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Indian Institutes of Technology

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First FAC | Peer review

A self-nom. This is an article about the group of seven elite educational institutes in India. The article has improved a lot since its first FAC, when it was nominated by an anonymous IP. It has also gone through an extensive peer review and the suggestions given there have been adequately addressed. With the help of a number of enthusiastic editors, in my opinion it fulfils all criteria to become a Featured Article and hence I am nominating it. -Ambuj Saxena (talk) 06:24, 26 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

What happened to the table? I thought it was kind of useful. Raul654 06:28, 26 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Reply. It was suggested by an editor in the Peer Review that the table is unnecessary for the article. Further, since all the IITs don't have a motto, incomplete table looked bad. The table took too much space and except for the the shields and motto of the institutes (the details of which might be unwarrented in summary style), everything is still included in paragraph format. -Ambuj Saxena (talk) 06:35, 26 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support Fine article. Rlevse 11:41, 26 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support Yet another fine addition to Wikipedia's coverage of Indian topics. My only small issue is that the "IIT Family" and "Establishment and development" sections could probably use a little more inline citation, but it's fine as it is. Finding that Dilbert cartoon and finding the correct place for it in the article is hilarious, IMO. Staxringold 14:30, 26 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • Reply. I have added more inline citations to the "IIT Family" section. Almost all of the first half of "Establisment" section uses single source (IIT Kharagpur History) and I have indicated it by the end. -Ambuj Saxena (talk) 16:23, 26 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong Support a lot of hard work by Ambuj. Rama's Arrow 14:38, 26 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support Excellent work in making this article FA quality by the editors. --Blacksun 15:51, 26 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong Support Excellent article. Followed it from peer review. Well done.--Dwaipayan (talk) 16:03, 26 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support. I only have one small issue- isn't it a bit ostentatious to have the large blue quotes insted of normal quotes? I don't really care if they're in the article, I just think they're strange. RyanGerbil10 16:14, 26 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • Reply. I used the quotes because I have seen other Featured Articles use it. However, things wouldn't look much different if we just use the normal quotes. If you insist, I can very well change that. -Ambuj Saxena (talk) 16:23, 26 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
      • Yes, those large quotes seem to be becoming quite popular on newer FA's for some reason... I prefer the Template:" myself, but even Raul has reverted me there - LOL. Oh yeah, Support for a good article. RN 16:40, 26 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support - Looks good! One small criticism - the caption for the Dilbert comic just reiterates what's written in the comic. I couldn't think of a good way to rephrase it, though... User:The Disco King (not signed in) 204.40.1.129 16:57, 26 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Object; I'm feeling like a broken record. Here's another high-quality article that fails to cite sources in key sections like "Undergraduate education", "Postgraduate and doctoral education", and "Culture and student life". The first part of the Education section could use some more citations as well (it's unclear where 90% of the information there came from). Also, writing quality is rather poor—I found and fixed a "went" attempting to pass as a past participle, and noted excessive use of "a lot" in the Alumni section. Also, "the total government funding to most of the good quality engineering colleges". "Good" is almost always a completely wasted word. Another useless word, "very", appears four times. Tighten the language, please. --Spangineer[es] (háblame) 17:31, 26 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • Reply Spangineer, could you please give some other examples of language errors that need rectifying? Rama's Arrow 18:22, 26 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • Reply. I have added references wherever applicable. However grant me one freedom. I have used the B.Tech ordinance from IIT Madras. I am not sure if I would be willing to copy same info from every IIT and place 7 trailing references everytime after the article mentions "All IITs..". The reference added by me gives an overview of the whole B.Tech program and mentions things like students having common subject and having to take "breadth" subjects. For more clarity, I can even source the official first year time-table from IIT Kharagpur where it can be clearly seen that there is a common curriculum for all first years, but unfortunately the PDF document is on internal notice board which will require hosting on a free web-server (like geocities) before it can be referenced. I can do that; but only if extremely essential. Regarding the use of "good", I can't possibly think of an alternative to write as the fundings vary with size of college as well as reputation. If you can suggest some neutral adjective, I will be grateful. I have replaced "A lot" with "Many" as it sounds more nuetral. I prefer using it as I don't want to mention each and every alumni who has achieved notability, which in itself is very vague. I have removed all but one instance of "very", where I found it useful. If there are any more actionable concerns, please let me know. -Ambuj Saxena (talk) 18:30, 26 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Please see this link to check the updates Rama's Arrow 18:43, 26 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • Examples of ambiguities/things to fix:
      • "The IIT-JEE is well known for changing the pattern of paper quite often in order to discourage study by rote." Pattern of paper?
      • "The age limit for appearing in IIT-JEE" That is, maximum age for entrance?
      • Might just be me, but "have been offering reservation for Backward Classes" doesn't sound right. Should "reservation" in that paragraph be "reserved spots"?
      • Relatively constant sentence structure throughout, especially section "The IIT family". Combine some of those short sentences. One example of many: "The campus is located in a wooded land of about 2.5 km² (620 acres). It has 15 academic departments and nearly 100 laboratories. The campus has 13 hostels."
