By Julius Calasicas
With registration for spring semester well underway, many students turn to Ratemyprofessor.com when deciding which classes to take.
Ratemyprofessor.com enables students to view ratings and comments about professors posted by anyone with Internet access.
The Web site is only one tool students can use to rate college professors or view professors' ratings, though. Myspace users can access a "grade my professor page" through the site, which also catalogues professors' ratings by school and allows users to assign their professors a grade.
Ratemyprofessor.com grades professors on a five-point scale in three categories: easiness, helpfulness and clarity. The overall quality is averaged and indicated with color coded faces. A yellow smiling face is given to professors with good quality; a green neutral face means the professor is only average and blue sad faces mean students thought the professor's quality was poor.
Cora Smit, a junior marketing management major, is weary of the blue sad faces.
"I use the Web site to look up a class in a (department) I've never been in, like political science," Smit said. "Some comments posted are dumb, so I look for comments about lectures and readings as well as descriptions of the class. I read the comments and decide if people are being mean or if there is a general consensus."
Smit believes that comments are accurate most of the time, but it is harder to tell when students' opinions on the professor vary from good to bad.
In addition to subjective commentaries and color-coded emoticons, a red chili pepper designates "hot" professors. This feature adds to the controversy of the Web site's influence on student's attitudes and decisions. Some students believe the comments and ratings are consistent with their opinions of the professor, but others question the site's legitimacy.
Minami Kawakubo, a junior finance major, uses Ratemyprofessor.com when he doesn't know a professor.
"I think it's pretty accurate because usually the comments are similar," Kawakubo said. "When I read the comments and go to the class, it's pretty much the same. If the professor is rated low, I try not to take the course."
Kawakubo does not care about the physical attractiveness of a professor and is more interested in the level of ease and helpfulness. He is not afraid about choosing the wrong class based on what the Web site says about the professor.
In contrast, senior English major Kevin Krohn does not take the Web site seriously.
"I find that mostly people with a chip on their shoulder go on the Web site," Krohn said. "At times I am at odds with the comments, but a few are consistent with my impressions"
Krohn also said he would not comment on the Web site and has no plans to do so in the future.
"I don't think it's too legitimate, and people just have an ax to grind," Krohn said. "I don't think it's a valid source and I don't want to contribute."
Krohn thinks the chili pepper feature is funny.
"I do base my schedule on that," he joked.
Sociology professor Robert Duff, finds humor in the Web site's commentaries.
"We (professors) laugh at what's posted," Duff said. "We looked at it at a party once. What you get is not a sample, but people with feelings, both positive and negative. We get evaluations - stacks of evaluations - from students. Hundreds. These are just a few people. It's kind of interesting."
Duff received an overall average of 4.1 (based on 9 ratings) with no chili pepper. This online rating of professors is reminiscent to Duff of college life before student evaluations became the norm.
"It's a throwback to teaching in the 70's when the idea of student evaluations got started," Duff said. "Pressured by students publishing in the school papers, the strong reactions of a handful of students led to a real evaluation system institutionalized by universities. The idea of going public with extreme reactions is quite controversial among faculty."
According to Duff, promotions, rank and tenure are influenced by student evaluations. The Web site's influence seems to be a return to posting public opinions, although this type of evaluation is not taken too seriously by faculty.
The anonymous comments left about professors are subject to scrutiny. Theology professor Sister Carol Dempsey received an average quality of 2.8 (based on 32 ratings) with comments ranging from "brilliant" and "compassionate" to "always late" and "rude."
"I don't feel the Web site is credible," Dempsey said.
Nursing professor Karen Cameron had never heard of the Web site until she was asked about it by The Beacon. One person commented on her profile, giving Cameron a score of fives across the board.
"I think it's pretty subjective," Cameron said. "If a student has a bad experience, that doesn't mean that the student or the professor is bad. My rating doesn't coincide with my evaluations."
English instructor John McDonald thinks that the comments on the Web site are entertaining. McDonald received an average 4.1 score (based on 24 ratings) with 11 chili peppers.
"I think, in general, the ratings are biased," McDonald said. "The site is not about evaluations; it's about whether the student liked the professor or not. I'm not surprised with my rating, but I do notice that students make a lot of grammatical and spelling errors in their comments."
In regards to the amount of chili peppers he received, McDonald responded, "I guess the chili peppers are in the eye of the beholder."
