Want to see how popular your university is on Wikipedia?

Following up from my previous thread in July about the popularity of British Universities on Wikipedia, I've now updated the positions and the figures for the most recent data. I've included to the left of ranking whether if the university has increased or decreased its position compared to in July.

Major points:
- 7 place rise of QMUL
- 5 place fall of Southampton
- 4 place fall of Leed (but still in the top 10)

Don't see your university on the list? Click this link, and search for your university in the search bar and click 90 days to see how your university compares.

1. Why do you think that these universities are the most popular on Wikipedia?
2. Are you surprised by any universities placing so high/low in this list?

(edited 8 years ago)

Reply 1

Kevin De Bruyne

My uni is 28th :colondollar:

I can see how ones at the top have so many page views, then I'm not surprised that there's little between the lower ranks
.

bump

Sick, love that St Andrews is 8th on this list, really toeing it up there with much much larger schools.

Reply 4

Joinedup

Original post by Okorange

Sick, love that St Andrews is 8th on this list, really toeing it up there with much much larger schools.

here's an interesting anomaly

(notes that the OP seems to have preselected unis which were already the top 30 on a league table)

Reply 5

C_Richards99

Original post by Joinedup

here's an interesting anomaly

(notes that the OP seems to have preselected unis which were already the top 30 on a league table)

I'm confused as to what the anomaly is? St Andrews University =/= University of St Andrews.

Yeh I did, look at the text from the bottom right -- it's High Fliers' top 30 universities.

(edited 8 years ago)

Reply 6

username1560589

All those Oxford students using bots to bump up the page views...

Reply 7

Joinedup

Original post by C_Richards99

I'm confused as to what the anomaly is? St Andrews University =/= University of St Andrews.

Yeh I did, look at the text from the bottom right -- it's High Fliers' top 30 universities.

in that case clearly Newcastle University isn't University of Newcastle upon Tyne and London School of Economics isn't London School of Economics and Political Science either.

Wrt preselection by league table

Sussex is higher than QUB https://tools.wmflabs.org/pageviews/#start=2015-11-29&end=2016-02-26&project=en.wikipedia.org&platform=all-access&agent=user&pages=Queen%27s_University_Belfast|University_of_Sussex

Reply 8

Clearing and Applications Advisor

Journalists using Wikipedia for fact checking :yep:

Reply 9

Clearing and Applications Advisor

Original post by C_Richards99

1. Why do you think that these universities are the most popular on Wikipedia?

Have you thought about comparing with google trends?

News search over the last 90 days is interesting too

(edited 8 years ago)

Reply 10

C_Richards99

Original post by Joinedup

Not comparable, I chose those names because that's what the name of their wikipedia page is. If you typed in "London School of Economics and Political Science", it would redirect you to "London School of Economics". Same case with Newcastle.

Yeh I know that there would have been some higher viewed pages that were not in the top 30, but if i changed it - it would have made the previous results in July incomparable. Nevertheless, I think the majority of the most viewed universities are in the High Fliers top 30 (with the exception of a few).

Reply 11

Okorange

Original post by Joinedup

here's an interesting anomaly

(notes that the OP seems to have preselected unis which were already the top 30 on a league table)

https://tools.wmflabs.org/pageviews/#start=2015-12-01&end=2016-02-28&project=en.wikipedia.org&platform=all-access&agent=user&pages=University_of_Lancaster|University_of_Central_Lancashire|University_of_St_Andrews

Fixed for you

Reply 12

Death Grips

Original post by C_Richards99

Should really divide the page views by the size of each unis student body to get a more accurate picture of how well known each uni is

Reply 13

TeeEm

UCL is 3rd !!!
I knew it !!!!

Reply 14

RayApparently

Original post by morgan8002

All those Oxford students using bots to bump up the page views...

lol

Reply 15

Pulse.

Ayyy my uni is top 5. But will it get me a job tho?

Posted from TSR Mobile

Reply 16

recfluence

Haha big question asked... The main point is how successful students these universities deliver to the country. Basically students should be well trained and skilled to go for entrepreneurship kind of challenge when they leave such a highly regarded and prestigious universities of world in some cases.

Reply 17

C_Richards99

Original post by Death Grips

Should really divide the page views by the size of each unis student body to get a more accurate picture of how well known each uni is

Hmmm I get what you're getting at, but that would assume that it's mostly students who look at their own university's wikipedia page

Reply 18

Death Grips

Original post by C_Richards99

Hmmm I get what you're getting at, but that would assume that it's mostly students who look at their own university's wikipedia page

No, that's not it.

You need to divide it by the number of students at the uni, because assuming ceteris paribus a uni with 40,000 students is of course going to have more than applicants than a uni with 20,000.