      • "Most of the IITs have been consistently ranked over other engineering colleges in India in almost every engineering education survey." Most, consistently, almost every... numerous and conflicting qualifiers.
      • "All the IITs provide residential facilities to their students, research scholars and faculty inside their campus." Are the facilities inside or the people?
      • Spelling inconsistency: both organized (6 times) and organised (1 time) are used, and I recall seeing another instance of british spelling somewhere. Needs a thorough copyedit.
      • Many other things I've fixed related to word choice and style that should be applied more generally—unnecessary prepositions ("opened up" to "opened", "finalized upon" to "selected"), use of "etc." (entirely useless; something is either worth mentioning or it isn't), and numerous other things that can be seen in my recent edits and should be eliminated throughout the article. I've also added a few {{fact}} tags.
    • Hope this helps. Please look for these problems throughout the article and don't just fix these examples. If I only wanted the examples fixed, I would have done it myself. --Spangineer[es] (háblame) 19:49, 26 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • What exaclty in say "Post-graduate and doctoral education" section requires an inline citation? Everything in it is pretty standard for a research university system. Is their really a point to cluttering an article with citations? Obviously, the information probably came from the material in "further reading" section. Lets not go overboard with inline citations. They should be used only for information that requires them - not every standard sentence. I dont need a citation to know that a university which offers PHD has teaching assistantship positions for its doctorate students. That is just stupid. --Blacksun 19:40, 26 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • I understand what you are saying but I have to still disagree. External links to the schools websites are provided in the external link section. What is the point of linking it in that section? I mean the information in it is REALLY standard. It is pretty much the norm across the world for a research university. If someone wants to verify they can just visit the website from external link section. Since, all the schools in the IIT system have different websites it would be fairly irrelevant information to link in the section itself. Again, that is just my opinion. However, yes a citation should be provided for the statement that says Govt. employs geologists in the system on contractual basis. Everything else is too standard to merit a citation. --Blacksun 20:10, 26 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • It's typical for websites used as references to appear in the references section, and for websites that supply supplementary information to appear in the external links section. I see what you're saying, but if something was used as a reference, it should be noted as such. Besides, some of that information there isn't really "obvious": "The reason for starting this program was" (says who?) "The benefit of saving a year coupled with scholarships made this an attractive choice." (according to who? Not everyone does it I assume) (overly picky, sorry) "the doctorate program of IITs is considered average" (according to which surveys?). --Spangineer[es] (háblame) 20:23, 26 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Whew...looks like a lot of debate enraged this page when I was busy fixing the article. To Spangineer: I have addressed all raised doubts (by editing at suitable places), but I don't think that I am able enough to ponder over the language issues (use of "organized" vs "organised") as all I could ponder over has been fixed in the last one month or so. In summary, I have changed "pattern of paper" to "pattern of question paper". The age limit sentence appears perfectly fine. It may be due to difference in way people speak english. This sentence structure is very common in India. The reservation is a complicated issue. I suggest you go through the articles detailing them before suggesting changes. Often people mistake "reserved seat" for "quota". "reserved spots" has a totally different meaning which is wrong in this context. I have merged sentences wherever possible. Regarding residential facilities, is there really two ways of understanding the sentence? Anyways, I have copyedited to make it clearer. "Etc" has been eradicated. I will address concerns when raised. -Ambuj Saxena (talk) 20:48, 26 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
In short, this is what I did. -Ambuj Saxena (talk) 20:53, 26 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Looks better. You apparently want to use American spelling, which is fine (it's the only right way =), but then should terms like football be changed to soccer? Just wondering. I don't understand "pattern of paper" or "pattern of question paper". What is question paper? Are they modifying the test questions or is there some sort of pattern on the paper like stripes or spots or something? Thanks for combining sentences; it's common in the US too but good writing employs a variety of sentence complexities to keep the reader engaged. Re residential facilities, I take it to mean that the university has residential facilities on campus for everyone, but I'm surprised that professors live on campus. Never heard of such a thing, nor is their there further mention of the type of housing they have. As a result, I begin to wonder if it's just a subpar usage of the preposition "inside" and that the university supplies housing for everyone, some of which is on-campus and some of which is off-campus (which fits in better with what I'm familiar with). It's probably true that much of what I am brining up is regional differences in English, but terms which are only understood by one group of English speakers should be avoided, because we have a global audience. --Spangineer[es] (háblame) 21:21, 26 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Question paper = exam - the questions you get during the exam. It is a common way to refer to exams in many countries in English. But ya, it should probably be changed to exam. --Blacksun 22:44, 26 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Reply to Spangineer. Sorry, didn't notice you left more comments. Now, coming back to the comments. Nobody in India calls football as soccer (at least most people), while almost everywhere I see people use "organize" instead of "organise". Given a choice, I will change "organize" instead of "football". If you think this is essential, I can do it rightaway. Looks like there need to be some changes incorporated for global audiences. "Pattern of question paper" means the pattern that fits a given examination. For example, everyone is aware that GRE has a fixed