as a nonacademic institution. Sorry IU-Globalcitizens, but the right to grant academic degrees in Austria requires accreditation. To avoid an edit war I suggest that you add your valuable information without using the same edit to delete NPOV facts.--Wikiwatchers (talk) 00:26, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

• I have seen the comments by IU above and on OTRS (VRTS ticket # 2007111610013075) and it seems to me that there is some civil discourse going on here. I would note to IU that one reason for reversion was an appearance of special pleading. Wikipedia does not care why you don't have accreditation, I'm afraid. You are free to put a statement about it on your site, and state it in your own words there. Guy (Help!) 17:29, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

Revert of 20:29, 13 February 2009

I have again reverted deletions of sourced facts and replacement by unsourced attempts to explain the special situation of IU (see special pleading). Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, so only facts (with references, where necessary) should be reported. Everyone is free to add encyclopedic facts (including, of course, positive facts) about this institution, but please do not delete relevant facts that you do not like. --Wikiwatchers (talk) 20:41, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

Second revert after another IP deleted text ans all sources. This starts to be vandalistic. Level-3 user warning posted on IP talk page.--Wikiwatchers (talk) 23:24, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

The section: 'Withdrawal of university accreditation' is in total violation of neutrality, own research, and bias. It applies shocking logical assertions to the extent of "IU itself does not fear because who trusts in God does not believe in anything but God...", and makes use of colloquial English such as "Anyways" - amongst various other things too ridiculous to waste time on. I recommend speedy deletion.--Lexxus2010 (talk) 06:28, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

Good grief, I just made sense of this. This is one big quote without a source embedded into the text - this must be removed. Delete everything from "Furthermore are most of these obscur ..." to the end of the paragraph. --Lexxus2010 (talk) 06:39, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

Can you give any reason for blanking out text and references?

Maybe user Kingdbn would like to explain why he/she blanked out parts of the article and references without comment? They seem relevant and NPOV.--Wikiwatchers (talk) 00:57, 20 February 2009 (UTC)