Talk:Warnborough University

I have removed material from the article as it violates the universities terms of use as on their website. Djegan 16:20, 15 Aug 2004 (UTC)

This point must be emphasised
Caveat emptor - The "university" is incorporated by the Irish Companies Acts and therefore merely a business entity, additionally the word "university" is a "controlled descriptor" in Ireland and usage is limited by the terms of the Universities Act, 1997. The "university" does not come within the terms of the said act, nor has it been designated under the act and is therefore not an Irish university!

Djegan 21:19, Apr 22, 2004 (UTC)


 * In early 2006 Warnborough University (Ireland) changed its name to Warnborough College (Ireland) in order to be a candidate for accreditation under the Irish National Framewrok. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Warnborough (talk • contribs)


 * Supply a source. Arbusto 08:10, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

The proposed merger with Warnborough College article
There is apparently at this time no institution called Warnborough University. In preparation for the merger with the article on Warnborough College that was proposed months ago, I'm doing research on this institution and am trying to clean up this article.

The following accusation was in the lead, but I couldn't find any such accreditation claim on the Warnborough web site. "claims to be 'accredited' by the International Accreditation and Recognition Council (IARC), which is not recognized by any governmental body and is absent from UNESCO related IAU Universities List of world universities. Thereby making this institution unaccredited."

So I'm putting it here until we can figure this out.

Sometime in the coming days I'm going to listen to the BBC broadcast to see what that's all about. It would be great if we can ultimately fashion a neutral article that's fair to all points of view.

Right now my feeling is that the Chronicle material shouldn't be included. It's equivocal, hence doesn't really say anything, and contradicts some info I found in the New York Times, which talks about Warnborough UK facilities. (And which also mentions a marketing controversy in 1995 that should be briefly mentioned in the merged article.) TimidGuy 14:59, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Problems with NPOV
I'm new to Warnborough and am neutral toward this article. But to me, it seems like a Wikipedia hatchet job. As far as I can tell, Warnborough is an educational institution with a history of providing a range of services. It began as a study-abroad option. Starting in the mid-90s it offered in-residence education for a period of years. Warnborough UK doesn't claim to offer degrees. Warnborough Ireland is a candidate for accreditation and is granting degrees on that basis. I'm in the process of researching this.

Just because Warnborough UK doesn't fit the traditional mold doesn't mean that the article should be 90% critical, heavily emphasizing what Warnborough is not. This is a travesty. And seriously in violation of WP:NPOV in my opinion. I particularly have a problem with the heavy reliance on the paragraph in the Chronicle article. To my mind, that's not the proper sort of secondary source that Wikipedia requires. A secondary source by definition offers analysis and corroboration. This offers one person's opinion not substantiated by anything. And John Bear himself sounds like somewhat of a questionable source, having a vested interest in selling his book, having changed his hame, having himself started diploma mills.

I can't find any evidence so far that Warnborough is a diploma mill. All the evidence suggests that they have a faculty (largely part-time) and offer bona fide courses. Anyone reading the article would get the impression that this is a diploma mill.

I'm curious if anyone is seriously interested in working on this article and helping to do the necessary research. Or whether those who've made this article so unbalanced are happy to have it so egregiously NPOV. TimidGuy 11:26, 22 August 2007 (UTC)


 * This article is largely reflective of what Warnborough was claiming itself to be; a university. Far from being a hatchet job many of the external links here are respected governmental organisations or respected media outlets (BBC). Djegan 13:19, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, Djegan. It's not enough that the links be to reputable sources. The article needs to observe the policies of WP:NPOV and WP:UNDUE. We also have to consider WP:SYNTH. It's going to take some work to address this. I hope you'll help.

