diff --git a/torchvision/datasets/caltech.py b/torchvision/datasets/caltech.py
index f10c83d57db..8c477e64810 100644
--- a/torchvision/datasets/caltech.py
+++ b/torchvision/datasets/caltech.py
@@ -2,19 +2,12 @@
 from PIL import Image
 import os
 import os.path
-import numpy as np
-import sys
-if sys.version_info[0] == 2:
-    import cPickle as pickle
-else:
-    import pickle
-import collections
 
-import torch.utils.data as data
-from .utils import download_url, check_integrity, makedir_exist_ok
+from .vision import VisionDataset
+from .utils import download_url, makedir_exist_ok
 
 
-class Caltech101(data.Dataset):
+class Caltech101(VisionDataset):
     """`Caltech 101 <http://www.vision.caltech.edu/Image_Datasets/Caltech101/>`_ Dataset.
 
     Args:
@@ -36,7 +29,7 @@ class Caltech101(data.Dataset):
     def __init__(self, root, target_type="category",
                  transform=None, target_transform=None,
                  download=False):
-        self.root = os.path.join(os.path.expanduser(root), "caltech101")
+        super(Caltech101, self).__init__(os.path.join(root, 'caltech101'))
         makedir_exist_ok(self.root)
         if isinstance(target_type, list):
             self.target_type = target_type
@@ -138,19 +131,11 @@ def download(self):
         with tarfile.open(os.path.join(self.root, "101_Annotations.tar"), "r:") as tar:
             tar.extractall(path=self.root)
 
-    def __repr__(self):
-        fmt_str = 'Dataset ' + self.__class__.__name__ + '\n'
-        fmt_str += '    Number of datapoints: {}\n'.format(self.__len__())
-        fmt_str += '    Target type: {}\n'.format(self.target_type)
-        fmt_str += '    Root Location: {}\n'.format(self.root)
-        tmp = '    Transforms (if any): '
-        fmt_str += '{0}{1}\n'.format(tmp, self.transform.__repr__().replace('\n', '\n' + ' ' * len(tmp)))
-        tmp = '    Target Transforms (if any): '
-        fmt_str += '{0}{1}'.format(tmp, self.target_transform.__repr__().replace('\n', '\n' + ' ' * len(tmp)))
-        return fmt_str
+    def extra_repr(self):
+        return "Target type: {target_type}".format(**self.__dict__)
 
 
-class Caltech256(data.Dataset):
+class Caltech256(VisionDataset):
     """`Caltech 256 <http://www.vision.caltech.edu/Image_Datasets/Caltech256/>`_ Dataset.
 
     Args:
@@ -168,7 +153,7 @@ class Caltech256(data.Dataset):
     def __init__(self, root,
                  transform=None, target_transform=None,
                  download=False):
-        self.root = os.path.join(os.path.expanduser(root), "caltech256")
+        super(Caltech256, self).__init__(os.path.join(root, 'caltech256'))
         makedir_exist_ok(self.root)
         self.transform = transform
         self.target_transform = target_transform
@@ -233,13 +218,3 @@ def download(self):
         # extract file
         with tarfile.open(os.path.join(self.root, "256_ObjectCategories.tar"), "r:") as tar:
             tar.extractall(path=self.root)
-
-    def __repr__(self):
-        fmt_str = 'Dataset ' + self.__class__.__name__ + '\n'
-        fmt_str += '    Number of datapoints: {}\n'.format(self.__len__())
-        fmt_str += '    Root Location: {}\n'.format(self.root)
-        tmp = '    Transforms (if any): '
-        fmt_str += '{0}{1}\n'.format(tmp, self.transform.__repr__().replace('\n', '\n' + ' ' * len(tmp)))
-        tmp = '    Target Transforms (if any): '
-        fmt_str += '{0}{1}'.format(tmp, self.target_transform.__repr__().replace('\n', '\n' + ' ' * len(tmp)))
-        return fmt_str
diff --git a/torchvision/datasets/celeba.py b/torchvision/datasets/celeba.py
index e38cd6bb6cd..1c466dc0777 100644
--- a/torchvision/datasets/celeba.py
+++ b/torchvision/datasets/celeba.py
@@ -1,11 +1,11 @@
 import torch
-import torch.utils.data as data
 import os
 import PIL
+from .vision import VisionDataset
 from .utils import download_file_from_google_drive, check_integrity
 
 
-class CelebA(data.Dataset):
+class CelebA(VisionDataset):
     """`Large-scale CelebFaces Attributes (CelebA) Dataset <http://mmlab.ie.cuhk.edu.hk/projects/CelebA.html>`_ Dataset.
 
