Not all instructors at public colleges are Ph.D’s, and I think you would be appalled at how little many earn. Many colleges rely largely on part-time lecturers and adjuncts. They may well be very good teachers, but given economic realities, I can also see where it would be hard for many underfunded colleges to retain good talent. </p>
<p>But either way, it makes sense that the teachers are subject to review by their students. Student ratings should not be given a disproportionate amount of weight in hiring or promotion decisions, but I certainly think they should be taken into account.</p>
<p>When we “rate” our students, we do it privately, are held accountable, and must be able to support our decision with actual evidence if a student complains to the chairman or dean. When students rate us online, they are anonymous and say whatever they want to without regard to any sort of accountability or evidence in support of their opinion. There is a difference.</p>
<p>On the first day of class I gave my students a total point breakdown of every assignment for the entire semester, along with an Excel spreadsheet grade calculator so they can enter each assignment when they got it back and it will automatically calculate their ongoing semester grade for them. At the end of every semester I still had students who were “shocked” that their 86.7% average was a B since they got A’s on all the assignments. I got complaints from students about the grades I “gave them,” never about the grades they “earned.” Then they turn to the Internet if they choose and tell everyone how unfair the grading is. Like most of the Internet, these professor rating sites are really nothing more than a big electronic bathroom wall where anyone can write whatever they want to.</p>
<p>Despite that, I actually like these professor rating sites once there’s a critical mass of reviews because the vindictive reviews generally become painfully obvious. When there are only a few reviews, inquiring students can be easily misled by the ventings of one or two discontents. Anyone using these sites needs to apply a filter to what they’re reading.</p>
<p>As a prof, I’m convinced that my positive ratings fully and completely represent my magnificence in the classroom. :)</p>
<p>However, objective evaluation also shows several things:</p>
<ul>
<li>since it is anonymous, anyone can be entering those ratings - actual students, friends of the prof, even the prof himself</li>
<li>research has shown that it is relatively easy to “game” the ratings - something as simple as bringing in cookies during the last week of class raises one’s ratings</li>
<li>being young, attractive, friendly, walking your dog on campus, giving extra credit and being a native speaker of English all provide an automatic boost to one’s ratings</li>
<li>the comments, while potentially helpful, may not be accurate. I’ve had comments where the student misunderstood the purpose of a class exercise or didn’t realize that late assignments are, in fact, penalized, and those comments might be misleading to someone considering taking the course.</li>
</ul>
<p>All told, however, having checked out the ratings of people I know, RMP does provide an additional data source that, taken with the appropriate grain of salt, could prove helpful in selecting a class.</p>
<p>It’s a nice tool to have. I used it as an undergrad to see if the professor was fair and engaging. </p>
<p>There are always people that fail a course that leave bad reviews but those are easy to point out. Also, it’s always obvious to me based on the review when it was clearly the student’s fault for doing poorly. I remember one student that wrote “the prof wants like so much detail in the essay. i mean like what the hell.” lol those comments always make me laugh.</p>
<p>Ratemyteacher is a bit less reliable b/c middle-high school kids talk more about how “cool” a teacher is rather than comment on learning.</p>
<p>Well, these ratings are not a fair cross section. I mean, only people that care enough one way or another are going to post on that site and I’d lean toward saying they are more inclined if your were a bad prof.</p>
<p>Instead, they should just release the end of the year surveys that we have to take about our class/prof. Make those public and you’ll get a much better idea of what you are in for.</p>
<p>But it’s not always are they easy or hard. My math prof this year was a very hard to understand Chinese guy. I’ll share that info with friends that are thinking about taking a course with him so they know what they are getting into.</p>
<p>What would lead you to believe that my statements have anything to do with earnings? I guess that “appalls” me more than the knowledge I already have of how underpaid teachers at all levels tend to be. </p>
<p>The last I checked, even most community college positions, at least in my State, require a Ph.D. That includes adjunct and part-time positions. A minority of those positions require a Master’s Degree only. However, as a practical matter, the proportion of Ph.D.'s available to teach tends to militate against the hiring of Master"s Level applicants in the vast majority of fields. Exceptions would be specialty areas where applicants in that specialty cannot be found. (But the postings for that job will solicit Ph.D.'s nevertheless.)</p>
<p>The salary for those jobs is a separate matter. Again, in teaching positions, the expertise and credentials of that teacher often bear a poor relationship to the salary, across all grade levels of education.</p>
<p>spdf:
I have to say you sound like a professor I would enjoy having. As a student, I appreciate the extra effort by professors to be very clear in how grading will be done. And to even provide an excel sheet to track grades on assignments? Wonderful! I usually create these on my own when I can, but not all my professors are clear on how they will grade so these are not always easy to construct.</p>
<p>I personally use professor rating sites to get an idea for how the professor teaches. Such as are their courses typically assignment heavy? Test heavy? How do they utilize class time? Any additional things they add to make the course engaging? For example, my Egyptian Hieroglyphics prof will be taking us to a museum later this quarter so we can apply what we’ve learned. I really don’t look at the scores they’re given, but at the language in the reviews. Anything in all caps is immediately ignored.</p>
<p>Often times, I have zero choice with my professors. Far more than once, the classes I need only have one offering in a given quarter (some classes are offered only every other year too). I like having a decent idea of what to expect before the first day of classes. With the quarter system, one has far less time to adjust to a specific professor’s style and must be ready to hit the ground running.</p>
<p>I do post reviews for all of my professors. Good, bad, and mediocre. I give the information I would like to have known about them when looking at a review (the things I mentioned above). I will occasionally add in some additional information such as intimidation factor or lack there of and type of humor.</p>