Also, we need to figure out what to do regarding the fact that there is no longer a Warnborough University. An editor just added information about Warnborough University being a member of an unrecognized accrediting body, but it's not clear how that relates to Warnborough College UK or Warnbough College Ireland. If it's a matter of historical interest, it needs to have that context (as long as it doesn't violate WP:NOR and WP:UNDUE). TimidGuy 14:50, 22 August 2007 (UTC)


 * I think that the two articles, on the college and the university, should be merged into one - perhaps Warnborough (which is apparently a trademark anyway) so that one more professionally styled and written article can result? Djegan 16:57, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Good. I agree. As I noted in the thread above, that's my reason for working on this particular article -- clean it up with the intention of merging with Warnborough College. There's a bit of confusion that we'll have to deal with, in that Warnborough UK and Warnborough Ireland are legally separate entities. Yet, not very helpfully, they use the same web site. WC UK awards certificates and diplomas. WC I awards undergraduate and graduate degrees. They apparently each have their own administration. Since they both use "Warnborough College" and are apparently ‘sister schools,’ I'm inclined to use the current Warnborough College article as the location. And use the structure that is developing there, with separate sections on each entity. What do you think? TimidGuy 19:17, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, I just noticed that Warnborough resolves to Warnborough College, so I guess we're saying the same thing. Glad we're agreed. I'm trying to add a little content to the College article as a way of balancing it in preparation for moving more material. TimidGuy 14:42, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

BBC program
I listened to this program this morning and see that it basically reprises material that was covered at length five years earlier when this controversy actually happened. I suggest we use the New York Times account or other similar print source for this, since the BBC program is kind of sketchy on the details and Five Live seems to be a tabloid show. I'd need to listen to it again, but when the reporter shows up with a concealed microphone trying to buy a degree, it sounded like the college official refused.

The problem is pretty clear: they enrolled, for the first time, an on-site freshman class in 1995 and were accused of misleading the students into thinking they were enrolling in Oxford University. I've now included this in the Warnborough College article. I believe that this was the only freshman class they admitted. I did find a reference for the associated lawsuit, but can't find any reference to support the BBC program's claim that the suit closed down Warnborough UK. From what I can tell so far, after that first group they didn't again enroll an onsite class.

So far even the critical sources make it pretty clear that this isn't a diploma mill selling degrees and that students are actually enrolled in courses. And it's apparent that many are happy with the education they receive. But we do need to be very clear on issues of accreditation -- always keeping NPOV and and the need for balance in mind.

Regarding accreditation, the approach so far seems to be to dump as many negative quotes into the article as can be found. This, from my understanding, isn't proper Wikipedia style, and I'm going to add the quote template to that section until we address this. TimidGuy 14:53, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

I think I'm going to delete the BBC citation, since most of that material has now been integrated into the Warnborough College article. One problem is the BBC's claim that the U.S. government sued Warnborough. According to the Chronicle of Higher Education, it was the Attorney General for the state of Washington. And again, the suit apparently didn't close the school. We still need a clear ref saying that Warnbororugh UK is not a British University and doesn't award British degrees. If we can't find anything, I'll cite the BBC segment. I'm going to add into about how this contoversy/suit led to the withdrawal of U.S. financial aid availability to students, which is likely what led to Warnborough UK ceasing to offer on-site undergraduate education. TimidGuy 15:48, 27 August 2007 (UTC)


 * The main reason that I objected to the removal of the content was that I didn't notice that you had sourced most of the Warnborough College article with inline URLs. Particularly in an article about a controversial topic, and particularly with sources that are not freely available to anyone who clicks on a link, it's important to provide complete and visible reference citations.--orlady 14:23, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Okay. Thanks much. I need to work in improving my wiki skills so I can do proper citations. Thanks for fixing. TimidGuy 14:40, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Chronicle of Higher Ed info
In preparation for merging this article with the Warnborough College article, I'd like to delete this paragraph citing the Chronicle of Higher Education. The Warnborough College article clearly states that the College doesn't have degree-granting authority, citing the U.S. Department of Education. That leaves the point about being an office. Since Warnborough offers distance education, and since the faculty teach from home, it's not clear what John Bear was expecting to see. And the Chronicle quotes the Warnborough official as saying there are other facilities. So I can't see what essential information this conveys. Thanks. TimidGuy 11:48, 8 September 2007 (UTC)