pattern of question. Although the questions are different, they fall into some category (like verbal, quantitative, etc) and whenever you see the question paper, although you have never seen that question before, there is no element of surprize. However in IIT-JEE, they will always try to catch you off-guard so that candidates don't cram up questions of a type and succeed. Suddenly in one year they will have negative marking for questions. In other year, they will invent a new definition of distance and ask students to use that to do all the calculations. One time they will stress on proofs of theorems, and on the other they will ask many numericals. The questions will be from syllabus, but not the usual type that you solve in classrooms. In simple words, you can't guess which way the question paper will go. To me the meaning is very clear that there is no fixed pattern. Based on my description above, if you can suggest some other way of putting it for global audience, I will be glad to change it. Yes, the Professors too live inside the campus. I thought it to be no-brainer so didn't mention it. Although its not mandatory for them, most of them do stay inside the campus. I can tell about IIT Kharagpur (things will be similar in other IITs, I believe). The professors live in bunglows (independent houses) given by IITs. The bachelor professors live in flats (again owned by IIT). All the students have to compulsarily live in student hostels and only in rare cases are they allowed to live outside the campus. Please note that for students who's actual home is in IIT premises (like being children of professors/officers/workers), they can live in their own home. Anyway, thanks for letting us know that these things that we take for granted might not be so common elsewhere. Is there anything in the above paragraph that needs mention in the main article? Let me know. -Ambuj Saxena (talk) 09:09, 27 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Good work Spangineer! Ambuj, perhaps you can mark up additional references using {{inotes}}? I agree though, it still needs a copyedit, preferably by a non-Indian editor. =Nichalp «Talk»= 04:30, 27 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Reply to Spangineer and Nichalp. I have added 16 inotes to the article wherever I felt the need. Hope this is sufficient. -Ambuj Saxena (talk) 10:28, 27 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support - Have followed the article from first FAC to PR to this, though haven't contributed to the article much. Nice work. - Aksi_great (talk) 19:55, 26 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Object. As per Spangineer. Plus, some assertions are unreferenced like the most widely sought degree of IITs has been the B.Tech. degree. Is the Dilbert strip cartoon really necessary? The alumni list is haphazard, not chronological. The IIT stub at the bottom includes duplicate links to other sections of the article. It would be better if it restricts to the 7 IITs only for clarity. Also, it seems too much attention is given to criticism and reservation. Both sections could be merged with the main article on Reservation Policy in IITs. Anycase, the pie-chart should certainly go as it is duplicated. I agree with Spangineer about imprudent use of American and Anglo vocabulary which may put off both sections of audience.
But I am more concerned about absolute lack of information as to how/why IITs are considered superior to other educational institutions and varsitites with reference to syllabuses, pedagogical techniques, placements, associated stats, etc. Education section has a lot of scope for expansion by trimming section on culture. Give illustrations on IIT pedagogy. Entrance Competition subsection should probably be moved to Admission section. Anwar 22:16, 26 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Surprise surprise. 1) Yes, Dilbert cartoon is a great addition for this article. It allows people not familiar with IIT to relate to its status. 2) Why does pie chart need to go? It looks fine to me. *then again why am I asking you to explain your reasoning as you have a tendency to never follow up*. 3) Isn't the article mostly restricted to the 7 IITs already? 4) Considering that one of the biggest current issue is regarding reservation in IIT, I think the amount spent on it is appropriate. 5) I find the criticism section nicely organized and presented. 6) Their is plenty of information in the article regarding why IITs are considered top notch amongst Indian universities - enterance exam, facilities, etc. What you have attempted to object in the second paragraph is very generalized criticism hiding behind big words. --Blacksun 22:56, 26 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Reply to Anwar. As you might have seen, the Dilbert's cartoon has been removed. The alumni list is not part of the article so problems from it is not admissible here unless it contradicts something stated in the article. Still, I will try to fix it as soon as possible. The "See also" below is a template used over many pages relating to IITs. They have been discussed summarily in the article with relevant link provided. However, the template below clubs them and presents an overall related topics. This is very common and University of Michigan as well as Michigan State University (both FA in education category) use it. Attention is given to Criticism and Reservation as they are important. Don't worry; I have given them only as much attention as is desired in summary style. Most parts of "Reservation" exists as a separate article (Reservation policy in IITs). The pie chart is used to visually depict the contrast and help the reader understand its magnitude quickly. If you think its taking too much space, I can try to reduce its size as long as its clarity is maintained. The article has been copyedited a lot after your comments. Please have a look again and see if vocabulary problem still exists. Now coming to your second paragraph. The IITs aren't very notable in terms of syllabus. I remember sometime back a college tried to replicate IITs success by following its syllabus. It didn't reach anywhere 'coz it failed to realize that the success of IITs are largely due to students from IIT-JEE and infrastructure (both of which have been adequately discussed). Again for pedagogy, IITs are not considered superior. Even if they are, it hasn't been established yet and hence can't be included as of now. The education section is already over-flowing. If you can point specific details missing, I will add them. However, I am not going to do mindless addition of information as it will be a turn off for the reader. Entrance competition is discussed under "Criticisms" which I believe is the correct place to discuss it. -Ambuj Saxena (talk) 07:42, 27 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
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