Former San Jose State University student John Swapceinski's Web site, www.RateMyProfessors.com, allows students to post the name of a professor and then comment on his or her class and appearance.
The former student said he started the service because after having a bad experience with one of his professors, he wanted students to have a forum to vent and help other students avoid what could turn their studies into a nightmare. This Web site, and others like it, may be helpful and entertaining, but are not to be trusted by students as legitimate methods of evaluating an instructor's classroom performance.
Swapceinski's site is not monitored by or receives official information from any university or educational institution. According to a Feb. 17 Associated Press story on CNN.com, it even has a "chili pepper" rating system for measuring a teacher's sex appeal.
Students thinking about taking classes with certain professors have long had options for learning about their prospective teachers. Getting an inside scoop on a class from a friend or even sitting in on a lecture are the traditional methods, with online services like UB's teacher evaluations becoming more popular at colleges around the country.
Students who are serious about finding out a teacher's classroom style or grading policy would be well-served to use the more traditional means, like scouting out a class a semester or two in advance, going to a teacher's office hours and getting to know him or her, or even inquiring of the professor's former students.
Evaluations in and of themselves are fine, even online ones, but their advice must be taken with a grain of salt, since there are no regulations as to how and what students may post. Students with a vendetta against an otherwise good teacher could paint a negative picture of a class or professor with little authority to do so.
A more regulated process, like UB's online evaluations, is more valuable to a student than a bulletin board-like forum including comments about a teacher's "hotness." Any good system would have a standard set of questions, including a student's expected grade, whether the class is an elective or a requirement, his or her class standing, et cetera. Accordingly, students can use sites like RateMyProfessors.com as entertainment, but not much else.
While spending the time to learn all there is to know about a class - like sitting in at a lecture and meeting with the professor - before enrolling in it is sure to be informative, it is unlikely that a busy student can afford the effort that takes. If students are serious about having the chance to rate their teacher on a calibrated scale without the sour grapes that might accompany a public posting, then they ought to press their schools to develop a system that can adequately provide such a service. With an emphasis on technology, schools should to take it upon themselves to make teacher evaluations accessible to their student body.
Ultimately, the entertainment value of gossiping about professors on a national scale will be fun for students to take advantage of. As long as none of this is taken seriously, then no harm will be done. Perhaps it will be a wake-up call to schools that do not yet have online evaluations, and perhaps it will be the incentive for others to improve the systems they already have.
The students who create and participate in sites like this are well within their right to do so, but if they are looking for legitimacy, then perhaps an attractiveness scale is not the best criteria on which they should base their academic career. Instead, the site should be used by anyone looking for a cathartic complaining forum.
Photo: Meredith Forrest Kulwicki
