Talk:Athabasca University

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Athabasca University was a good article nominee, but did not meet the good article criteria at the time. There are suggestions below for improving the article. Once these are addressed, the article can be renominated. Editors may also seek a reassessment of the decision if they believe there was a mistake. Reviewed version: September 17, 2007

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Contents 1 List of programs 2 Age 3 Good Article nomination has failed 4 Fair use rationale for Image:AthabascaUniversity.gif 5 Canada's only exclusively open University. -- really? 6 GA fail 6.1 Comments 7 Origins section 8 Merge

[edit] List of programs

I think the inclusion of the list of programs at the university is non-encyclopediac. I think it would be more appropriate if it included a few sentences comparing its programs to those of other universities, and make mention any unique programs it has. If people want to know about individual programs they should go to the website, which is provided on the page. Benw

I re-introduced the reputation section, while I like the other edits that were made, I feel this section is important, as AU has to talk a bit about its reputation, and most articles on a university, for example, McGill University and University of Toronto do it, just in another manner, this article simply has a reputation headline. --Image:Ottawa flag.png Spinboy 02:20, 18 July 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Age

What is your source for the statement that you must be 18 to study there? According to the Maclean's guide, the minimum is 16. Carolynparrishfan 17:34, 28 August 2005 (UTC)

Since you appear to be either unwilling or unable to support your edit, I have reverted it. Carolynparrishfan 13:27, 19 September 2005 (UTC)

You're right, according to AskAU, the age is 16. --Image:Ottawa flag.png Spinboy 17:37, 19 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Good Article nomination has failed

The Good article nomination for Athabasca University has failed, for the following reason:

This article does not meet Good Article crierion. There is not enough substance here. Many headings are only one paragraph, sometimes one sentence. It is riddled with lists, which in and of themselves aren't bad, but are inferior to prose that would put this information in context. The references are not cited properly. Many of the "facts and trivia" are unverified. The headings are in caps for each word. The reputation section is wholly POV. All in all, it needs a lot of work. Esprit15d 19:32, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Fair use rationale for Image:AthabascaUniversity.gif

Image:AthabascaUniversity.gif is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in Wikipedia articles constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.

Please go to the image description page and edit it to include a fair use rationale. Using one of the templates at Wikipedia:Fair use rationale guideline is an easy way to insure that your image is in compliance with Wikipedia policy, but remember that you must complete the template. Do not simply insert a blank template on an image page.

If there is other other fair use media, consider checking that you have specified the fair use rationale on the other images used on this page. Note that any fair use images uploaded after 4 May, 2006, and lacking such an explanation will be deleted one week after they have been uploaded, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you.BetacommandBot 22:28, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Canada's only exclusively open University. -- really?

What about BC open university, later renamed to Thompson Rivers University of Open Learning? It's an accredited distance education university with an open enrollment policy. Anyone can take any course they offer. Drouillm 21:46, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

Thompson Rivers isn't exclusively distance education. They have in person courses. Me-123567-Me 22:40, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

"Open" does not refer to distance education courses by definition. It means several things and normally refers to an open enrollment policy that does not have formal academic prerequisites. The Athabasca website as well as a quick google search corroborates this assertion, http://www.athabascau.ca/aboutAU/openuniversity.php. It's inaccurate and possibly simply not true to call Athabasca Canada's only exclusively open University. We should change it.

As an aside, Thompson Rivers is separate from TRUOL. TRUOL exclusively offers distance education courses with the exception of labs that must be completed in a classroom. Athabasca offers labs that must be completed in classrooms as well. If you consider labs to be in person courses then I guess Athabasca isn't exclusively open either!24.86.139.237 02:41, 31 July 2007 (UTC) (that's me, drouillm I forgot to sign in)

Legally TRUOL is part of Thompson Rivers University. AU is their own university. The assertation comes from them. It's not really for us to debate. The idea of an "Open University" is that they will accept almost anyone, there are no admission requirements. TRU has admission requirements. Me-123567-Me 02:58, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] GA fail

GA review (see here for criteria)

1. It is reasonably well written.

   a (prose): b (MoS):

2. It is factually accurate and verifiable.

   a (references): b (citations to reliable sources): c (OR):

3. It is broad in its coverage.

   a (major aspects): b (focused):

4. It follows the neutral point of view policy.

   a (fair representation): b (all significant views):

5. It is stable.

   

6. It contains images, where possible, to illustrate the topic.

   a (tagged and captioned): b lack of images (does not in itself exclude GA): c (non-free images have fair use rationales):

7. Overall:

   a Pass/Fail:

[edit] Comments

Since the last time the article was nominated for GA it has definitely improved. Good work on some of the things that were mentioned before. However, some of the same things that plagued the article before remain. Namely, the article's substance is too concentrated in one area: history. There is very little about academics and research (although there were small sections just added today). There is also very little (in comparison) about student life and athletics. The history section could be largely condensed; a long subsection on the first course is probably not necessary. If that much history is important to the article I would suggest condensing it anyway and breaking it off into its own article.

There are still problems with Prose and sections not following the Manual of Style. The quote templates need to have an attributed author, the Differences header should be more descriptive (differences between what?), and image descriptions could be more descriptive (front entrance to what building?). In addition, some sentences seem awkward and have minimal flow (although this could be my American bias). For example, the last few sentences of the header seem to have no relation to each other. And sentences like "A course "World Ecology" was the first course, and was the core of the pilot project" read awkwardly. There were also a number of instances with improper capitalization. "University" should only be capitalized if referring specifically to Athabasca.

References are pretty decent, although (as always) they could be improved. Instead of citing the book reference 15 times you can name the ref tag (see WP:REF) and use it multiple times so that in your references list it only appears once. A couple references (#46, #31, and any that only references the university as the publisher) could include more information such as which office published it or when the work was published. If you can find any authors, that is always helpful. Some claims in the article, however, do need citations (like "Athabasca University is also recognized as one of the fastest growing universities in Canada." in the header).

There appears to still be original research and/or non-neutral point of view throughout the article. Uncited sentences like "The university is especially popular with students who are...", "The university has become a leader in distance education", and others should be reworded or cited with sources actually give a point of view. There doesn't appear to be any criticisms of the university in the article (or anything that could potentially appear negative). Because of this, certain sections look like boosterism.

Although the images you have are very good (and free :) ), adding more images would be beneficial. Look on some of the public domain image search engines and you'll be surprised what you find!

In general the article is well on its way, it just needs to be more broad and include more info about academics, rankings, research, budgeting, athletics, and student life. For some great examples of university pages, check out University articles rated as 'Good Articles'. If you have any questions feel free to contact me! -- Noetic Sage 02:22, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Origins section

Wikipedia:Footnotes is silent on how often in-line citations should be used, so since most of the origins section is from the same source, I simply cited at the end of each paragraph. Me-123567-Me 17:17, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Merge

I oppose a merge. Many other Universities have articles on their various faculties, I don't see why this one can't as well. Me-123567-Me (talk) 16:27, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

• It is currently a three-line stub with no sources. If it's expandable, a separate article is fine; if not, it's better understood in the context of the university article. DoubleBlue (Talk) 17:06, 17 March 2008 (UTC)
  • The University Transition Program has no sources, yet it is allowed its own article, and its not even a department. Me-123567-Me (talk) 17:18, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

Article does not exist anymore, just FYI. Gary King (talk) 20:12, 29 March 2008 (UTC)