<p>I have so far only given one bad review to a professor. I stuck to the facts of the situation, however, and I did receive a good grade in the class (so it wasn’t a bitter review). This was also a professor that myself along with over half of the class took the time to file formal complaints with the head of the department. The graduate TA for the course even filed her own complaints. The professor is, unfortunately, still teaching due to tenure, but information that he is barred from teaching a particular course series again as a result of his behavior in the class I had with him spread like wildfire through the department.</p>
<p>My D has used them successfully. She doesn’t pay attention to the “easy” “hard” comments but looks for the way a course is graded for example. She likes to have many elements in the grading component - quizzes, papers, tests, etc. instead of just an exam or two. She rarely misses a class so has no problem with those who take attendance or give pop quizzes. I’m sure many of the comments that appeal to her keep many others from taking the class. She has found the comments to be accurate to a large degree. Red flags to her are comments about arbitrariness, disorganization, and not being consistent about office hour availability.</p>
<p>To those of you who on CC who are college profs:</p>
<p>Ratemyprofessors.com has a rebuttal feature. If you feel that a review is misleading, you can register with the web site and then post your rebuttal to any comment which will be visible from a tab on the screen when the comment is shown.</p>
<p>How many of you have taken advantage of that feature?</p>
<p>I am a professor, and I’ve found the reviews of my classes, and those of my colleagues, to be more or less what I’d expect. Remember that we see our own course evaluations (collected by most schools and used in annual and promotion reviews) so what our students think of us is not going to be a surprise–though at my school, we don’t see each other’s evaluations unless we are in a supervisory role, or on a promotion committee. We do, however, hear about our colleagues’ classes in advising sessions.</p>
<p>Obviously if a professor has only one or two reviews, that’s not as telling as if many people have commented. I’ve encouraged my kid to look at Ratemyprofessor and a similar, in-house site at his school before he signs up for classes. If somebody has an avalanche of bad reviews, I don’t want him spending my money on the course unless it’s required and he has no alternative.</p>
<p>But hey, why don’t I rate a chili pepper? :-(</p>
<p>Yes and no. Look for a sample size that is meaningful. 1 bad or 1 good comment is not reliable. Read the comments and look for patterns and consistency. Look for what’s important to you - do you want a challenge, are you looking for a “gut,” do you like papers or tests only, whatever? For an elective, if a large number of people rave about a professor or a course, consider it.</p>
<p>I’ve found raremyprofessor to be accurate about 75% of the time. One prof I’ve had has been quite good, but she teaches a weeder class. I can very honestly say the reason half the class fails isn’t because she’s a meanie, and it’s not because she’s unclear. It’s because half the class can’t hack it and never could regardless of the professor.</p>
<p>I’ve had a prof where I took the class despite consistent bad reviews, and she was so awful that I ended up withdrawing. The prof with glowing reviews is indeed amazing.</p>
<p>I am a professor and do not think that RatemyProfessor ratings should be taken seriously. About 25% of the entries, according to articles I have read, are submitted by professors about themselves and other professors. Some professors make it a game to write outrageous things (with student-like mistakes in spelling) on each other’s sites. RMP is a public bulletin board -it’s like posting graffiti in a restroom. At my university, we would NEVER even look at RMP for faculty evaluations of teaching given its reputation as a dumping ground for all kinds of “creative” writing. </p>
<p>At my university, student evaluations of faculty teaching are distributed in class and are done in every course, every semester. The evaluations we have done in class are read by department heads for tenured faculty and by heads and tenure/promotion committees for untenured faculty. They figure strongly in annual reviews. However, teaching portfolios, peer visits, teaching development workshops and other forms of evidence of competence in teaching are important also.</p>
<p>RMP is a cobweb for the State U where I teach. I’ve had about 3700 students over the past five years, and have three reviews there. The kids here use MyEdu (formerly Pick-a-Prof). I don’t know of any professors playing around on the site, though.</p>
<p>The results of our end-of-semester student evaluations are available online to the university community, but there are no comments, just numeric averages for things like Overall Quality and I Would Take Another Class From This Instructor. The students generally ignore this information and just go straight to MyEdu.</p>
<p>I think the specific comments are more valuable. Students really aren’t looking for simple conclusions, they want an underlying sense of what the prof is like. I also think it’s very obvious that it is possible for one prof to be adored by some students, and reviled by others – sometimes there really is a clash in teaching styles or expectations. For example, one student may find a professor who encourages free-flowing discussion in every class to be stimulating, whereas another student may feel frustrated at the lack of structure and organization and wish that the prof would stick to the topics reflected in the syllabus. </p>
<p>I think most students can read between the lines somewhat and reconcile the differences when there are several, detailed reviews to look at.</p>
<p>S2 uses RMP every sem. when choosing his schedule. He attends a big state u where there are usually several sections of whatever course he needs. If he knows absolutely nothing about the instructor then RMP is one way to help him make an informed decision as to which one to select. He is a jr. So far RMP has been very helpful. The profs he chose who had great RMP reviews have all turned out to be good classes.</p>
<p>An administrator who wanted to fire a full-time professor on the basis of Rate My Professor would have a hard time doing so. The problem with RMP is that it’s got the same problems as any self-selected anonymous poll. It’s full of comments from students who either strongly disliked or loved the professor, rather than the middle mass who wasn’t motivated one way or the other to chime in. The criteria are also problematic (“easiness”? “hotness”?) RMP is a customer satisfaction survey, not a teaching evaluation tool.</p>
<p>Most professors have to assign their students in class to fill out teaching evaluation forms that may be used in review because they are administered in a controlled environment by students who actually are in the class, and the questions (about course outcomes, communication, etc.) are relevant. Administrators use these for tenure and promotion.</p>
<p>That said, RMP could cause problems for adjunct faculty, who are not entitled to the due process and protections that full-time faculty have.</p>
</p>