Talk:Writtle University College

Untitled

Needs a reference for these comments about being the oldest etc so we can make this article a higher importance. Good start. More refs, a picture? Victuallers 13:07, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

should we remove the bit about funding

it seems to be insulting the colledge somewhat? it also isn't cited philb 13:10, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

The funding issue is well known at Writtle, and there's definitely been something published in local newspapers about the financial situation. Several HE (no idea about FE) lecturers have been made redundant, with several job losses amongst non-teachin staff too. The financial situation is spelt out in the annual college report - as it stands, they're £5.5 million in the red. 81.174.208.164 03:41, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

Updating this page

Hello, please let me know if I'm in the right place. I work for Writtle University College and have noticed that a lot of the info on our page is outdated or entirely incorrect. I don't want to alter the page myself (I realise this could be a conflict of interest) but could anyone point me in the direction of finding an impartial editor to add updates? I could direct editors to sources (e.g. newspaper articles from third parties) or point out incorrect sections.

For example, we have a wide range of facilities and in 2020 we were the National Student Survey's UK's top raised institution for student satisfaction in addition to getting 100% satisfaction for some of our higher education courses .

We also recently launched the UK's first permanent 3x3 basketball facilities

If anyone would like me to point out new info or incorrect details (e.g. the motto is wrong, as are the school colours) just let me know!

Any help appreciated! Essex.Comms Essex.Comms (talk) 14:44, 10 August 2021 (UTC)

Hi, Essex.Comms. The Essex Live article appears to be a promoted story (in fact, it appears this is not the only one from EL), which is tantamount to a press release. Regarding the National Student Survey, we'd most prefer an actual news story covering this accomplishment, as we as a tertiary source try to mostly stick to secondary sources, using primary sources sparingly to fill in the gaps (for example, our statement about Young Gardeners 2015 is cited to a Daily Telegraph article). Furthermore, the article already has an outsize amount of citations to press releases from WUC as it is. In this case, we would likely use this article from Times Higher Education to attest that WUC was ranked 4th in overall student satisfaction.

Horticulture Week is a good source. I can unfortunately only read the headline due to it being a subscription service, but I can include the undergraduate horticulture program satisfaction in the same sentence as that about the overall satisfaction.

Finally, the In Your Area article (besides just being from a source that: "aggregates all the latest news for your local area from news sites, blogs and social networks") is another advertorial. I would include the Basketball England article; however, its wording is so, so close to the advertorial in In Your Area that I'm inclined to believe it's the same advertorial with minimal changes applied. Same with this article which purports to be written by "MVP Staff" despite that obviously not being the case. Pretty much the only outlet that seems to have even taken a stab at non-advertorial content is Hoopsfix. However, it has to be considered whether an article from a small basketball outlet constitutes balanced coverage, and given the current length of our article on WUC, this just doesn't seem to cut it right now. If in the future there were an 'Athletics' section, however, and the article were just a bit longer (e.g., I'm sure the 'History' section of a university college with nearly 130 years of history could be drastically expanded with some research using reliable, independent sources), then I believe a mention would be warranted. TheTechnician27 (Talk page) 14:59, 20 August 2021 (UTC)

@TheTechnician27:, @TheTechnician27:, Fantastic, thank you for looking into this! Really appreciate the time you've taken. The University College could probably do with an Athletics/Sport section as it's in the process of opening a new Centre for Health and Exercise - hopefully this will attract independent press coverage. A Sky Sports broadcast on the new basketball courts will also be aired this autumn. 

There's been at least one book published about Writtle University College's history but sadly the text isn't available online. Information can be found on the Writtle website but I expect Wikipedia wuldn't view this as an independent source? Essex.Comms (talk)

References