     Args:
@@ -53,7 +53,7 @@ def __init__(self, root,
                  transform=None, target_transform=None,
                  download=False):
         import pandas
-        self.root = os.path.expanduser(root)
+        super(CelebA, self).__init__(root)
         self.split = split
         if isinstance(target_type, list):
             self.target_type = target_type
@@ -158,14 +158,6 @@ def __getitem__(self, index):
     def __len__(self):
         return len(self.attr)
 
-    def __repr__(self):
-        fmt_str = 'Dataset ' + self.__class__.__name__ + '\n'
-        fmt_str += '    Number of datapoints: {}\n'.format(self.__len__())
-        fmt_str += '    Target type: {}\n'.format(self.target_type)
-        fmt_str += '    Split: {}\n'.format(self.split)
-        fmt_str += '    Root Location: {}\n'.format(self.root)
-        tmp = '    Transforms (if any): '
-        fmt_str += '{0}{1}\n'.format(tmp, self.transform.__repr__().replace('\n', '\n' + ' ' * len(tmp)))
-        tmp = '    Target Transforms (if any): '
-        fmt_str += '{0}{1}'.format(tmp, self.target_transform.__repr__().replace('\n', '\n' + ' ' * len(tmp)))
-        return fmt_str
+    def extra_repr(self):
+        lines = ["Target type: {target_type}", "Split: {split}"]
+        return '\n'.join(lines).format(**self.__dict__)
diff --git a/torchvision/datasets/imagenet.py b/torchvision/datasets/imagenet.py
index 8a1268944eb..ea48c2fab56 100644
--- a/torchvision/datasets/imagenet.py
+++ b/torchvision/datasets/imagenet.py
@@ -132,25 +132,8 @@ def valid_splits(self):
     def split_folder(self):
         return os.path.join(self.root, self.split)
 
-    def __repr__(self):
-        head = "Dataset " + self.__class__.__name__
-        body = ["Number of datapoints: {}".format(self.__len__())]
-        if self.root is not None:
-            body.append("Root location: {}".format(self.root))
-        body += ["Split: {}".format(self.split)]
-        if hasattr(self, 'transform') and self.transform is not None:
-            body += self._format_transform_repr(self.transform,
-                                                "Transforms: ")
-        if hasattr(self, 'target_transform') and self.target_transform is not None:
-            body += self._format_transform_repr(self.target_transform,
-                                                "Target transforms: ")
-        lines = [head] + [" " * 4 + line for line in body]
-        return '\n'.join(lines)
-
-    def _format_transform_repr(self, transform, head):
-        lines = transform.__repr__().splitlines()
-        return (["{}{}".format(head, lines[0])] +
-                ["{}{}".format(" " * len(head), line) for line in lines[1:]])
+    def extra_repr(self):
+        return "Split: {split}".format(**self.__dict__)
 
 
 def extract_tar(src, dest=None, gzip=None, delete=False):
diff --git a/torchvision/datasets/sbd.py b/torchvision/datasets/sbd.py
index a4939622803..4072142658c 100644
--- a/torchvision/datasets/sbd.py
+++ b/torchvision/datasets/sbd.py
@@ -1,5 +1,5 @@
 import os
-import torch.utils.data as data
+from .vision import VisionDataset
 
 import numpy as np
 
@@ -8,7 +8,7 @@
 from .voc import download_extract
 
 
-class SBDataset(data.Dataset):
+class SBDataset(VisionDataset):
     """`Semantic Boundaries Dataset <http://home.bharathh.info/pubs/codes/SBD/download.html>`_
 
     The SBD currently contains annotations from 11355 images taken from the PASCAL VOC 2011 dataset.
@@ -62,10 +62,11 @@ def __init__(self,
             raise RuntimeError("Scipy is not found. This dataset needs to have scipy installed: "
                                "pip install scipy")
 
+        super(SBDataset, self).__init__(root)
+
         if mode not in ("segmentation", "boundaries"):
             raise ValueError("Argument mode should be 'segmentation' or 'boundaries'")
 
-        self.root = os.path.expanduser(root)
         self.xy_transform = xy_transform
         self.image_set = image_set
         self.mode = mode
@@ -121,3 +122,7 @@ def __getitem__(self, index):
 
     def __len__(self):
         return len(self.images)
+
+    def extra_repr(self):
+        lines = ["Image set: {image_set}", "Mode: {mode}"]
+        return '\n'.join(lines).format(**self.__dict__)